508 A Dream in Westminster Abbey. [ Nov. 
thing: the living seemed too insignificant, and the dead too'awful for 
me to associate with! It is the nature of the mind, when overwhelmed 
by the abundance, or left vacant by the desolation of things’ without; ‘to 
retire within its own chamber, and to create for itself the worldoof its 
contemplation. A reverie stole over me ; | was wafted I knew not whither 
—called to converse with I knew not whom—about I knew not what’; 
and it wasnot till I heard the echo of the shutting door, and the grating 
of the fastening lock, that I started to my feet, and hastened to 'the place 
whence those sounds came. My haste was unavailing—the door was 
closed for the night; and I had abundance both of leisure and of silence 
to meditate among the memorials of human majesty—of human mor~ 
tality. 
ia aang to think of cells and cloisters—of graves and monuments, 
and to nightly meditations among the dwellings of the dead, I was inno 
danger of being scared by superstition, or disturbed by childish fears ; 
but still there was a cold solemnity of desolation in the place, which 
withered my strength, held me rivetted to the spot, and’ made me 
breathe softly and in fear, as though I would not disturb or offend the 
spectre things which imagination could not refrain from placing around 
me. The trophies of the universal Destroyer were crowded there, and 
fancy had not much to do in conducting me into his real presence, or 
him into mine. Shades of things which had not only been, but been 
mighty in their generation, flitted through my mind ; and to that mind 
they seemed to flit through the Abbey, animating every pillar, and 
peopling every aisle. 
Of all the powers of man, there is none more delightful to him than 
that which crowds with beings those places which loneliness might have 
left vacant. It may be that this occasionally awakens superstition, and 
fills the credulous and feeble-minded with terror; but who, for the'sake 
of a few such casualties—and they are but few—who would forego the 
pleasure of this exquisite faculty ?—who, to abate the terror of a few 
such persons, would make night as oblivious to fancy as it is to the eye— 
the place of tombs as vacant to the understanding \as'it is to the senses ? 
Where is the price that would compensate to man for those assem- 
blages of the beings of all regions and all times—aye, and of beings that, 
in reality, have never been, and never can be—which creative fancy 
calls around his waking or his dreaming pillow? Who, for kingdoms of 
those realities, upon which the sun shines only to disclose their small- 
ness and their insignificance, would forego the midnight glance of the 
soul into the boundless vista of the dark, with its unnumbered and num- 
berless inhabitants ? All that the sun visits is limited in space, and 
brief in duration: a single’ glance into the dark is infinitude and eter- 
nity. Awake, you are circumscribed by four walls, or, at the most, by 
a mile or two of horizon: you dream—no matter whether sleeping or 
waking—your footsteps are upon planets—your view ranges from sun ‘to 
sun. In confined reality, you suffer out your little years, and their sum 
is but a point: in free imagination, you in one moment exist’ ere Time 
was born, and the next you sit upon his grave. hw ont 
Finding that I had not even a chance of getting out, till the! ‘morning 
shoul d bring the man of fees, I leaned me down upon a tomb, to! make 
the best of my involuntary seclusion. The dull glimmer of the twilight 
gradually withdrew, taking along with it all the fashion of ‘the Abbey, 
and all the forms of the monuments ; but ever as these things of earth 
