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the church. Yes; it was her gentle fingers, by which those old and simple airs were summoned from the organ, endow ed with such metaphysical power as to charm back the forgotten feelings and emotions of my fondled and happy infan cy. Alas, alas! I ascribed to the parti cular interest with which she had inspired me an influence that belonged only to the notes she had so exquisitely played ;-a ruder touch and a meaner hand would, perhaps, have made the same stops discourse altogether as persuasively.

Thus terminates the Third Epoch in the life of Henry. A connection had now been conjured up between Maria's music and the gorgeous room, in which, while an infant, he had played with the oranges.

The piece now hurries to a conclusion. Henry wandered about four years on the continent; but the treasuries of Switzerland and Italy dislodged not the image of the fair Maria from his mind. On his return to England, his intimacy with her was renewed; but in proportion as Henry increased his attentions toward her, the behaviour of Mrs Purcel underwent an embarrassing change. This lady, on whose mind some suspicions had flashed at their first meeting abroad, had ascertained since her return home, that in the person of Henry Oglethorpe she saw her first-born, the son of her dishonoured husband. With the knowledge of this, and of the nature of Henry's increasing intimacy with Maria, every repetition of his visits sent pangs to her heart; at the same time, she regarded him with no common affection. Henry could not fail to remark this, and he marvelled at the familiar and tender manner in which she sometimes addressed him.

On one occasion, as we were standing together at a window in the drawing room, she laid her hand fondly and familiarly on my shoulder. I started at the touch, and she instantly rushed from the room in tears. Could I doubt she regarded me with no common affection?

But even this impassioned extravagance was lost in the all-absorbing influence of Maria, who happened immediately after to come from an adjoining apart

ment.

In the evening, when I was reading in my lodgings, for this took place in London, the recollection of it suddenly

recurred upon me, and I began to ponder on the inconvenience, as I then but thought it, of having interested the mother so much in my favour. I laughed at what I was disposed to regard as an awkward dilemma. In that moment a knocking at the door roused me from my reverie, and Mrs Purcel was herself an

nounced.

Her eyes were sparkling with a wild and insane brilliancy, and the moment the door was shut, she cried,—

"If General Purcel will not forbid I can endure them no longer-wretches!" your visits, I will. I have come to do so:

In saying these words, her articulation became choked with passion, and she sunk upon a sofa, overwhelined with agitation.

I was myself for the space of several minutes unable to speak: I stood beside her when I recovered sufficient compo. sure, I entreated her to moderate her displeasure.

"Displeasure!" said she, with an accent of Siddonian pathos, and looked at me with an expression which could never and bathed it with tears. be forgotten, while she snatched my hand,

"Merciful Heaven! Madam !" I .

claimed, equivocating with myself, "what does all this mean? Am 1 not in birth and fortune the equal of your daughter?"

"O yes, O yes," was her wild reply ; and she added, "too much her equal. Oh, miserable me! and you love her too well."

"Why do you say so?" cried I, alarmed and amazed; “such a declaration becomes not a mother and a wife.”

"A mother! a wife !-if you could imagine the scorpions which these words exasperate here;" and she smote her heart as she rose from the sofa, and walked hurriedly across the room, tossing her arms aloft, an appalling spectacle of frenzy and despair.

In this terrific state of perturbation she continued for some time. I was overwhelmed with amazement, and stood like a statue. Suddenly she appeared to subdue her emotion, and came towards me with an air of resolute calmness, intending to address me; but in the same moment she burst into such a frantic fit of hysterical laughter, that I became alarmed, and rushed towards the door to call for assistance, believing she was indeed mad. She observed my intention, and with a grasp as dreadful and effective as a fiat, she seized me by the arm.

"Hear me,' ," she exclaimed; "hear me, oh, Henry, Henry !”

I shuddered at being so familiarly and so tenderly addressed; but I replied,

somewhat more self-possessed than I had hitherto been, "Madam, I can be at no loss to understand the cause of this vehe. mence."

The flash of her eyes withered me for a moment: I paused while she replied:

"No, no; you do not, you cannot understand it. Sit down on the sofa; sit beside me: I have worked myself to this, and it shall now be done."

In saying these words, she bent her head upon my shoulder, and wept bitterly. At that moment the sound of a loud knocking reminded me that Sydenham was then to call.

