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garden of the sun in regions always whom he loved with all the force of his illuminated by his light. In our latitude ardent nature.

A servant enters:

"A stranger wishes to see the Herr Capellmeister."

"Bid him enter," replies Mozart. The man ushers in a tall, gaunt figure, clothed entirely in deepest black. Without a word he hands to Mozart a folded note.

As he reads its contents the countenance of the great master changes, the sunny light dies out of the blue eyes, the smile fades from the childlike mouth;

no midnight sun circles in brilliant
course above the horizon at the midsum-
mer festival, and no lengthening twilight
blends together the crimson of evening
and the crimson of morning. But this
very night of the summer solstice the
sun will not set to all dwellers within
the Arctic circle, and on Avasaxa and
all mountains of the same latitude
parties may gather, like the one to
which we have alluded, to witness his
mysterious midnight presence. In our
own part of the earth it is the supreme
moment of physical perfection. Far-
thest to the north this day roll the
chariot wheels of the sun, highest in the
heavens reaches his meridian course, and
farthest to the north sink his descending
wheels. Morning twilight and evening know.
twilight linger longest over the land-
scape, while the dominion of darkness
has her shortest ways.

MOZART'S LAST REQUIEM.
It was a festive night in the home of
Wolfgang Amaduus Mozart.

Loving friends were gathered around a board spread with a delicate feast in honor of the occasion-the anniversary of the wedding-day of the host and hostess.

strange pallor, and a look almost of dread, creeps over his face.

Turning to the stranger, he asks from whom he came; but the question receives no reply, save the assurance that the note tells him all that he needs to

The laughing, happy guests are silent, and filled with apprehension; and his wife, striving to speak playfully, asks: "Wolfert, may we not share your mystery ?"

He hands her the note. It is a request, without signature, that he will write a requiem, choosing his own price and time. With that strange look of pallor and fear still upon his face, he writes an answer, promising the requiem.

In vain, after the withdrawal of the mysterious messenger, did the guests try to resume their merry songs and jests; the still pale face of the master of the feast hushed every laughing voice, and very soon all had departed, leaving husband and wife alone together.

The pleasure of greeting his friends, and the joyousness of the scene, had driven from the broad, white brow of Mozart the shadow which of late had rested there constantly. His large, bright eyes shot glances of mirthful fire on all sides as he replied to the sportive sallies and cordial congratulations of his guests, while an exceedingly sweet and fascinating smile wreathed his finely cut" but oh! Stanzel, I feel that I shall and expressive mouth. His old youth write my own requiem." seemed to have returned to him; and often his eyes rested with loving looks

"I have given so much of my time and talent to the world, it is time that I should now write for God," said he;

A few months later, a sad and fearful company were gathered in an upper upon the face of his wife Constanza, room of Mozart's house. Upon the bed VOL. III.-14.

lay the worn and attenuated frame of the composer. Sheets of music lay around him, and his glorious blue eyes rested upon them with an impression of mingled joy and pain.

His wife sat close by his pillow, her hand in his, her loving eyes watching the dear face so soon to be hidden from her gaze. His dearest and most familiar friends clustered together near him, and at a sign from his hand they took the precious sheets upon which he had traced the last expressions of his Godgiven genius, into which he had written the holiest and purest aspirations of his beautiful soul. At his request his friends and pupils had met around his dying bed to sing for him his last-greatest work. Low and sweet were the first chords, but borne upon the evening air the swell of the rich harmony floated up to heaven. Angelic were the strains, as heard upon the very borders of the spiritland. Entranced with the melody they themselves were making, the friends sang on, while Mozart listened, a smile of bright happiness playing over his face, and his large blue eyes turned heavenward. 'King of tones" he had been; never more kingly than in death. The echoes of the last amen lingered upon the air, when Mozart turned to his weeping wife: "Dear, true wife," he said, "do not weep; I told you from the first that I was writing my own requiem."

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A few loving words spoken; a few long, last kisses given, and Mozart's spirit passed away.

Deceive a man prepossessed with his own merit, and you render him as ill an office as that which was rendered to the Athenian fool who believed that all the ships which arrived in port were come to him.

