just like the rest of the world." Be that as it may; for one or two hours of the day, he was pleased to while away the time with these very simple occupations, the frequent repetition of which, one would have thought, would have made them insipid: but it did not.

He was generally so enveloped in the great military cloak of the country, that for the first few days I could not make him out, though from his gait and height, I could not help thinking it was Gorewell. If I doubted, it was because of an alacrity in his movements, which I had not remembered when in England, where his pace was rather solemn and slow. Resolving, however, to ascertain it, I followed him one day through the beautiful varieties of the road to Sonnenberg.

The extreme antiquity of the ruins of this spot can never but fill the mind with a thousand mixed, and for the most part, solemn reflections. The tower was still ponderous with masonry, and with the walls and gate-way (now fast approaching to absolute ruin), bespoke an existence of at least a thousand years. The municipality of Wiesbaden, under the influence of their good Duke (seemingly, from all accounts of him, the good Duke of the forest of Arden), had placed benches, at short intervals, all along the road; some just in the bend of the rustling

brooks that line the way, fringed with copse-wood, which often screens passengers from the view of one another.

On one of these benches Gorewell (for I now saw it was he), reclined in meditation deep, but not silent, and I checked my pace to watch him. Though at first indistinct, it was plain he was moralizing upon times past; for I clearly caught the words of Touchstone;-between whom and himself there was this other resemblance, that each had laid him down and basked him in the sun." Like Touchstone, too," he drew a dial from his poke," and with something like a sigh, repeated—

"Thus we may see how the world wags;

'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven:
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale.”

At this he got up, and seemed preparing to walk, when fearing to lose him, I showed myself, and we shook hands with mutual pleasure. As I knew he was aware of my being acquainted with all his marked opinions of his own country, and of the feelings which had driven him into voluntary exile, I pointed to the ruined walls and arches that surrounded us, and did not scruple

to say, that I had found him like Marius sitting in the ruins of Carthage.

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Marius," said he, "was so horrible a villain, and such a complete specimen of what relentless havoc may be made by the ambition of an advocate of the people, that I neither feel flattered nor honoured by being compared to him."

This reply might have deterred me from pursuing the conversation farther; but I went on to say, I meant any thing but to compare him to Marius, either in his good or evil fortune; "but I own," I said, "I thought of your opinions of poor England, when I saw you pondering over the ruins of Sonnenberg."

"What you say," returned he, " may be true; but the ruin of England, or rather of her Constitution and character, is not so advanced as that of this massive castle. Nevertheless, it seems such an emblem of the destruction that may await her, and sink the strength of a thousand years to nothing, that I look at it with an awful, because a prophetic eye. With these associations, therefore, there is a fascination about it, which I cannot resist; and even were it without the delightful landscapes through which we approach it, it would be, as it is, my daily walk, my ancient neighbourhood."

"And yet," returned I," when I also saw you, as I have for several mornings, without knowing you, interested and pleased with things so inferior, and which must have once appeared the most absolute trifles in your passage through life, I did not think that to contemplate ruins would be such a favourite object with you."

"To what do you allude?" said he, with surprise.

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To the pleasure you seemed to take in objects so little worthy one of a mind like your's: the mere peasantry, the noisy children, and even the gambols of common domestic animals, dogs and cats, who all seemed to frolic about you, as if you had been Robinson Crusoe."

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They are all, at least the brute part of them," replied he, “ honest in their way; and the human creatures too are honester, and a great deai more contented and good-natured, than those I have left, without half so much reason for it. But if this were not so, you surely are not to learn the nature of a great and absorbing interest, or, as perhaps you may call it, a great disgust. Paradoxical as it may appear, the mind which will not stoop from its higher emotions with a view to consolation, or forget its interests in a cowardly oblivion, will yet find something like diversion, and certainly relaxation, in neutral

у

and simpler objects: and the more simple, or, if you please, trifling they are, the more compatible they are with the great absorption that fills the soul."

"I cannot tell," he answered, "except, perhaps, that the soul, under strong impressions, has not room in it for things of a higher order. It was this, I am convinced, that Shakspeare knew, when he made Hamlet, though under a suffering which drove him almost to madness, halt sometimes in his great pursuit, and unbend even to playfulness, in moralizing with a gravedigger. But still more, on the other hand, can the mind gather almost interest from what appears trifling, when it has thoroughly discharged from itself (as is the case with me) all that used to occupy it, however great the object or person."

"You have considered this matter, I see, to the bottom," I replied; "but may I ask the effect of all this on the object which led you to leave your country; and, in particular, if I may take the liberty, whether you have found the cure or relief you promised yourself?"

"The cure, perhaps not," he replied; "the relief, in a great measure. My object was, if possible, to obtain the jucunda oblivia vitæ;"