136 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



Prerogative Office of the Archbishop of 

 CANTERBURY." A dark passage leads from 

 this opening into an oblong room, lined with 

 bookcases, so heavily burthened that they 

 groan again under the excessive weight. 

 Their contents, also, are a noticeable feature. 

 These are immense volumes, vellum-bound, 

 with iron rims, and massive back-bands. These 

 last resemble the gnarls on an old oak, now 

 that the lapse of centuries has destroyed the 

 contour they bore when they left the hands 

 of the cunning binders. This assemblage of 

 ponderous tomes forms merely the index to 

 the documentary contents of the place ; but 

 it is an index such as no volume of con- 

 secutive narrative could rival. Open but one 

 of its fasciculi upon one of those desks that 

 fill the centre of the room — open it at any 

 page, at any letter ; and if you do not find 

 your attention immediately riveted by its 

 brief glosses, we are not a true prophet. 



Had you, then, forgotten that kings and 

 conquerors, poets and orators were, after all, 

 but men with a keen eye to their household 

 gods, and a vulgar concern for the testamen- 

 tary disposition of their property ? Why is it 

 that you pause so abstractedly over the name 

 of Napoleon Buonaparte ; and, again, feel 

 such surprise as you note the entry that 

 relates to one William Shakespeare— a 

 poet who has written his name upon the 

 adamantine pillar of immortality ? Are 

 your ears so full of the roar of artillery, and 

 your fancies so elevated amidst the pinnacles 

 of poesy, that the details of mere matters of 

 pounds and shillings, and old coats, and best 

 and second best beds and bedding, seem to 

 you but ridiculous themes to occupy the 

 closing thoughts of the great general and the 

 great poet ? Alas, for sentimentality ! 

 These registers are its saddest enemies. 



Turning from the consideration of books — 

 mark the characters by which we are sur- 

 rounded. The ferret-eyed lawyer, poking 

 about that case yonder, with the dexterity of 

 an old practitioner ; that sombre widow, who 

 for the past half-hour has been looking 

 through her tears at the volume containing 

 the name of the " dear departed ; " the mere 

 youth, with the signs of incipient dissipation, 

 rebellious against his guardian's authority, 

 endeavoring to discover a pretext for open 

 defiance ; that pale, attenuated man, who 

 attends regularly every day, and searches 

 till his fingers and his eyes ache, and then 

 leaves, with a sigh, at the hour for departing ; 

 that shrewd-looking fallow, who is another 

 constant attendant, and who bears a family 

 resemblance to Joseph Ady ; and that 

 merry, smiling couple of young lovers, who 

 (for shame ! in such a place) are actually car- 

 rying on a flirtation over a sheepskin record. 



What searching is there here ! Never did 

 miner scrutinise more laboriously the mass of 



earth supposed to contain a mineral treasure, 

 than do this assemblage hunt through the 

 manuscript entries of the all-important 

 index. And see, — the widow has found all 

 the details she needs to place her in tempo- 

 rary possession of her husband's will. She 

 carries the book to a gentleman seated at a 

 high desk, points out the entry, pays a 

 shilling, and is ushered into an adjoining 

 chamber — there to await the result of another 

 search, which speedily results in the produc- 

 tion of the desired document. If the room 

 we have just quitted was a scene of active 

 excitement, the present one is its greatest 

 contrast. Here, seated before two or three 

 little tables, are people reading wills ; under 

 the supervision of an official, whose duty it 

 is to observe that none of them are muti- 

 lated ; or, what is scarcely less important, 

 that none are surreptitiously copied. Yet, 

 we observe some strange expedients adopted 

 to evade this prohibition. It is astonishing 

 what a number of pencils are used for tooth- 

 picks in this little sanctum ; and we would 

 wager that more thumb-nails than one carry 

 away, in black-lead characters, the substance 

 of testaments that have apparently only been 

 subjected to a hasty scan. 



It is an impressive sight to watch the 

 varied emotions impressed upon the features 

 of the temporary occupants, who here hold, as 

 it were, communion with the dead. Here 

 hopes and fears are realised ; here is consum- 

 mated the triumph of revenge, that mayhap 

 lingered in the heart of the dying ; here, too, 

 in such strange company, sweet charity 

 irradiates many a woe-begone cheek. This 

 is the counting-house of Death. " 



England is a " Protestant Country ;" and 

 it vaunts much of its mental superiority over 

 all other countries. But only let a chance 

 of getting gold appear ; and then see what a 

 (so-called) Christian's heart is made of. 

 Alas ! poor human nature ! 



MUSIC. 



Is it not sweet, when music's melting tone 



Falls in sweet cadence on the heart alone, 



To hear in twilight hour the echoes float 



Of pensive lyre, or clarion's wilder note ? 



Now with the whispering breeze the murmurs die, 



Now gush again in fuller melody ; 



Each wooded hill the trembling chords proloug, 



Whose bubbling waters mingle with the song. 



Fainter and fainter on the anxious ear 



Swells the rich strain — tho' distant, ever clear ; 



Till, lightly floating up the winding glen, 



Where jutting rocks reflect them back again, 



The echoes die, as when low winds inspire 



The softest cadence of ^Folian lyre. 



Scarce breathe the lips — scarce dare the bosom 



swell, — 

 For now the lowest sigh would break the spell, — 

 Still hopes the heart to catch one murmur more ; 

 Yet hopes in vain— the sounds have died before ! 