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is it strange to find them interwoven notice the principal phenomena which with the traditions and mythologies of they exhibit. unenlightened nations. On account of That extensive cavities exist in the their sombre interior and strange out- interior of the crust of the globe is eviline being adapted to impose upon an dent from the phenomena of volcanoes an ignorant populace, and give effect to and earthquakes. They are not accessi religious observances, the priesthoods of ble to observation, but the repeated antiquity localized their false divinities tremblings of the soil in various places, in caverns, and celebrated sanguinary and experiments made of osillations of rites upon the natural altars found in the pendulum, point to the conclusion their recesses. A cave, with a priestess that there are large underlying hollows seated upon a tripod at its mouth, pre- at no great distance from the surface, of tending to inhale a vapor from the in- which the superficial land forms the roof. terior which inspired a knowledge of The table-land of Quito, surrounded by future events, the gift of Apollo, was the most powerful volcanoes upon the the original Delphian oracle, reverenced earth, and the remarkable plain of Joby the mind of Greece, and resorted to rullo, are supposed to be examples of by the proudest monarchs of the ancient this. Condamine believed that a conworld. The cavern, along with the deep siderable portion of the former district forest, commended itself to the primitive was to be regarded as the dome of an inhabitants of Northern Europe by its enormous vault; and Parrot has shown mystery and gloom as an appropriate spot for the performance of a barbarous worship, and many local titles of such sites preserve the memory of their former uses. An instance of this we have in Thor's cave, or, as it is called,

"The blood-smeared mansion of gigantic Thor,"

it to be highly probable, by a careful calculation, that a cavity of at least a cubic mile and a half exists beneath its surface. The rumbling noise, like that of distant thunder, which, on the testimony of Humboldt, usually precedes and accompanies the eruption of its volcanoes, affords evidence in favor of this a broad excavation on the face of a huge supposition; and as an increase of the rock in the limestone district of Derby- subterranean vacuity must be the necesshire, divided into two chambers, one sary consequence of every outbreak, it is beyond the other, with a detached stone not at all an improbable event that the at the further extremity, where the blooming landscape will ultimately fall light of day is very much subdued. in, and this piece of table-land become But in India the largest use has been an immense depression. The quantity of made of caverns for religious purposes, material scooped out of the interior of and immense pains having been taken the earth by volcanic action is immense, with their adornment, extension and and calculated to produce vacuities in architecture, at Elephanta, Salsette and which the largest mountains would have Ellora, where there are elaborately- ample space. It has been estimated that wrought temples constructed, probably Etna, in one of its last and most importout of small natural crevices in the ant eruptions, that of the year 1769, rock. We shall now refer to a few of threw out a mass of lava equal in volthose cavities which are entirely the ume to a cone 5,820 feet in height, and workmanship of nature, with whose 11,640 feet in breadth, nearly four times form man has not intermeddled, and larger than Vesuvius. Fourteen such

eruptions would produce a mass equal the country three Italian miles in cir to Mont Blanc, reckoning from the level cumference sank thirty feet deep. Oc of the sea; and twenty-six such large currences of the same kind appear to eruptions have occurred since the twelfth take place in the depth of the sea, the century. falling in of its bed being indicated on the surface of the waters by their sudden retreat and violent agitation on their re turn. A remarkable example of this phenomena took place at Marseilles, on June 28, 1812, when the water in the harbor suddenly sank, then rushed out with great rapidity, and returned with equal violence-a movement which was repeated several times, till the equilib rium was restored, occasioning consid erable damage to the shipping. Instances of similar events are innumera ble, which serve to prove the existence of cavities, both in the interior of the exposed crusts of the earth and those parts of it over which the ocean rolls.

In the year 1783, when the earthquake of Calabria occurred, the Skapta volcanoe in Iceland poured forth a stream of lava fifty miles long, between twelve and fifteen broad, and from one to six hundred feet in thickness, which must have been equal to six times the mass of Mont Blanc, and two and a half times that of Chimborazo.

