never without an infectious fever among them; a plague of their own, which leaves the habitations of the rich, like a Goshen of cleanliness and comfort, unvisited.

3. Wealth flows into the country; but how does it circulate there? Not equally and healthfully through the whole sys tem; it sprouts into wens and tumors, and collects in aneu. risms, which starve and palsy the extremities. The Govern ment, indeed, raises millions as easily as it raised thousands in the days of Elizabeth; the metropolis is six times the size that it was a century ago. . . .

4. A thousand carriages drive about the streets of Lon don, where three generations ago there were not a hundred; a thousand hackney-coaches are licensed in the same city, where, at the same distance of time, there was not one; they whose grandfathers dined at noon from wooden trenchers, and from the produce of their own farms, sit down by the light of waxen tapers to be served upon silver, and to partake of delicacies from the four quarters of the globe. But the numbers of the poor and the sufferings of the poor have continued to increase.

5. When the poor can contribute no longer to their own support, they are removed to what is called the workhouse. I cannot express to you the feeling of hopelessness and dread with which all the decent poor look to this wretched termination of a life of labor. To this place all vagrants are sent for punishment; unmarried women with child go here to be de livered; and poor orphans and base-born children are brought up here till they are of age to be apprenticed off; the other inmates are those unhappy people who are utterly helpless ;parish idiots and madmen, the blind, and the palsied, and the old, who are fairly worn-out.

6. It is not in the nature of things that the superintendents of such institutions as these should be gentle-hearted, when the superintendence is undertaken merely for the salary Whatever kindness of disposition they may bring with them to the task, is soon warped by continual contact with great de

pravity and suffering. The management of children who grow up without one natural affection, where there is none to love them, and, consequently, none whom they can love, would alone be sufficient to sour a happier disposition than is usually brought to the government of a workhouse. To this society of wretchedness the laboring poor of England look as their last resting-place on this side of the grave; and, rather than enter abodes so miserable, they endure the severest privations as long as it is possible to exist.

7. We talk of the liberty of the English, and they talk of their own liberty; but there is no liberty in England for the poor. They are no longer sold with the soil, it is true; but they cannot quit the soil, if there be any probability or suspicion that age or infirmity may disable them. If, in such a case, they endeavor to remove to some situation where they hope more easily to maintain themselves-where work is more plentiful or provisions cheaper-the overseers are alarmed; the intruder is apprehended, as if he were a criminal, and sent back to his own parish!

8. Wherever a pauper dies, that parish must be at the cost of his funeral; instances, therefore, have not been wanting of wretches in the last stage of disease having been hurried away in an open cart upon straw, and dying upon the road! Nay, even women in the very pains of labor have been driven out, and have perished by the way-side, because the birth-place of the child would be its parish!

SOUTHEY.

THE

4. THE MISERERE AT ROME.

HE night on which our Saviour is supposed to have died, is selected for this service. The Sistine Chapel is dimly lighted, to correspond with the gloom of the scene shadowed forth.

2. The ceremonies commenced with the chanting of the La

mentations. Thirteen candles, in the form of an erect triangle, were lighted up in the beginning, representing the different moral lights of the ancient Church of Israel. One after an other was extinguished as the chant proceeded, until the last and brightest one at the top, representing Christ, was put

out.

3. As they one by one slowly disappeared in the deepening gloom, a blacker night seemed gathering over the hopes and fate of man, and the lamentation grew wilder and deeper. But as the Prophet of prophets, the Light, the Hope of the world, disappeared, the lament suddenly ceased. Not a sound was heard amid the utter darkness.

4. The catastrophe was too awful, and the shock too great, to admit of speech. He who had been lamenting in mournful notes the recent decease of the good and great, seemed struck utterly dumb at this bitterest woe. Stunned and stupefied, he could not contemplate the mighty disaster. I never felt a heavier pressure on my heart than at this moment.

