This meeting with Mr Oakdale is made the spring of much mysterious and ominous matter generated in the course of the narrative. The result of his discovery of the boy is the removal of the latter to Beechendale-Hall, while the former also left his lonely dwelling on the rock, and went-no one could tell whither. As Henry travelled towards Beechendale-Hall, along with his venerable conductress, the objects which he passed on the road gradually reminded him of his first journey. He became more and more certain that he had seen them before, till the spell of forgetfulness was broken, and he retraced, as in a vision, the eventful incidents of that day, on which he had been hurried from his `paternal home, and taken to his grandmother's. He alarms Mrs Ormond by talking of these things. She, strangely as it then seemed to him, inquired if the gentleman of the rock had described them to him; and on learning that this was not the case, she tried to persuade him that he had dreamt the things of which he was speaking. But her endeavours only served more closely to concentrate his attention: they caused him to probe more keenly the recesses of his memory, and to trace retrogradely the clue of events, till at last the truth burst upon him with the full blaze of convincing reality, and he could no longer refuse to be lieve what he had at first doubted; or, as in the inflated language of the author," mere child as he was, he could not but believe, that what he had at first described as a dream, was the memorial aliment on which his spirit had been long and secretly nourished."

At this stage of the narrative, we are favoured with an entire chapter on the "metaphorical intimations of prophetic reverie, and the oracles of dreams and omens." We really are such matter-of-fact sort of beings, that we put no faith in these things, notwithstanding the absurd palaver with which we have introduced ourselves on this occasion. Much do we pity the poor devil who, in addition to the real ills of life, inflicts upon himself imaginary ones,-who rashly disturbs his equanimity, by melancholy anticipations of future

woe, the voluntary victim of those anxieties and gloomy forebodings which attend the believer in dreams. We insert the chapter, intimating, that it is one of the most moderate of the kind contained in the volume, for, ever and anon we are favoured with an entire one of the same unintelligible species.

Why are we so averse to confess to one another how much we in secret acknowledge to ourselves, that we believe the

mind to be endowed with other faculties of perception than those of the corporeal senses? We deride, with worldly laughter, the fine enthusiasm of the conscious spirit that gives heed and credence to the metaphorical intimations of prophetic reverie, and we condemn as superstition the faith which consults the omens and oracles of dreams; and yet, who is it that has not, in the inscrutable abysses of his own bosom, an awful worshipper, bowing the head and covering the countenance, as the dark harbingers of destiny,

like the mute and slow precursors of the hearse marshal the advent of a coming woe ?

It may be that the soul never sleeps, and what we call dreams are but the endeavours which it makes, during the trance of the senses, to reason by the ideas of things associated with the forms and qualities of those whereof it then thinks. Are not indeed the visions of our impres sive dreams often but the metaphors with which the eloquence of the poet would

invest the cares and anxieties of our waking circumstances and rational fears? But still the spirit sometimes receives marvellous warnings; and have we not experienced an unaccountable persuasion, that something of good or of evil follows the visits of certain persons, who, when the thing comes to pass, are found to have had neither affinity with the circum. stances, nor influence on the event? The hand of the horologe indexes the movements of the planetary universe; but where is the reciprocal enginery between them?

These reflections, into which I am

perhaps too prone to fall, partake somewhat of distemperature and disease, but they are not therefore the less deserving of solemn consideration. The hectical flush, the palsied hand, and the frenzy of delirium, are as valid, and as efficacious in nature, to the fulfilment of providenmasculine arm, and the sober inductions tial intents, as the glow of health, the of philosophy. Nor is it wise, in considering the state and frame of man, to

overlook how much the universal element

of disease affects the evolutions of fortune. Madness often babbles truths which make wisdom wonder.

I have fallen into these thoughts by the remembrance of the emotions with which I was affected during the journey with Mrs Ormond. During that journey, I first experienced the foretaste of misfortune, and heard, as it were afar off, the groaning wheels of an unknown retribution coming heavily towards me.

Mrs Ormond and Henry terminate their journey, on their arrival at a stately mansion situated in the centre of a magnificent park. During their short abode at this place, which was no other than Beechendale-Hall, some objects which Henry saw in the house arrested his attention, and brought upon him a train of thought, which ultimately settled in the conviction, that he was once more in that mansion in which he had witnessed the "hideous scene" which had so long haunted him as a vision. He no longer doubted that he was under the same roof in which he once had beheld such dismay and sorrow; and though "the talisman of memory was shattered, yet distorted lineaments could be seen of the solemn geni, who rose at the summons of the charm, and shewed him the distracted lady, and the wounded gentleman, whose blood still stained the alabaster purity of the pavement on which he was again standing." Here, accordingly, the first cycle of the boy's life is completed. His identity is retraced to the point of his earliest reminiscences; and in Beechendale-Hall he now recognises the reality of those scenes which had hung so heavily about him, but which previously he had regarded as little else than the sketches of an imaginative existence. After having resided a few days at Beechendale-Hall, still unknown to Henry as his paternal mansion, he is placed at school, under Dr Bosville's charge, whose select seminary received but a limited number of pupils, "the unacknowledged offspring of splendid misery, or the children of parents who had some sad tragedy of the hearth to conceal." Select as it was, however, it proved to young Oglethorpe, accustomed to a matronly education, a busy, noisy, over-reaching little world, in which

all his companions were gayer than himself. The ominous fate which the author had in store for him required a pensive mood, and brooding contemplation. After having been about two years at this school, he is introduced to a new companion, in the person of Alfred Sydenham. The moment he and Henry saw each other, they felt they had been destined to be friends.

