ing at marbles there, seeing me in great trouble, left their play, and gathered about me to know what ailed me; and I told them all, for it was a great relief to me to speak to these poor childer, that seemed to have some natural feeling left in them; and when they were made sensible that Sir Condy was going to leave Castle Rackrent for good and all, they set up a whillalu that could be heard to the farthest end of the street; and one fine boy he was, that my master had given an apple to that morning, cried the loudest, but they all were the same sorry, for Sir Condy was greatly beloved amongst the childer, for letting them go a nutting in the demesne, without saying a word to them, though my lady objected to them. The people in the town, who were the most of them standing at their doors, hearing the childer cry, would know the reason of it; and when the report was made known, the people one and all gathered in great anger against my son Jason, and terror at the notion of his coming to be landlord over them, and they cried, "No Jason! no Jason! Sir Condy! Sir Condy! Sir Condy Rackrent for ever!" and the mob grew so great and so loud, I was frightened, and made my way back to the house to warn my son to make his escape, or hide himself for fear of the consequences. Jason would not believe me till they came all round the house, and to the windows with great shouts : then he grew quite pale, and asked Sir Condy what had he best do? "I'll tell you what you'd best do," said Sir Condy, who was laughing to see his fright; "finish your glass first, then let's go to the window and show ourselves, and I 'll tell 'em, or you shall, if you please, that I'm going to the Lodge for change of air for my health, and by my own desire, for the rest of my days." "Do so," said Jason, who never meant it should have been so, but could not refuse him the Lodge at this unseasonable time. Accordingly Sir Condy threw up the sash, and explained matters, and thanked all his friends, and bid 'em look in at the punch-bowl, and observe that Jason and he had been sitting over it very good friends; so the mob was content, and he sent 'em out some whiskey to drink his health, and that was the last time his honour's health was ever drunk at Castle Rackrent.

318.-DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM.

HOOD.

[THOMAS HOOD, born in London in 1798, was the son of a respectable publisher, of the firm of Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe. He was brought up an engraver;-he became a writer of Whims and Oddities, and he grew into a poet of great and original power. The slight partition which divides humour and pathos was remarkably exemplified in Hood. Misfortune and feeble health made him doubly sensitive to the ills of his fellow-creatures. The sorrows which he has delineated are not unreal things. He died in 1845, his great merits having been previously recognised by Sir Robert Peel, who bestowed on him a pension, to be continued to his wife. That wife soon fol

lowed him to the grave. The pension has been continued to their children.]

'Twas in the prime of summer time,

An evening calm and cool,

And four-and-twenty happy boys

Came bounding out of school:

There were some that ran, and some that leapt,

Like troutlets in a stream.

Away they sped with gamesome minds,

And souls untouched by sin;

To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in:
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
Over the town of Lynn.

Like sportive deer they coursed about,
And shouted as they ran—

Turning to mirth all things of earth,

As only boyhood can:

But the usher sat remote from all,
A melancholy man!

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His hat was off, his vest apart,

To catch heaven's blessed breeze;

For a burning thought was in his brow,
And his bosom ill at ease:

So he leaned his head on his hands, and read
The book between his knees!

Leaf after leaf he turned it o'er,

Nor ever glanced aside;

For the peace of his soul he read that book
In the golden eventide :

Much study had made him very lean,
And pale, and leaden-eyed.

At last he shut the ponderous tome;
With a fast and fervent grasp
He strained the dusky covers close,
And fixed the brazen hasp:
"O God, could I so close my mind,
And clasp it with a clasp!"

Then leaping on his feet upright,
Some moody turns he took;

Now up the mead, then down the mead,
And past a shady nook :

And lo! he saw a little boy

That pored upon a book!

My gentle lad, what is 't you
Romance or fairy fable?

Or is it some historic page,

read

Of kings and crowns unstable?"
The young boy gave an upward glance-

'It is the death of Abel."

The usher took six hasty strides,

As smit with sudden pain;
Six hasty strides beyond the place,
Then slowly back again :

And down he sat beside the lad,

And talked with him of Cain;

And, long since then, of bloody men,
Whose deeds tradition saves;

Of lonely folk cut off unseen,
And hid in sudden graves;
Of horrid stabs, in groves forlorn,
And murders done in caves;

And how the sprites of injured men
Shriek upward from the sod-
Ay, how the ghostly hand will point
To show the burial clod;

And unknown facts of guilty acts
Are seen in dreams from God!

He told how murderers walked the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain-

With crimson clouds before their eyes,
And flames about their brain :
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain!

"And well," quoth he, "I know, for truth,

Their pangs must be extreme

Wo, wo, unutterable wo

Who spill life's sacred stream!

For why? Methought last night I wrought

A murder in a dream!

"One that had never done me wrong

A feeble man, and old;

I led him to a lonely field,

The moon shone clear and cold: Now here, said I, this man shall die, And I will have his gold!

"Two sudden blows with a ragged stick,
And one with a heavy stone,

One hurried gash with a hasty knife-
And then the deed was done :

There was nothing lying at my foot,
But lifeless flesh and bone!

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'Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone,

That could not do me ill;

And yet I feared him all the more,
For lying there so still:

There was a manhood in his look,
That murder could not kill!

And lo! the universal air

Seemed lit with ghastly flame-
Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes
Were looking down in blame :
I took the dead man by the hand,
And called upon his name!

'Oh, God! it made me quake to see
Such sense within the slain !
But when I touched the lifeless clay,
The blood gushed out amain!
For every clot, a burning spot

Was scorching in my brain!

'My head was like an ardent coal, My heart as solid ice;

My wretched, wretched soul, I knew,
Was at the devil's price:

A dozen times I groaned; the dead
Had never groaned but twice!

"And now from forth the frowning sky, From the heaven's topmost height,

I heard a voice-the awful voice,
Of the blood-avenging sprite :
Thou guilty man! take up thy dead,
And hide it from my sight!'

"I took the dreary body up,
And cast it in a stream-
A sluggish water, black as ink,
The depth was so extreme.
My gentle boy, remember this
Is nothing but a dream!