shortness of human life, that can retravel all the windings and wanderings, and mazes that his feet have trodden since the farthest back hour at which memory pauses, baffled and blindfolded, as she vainly tries to penetrate and illumine the palpable, the impervious darkness that shrouds the few first for-ever-forgotten years of our wonderful being? Long, long, long ago seems it to be indeed, when we now remember it, the Time we first pulled the primroses on the sunny braes, wondering, in our first blissful emotions of beauty, at the leaves with a softness all their own, a yellowness no where else so vivid, "the bright consummate flower," so starlike to our awakened imagination among the lowly grass-lovely, indeed, to our admiring eyes, as any one of all the stars that, in their turn, did seem themselves like flowers in the blue fields of heaven!-long, long, long ago, the time when we danced along, hand in hand with our golden-haired sister, whom all that looked on loved!-long, long, long ago, the day on which she died-the hour, so far more dismal than any hour that can now darken us on this earth, when she-her coffin-and that velvet pall descended-and descended-slowly, slowly into the horrid clay, and we were borne deathlike, and wishing to die, out of the churchyard, that, from that moment, we thought we could enter never more! And oh! What a multitudinous being must ours have been, when, before our boyhood was gone, we could have forgotten her buried, face! Or at the dream of it dashed off a tear, and away, with a bounding heart, in the midst of a cloud of playmates, breaking into fragments on the hill-side, and hurrying round the shores of those wild moorland lochs, in vain hope to surprise the heron, that slowly uplifted his blue bulk, and floated away, regardless of our shouts, to the old castle woods! It is all like a reminiscence of some other state of existence! Then, after all the joys and sorrows of those few years, which we now call transitory, 5 ATHENEUM, VOL. 9, 2d series.

but which our Boyhood felt as if they would be endless-as if they would endure for ever-arose upon us the glorious dawning of another new life

Youth! With its insupportable sunshine, and its magnificent storms! Transitory, too, we now know, and well deserving the name of dream! But while it lasted, long, various, and agonizing, while, unable to sustain "the beauty still more beauteous" of the eyes that first revealed to us the light of love, we hurried away from the parting hour, and, looking up to the moon and stars, hugged the very heavens to our heart. Yet life had not yet nearly reached its meridian, journeying up the sunbright firmament. How long hung it there exulting, when "it flamed on the forehead of the noontide sky!" Let not the Time be computed by the lights and shadows of the years, but by the innumerable array of visionary thoughts, that keep deploying, as if from one eternity into another-now in dark sullen masses, now in long array, brightened as if with spearpoints and standards, and moving along through chasm, abyss, and forest, and over the summits of the highest mountains, to the sound of etherial music, now warlike and tempestuous-now, as "from flutes and soft recorders," accompanying, not peans of victory, but hymns of peace. That Life, too, seems, now that it is gone, to have been of a thousand years. Is it gone? Its skirts are yet hovering on the horizon

and is there yet another Life destined for us? That Life which we fear to face,-Age, Old Age! Four dreams within a dream, and then we may awake in Heaven!

At dead of night-and it is now the dead of night-how the heart of ten quakes on a sudden at the silent resurrection of buried thoughts!

"Thoughts that like phantoms trackless come and go !"

Perhaps the sunshine of some one single Sabbath of more exceeding holiness comes first glimmering, and then brightening upon us, with the

very same religious sanctity that filled all the air at the tolling of the kik-bell, when all the parish was hushed, and the voice of streams heard more distinctly among the banks and braes, and then, all at once, a thunder-storm that many years before, or many years after, drove us, when walking alone over the mountains, into a shieling, will seem to succeed, and we behold the same threatening aspect of the heavens that then quailed our beating hearts, and frowned down our eye lids before the lightning began to flash, and the black rain to deluge all

the glens. No need now for any effort of thought. The images rise of themselves-independently of our volition-as if another being, studying the working of our minds, conjured up the phantasmagoria before us, who are beholding it with love, with wonder, or with fear. Darkness and silence have a power of sorcery over the past; and the soul has then, too, often restored to it feelings and thoughts that it had lost-and is made to know that nothing which it once experiences ever perishes, but that all things spiritual possess a principle of immortal life.

Poona, from November, 1809, to March, 1811, there were four instances of women who burned themselves on the death of their husbands. The first two I witnessed. I desired to ascertain the real circumstances with which those ceremonies were attended, and, in particular, to satisfy myself whether the women, who were the victims of them, were free and conscious agents. The spot appropriated to this purpose was on the margin of the river, immediately opposite the house in which I lived.

On the first occasion, the pile was in preparation when I arrived. It was constructed of rough billets of wood, and was about four feet high, and seven feet square. At each corner there was a slender pole, supporting a light frame, covered with small fuel, straw, and dry grass. The interval between the pile and the frame, which formed a sort of rude canopy, was about four feet. Three of the sides were closed up with matted straw, the fourth being left open as an entrance. The top of the pile, which formed the bottom of this interval, was spread with straw, and the inside had very much the appearance of the interior of a

widow arrived soon after. There were altogether about a hundred persons with her, consisting of the Bramins who were to officiate at the ceremony, and the retinue furnished by the government. She was on horseback. She had garlands of flowers over her head and shoulders, and her face was besmeared with sandal wood. In one hand she held a looking-glass, and in the other a lime stuck upon a dagger. Her dress, which was red, was of the common description worn by Hindoo women, called a sarce. Where the wife is with the husband when he dies she burns herself with the corpse; and in those cases where the husband dies at a distance, she must have with her on the pile, either some relic of his body or some part of the dress he had on at the time of his death. In this instance, the husband had been a soldier, and had been killed at some distance from Poona. His widow had with her one of his shoes. She had quite a girlish appearance, and could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen years old. Her countenance was of a common cast, without any thing peculiar in its character or expression. It was grave and com

