met. All the voices of the sacred college were unanimous in favour of the Spanish cardinal. Behold him, therefore, pope!

Immediately after the ceremonies of his exaltation, Don Torribio, admitted to a secret audience, wept with joy while he kissed the feet of his dear pupil, whom he saw fill with so much dignity the pontifical throne. He modestly represented his long and faithful services. He reminded his holiness of his promises, those inviolable promises, which he had renewed before he entered the conclave. He hinted at the hat which he had quitted on receiving the tiara; but, instead of demanding that hat for Don Benjamin, he finished, with most exemplary moderation, by renouncing every ambitious hope. He and his son, he said, would both esteem themselves too happy, if his holiness would bestow on them, together with his benediction, the smallest temporal benefit; such as an annuity for life, sufficient for the few wants of an ecclesiastic and a philosopher.

During this harangue the sovereign pontiff considered within himself how to dispose of his preceptor. He reflected that he was no longer very necessary; that he already knew more of magic than was sufficient for a pope; that it must be highly improper for him to appear at the nocturnal assemblies of sorcerers, and assist at their indecent ceremonies. After weighing every circumstance, his holiness concluded, that Don Torribio was not only a useless, but a troublesome dependant; and, this point decided, he was no longer in doubt what answer to return. Accordingly, he replied in the following words: "We have learned, with concern, that, under the pretext of cultivating the occult sciences, you maintain a horrible intercourse with the spirit of darkness and deceit; wherefore we exhort you, as a father, to expiate your crime by a repentance, proportionable to its enormity. Moreover, we enjoin you to depart from the territories of the church within three days, under pain of being delivered over to the secular arm, and its merciless flames."

Don Torribio, without being disconcerted, immediately repeated aloud the three mysterious words which the reader was desired to remember; and, going to the window, cried out, with all his force, "Jacintha, you need spit but one partridge, for my friend the Dean will not sup here to-night" This was a thunderbolt to the imaginary pope. He immediately recovered from a kind of trance, into which he had been thrown by the three magic words, when they were first pronounced; and perceived that, instead of being in the Vatican, he was still at Toledo, in the closet of Don Torribio, and saw by the clock it was not yet a complete hour since he first entered that fatal cabinet, where he had been entertained with such pleasant dreams. In that short time he had imagined himself a magician, a bishop, an archbishop, a cardinal, a pope; and at last he found he was only a dupe and a knave. All was illusion, except the proofs he had given of his deceitfulness and evil heart. He instantly departed, without speaking a word, and, finding his mule where he had left her, returned to Badajoz, without having made the smallest progress in the sublime science in which he had proposed to become an adept.

THE TEMPLE OF ASTARTE.

'Twas now the hallow'd eve; her feast ordain'd, The lunar deity, heaven's empress, hight

Astarte, or horn'd Ashtaroth, far famed

Of heathen worshippers. There Moloch's priests
Led Israel's chief. Mid oaks of antique growth,
In the close circuit of a myrtle grove,

That o'er the lawn a lighter shade diffused,
Her temple rose. It crown'd the smooth ascent
Of a green hill, and cast, at hour of eve,
Its shadow o'er the sleepy water wide
Of a clear lake; the consecrated haunt
Of fowls and finny multitudes.-Beneath

The myrtle grove bowers of inwoven shade
Bloom'd odoriferous foliage. There the rose,
The jasmine, and the lily, flourish'd fair ;
And vines and wanton eglantines entwined
Their wedded tendrils. Nor the perfumed breath
Of orange bloom, or Gilead's fragrance fail'd;
Nor aught in leaf or painted flower, whose hues
Embroider earth. At every arbour, served
Boys and fair girls, that round an altar, heap'd,
Not without hymn of youth and joy and love,
The treasures of the Orient, spice and gum,
And nard delicious: so that every gale
Fann'd odours, and the genial air around
Seem'd burden'd with voluptuous languor sweet.
The birds there sweetly sang; and murmuring doves,
That round the sculptured frieze their cradles hung,
Coo'd on the temple's golden brow. Before
Its porch a curtain fell, embroider'd web

Of Tyre. In midst a mystic orb, inwrought,
Half sun, half moon.

