514 A Dream in Westminster Abbey. [Nov- 
The thing itself had none of those engines of terror and weapons of 
destruction with which painters and poets have invested death. There 
was no dart or javelin about him ; and the bones which we usually see 
painted were not in the figure, but in the ‘mount’ upon‘which he was 
seated. He appeared, in short, not like a being, ‘but like’a shroud,—a 
pale and dull shroud which covered something :'* but’ ‘what that some- 
thing was I could not discover, and Time would not tellame:) He “ had 
never seen it—it had never been seen by one with whom heicould hold 
communion afterwards ; and not even the» echoed voice of its beholder 
had been echoed back to hint what it. was like.” Butsone»might so far 
imagine; the folds of the shrouds were awful, in their:make and their 
simplicity ; and they told that the thing which they concealed was of 
dimensions and of powers more mighty than ever fable figured of those 
giants who warred against the gods, or more than that arch fiend who 
could not be vanquished save by the thunder of the Eternal, himself. 
The thing, as I have said, sat motionless—sat hidden in the cold and 
shadowy sublimity of the shroud; and no limb or member of it was 
visible, save one cold and withered right hand, which was stretched out 
with most dread expressiveness, and upon which it was fearful to look. 
I trembled and shuddered afresh. «“ Fear not,” said Time, “ it is the 
choice of Heaven that Death, all-dreadful and all-powerful as he is, 
cannot come, or even so much as look hither. Strong as he is, he is the 
minister,—often the minister of comfort, for one more, infinitely more 
powerful than himself. Placed here, upon the confines of the world to 
which you and I belong, he is the porter to the Land of ‘Light and of 
Life. That place he has kept since the first-born of woman laid his 
murderous hand upon his brother, and that place he must keep while 
there is one of your race left in the land of the living... \When that 
ceases to be—when the. decree of the Almighty, is); accomplished— 
when the measure of his pleasure and glory, from,the world’s creation, 
termination, and redemption, is full—when all have gone to their 
place, and the unchanging seal is upon them—when [ shall,be no more, 
Death shall be swallowed up in victery, and the. Eternal, himself shall 
be all in all.” , 
As I stood listening to this description, and looking at the thing 
described, a man whom I had often met with in the sports and occupa- 
tions of life glided past me. He was pale and emaciated, and seemed 
hurrying onward as if to rid himself of agony which he could no longer 
support. The instant he made his appearance, Time seemed to forget 
me. He moved onward, and brought my old friend to where Death 
was. ‘Time halted, and the weary man made but one tottering step 
forward ; and I rather think he was pushed by some one that I did not 
see. Just as he was in the act of passing, the cold hand came upon 
him, and then, moved towards that part of the shroud which concealed 
what possibly was a face. That instant my friend vanished, I know 
not whither; and I heard the sound of bones mingling ‘with the heap, 
the only noise, since that of Time, which had broken, thesilence of the 
place. Looking earnestly, in order to discover. where he,had gone, I 
thought I saw the hand again touch the shroud, and, half diselose some- 
thing to me. I stretched and stretched; and, awakening, found that 
the day had arisen, and that the doors of the Abbey were open. 