From the discovery of America to the year 1759, the plain of Walpais, a volcanic district in Mexico, had remained undisturbed, and was covered with plantations of indigo and sugar cane at the latter period. In the month of June a succession of earthquakes commenced, and on the night of September the 28th In the volcanic rocks cavern formations a tract of not less than from three to are very common, and one of the most four miles in extent rose up in the shape splendid examples in the world occurs in of a dome; and six great masses sud- the basalta rock of comparatively denly appeared, having an elevation of modern igneous origin. This is the from 1,312 to 1,640 feet above the origi- well-known Cave of Fingal, in the nal level of the plain. The most ele- Island of Staffa, a small island on the vated of these is the volcano of Jorullo, western coast of Scotland, composed en which is continually burning, the projec- tirely of amorphous and pillared basalt tion of which, with its kindred masses, The name of the island is derived from must have created a considerable sub-its singular structure-Staffa signifying terranean vacuity, and probably the in the Norwegian language, a peopl whole dome-shaped plain of Walpais is who were early on this coast, a staff, and hollow. Hence, it is a common event, figuratively a column. The basaltic in countries subject to great volcanic columns have in various places yielded activity, for portion of the surface to to the action of the waves, which have fall in, the subsidence frequently becom- scooped out caves of the most pictu ing the bed of a lake. A part of the resque description, the chief of which an forest of Aripas, in Cavaccas, thus sub- the Boat Cave, the Cormorant Cave, se sided in the year 1790; a lake was called from the number of these birds formed nearly half a mile in diameter, visiting the spot, and the great cave and from eighty to a hundred yards in of Fingal. It is remarkable that this depth, and for several months after the grand natural object should have re trees of the forest remained green under mained comparatively unknown until Sin the water. In the same year, in Sicily. Joseph Banks had his attention acci at Santa Maria de Visremi, a portion of dentally directed to it, and may be said

to have discovered it to the inhabitants | rity has been conferred on the Cave of of South Britain. This great cavern Fingal." consists of a lava-like mass at the base, Caverns occur in modern porphyry in and of two ranges of basaltic columns the neighborhood of Quito, and even in resting upon it, which present to the eye modern lavas, the ejection of which has an appearance of regularity almost archi- taken place within the memory of man. tectural, and supporting an irregular Flinders has made us acquainted with ceiling of rock. According to the meas- caves in the lava of the Isle of France; arement of Sir Joseph Banks, the cave, and in the lava of Vesuvius of 1805, from the rock without, is 371 feet 6 Gay Lassac found several upon a small inches; the breadth at the mouth, 53 scale. But caverns of an enormous exfeet 7 inches; the height of arch at the tent occur in the lava of Iceland-that mouth, 117 feet 6 inches; depth of water of Gurtshellir, situated in the torrent at the mouth 18 feet, and at the bottom which has flowed from Bald Yokul, beof the cave 9 feet. The echo of the ing forty feet in height by fifty in waves which wash into the cavern has breadth, and nearly a mile in length. originated its Gaelic name, Llaimh-binn Beautiful black volcanic stalactites hang -the Cave of Music. Maculloch re- from the high and spacious vaults, and marks: "If too much admiration has the sides present a succession of vitrified been lavished on it by some, and if, in horizontal stripes, a thick coating of ice, consequence, more recent visitors have clear as crystal, covering the floor. left it with disappointment, it must be Henderson, in particular, describes one recollected that all descriptions are but spot, the grandeur of which surpassed pictures of the feelings of the narrator; all expectation, the light of the torches it is, moreover, as unreasonable to ex- rendering it peculiarly enchanting. The pect that the same objects should pro- roof and sides of the cave were decorated duce corresponding effects on all minds, with the most superb icicles, crystallized on the enlightened and on the vulgar, as in every possible form, many of which that every individual should alike be rivalled in minuteness the finest zeolites; sensible of the merits of Phidas and while from the icy floor rose pillars of Raphael, of Sophocles and of Shakes- the same substance, assuming all the pare. But if this cave were even desti- curious and fantastic shapes imaginable, tate of that order and symmetry-that mocking the proudest specimens of art, richness arising from multiplicity of and counterfeiting many well-known obparts combined with greatness of dimen- jects of animated nature. A more brilion and simplicity of style, which it possesses-still, the prolonged length, the twilight gloom half-concealing the playful and varying effects of reflected light, the echo of the measured surge as it rises and falls, the transparent green of the water, and the profound and fairy solitude of the whole scene, could not As it is the characteristic of great fail strongly to impress a mind gifted minds to make many things be underwith any sense of beauty in art or in stood in a few words, little minds, on the nature, and it would be compelled to contrary, have the faculty of speaking own it is not without cause that celeb-much, but of meaning little.

liant scene, says Henderson, perhaps never presented itself to the human eye, nor was it easy for us to divest ourselves of the idea that we actually beheld one of the fairy scenes depicted in Eastern fable.

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