Its broad circumference hung

Poised, where a wavy shadow ran athwart,
Severing the veil in twain. The upper limb,
And all above, as by its light illumed,

Blazed in the radiance bright of burnish'd gold.
All forms of life there gather'd, and each form
Glow'd, full of life. The eagle soar'd aloft
On balanced wing; the steed, on stretch of race;
The kid danced wanton on fresh-springing flowers;
The green tree budded, and the bright rill flow'd.
Midst these, in bloom of beauty, from the shades,
Thammuz ascendant. In his hand, a spear
Poised, ere yet lanced. O'er him, in air suspense,
A goddess hung, and in his lips inbreathed
The spirit of life and love. Above, appear'd
Gods, gay at feast. The lower limb, and all
Beneath its influence, seem'd with night o'ercast,—
If night that may be named, wherein each form
In silver wrought, shone plainly vision'd forth,
But pale in the comparison of gold.

All shone; but it was the shining of the moon,

Faint image of the sun. Each figure bore

Similitude of languor and decay.

There human kind sunk down in senseless swoon, Half life, half death. On the herbless plain, the steed Lay panting. There the kid, in act to fall,

Hung o'er the sere flower, withering 'neath his foot.
The eagle closed his eye, and folded in

Each feather smooth: lower'd his crest, and gleams
Soft flow'd along his glossy back, upraised
In heave of slumber. There, the leafless tree
Droop'd, and what water seem'd, stood icy still.
In midst of these, Sidonian skill had wrought
The form of Thammuz, bending o'er his wound,
Whence the large life-drops struggled. At his feet
A bow was broken, and its shaft in twain.
Near him a boar his blood-stain'd trunk upraised.
There bent the form of Thammuz: but, below,
His spirit, like a shadow, gliding on

In guidance of a minister of death,

With ringlets shorn, and torch extinct, sank down
To Hades, and the unembodied shades.

Such was the mystic veil, that hid from view
Astarte and her rites. Without, in choirs,
Fair youths, of either sex, in light robes loose,
Cerulean dye, with golden stars bedropt,
Their brows with myrtle garlanded, came on
In dance to dulcet flutes: or, where the bowers
Woo'd them, withdrew. Some on the mystic web
Intently gazed: ere clang of cymbals spake
Heaven's empress radiant on her zenith throne.
What time the veil uplifted shouts expose
In full illumination, amid blaze

Of lamps, and flame of torches, sparkling wide,
And fires, like suns, irradiate round her shrine,
Making the midnight brighter than noon day,
The secret mysteries of Astarte's rites
In act of celebration. On through these,
Perforce, the Hebrew past. Oft, to his gaze,
Idolatrous Gath, in mockery of God,
Had lifted up her deities; horn'd front

Of bull, or ram, beak'd bird, and scaly coat:
And many a monstrous image, mixture vile
Of uncongenial natures: Dagon foul,
Derceto, and Atargatis: and some

Of loathsome birth, that to their shapes abhorr'd
Challenged the glory of the eternal God,
The Invisible: the kind that crept, or crawl'd,
And the wing'd generation of the sun,

Breathed up in pestilence from marsh and fen:

And the webb'd foot that haunts both land and flood,

Terror alike of both. To each its shrine

And worshipper, to creatures of all kinds,
Rites, prayer, and praise. To thee, Creator! none.
But in this grove no idol met his gaze:
Sight fouler far, the living image of God
In man abused.

Sotheby.

FIVE ANECDOTES.

A HINT TO A KING.

THERE was one Ferguson, an intimate of King James I. who, being about the same age, had been a playfellow with him when they were young, came with him into England, and, extending the rights of friendship too far, frequently took the liberty of advising, and sometimes admonishing, or rather reproving his sovereign. He was a man truly honest: his counsels were disinterested, with a view for himself; having a decent patrimony of his own. The king was, however, often vexed by his freedoms, and at length said to him, between jest and earnest, "You are perpetually censuring my conduct: I'll make you a king some time or other, and try." Accordingly one day, the court being very jovial, it came into his majesty's head to execute this project; and so calling Ferguson, he

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