1628.] a Romance of High Holborn. 63 
there was even a studied air of cheerfulness about it, as if the present 
proprietor were anxious to obliterate every association, however slight, 
that might possibly remind him of the past. The former owner had but 
just passed out, his ashes were scarcely cold, and already his name was 
on the wane. Yet this is human nature. It cannot, and, indeed, it is 
fit that it should not dwell for ever with the past: events are on the 
march, and the mind, side by side, must march with them. How con- 
fined, how contemptible a space do we, who are every thing in our own 
eyes, occupy in the mighty universe around us. We die, and self-love 
persuades us, that the eyes of the world are fixed on our parting 
moments, when, in truth, even our next door neighbour is indifferent. 
So trifling, in fact, is the gap caused by our absence in society, that there 
needs no patriotic Curtius to leap into it ; it closes without a miracle the 
instant it is made, and none but a disinterested Undertaker knows or cares 
for whom tolls our passing bell. 
THE CONVENT OF CATANIA. 
“I thought thy bride bed to have deck’d, sweet maid, 
* And not have strew’d thy grave.” 
Hamlet. 
Tue stranger who, for the first time, visits that district of Sicily, of 
which Catania is the principal town, will find as much to delight him in 
the ruins of art, as in the freshness and luxuriance of nature. An Eden in 
all but its insecurity ; the base of Etna is beautified by flowers of every 
hue, and forest-trees of all climates ; the hamlets that peep out from the 
clusters of rich wood, give to that prospect a liveliness which more 
populous tracts of level scenery can never attain ; andthe Arcadian look 
and dresses of the peasantry, complete the picture, which might have 
served for the model of a poet’s fairy-land. But the fertile beauty of 
St. Agata, or Tremisteri, moved not my wonder more strongly than an 
object of a very different nature, which used to greet me on my rambles 
with the solemnity of a spectre. It was a ruin—not a storied pile, with 
venerable ivy, and columns of scrupulous architecture—a place of no 
primeval note or superstition, but a confused mass of fallen walls, and 
unsightly fragments, which, at no distant period, seemed to have been 
the prey of a dreadful conflagration. Around me were scattered the 
blackened stones and crumbling timbers, and here and there, an orna- 
mented frieze or other gorgeous relic that seemed to have belonged to an 
edifice sacred to some uses of the Catholic Church. I wandered, with- 
‘out knowing why, for hours, amid this desolation, and its image haunted 
my mind, and would not be driven away from it. 
Thou art gone from this world of sorrow, old Carmelo,* my merry 
* Carmelo Puglisi, host of the hotel, called the Elephant, at Catania, remembered the 
ascent of Etna, by Brydone, in 1770. He was a fine old man, and had a budget of anec- 
: historical, and local, that, when opened, rendered his conversation the pleasantest 
thing in the world. On future occasions, the same source may possibly be used for simi- 
tar draughts of traditional anecdote. TI need not add, that the main event of this little tale 
is strictly, or rather, historically, true. 
