virtue and elegance over the whole of life, and carries into its recesses balm and odour, more precious than the Phoenix could have gathered in a century through the groves of Arabia, to build the nest in which she was soon to die.

PESCHIERA.

THE recollections connected with Virgil, and the age of Augustus, gave way at once, when I came to the river Mincio from the sight of no unusual spectacle; one which belongs to a train of reflection very different from that commonly excited by the Roman poet. As we entered the town of Peschiera, built at the point where the Mincio flows from the Lago di Garda, to wash the walls of Mantua, in the midst of a heavy shower of rain, we met a corps of soldiers bearing the body of an officer who had been drowned in the lake. His fellow officers, dressed in full uniform, and drenched in rain, marched with melancholy step, in time to slow music; and their look was like the occasion—a mirror

to reflect how little it needs to spoil the pomp of men. The gay plumage, which had so often fluttered on their heads, in the parade and carnage of war, now waved heavily, as they advanced towards the spot, which is the end of the journey and cares of life.

I heard the spectators inquire what was the age of this unfortunate young Austrian, what his rank, and the circumstances of his fate, and "had he a wife or children?"-Ah! yes, thought I, had he a wife or children to weep for him? -No; but he had a mother, who was soon to hear, that, instead of being about to return to her, with his brow decorated with the wreath of laurel, he had been enwrapped in the bulrushes of the Mincio, and that he would return no more; that that portion of her life, which had wandered away in another body, was now extinct; and that his bones rest in a foreign land, who had left the place of his fathers' sepulchre.

Such is this vision of existence: its best con

nections are disparted as easily as the fitful associations which fancy links in sleep. It takes but one moment to separate us from all the world,-"for our life," says Pindar, "is like the dream of a shadow,”—and to raise an impassable barrier against the flow of earthly sympathy.This young man, full of the scenes of present enjoyment, had them all dissipated in an instant; and all the fires of passion quenched in these fatal waters.

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By the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better :" the view of such a case of individual misery brings us to a sounder judgment of the relative value of the things of life. Of how little worth are all our reflections associated with Virgil, or—as it is to be feared that many who visit the Lago di Garda and promontory of Sermione, have most sympathy with the infamous Catullus,-of how little worth are all those feelings which are excited by the magic of Roman poetry, in comparison with one

sober reflection, one permanent conviction, that we may obtain, by believing the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, foot-hold, and place, and home, and joys, in the land which is invisible to the eye of flesh, and inhabited only by shadows, to the perception of natural fancy; but which the light of revelation shews us to be overflowing with delights to those who do not

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deny the faith," and inhabited by the myriads who have had the seal of eternity set upon them by their righteous Creator.