"Is it for you?" said she in alarm; and scarcely had I answered in the affirmative, when she darted out of the room, and run up the second flight of stairs. In the same moment the voice of the husband, at the hall-door, enquiring if I was at home, overwhelmed me, if possible, with still greater consternation. His accent was precise and emphatic; his tread on the stairs, as he ascended, sounded heavily; and when he entered the room, his face was pale, and his dark eyes vi vidly fierce.

"Is Mrs Purcel here ?" said he, as he approached towards the table on which lay the book I had been reading when she came in. His tone was arrogant, and I could not brook the menace of the aspect with which it was delivered.

"Is she ?" was all the answer I gave him: at the same moment I walked towards the fire, and stood on the hearthrug, eyeing him, I must, however, say, with feelings more defensive and com. passionate than those with which he appeared to be animated.

Somewhat surprised by the manner with which I regarded him, he paused, and looked around much perplexed.

"General Purcel," said I, faintly, "1 am at no loss to discover the cause of this singular visit. My devotion to your daughter is not acceptable to her mo ther, nor to you: I think you cannot be offended if I enquire the cause on your part."

"On mine there is none," he replied, in a calmer voice; "but Mrs Purcel, who has always been a woman of uncontrollable caprice, has fallen into frenzy on the subject; and though I am well aware Maria can hardly hope for a more advantageous match, yet her mother is so vehemently opposed to your attachment, which we have both long remarked, that she will listen to no argument on the subject. She insisted to-night in such a manner I should forbid you my house, that I almost suspect she has herself"

He hesitated, and then after a mo

39

ment's paused added ;-" But it is impossible that the interest you appear to feel for Maria can be a disguise to conceal-"

He paused again, and I replied, "General Purcel-I will not affect to misunderstand you; but I am a man of honour, and a word may appease all suspicions. Will you give me Maria ?"

"It must then be without her mother's consent."

"With yours I shall be satisfied, if Maria will."

"It must then be managed secretly; for Mrs Purcel, when once her feelings or her passions are engaged, though in her milder moments seemingly of a far different order of temper, is deaf to reason, and blind to danger; nothing can repress her vehemence nor rule her wilfulness; she either loves or hates you; whichever is the source of her opposition, is equally beyond reason.'

"

"But," said I, "that can be only while the feeling lasts."

"Till it is gratified," was his solemn and emphatic reply.

"Then, if to expect any mitigation of her opposition be so hopeless, and you are willing, may I presume to ask the hand of Maria ?"

"You have her heart, I think, and you have my consent; but be wary, and let me be no more seen in it than is absolutely necessary;" and he smiled, as he added, "such things will happen in the best-regulated families."

At that moment I heard a rustling on the landing-place, and expected to see Mrs Purcel burst into the room; but she descended in the dark, and escaped from the house.

It is not required of me to mention what farther passed with the General, and I dare no longer trust my pen with any reflections. Facts are all I may now venture to record. The fetters of perdition were rivetted; the spells that were to burst in horror had taken effect-the victims were now fastened to the stakebut they had no sense of their condition; they were happy in a flowery, an arborous Sicilian garden: the volcano was below, and the giant earthquake only asleep.

The nuptials are delayed-or rather ought to have been so-by the sudden death of General Oglethorpe, who had come to town to be present at their celebration. This event, though calculated to fill Henry with sorrow, had the contrary effect of dispelling his superstitious apprehensions. Feeling impatient of any

occurrence impeding the consummation of his fate, he caused Sydenham to procure a license, before the old General was committed to the earth, and the day of the funeral was appointed for the celebration of the wedding. It was resolved that it should take place in Westminster Abbey, where the remains of his uncle were to be interred, and immediately after the funeral. By this arrangement it was hoped at once to soothe the impatience of Henry, and elude the interference of Mrs Purcel, whose opposition to the step, as may be supposed, continued unabated.

The funeral procession moved towards the Abbey as the clock was striking seven-the service was read, and the burial completed. The friends of my uncle, who had come to pay the last tribute of their regard, had retired, and General Purcel and myself also left the church; but instead of going back to the coach which had brought us, we walked into the cloisters.

Sydenham was not at the funeral. Maria, with a young friend and her maid, were under his charge in a house in Abingdon-Street; and as soon as the hearse and the remains of the pageantry left the Abbey, they entered the church by Poets' Corner.