5. The chapel was packed in every inch of it, even out of the door far back into the ample hall, and yet not a sound was heard. I could hear the breathing of the mighty multitude, and amid it the suppressed half-drawn sigh. Like the chanter, each man seemed to say, "Christ is gone; we are orphans-all orphans !"

6. The silence at length became too painful. I thought I should shriek out in agony, when suddenly. a low wail, so desolate and yet so sweet, so despairing and yet so tender, like the last strain of a broken heart, stole slowly out from the distant darkness and swelled over the throng, that the tears rushed unbidden to my eyes, and I could have wept like a child for sympathy.

7. It then died away, as if the grief were too great for the strain. Fainter and fainter, like the dying tone of a lute, it sunk away, as if the last sigh of sorrow was ended, when suddenly there burst through the arches a cry so piercing and shrill that it seemed not the voice of song, but the language

of a wounded and dying heart in its last agonizing throb. The mulitude swayed to it like the forest to the blast.

8. Again it ceased, and broken sobs of exhausted grief alone were heard. Then all the choir joined in the piteous lament, and seemed to weep with the weeper. After a few notes they paused again, and that sweet, melancholy voice mourned on alone.

9. Its note is still in my ear. I wanted to see the singer. It seemed as if such sounds could come from nothing but a broken heart. Oh! how unlike the joyful, the triumphant anthem that swept through the same chapel on the morning that symbolized the resurrection!

HEADLEY.

FRO

5. ST. PETER'S.

ROM the bridge and Castle of St. Angelo, a wide street conducts in a direct line to a square, and that square presents at once the court or portico, and part of the Basilica. When the spectator approaches the entrance of this court, he views four rows of lofty pillars sweeping on to the right and left in a bold semicircle.

2. In the centre of the area formed by this immense colonnade, an Egyptian obelisk, of one solid piece of granite, ascends to the height of one hundred and thirty feet; two perpetual fountains, one on each side, play in the air, and fall in spray round the basins of porphyry that receive them.

3. Before him, raised on three successive flights of marble steps, he beholds the majestic front of the Basilica itself, extending four hundred feet in length, and towering to the elevation of one hundred and eighty. This front is supported by a single row of Corinthian pillars and pilasters, and adorned with an attic, a balustrade, and thirteen colossal statues.

4. Far behind and above it, rises the matchless Dome, the justly-celebrated wonder of Rome and of the world. The colon

nade of coupled pillars that surround and strengthen its vast base, the graceful attic that surmounts this colonnade, the bold and expansive swell of the dome itself, and the pyramid seated on a cluster of columns, and bearing the ball and cross to the skies, all perfect in their kind, form the most magnificent and singular exhibition that the human eye perhaps ever contemplated. On each side, a lesser cupola, rising proudly, reflects the grandeur, and adds not a little to the majesty of the principal dome.

5. The interior corresponds perfectly with the grandeur of the exterior, and fully answers the expectations, however . great, which so magnificent an entrance must have raised. Five lofty portals open into the portico or vestibulum, a gallery in dimensions and decorations equal to the most spacious cathedrals.

6. It is four hundred feet in length, seventy in height, and fifty in breadth, paved with variegated marble, covered with a gilt vault, adorned with pillars, pilasters, mosaic, and bassorelievos, and terminated at both ends by equestrian statues, one of Constantine, the other of Charlemagne.

7. A fountain at each extremity supplies a stream sufficient to keep a reservoir always full, in order to carry off every un. seemly object, and perpetually refresh and purify the air and the pavement. Opposite the five portals of the vestibule are the five doors of the church; three are adorned with pillars of the finest marble; that in the middle has valves of bronze.

8. As you enter, you behold the most extensive hall ever constructed by human art, expanded in magnificent perspective before you; advancing up the nave, you are delighted with the beauty of the variegated marble under your feet, and with the splendor of the golden vault over your head. The lofty Corinthian pilasters with their bold entablature, the intermediate niches with their statues, the arcades with the graceful figures that recline on the curves of their arches, charm your eye in succession as you pass along.

9. But how great your astonishment when you reach the