posed; and neither in her carriage, manner, nor gestures did she betray the slightest degree of agitation or disturbance. She dismounted, and sat down at the edge of the river, and, with the assistance of the Bramins, went through some religious ceremo nies. She distributed flowers and sweetmeats; and although she spoke little, what she did say was in an easy and natural tone, and free from any apparent emotion. She did not seem to pay any attention to the preparation of the pile; but when she was told that it was ready, rose, and walked towards it. She there performed some other ceremonies, standing on a stone, on which the outline of two feet had been traced with a chisel. In front of her was a larger stone, which had been placed as a temporary altar, and on which a small fire had been lit. These ceremonies lasted about five minutes, and when they were over, she, of her own accord, approached the pile, and mounted it without assistance. From the beginning to the end of this trying period, she was, to all outward appearance, entirely unmoved. Not the slightest emotion of any kind was perceptible. Her demeanor was calm and placid; equally free from hurry or reluctance. There was no effort, no impatience, no shrinking. To look at her, one would have supposed that she was engaged in some indifferent occupation; and although I was within a few yards of her, I could not at any moment detect, either in her voice, or manner, or in the expression of her countenance, the smallest appearance of constraint, or the least departure from the most entire self possession. Certainly, she was not. under the influence of any intoxicating drug, nor any sort of stupefaction; and from first to last, I did not see any person persuading, exciting, or encouraging her.

She herself took the lead throughout, and did all that was to be done of her own accord. When she was seated on the pile, she adjusted her dress with the same composure that she had all along maintained, and taking from the hand of one of the attendants a taper, which had been lit at the temporary altar, she herself set fire to some pieces of linen, which had been suspended for the purpose from the frame above, and then, covering her head with the folds of her dress, she lay quietly and deliberately down. No fire was applied to the lower part of the pile; but the flames soon spread through the combustible materials on the frame. The attendants threw some oil on the ignited mass; and the strings by which the frame was attached to the posts being cut, it descended on the pile. The weight of it was insufficient either to injure or confine the victim; but it served to conceal her entirely from view, and it brought the flames into immediate contact with the body of the pile. At the same moment a variety of musical instruments were sounded, producing with the shouts of the attendants a noise, through which no cries, even if any had issued from the pile, could have been distinguished. The flames spread rapidly, and burned fiercely; and it was not long before the whole mass was reduced to a heap of glowing embers. No weight nor ligature, nor constraint of any kind was used to retain the woman on the pile; nor was there any obstacle to prevent her springing from it, when she felt the approach of the flames. The smoke was evidently insufficient to produce either suffocation or stupefaction; and I am satisfied that the victim was destroyed by the fire, and by the fire only.

chemisette tucker of Japanese gauze, edged with narrow blond. The sleeves are short, and very full; rather confine in the middle by a 77 row of diamonds, the same as those formed by the treillage work on the fluted border. The hair is arranged in full curls on each side the face, with a boy on the summit formed of three puffs of hair, which are very highly elevated. At the base of this

bow, is a coronet ornament of white and gold enamel. The ear-pendants are a l'antique, en girandoles; and are composed of three drops in rubies: the necklace is formed of three rows of pearls and rubies intermingled, with three valuable drop-rubies in the centre. Bracelets of dark hair, and cameos, worn over the gloves.

INTOXICATION.

THE HE laws against intoxication are enforced with great rigour in Sweden. Whoever is seen drunk is fined, for the first offence, three dollars; for the second, six; for the third and fourth, a still larger sum,and is also deprived of the right of voting at elections, and of being appointed a representative. He is, besides, publicly exposed in the parish church on the following Sunday. If the same individual is found committing the same offence a fifth time, he is shut up in a house of correction, and condemned to six months' hard labour; and if he is again guilty, to a twelvemonth's punishment of a similar description. If the offence has been committed in public, such as at a fair, at an auction, &c. the fine is doubled; and if the offender has made his appearance in a church, the punishment is still more severe. Whoever is convicted of having induced another to intoxicate himself, is fined three dollars, which sum is doubled if the drunken person is a minor. An ecclesiastic who falls into this offence loses his benefice; if it is a layman who occupies any considerable post, his functions are suspended, and perhaps he is dismissed. Drunkenness is never admitted as an excuse for any crime; and whoever dies while drunk, is buried ignominiously, and deprived of the prayers of the church. It is forbidden to give, and more explicitly to sell, any spirituous

liquor to students, workmen, servants, apprentices, and private soldiers. Whoever is observed drunk in the streets, or making a noise in a tavern, is sure to be taken to prison, and detained until sober, without, however, being on that account exempted from the fines. Half of these fines goes to the informers (who are generally police officers), the other half to the poor. If the delinquent has no money, he is kept in prison until some one pays for him, or until he has worked out his enlargement. Twice a year these ordinances are read aloud from the pulpit by the clergy; and every tavernkeeper is bound, under the penalty of a heavy fine, to have a copy of them hung up in the principal rooms of his house.

NOLLEKENS.

Mr. Nollekens left £240,000 behind him, and the name of one of the best English sculptors. There was a great scramble among the legatees -a codocil to a will with large bequests unsigned, and that last triumph of the dead or dying over those who survive hopes raised and defeated without a possibility of retaliation, or the smallest use in complaint. The king was at first said to be left residuary legatee. This would have been a fine instance of romantic and gratuitous homage to majesty, in a man who all his life-time could never be made to comprehend the abstract idea of the distinction of ranks, or even of persons. He would go up