part derived from her converse with the excellent minister of the parish, and were partly the result of her own study and reflection. Her mind, which was strongly imbued with romantic and poetical images, inclined her to view the Rosicrucian system with a favourable eye. She has often spoken to me with animation of her ideas of viewless beings around her, and the salutary check that such a belief imposed upon trifling improprieties. "How pained I feel," she said one day, as she walked leaning on my arm, along a path near the cottage,after having thus erred, when I imagine the veil taken away, and guardian spirits in their angelcolouring, drooping around me in attitudes of compassionate ministry or hopeless dejection! Surely the additional pain such an idea creates is at least harmless, even if it had not more than imagination to warrant it. I feel persuaded that this material world is peopled with spirits, for I think immaterial creatures alone are capable of fully enjoying it. And for this reason I can scarcely bring myself to believe the doctrine of the rise of the material body, even if there is to be an earthly millenium; nor do I feel so wedded to it as that I could not bear the idea of parting from it for ever." "But what say you," said I, "to the rising of our Lord, and the ascent of his body?" 66 "I do not presume to enter deeply into an argument," was her reply, or contend against analogical deductions; but look now up yon mountain side, diversified with every variety of light and shadow, and then, my dear Mr. M-, can you say that you enjoy it? I cannot behold it without a sort of undefined longing to be on it—to drink in the spirit of its hues-to plunge into its clear, cold shadow-to bask in its lights. In fact, I wish myself away to its happy side, and wishing is not enjoyment. There is that beautiful object, which angels might visit, but we are not partakers of its delights. We stand afar off, with all our ailments and disabilities about us-we cannot follow the flight of our eyes-our bodies are chained to earth by an irresistible law, and our spirits are endungeoned in our bodies. Surely, surely there may come a time when we shall be truly free, and roam unrestrained through the beauties of the natural world! For it is fair-it possesses capabilities of being enjoyed far beyond ours of enjoying. It is a glorious garden, tenanted by worms. We may yet rove through its sweets in the freedom and beauty of the butterfly. Do you wish for this, Mr. M. ?" 66 Why, you have presented so fair a picture, that I forget my arguments against it." "I am glad of it, my dear Sir ; our feelings ought, in my opinion, sometimes to stand us in place of them, particularly on such speculative subjects as these. I assure you, I have been thinking a great deal of all this for the last few days, and I find it an agreeable subject for my mind to dwell upon. Besides, we, as animated matter, are at perpetual enmity with inanimate matter. Rain drenches us, cold freezes us, heat burns us, lightning scathes us ; and on the other hand, we cannot walk upon the grass without bruising it—we cannot touch a leaf without marring some perfection which it costs us pain to perceive; but as spirits-how shall we pass, like Camilla, over the corn field without bending a stalk! How shall we repose on the tenderest branch without disturbing a fibre! And with what ease shall our immaterial vision unfold these fibres down to their minutest parts, and then expand, to comprehend suns and systems at a glance! How beautiful is this speculation !--but after all, I am growing too much enamoured of the idea, which is but a pleasing fancy. Will you now give me your opinion, dear Mr. Mfor the sweet girl appeared to think she had perhaps amused me by her earnestness. I was too much pleased in contemplating the lofty range of her thoughts to offer much on the subject. On such occasions I usually allowed her to run on in the train of her reflections as she pleased to indulge in them; and this, I have reason to believe, was almost exclusively when she conversed with me, "who," as she used to say, "would make allowance for her mad flights." But while her thoughts and speculations ran so high, my young friend's practice was on the ground-it was the plain humble walk of the most unaffected Christianity. Never could that be observed in her, which is so lamentably apparent in many whose reveries are over-spiritual-an inattention, I mean, to outward consistency of con duct at least, if not an undervaluing of moral restraint. Against such fatal error she was particularly guarded, and laboured, when upon such abstruse and uninfluential themes, to prevent her feelings and belief from becoming too much engaged, and to keep them in their proper place, more as the recreation of an exuberant imagination, than as the serious study of a thinking mind. She loved not to argue on such subjects. If she met a soul that was willing to soar with her into the regions of the unseen world, or the mysteries of futurity, she would allow her mind to pursue the subject till it glowed in the animating search; but introduce it with a view to discussion, or as an important and essential part of a system, and she was silent. "I can have no belief on such points," she would say, "and my opinions are too vague and visionary to deserve attention." In short, in spite of the extreme spirituality of her religion, I have seen her more visibly pained when her sufferings have caused a murmur or complaint to escape from her lips, than when she has disagreed with our good clergyman on some weighty point of doctrine. "In the one case," she used to say, "there may be room for a question, but in the other, I am, beyond all doubt, violating the law of God and my conscience, and besides, it is so injurious as an example to