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512 A Dream in Westminster. Abbey. [Nov. 
extreme, the scene did not improve, but on the other hand became 
more gloomy ; and had: it not been for the comfort which I had heard 
from the lips of my ancient conductor, and the aid that I from time to 
time had at his hand, my situation would have been altogether too’ sad 
for the endurance of man. Ans s4 
Finding that he was as willing to communicate as full of infor- 
mation, I asked him what was the strange region into which we had 
come, and who were its inhabitants. . He replied, that it. was the pre- 
cinct of Death; that it had no fixed inhabitant save the grim king 
himself; but that it was, sooner or later, traversed by every human 
creature; that whatever’ memorial they left, he (Time) was commis- 
sioned to moulder, in the same way that I had seen him occupied ; and 
that whatever he destroyed fell into the waters of oblivion, and so glided 
away. 
Startled at this information, I asked him whether we were bound 
toward the place where the gloomy monarch had his seat. At once and 
frankly he assured me we were not,—that though he was obliged to 
accompany every body to the presence of that awful power, and there 
take leave of them, yet that he himself was not the immediate agent or 
eause of any one’s going thither, except in a few extreme cases, where 
mere human, but more active agents, appeared to be unsuccessful. Thus, 
though he was continually on the wing, he had abundant leisure for that 
destruction of monuments—of wisdom or of folly, of power or of 
weakness, of kindness or of cruelty, of truth or of falsehood,—which 
was his chosen, his peculiar work. “ Strange to say,” added he, “ that 
which men pride themselves on the most, I can always change with the 
smallest exertion; and that which they build up with the greatest 
labour and the most anxious solicitude, I can crumble down with. the 
least effort of my strength.” My fears were again removed ; and fami- 
liarity with the spectre and the scene inspired me with more confidence 
than ever. Tasked him whether I might not see'the monarch of this 
mysterious region, and also learn a little of the more mysterious world 
which lies beyond the confines. of his empire. “ With all that I ean 
see of Death,” said Time, “ you shall be gratified ; but into the world 
beyond, it is not given to any being keeping my company, ‘or even to 
myself, to look for a single moment. When the eye of man opens upon 
that, I lose sight of him for ever; when it is disclosed unto all, I shall 
be as though I-had never been; and as I have destroyed the memorials 
of man, so this aged form’ shall be blotted out from the book of exis- 
tence, and eternal oblivion shall erase all my records, and annihilate 
every trace of my memory. But let us onward.” 
When he had said this, he seemed to take me by the hand; and 
deflecting, as I thought, from our former course, we proceeded at'a 
hurried rate; and though for some time we beheld nothing, heard 
nothing, and felt nothing, yet my blood ran cold as the ice-brook; or rather 
like the ice itself, it became cold and stony in my veins. I cannot say 
that there was gloom in the air, or desolation over the earth, for air or 
earth there was none—above, beneath, and around being one uniform’ 
and dark vacuity—as if the universe had been extinguished in all its 
attributes save that of ancient and unoccupied space. iy 2 O48 
Through this we proceeded—the external gloom and the internal 
horror deepening as we proceeded. No man, conscious’ that he ‘lives 
and breathes, even though every rack were exerted upon ‘his body,’ and 
ty 