Alfred regularly spent the holidays with his father; and Henry, when in his twelfth year, was invitCased to accompany him to Btle. While the youths were here amusing themselves, the current of Henry's thoughts was suddenly turned, by the arrival of a cluster of guests, among whom he discovered the undivulged stranger of the rock, Mr Oakdale. He knew him again at first sight, though his own now taller figure disguised him from the stranger. Having communicated to Alfred the circumstances of their former meeting on the rock, which led to his hurried departure from Mrs Ormond's house, the young men resolved to search, by all possible means, into the secret of Oakdale's story. An opportunity was soon taken by Sydenham to put some questions to the stranger; but the emotions which they excited in him were visible, not only to the young inquisitor, but also to his father. From that day, Alfred and Henry, though, in the eyes of all who knew them, companions of singular constancy, never held communion as friends. Something had been communicated to Sydenham by his father, which "invoked a spell upon his frankness," and withered the ties which had bound them together.

In due time Henry was removed to Eton, and afterwards to Oxford. During one of his occasional excursions to London with Sydenham, they happened to go to Drury-Lane Theatre, when Hamlet was performing.

Like most University-men, Henry had read none of that author's works, though prepared, through the influence of report, to admire his genius without knowing his merits.

The opening of Hamlet is pitched to a key with which I was almost constantly in unison. Of the story I had never heard, though the name of the hero

was as familiar to me as to most unbookish students.

As the performance proceeded, I soon felt that the tale it told was shadowed in the conception I had formed of the cir cumstances of my own fortunes.

The cunning of the scene at one time so overcame me, that I laid hold of Sydenham by the arm, and breathed with such trepidation, that he enquired in alarm if I was unwell. This was when the ghost related in what manner he had been murdered. From that moment 1 looked forward to see Hamlet in the character of an avenger,-terrific, magnifi cent, and resolved: but when I saw him so soon after become a puling and purposeless misanthrope, I was, for a time, discontented with the whole piece. There was, however, so much of philosophical ingenuity in the plot and stratagem of the players' play, that my attention was again arrested, and I watched with an ardour and earnestness for the result, equal almost to what the Prince of Den

mark himself might have felt. At the

moment when IIamlet is satisfied of his

uncle's guilt, I started from my seat, and the first object that caught my eye was Mr Oakdale in the adjoining box, startled by my emotion.

He looked at me for an instant with the unrecognising eye of a stranger; he evidently did not then recollect me; but when I had resumed my seat, and he had looked again towards the stage for about the space of a minute, he suddenly threw his eyes towards me, as with apprehen sion and dread. My agitation at that moment was too great to give utterance to my feelings. I rose and hurried from the box, followed by Sydenham, who,

alarmed at my extravagance, came with me out of the theatre.

I said nothing. As we moved on, he

often entreated me to tell him what was

the matter; but there was a flashing of recollections and imaginations overwhelming my reason; and it was not until we were by ourselves, in a private parlour in one of the neighbouring taverns, that I was in any condition to hear or to answer his questions.

I placed my elbows on the table, and clasped my temples in my hands, remaining in that position silent for some four or five minutes.

"Now, Sydenham," said I at last,

"I can believe what I have heard of the genius of Shakspeare."

"Is that all ?" said he with a smile, intended, doubtless, to allay the perturbation, which he ascribed to the poetry and the performance; and he added, "I never should have conceived, however,

that any thing in so heavy a drama as Hamlet could have moved you to such a degree;" and then he began to descant as a critic on the talents of the author.

What he said, or what he meant to have impressed me with, sounded in my ear unheeded, and I cried abruptly, "Cease; you know nothing of his genius: he has told me to-night what I had before but, as it were, dreamt of."

"Well! what has he told you?" "That my father has been murdered." Sydenham grew pale, and lay back in his chair in astonishment.

"Nay more," cried I; "he has told me that the crime was caused by my mother."

Sydenham trembled and rose from his seat, exclaiming, "Is this possible !"

"Yes; and you have known it for years, and that Mr Oakdale is the adulterous assassin!"

And in this manner ends Epoch the Second in the life of Henry Oglethorpe. We are not disposed to be hypercritical; but really our credulity is taxed too much, in many of the incidents of this story. That, in real life, revelations of the past or veracious visions of the future should be drawn from the representation of a play, by a young man of three or four lustres, is so wildly extravagant as to exceed altogether our powers of belief.

Henry, on returning to College, finds a letter from a General Oglethorpe, who intimated a desire to see him. This General, a man of precise, erect, and professional appearance, proves to be his uncle; and by him Henry is made acquainted with those family circumstances which have been already mentioned. He also learnt from him that Mr Oakdale fled from Beechendale-Hall, after the quarrel with his father, and was not heard of for many years

it being during this period that he resided in the cottage on the rock. The injured Oglethorpe, a man of singular delicacy, though he recovered from his wound, yet did not long survive the humiliation of dishonoured affection. But the General

obstinately refused to gratify Henry's curiosity regarding the unfortunate lady whose frailty had clouded the fair horizon of his father's house: he even exacted a promise that he should not enquire into her fate.

It was at this period resolved that