others!" Amiable-regretted creature! to thee was indeed applicable the beautiful comparison made use of in one of Herman Francke's sermons, in which he likens the minister of religion to a goodly tree, whose stem rises towards heaven in the aspirations of a lofty and inquiring spirit, but whose branches stoop to the earth in an humble practice and unaffected conversation, and spread on all sides, so that the meanest traveller may shelter beneath them, and pluck of their fruit! But I am dwelling too long on this pleasing yet melancholy theme. The object of so much solicitude to us all has passed away, and I feel like one who scatters a few flowers over her grave. I must hasten to the conclusion of my task, and nerve myself for a description of the closing scene of so much loveliness and virtue, by the reflection that the curtain which is drawn between us and our friend is not dark on both sides. She is still lovely and virtuous, and she is now moreover happy, while we are yet shivering under its cold shadow. My only reason for again approaching the death-bed of poor Elizabeth Hamilton is the thought that an instructive lesson is read by its side to my nephew, and those young and unthinking persons to whom he may have mentioned these events, and that possibly her untimely fate may impress some mind as naturally gifted as her's with the conviction that youth, charms, talents, or virtues, do not exempt the possessor of them from the common lot of humanity-misfortune and death. About the first days of autumn Miss Hamilton had begun to show the most unequivocal marks of rapid dissolution. She was wasted to a shadow,—her cough was intermitting and short,—and at last she was unable to be moved to the castle as she had hitherto been, and was confined entirely to her little room at the cottage. My visits were almost daily, for I saw that the termination of her life was at hand. She became unable to rise from her bed, and her father was never from its side. He watched and prayed there the livelong day and night. The good Countess of Dwould have relieved him, and watched her friend by night herself, but, like David, he refused to be assisted or comforted. The inevitable day at length arrived. I had set out on that morning with more than usual spirits on my way to the cottage, from having fancied I observed a favourable change in her the day before. Her pain had appeared less acute, her voice stronger, and her movements more animated than they had been for some time past, and I allowed my mind to rest a moment on the pleasing side of the picture, and to hope against hope. The reverse was presented to me, in all its appalling reality, as I entered the little room. She was in the act of receiving the consecrated cup from the hands of the aged minister; and I saw at a glance that it might be called a dying rite. A great and fearful change her appearance had undergone that night. The termination of the thread of her existence was visible-the lamp of life was flickering over the vault of death. As I stood at the door, the old man bent over her as he presented the consecrated element, which she was scarce able to bring to her lips. Her father was kneeling at the foot of the bed, with his face buried in his hands; and her attendant, the female I have already mentioned, standing at the opposite side, and watching with fearful curiosity the simple and elevated grandeur of the holy ceremony. Such was the group upon which I entered; and, dropping on my knees beside the door, lest I should disturb their attention, I awaited the conclusion of the sacred rite. When it was over, she remained for several minutes in wrapt devotion; her hands clasped upon her breast, and her eyes closed with the peculiar appearance of fervent supplication, as though they were looking inward.— The clergyman remained motionless as long as she continued in prayer, and then turning to me, I saw that his eyes were wet with tears. I went forward to him, and was about to address him, when Miss Hamilton perceived me, and a smile played around her features so softly and stealthily, that I could fancy it a divine illumination rather than any thing else. I approached the bed-side, scarcely retaining the power of articulating a syllable, so powerfully had the scene I had witnessed affected me. "My dear Mr. M- -," she breathed, almost inaudibly, "good morning; I feared you would have been late." "Alas! dear, dear Elizabeth," I faultered, "how see I you thus! Little did I expect to have found such a change!" "A change,” replied she, calmly, "that you must have looked for before the first snows of winter, and perhaps after weeks of suffering. Grateful am I that I am spared all this, which I so much dreaded, and that I am about to be admitted into eternity by so short and easy a path." "But I had hopes yesterday" Ah, my dear Sir, they were against your better judgment. As for mineyou knew what mine were long ago. My father, my father!" she sighed, turning her head in the direction whence his sobs were audible, and where he had remained ever since I had entered, without raising himself. My ever honoured father, when I am gone, go to the house of my friend here by my side-court his friendship-ask his advice in sorrow and trial, and set store by it. Weep not for me-(for his sobs 66 almost choked him)-for I am happy; oh, how happy!" and again the smile swept over her countenance. Like Stephen's, it was as an angel's; her transparent brow shone as from within. She was exhausted, and lay several minutes wholly motionless. I took the opportunity to inquire from the nurse how she had been so suddenly affected. Alas, there was enough to account for it all! In a slight fit of coughing the night before, a blood-vessel had burst, and she was now half emptied of the already failing current of life. The