Voices aloft on the hill do ye hear? Some that are distant, and some that are near? Readers of either sex and of every age! If ye have faith in these and similar supernaturalities, why should ye not have faith in my coming narrative, albeit to those whose earth-bound fancy hath no wings, it may seem to surpass the compass of belief? Why should I cajole ye with baseless gossipry? Me, on whose head Time hath so long scattered snows that its life current must soon be frozen; me, nameless, unknown, and never appetent of fame; me, whom the golden bait of authorship hath long ceased to tempt, what imp of falsehood could beguile, what youthful freak incite, what mercenary spirit urge to pen an aimless fabrication?-Distrust, if so ye list-for I myself am thus far incredulous (although the predictions poured into mine ear were melodised by spirit lips)-distrust the possibility of their final accomplishment; but that the strange Apocalypse vouchsafed to me was made distinctly cognisable to my senses, neither ye nor I can entertain a warrantable doubt. To facts, however, to facts! and a truce to this preambulous discursion. I To render my disclosure intelligible, it is necessary to premise that I have ever been a conservative and a protectionist, staunch, strenuous, consistent-ay, and independent of all other influence than my own conscientious convictions; for not an acre of land have I ever possessed; to no shackles of party have I ever yielded up my mind. Glad to shut out the fogs of last November, which added gloom to my desponding thoughts, I rang the bell for candles, and sinking into my study fauteuil, endeavoured to dispel my dejection by stimulating the fire into a cheerful blaze. Vain attempt! its flickerings seemed but to show more clearly the darkness of our national prospects, even as the lightning flash, after disclosing its own ravage, deepens the subsequent obscurity. Over the pages of the Morning Herald and the Morning Post, journals which I regularly peruse, I cast an anxious eye, but there all was sombre and ominous, all tended to persuade me that "bad begins and worse remains behind." Lands thrown out of cultivation; " a bold peasantry, their country's pride," dying in the weed-choked fields, or driven by thousands into the workhouse; a famine desolating the whole country; a general bankruptcy impoverishing its inhabitants; enemies on all sides taking advantage of our weakness; and England finally lying "at the proud foot of a conqueror;" such were the dire prognostics my brooding fancy hatched; such were the coming events that projected their hideous shadows around me. 66 Hovering as I am upon the verge of life's allotted term," such was my ejaculation, or rather my articulate groan, "perchance I may not personally behold these appalling horrors; yet I must confess-such is the insatiable curiosity pervading my soul, that I should enjoy the melancholy triumph of witnessing the accomplishment of my predictions, and of pitying the dumb-founded confusion of the free-traders. Not only the immediate, but the remote effects of these ruinous measures, and the consequent confirmation of my unheeded warnings would it yield me *See a new translation of Faust by Captain Knox, unquestionably the fullest and most faithful that has yet appeared. a mournful gratification to behold. Oh! how I envy my grand and great-grandchildren, who shall contemplate the full accomplishment of my prophecies. Oh! that my guardian angel would conjure me up from the tomb, a hundred years hence, only for a single hour, that so I myself, like a second unbelieved Cassandra, might behold over the width and breadth of the afflicted land the perfect and entire fulfilment of my predictions! After the impassioned utterance of this aspiration, I resumed the perusal of the journals, which, by some unaccountable but not unprecedented influence, gradually steeped my senses in a total and a profound obliviousness, How long I remained in this death-like trance I know not, but as animation almost imperceptibly returned, mine ears were ravished with the sound of dulcet and delicious music, not resembling earthly strains, but rather like a dream of melodies celestial. Round about me, and stealing as it were into my very soul, floated at the same time exquisite odours, such as might have been wafted from the flower-garden of Eden, when offering up the incense of its first perfume. Anon a faintly shimmering light diffused itself around; it spread, it grew gradually brighter, and lo! with a cold shudder that thrilled through every nerve, I discovered that I was lying outstretched in a vaulted grave! Slowly, as if unwillingly, did the stealthy gleam creep up the mildewed walls, lazily did it crawl along the dripping arch, fitfully did it flicker on the plates of a pile of coffins at the further extremity of the sepulchre, ghastly was the hue it cast upon the winding sheet in which I was shrouded! Describe my sensations at that moment? Impossible! Under the joint assaults of bewilderment and horror was I fast sinking, when I was revived by a feeling of intense curiosity, as the wandering luminousness, collecting itself into a focus, assumed the semblance of a human, or rather of a celestial head surmounting a train of roseate light, whose outlines described a form of faultless