Except the clergymen, and the ser. vants of the Cathedral, there were no spectators. By some inexplicable influence, however, my valet, of his own accord, remained at the door to prevent interruption, and the ceremony proceeded; but just in the moment when I was in the act of putting on the ring, he came rushing towards us with such an expression of consternation in his countenance, that I was startled and alarmed before he had power to tell his fear. In the same moment Maria screamed, for her mother entered the church, pale, dis shevelled, and frantic, crying, "I forbid the bans brother and sister-brother and sister!"-I heard no more: the vast edifice reeled, as it were, around me, and the pillars and monuments seemed as if they were tumbling upon my head; and then there is a hiatus in my remembrance, a chasm in my life.

When I recovered from the shock, under which I had fallen senseless on the

pavement, I found myself at home in

my own chamber, and Sydenham standing mournfully at my bed-side. I asked no questions, but pressed his hand.

"The carriage," said he, "is at the door, and I will go with you."

I made no answer, but rose, for I had not been undressed, and followed him to the carriage.

Ten years have passed since that dreadful morning, and I have never opened my lips to enquire the issues of the event; but one day, about two years ago, in visit.

ing the English cemetery at Lisbon, I saw

on a marble slab, which the weather or accident had already partly defaced, the epitaph of Maria. The remainder of my own story is but a tissue of aimless and objectless wanderings and moody medi tations, under the anguish of the inherit. ed curse.-But all will soon be over:a tedious hectic, that has long been consuming me, reluctantly and slowly, hath at last, within these few days, so aug. mented its fires, that I am conscious, from a sentiment within, I cannot survive another month; I have, indeed, had my warning. Twice hath a sound like the voice of my sister startled my unrefresh. ing sleep when it rouses me for the third time, then I shall awake to die.

The

The copious extracts which we have introduced into the foregoing analysis will enable our readers to judge in some measure of the Omen. For ourselves, we are disposed to be scanty of its commendation. The subject of the piece is the reverse of attractive, and, had it been pushed a step beyond those limits within which the author has confined it, would have proved disgusting. Of all the lives which we ever read, none is more horrible in its circuminsinuate not that the author has stances than that of Edipus. We had the case of Edipus in view when he framed the Ömen; but, in both, the vein of thought is made to flow in the same direction. point at which the progress of the plot is arrested prevents the consummation of crime; but this very cir cumstance, so felicitous to the actors, renders the story imperfect as the vehicle of a moral-its only useful object. The mother's infidelity produces no infliction of the inherited penalty on her offspring, so much foreboded in the course of the narrative. There is even comparatively little interest excited by the exhibition of that lady's agitation and despair at the idea of her childrens' marriage; for she is introduced to us at a late stage of the proceedings, and displays only one ebullition of terror at the prospect of their union;

and even then, by the interruption which occurs, we are left in doubt as to the real cause of her turbulent emotion. The interest of the piece, too, would have been promoted, and the sympathies of the reader more engaged, had the author revealed, at an earlier stage, the attachment of Maria and Henry; taking care, while he disclosed the relationship of these parties, to keep them in ignorance of the insuperable bar thence arising to their marriage. In the absence of these sources of heightened interest, the attention is left to fix itself chiefly on the absurd exhibition of omens and oracles, which so much abound in the volume; for beyond these there is nothing very attractive. Even those incidents which the author uses as the means of prophetic intimations, are often of highly improbable occurrence in life; and we can figure no imaginable reason for the introduction of the absurd episode of the German flute-player, unless it be thrust in to further the substantiation of the truth of those ominous doctrines which the whole volume seems framed to inculcate.

We have mentioned Edipus, whose miserable life suggests the same train of thought with the Omen. We acquit the author of being indebted to that source in the way of invention; but unless we are much mistaken, the subject he has chosen is, nevertheless, not original. The prototype we have assuredly seen, either in one of our own venerable Numbers born of the last century, or in that ancient and courtly affair, the Gentleman's Magazine-more probably in the latter.

The title of the piece to which we refer is the Mysterious Mother." Perhaps young Henry Oglethorpe is her mysterious son. In the story alluded to, the incidents are darker, and involve a deeper guilt, but the moral is precisely the same.

