5. She was dead, and past all help, or need of it. The ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was ebbing fast-the garden she had tended-the eyes she had gladdened—the noiseless haunts of many a thoughtful hour-the paths she had trodden as it were but yesterday-could know her no more.

6. "It is not," said the schoolmaster, as he bent down to kiss her on the cheek, and gave his tears free vent,—“it is not in this world that Heaven's justice ends. Think what it is, compared with the world to which her young spirit has winged its early flight, and say, if one deliberate wish expressed in solemn terms above this bed could call her back to life, which of us would utter it!"

7. When morning came, and they could speak more calmly on the subject of their grief, they heard how her life had closed. They were all about her at the time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after daybreak. They had read and talked to her in the carlier portion of the night; but, as the hours crept on, she sank to sleep. They could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man: they were of no painful scenes, but of people who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said "God bless you!" with great fervor. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was at beautiful music which she said was in the air. God knows. It may have been.

8. Opening her eyes, at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face, such, they said, as they had never seen, and never could forget, and clung, with both her arms, about his neck. She had never murmured or complained; but, with a quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered-save that she every day became more earnest and more grateful to them —she faded like the light upon the summer's evening.

9. And now the bell-the bell she had so often heard by

night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice-rung its remorseless tone for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy, poured forth-on crutches, in the pride of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life—to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing-grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and still been old-the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave.

10. They carried her to an old nook where she had many and many a time sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. The light streamed on it through the colored window-a window where the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang sweetly all day long. With every breath of air that stirred among those branches in the sunshine, some trembling, changing light would fall upon her grave. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Many a young hand dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard. Some-and they were not few-knelt down. All were sincere and truthful in their sorrow.

11. The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers closed round to look into the grave before the stone should be replaced. One called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she was gazing with a pensive face upon the sky. Another told how he had wondered much that one so delicate as she should be so bold, how she had never feared to enter the church alone at night, but had loved to linger there when all was quiet; and even to climb the tower stair, with no more light than that of the moon's rays stealing through the loop-holes in the thick old wall.

12. A whisper went about among the oldest there, that she had seen and talked with angels; and when they called

to mind how she had looked, and spoken, and her early death, some thought it might be so indeed. Thus coming to the grave in little knots, and glancing down, and giving place to others, and falling off in whispering groups of three or four, the church was cleared, in time, of all but the sexton and the mourning friends.

13. Then, when the dusk of evening had come on, and not a sound disturbed the sacred stillness of the place,when the bright moon poured in her light on tomb and monument, on pillar, wall, and arch, and most of all, it seemed to them, upon her quiet grave,—in that calm time, when all outward things and inward thoughts teem with assurances of immortality, and worldly hopes and fears are humbled in the dust before them, then, with tranquil and submissive hearts, they turned away, and left the child with God.

CHAPTER LXXXVII.-ROBERT BROWNING.—1812.

I.-Biographical.

1. There is a class of writers in English literature that are ranked as metaphysical poets. They belong to the romantic rather than to the classical school, and their distinguishing characteristic is reflection. Their art does not describe things as they are, but as traced to their causes or seen in their effects. This involves an acquaintance with human motives in their subtile variety and varied combinations, and this, again, leads to plots for the development of poems founded on psychology rather than on incidents. For this reason such writers are called metaphysical. Among them were Wordsworth, who always wrote with a theory; Coleridge, the most subtile of thinkers; and Shelley, with his strange power to personify abstract things.

2. At the head of the psychological school stands Robert Browning, who was born at Camberwell, near London. He was brought up as a dissenter from the Established Church, was educated at London University, and at twenty he went to Italy, where he passed his time studying the mediæval history of that country, and carefully noting the feelings and habits of the peasantry, with whom he mingled. At twenty-four Mr. Browning published Paracelsus, whose leading character is a kind of Swiss Faust. Most of his early poems are dramatic, having historical themes,-like Strafford, Sordello, and A Blot in the Scutcheon. He has written some poems, as Pippa Passes, and, notably, Bishop Blougram's Apology, which yield their meaning only after the closest study.

3. Mr. Browning's lyrical verse is vivid and spirited, and some of the pieces will remain among the most popular ballads in the language. Among them is one which he called his "child's story," the Pied Piper of Hamelin. He affects strange titles, having called one volume of his poems Bells and Pomegranates, and having written a Norman tale under the title of The Red Cotton Night-Cap Country. A modern critic says of him, "A fertile and original author, with high and generous aims, he has proved. his poetic power alike in thought, description, passion, and conception of character." Surely, no ordinary writer could compose such a ballad as the following:

II. How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. 1. I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts un-

drew;

"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

2. Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace, Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our

place;

I turned in my saddle, and made its girths tight,

Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

3. 'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; At Düffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be, And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the halfchime

So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"

4. At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past;
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray.

5. And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence,-ever that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance;
And the thick, heavy spume-flakes which aye and

anon

His fierce lips shook upward in galloping on.

6. By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!

Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her;