1826. ] A Dream in Westminster Abbey. 513 
every arrow of remorse quivering in his soul, could feel what I now 
felt, or dread what I now dreaded. I had before been in what appeared 
to me about the maximum of external insignificance and suffering ; I 
had been abandoned by my race,—had been in the midst of the waves— 
those waves had been fearful—the wind which agitated them had been 
unrelenting, and all things had felt so new and so hopeless, that even 
the proteeting hand of heaven might have been accused as letting me 
slip from its grasp. But still, in the agony of all these, there remained 
a touch and a consciousness of the reality of life—a something, however 
small and however unstable, upon which hope could rest the sole of her 
foot—an opening amid the darkness, through which I might occasionally 
catch a little glimpse of her smiling. The horrors of the physical 
world, deepen them as you will, ever partake of its finitude and mor- 
tality,—they are what we can see, and hear, and handle; but when the 
terror is in the mind itself—when it is the immortal part only that is in 
agony-—no lapse of years can count, and no measuring line can fathom 
what we then experience. 
Gladly would I have returned to even the worst of my former 
condition; I looked for the patient glimmering light—all was dark. 
I felt for the tombs and the column—all was vacuity. I listened, 
if so be that my ear could catch the music of the wind, or the deep 
chorus of the city; but to my ear there was no sound. To my eye 
there was nothing but my hoary guide; and, as on former occasions, the 
‘reality of time would not give me up, and deliver me from the horrors 
of my real situation; so now the image of Time would not disappear, 
or allow me to escape back to that which I had often dreaded and 
wished to avoid, from the more indescribable horrors of the imagina- 
tion. 
I shuddered, I shrunk, and would have escaped from my conductor; 
but the grasp of his hand was upon me, and it upheld, and would not 
quit. He passed it over my eyes, and I felt that, though the gloom had 
if possible deepened, my vision through it was more perfect. “ Though 
I dim the eye of the body,” said he, “I can brighten that of the mind ; 
but as that which you have expressed a wish to see is appalling, step 
behind me, and view it through the plumage of my wing.” 
I stepped behind him. He paused. The fringe of his pinions was 
as a veil over my eyes. “ Look,” said he, “but dread nothing ; while 
I am with him, man cannot feel, and therefore should not fear Death.” 
The form, if form it could be called, was now before me. I required not 
to be told what it was; I knew, from the stilly coldness which was about 
it. I had felt strangely when the figure of Time first caught my view; 
but my feeling now, though stranger still, was entirely different. On 
that occasion, I had at least essayed to stand on the defensive ; but in’ 
this, if Time had not been between, I should at once have surren- 
dered myself to the spectacle; and if Time had not renewed his 
assurance of return, despair and oblivion had been my choice. 
Chilly, motionless, and alone, the stern conqueror of all created things 
appeared in majesty, unlike any thing that ever can be told in language or 
painted by the fancy of living man. I had thought almost the same of 
Time ; but Time was nothing in obscureness and gloom to Time’s con- 
queror. His throne, or seat, for | know not which it was, was the 
bones of all living creatures. The eye could not measure their extent, 
the tongue could not. count their number ; and, as far as I could judge, 
they were all mutilated, broken, unsightly, and falling into decay. 
M.M . New Series —Vov.II. No.11. 3U 