As to the style of language in the Omen-to which, if dissatisfied with the story, we naturally turn for relief-it is as inflated and byperbolical as the things which it records are visionary and extravagant. The composition throughout is ostentatiously gaudy; but it is monstrously corrupt; it is calculated to dazzle by epithetical trappings, but these are of meretricious texture. It has harmony; but this is obtained by an intumescence intolerably offensive to chastened taste. In reading the Omen, we have fine-sounding and well-marshalled words; but sentences, alas! which have no definite meaning, but seem only to convey indistinct conceptions, and to intimate the presence of unrevealed mysteries. We compassionate those men of letters whose works require a mystagogue for their interpretation. We wish, however, to part with our author on better terms than these. If we dream truly who he is—and can we now doubt our powers of divination?-the Omen proceeds from a pen which can at once delight and instruct, and among whose productions it is unworthy of being ranked. Let the author renounce his Belfast turn to prognostication, and consort no more with preternatural things, and his lucubrations will then be read without censure, if they be not entitled to praise.

No; E'll not stay.

No; I'll not stay to see it wither,
Yon golden streak in the dim west;
'Twas freshly bright when I came hither,
And it has lull'd my pain to rest.

I know that it must die at last;
But, if I look not on its end,

No mindfulness that it is past

Need with the lov'd remembrance blend.

Mary the time when Hope itself

Shall vanish from my heart is near;

And I must fly the fickle elf,

Or 'twill soon leave me lonely here.

F.

NOTICES OF THE SYSTEM OF EDUCATION PURSUED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, WITH VARIOUS HINTS FOR ITS IMPROVEMENT.

THE number of Students who frequent this Seminary has of late greatly increased. Between the years 1790 and 1800, the average number of matriculations of Students in the different Faculties of Law, Medicine, and Divinity, was 1287; for the next ten years it was 1593; and between 1810 and 1820 it was a trifle more than 1988. Since that time the number of tickets issued has been generally somewhat less, which has probably been owing to the decrease of Medical Students, in consequence of the Peace. The celebrity of this University has kept pace with the great increase in the number of its "cives;" or rather the latter has been the necessary consequence of the former, and is the best possible proof of the very high reputation which the University of Edinburgh possesses. Perhaps a good deal of the success which

has attended it is attributable to its peculiar constitution, which is totally different from that of any other similar establishment in Scotland; indeed it is completely different from any other institution at home or abroad, a circumstance which follows necessarily from its differing in constitution from the other and older Universities of this country, which were all organized upon the model of those on the continent of Europe. The Universities of St. Andrew's, Glasgow, and Old Aberdeen, which were founded between the years 1412 and 1494, or, in other words, in the fifteenth century, were at first Roman Catholic establishments, and long retained, and do to this day, in some measure, retain the trammels of the dark ages of the Church. The University of Edinburgh, on the contrary, is the daughter of the Reformation, and seems to glory in the principles of her parent, namely, unlimited liberty. She justifies her illustrious descent, by teaching the grand principle of the subjection of reason to conscience alone, and her consequent freedom from every human yoke. This has enabled the unendowed and recent University of

Edinburgh to rival, if not to surpass, the most ancient and magnificent academical institutions of Europe.

The Establishment is divided into four Faculties,-the Literary Faculty, the Medical Faculty, the Faculty of Law, and the Faculty of Theology. Under these are comprehended twenty-seven Professors. The TownCouncil possesses the patronage of the office of Principal, and seventeen Professorships; besides, they ap point the Librarian, Janitor, and University Printer. Nine Professorships are in the gift of the Crown, and Sir F. G. Johnston is patron of that of Agriculture.

I have said that the Institution comprises four Faculties. From each of these Faculties a certain number of members must be sent to constitute a "Senatus Academicus." The Senatus has, it seems, been of late trenching on the prerogatives of the College Patrons, namely, the TownCouncil; or, at least, these prerogatives are a subject of dispute, and are in the fair way of being more definitely and accurately settled in a court of law than they have been heretofore.

It is obvious enough, that though the Senatus may be considered the party better qualified of the two to settle the course of education necessary to attain the different degrees, yet a most material objection exists as to their possessing so extensive powers. To leave, at the discretion of any class of men, (be their situation however respectable,) the sole liberty of determining to what extent they shall draw upon the purses of their scholars, for admitting them to the privileges of their profession, would be to consider such persons absolutely of a different order of beings from the common race of mortals: and, on the other hand, there is no great hazard run in the Patrons being personally incompetent to determine the affair with perfect justice and equity to all parties, since the Council consists of Medical as well as other professional men, who either are, or ought to be, disinterested um◄

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