doctor had been with her nearly the whole of the morning, but owned from the first that human aid was now unavailing. She seemed suddenly to recollect something-she looked at me, and as I bent down over her to catch her almost inaudible words, she said, "I almost fancied that I had already left my earthly friends, and was amongst the blest in heaven. When I first knew you, Sir, I was wreathing flowers for the little vase on yonder tabletake it, and think sometimes of thethe" She was strongly moved, and I was alarmed for her. "Yes, dear Elizabeth, I will take it and treasure it-" I saw she wished to speak, and stopped. "And you will find a key beside me of my writing-case-open it when I am gone, and-" Here her voice failed her, and I pressed her hand, with the wish to prevent her from continuing to exhaust the little measure of life yet left her. She remained silent a long time, and the room was in that hushed state which is scarcely ever observable but in a sick chamber, when distant sounds from without are heard with a startling distinctness. The song of the reaper, the crowing of the cock, the far cawing of the rookery of the castle, and the yet more distinct roaring of the sea, as it swelled and died away again in slow alternations-all were heard through the clear autumnal air, from the stillness of the chamber of death. Strange thoughts floated in my mind as I stood by the bed where an immortal soul was holding its last dire and deadly conflict with the clay which it was so soon to master, and to take its flight-where? Out of the cognizance of the loved on earth? Out of hearing of the reaper, and the bird, and the ocean? I could not answer myself; our reasoning faculties are bewildered in the vicinity of the awful change that places a bar upon human scrutiny, and closes the lips of enquiry for ever. We know not what to think; we are mute in ignorance and awe. I heard a rustling in the bed, and saw that Elizabeth had turned round, and with her head partially raised, was gazing at the still prostrate form of her father; she looked stedfastly, and a tear swam round her lower eye-lid. "Father!"-she paused-" Father!"he raised his head-"God be gracious to thee, my Father!" He had got upon his feet, and seized her hand. But his face! I cannot describe it! "Great God! in whose presence I must shortly stand, listen to the last prayer that these lips can utter; pour thy heavenly grace upon my father; make his journey easy to him; let me meet him at the threshold of eternal joy, and lead him to the beloved, who is gone before-to her, who, I thought The old man rolled on the floor in a swoon; the nurse and I ran towards him, and having raised him, we placed him on the chair by the bed-side, and were endeavouring to restore him, when he heard a sigh, put us aside, and getting up from the seat without assistance bent over his daughter. One look was enough-she was dead. * * I need not dwell on these scenes longer than is necessary. Our poor friend was buried, as I said before, in the church-yard of K- near the door of the little chapel, and her father was chief mourner. I opened her desk in compliance with the wish she expressed shortly before her death, and found in it, amongst some trifles, a packet which contained some ornaments and a letter of gratitude both for the Countess of D- -, a similar packet for her aunt in Scotland, and a letter, containing some small enclosure, of what nature I knew not, addressed to Lieutenant Archibald Douglas, to be delivered to him on his arrival from America; I sent this with Mrs. Stuart's packet to Scotland, as I thought that she would be most likely to deliver the letter to Mr. Douglas. Poor old Mr. Hamilton, a brokenhearted man, privately passed over into Scotland, at the earnest request of his sister. A seventeen years' absence and an age of suffering had sufficiently disguised him to secure his remaining unobserved; and I rather think, that his retreat in a remote part of the Highlands has not yet been discovered. Time had so far healed the poignancy of my first grief, that it was only when accident led me to the little churchyard, where the cold remains of Elizabeth Hamilton slept, that the irrepressible gush of bitterness burst from my heart; but the sight of the tombstone, so recently erected, and the well-known name, has completely unmanned me again, and led me back, as it were, to the first days of my sorrow. As I write I have the little vase, the precious legacy of her dying hour before me on the table, and when I think but I shall never stop if I continue to look at it! Such was my uncle's manuscript. He was as kind and good a man as I ever knew, and content should I have been to have been still out of possession of it, since it was by his death that it fell to me. I have but one circumstance to add: as I was riding last Summer along the road in the direction of K (our family neighbourhood) I overtook a funeral that was winding its way to the place, and I saw by the appearance of the procession that it had come from a distance; the horses were fatigued, and their trappings dusty; prompted by curiosity, I left my horse at the gate of the church-yard, and entered it before the funeral; but what was my surprize when I saw that the stone which had stood at the head of Miss Hamilton's grave had been removed, and an opening made in the earth close beside it. I lost not a moment in making enquiries from some of the attendants who had come up, and I discovered that they were about to inter the body of the young and gallant Archibald Douglas. I had concluded that it was the father's funeral. Douglas had returned from America little more than a year before, and as my informant said, from that time he was a gone man. It was he who had the stone raised, which had given rise to my uncle's story, and ac |