symmetry. Oh! how exquisitely beautiful was that seraph head, how angelic the smile that beamed in its azure eyes and dimpled mouth, how bright the coruscations of the ringlets, as they fell like golden hyacinths upon the alabaster shoulders, and lost themselves in the lambent form beneath. As I gazed upon this so glorious apparition I heard the striking of a deep-mouthed church-clock, whose echoes, reverberating, as it seemed, through hollow aisles, died tremblingly away in the dumb darkness. Never was contrast of sound more total or more delightful when my celestial visitant, converting breath into music, exclaimed, in tones of tuneful suavity, "Rememberest thou thy wish when thou wert dying?" Dying!" I ejaculated with an incredulous recoil, although the coffined vault attested that I had indeed been committed to the tomb, "not the smallest recollection have I of my decease. How long have I been numbered with the dead ?" 66 Exactly one hundred years have elapsed since, with thy last breath, thou didst prefer an ardent aspiration which thy guardian angel, summoning thee back to life for the purpose, stands now ready to vouchsafe unto thy prayer." "An angel, and yet unfurnished with wings," I ventured to murmur. Wings are for inferior spirits; celestials of my class, by a mere ex ercise of volition, are enabled to outstrip the fleetest pinions. Whither wouldst thou that I should transport thee?" "How and where can I exhibit myself in these hideous graveclothes ?" "Fear not. We shall both be 'invisible to mortal eye.'” "To the House of Parliament," was my answer, suggested, probably, by my frequent visits to that structure when it was unfinished. Scarcely had the words escaped my lips when I found myself standing before the building, complete in all its architectural grandeur and beauty, but already discoloured by the breath of a London century. Closely thronged were its avenues by a crowd of orderly and well-dressed people, who presently drew back to make way for two plain carriages, in the foremost of which sate a man of pleasant and paternal aspect, who bowed graciously to the multitude as they saluted him with uplifted hats, and affectionate looks, and cordial greetings and blessings. "Who is it?" I inquired of my mysterious companion. "Thou art gazing upon King Albert the Fifth, about to open a new sessions of parliament." "The king!" I ejaculated, royal arms." "those coach-panels did not display the "Thou didst not behold the vain, frivolous, pride-born blazonry of the Herald, upheld by savage beasts and monsters fabulous. Long since has that senseless ostentation been exploded, but thou didst gaze nevertheless upon the royal arms of England-a crown, supported by Liberty and Law." "But I hear no trumpet blast, no clattering of hoofs, I see no glittercorselets. Where are his majesty's life-guards ?" "Everywhere: they are round about thee on all sides; his people are his panoply; scarcely has he a subject who would not gladly peril his life to save that of his sovereign. Thou seemest astonished at a royal popularity equally unquestioned and unprecedented. Listen, and thy surprise will vanish. Albert the Fifth, inheriting the domestic virtues and the amiability of his ancestor, Queen Victoria's consort, seeks to glorify the crown rather than to be made vain-glorious by wearing it; to derive his splendour from inward rather than from external greatness. Therefore has he voluntarily surrendered to the nation the superfluous revenues which his predecessors had so idly wasted in building gew-gaw palaces, not less tasteless than costly; in lavishing sumptuous banquets upon parasites already surfeited with feasts; in heaping up jewels and plate and other useless luxuries; or in incessant journeyings with numerous retinues, and without any visible object, from one residence to another. In the same spirit hath he abolished all those humiliating, useless, and fantastical court offices, relics of barbaric pomp, and of a darker age, which served but to generate a slavish sycophancy in the worshippers, and a perilous sense of self-sufficient irresponsibility in the idol. It is the great ambition of Albert the Fifth that his people should see in their monarch nothing more than a chief magistrate; in their chief magistrate nothing less than a father.' Loyal and conservative as I am, this strange revelation startled and displeased me. Of such innovations, thought I, a monarch may be the anthor, but their spirit and tendency is anti-monarchical, radical, revolutionary, and their results must be direful. To these impressions, how ever, as they seemed not to be shared by my guardian angel, I gave not utterance, but stared into the carriages as they passed, hoping to recognise some familiar face of noble or of commoner. What singular fatuity! I forgot that in the century which had elapsed my patrician and plebeian acquaintance must long since have mingled their dust together. At this moment a partial opening of the crowd revealed to me, in front of the parliament house, three large marble statues, in which I recognised the effigies of Sir Robert Peel, Cobden, and Father Mathew! But little was I surprised at the sight of the two last, for Cobden, violating no pledge, had effected a great commercial change, and had upset a powerful government; while Father Mathew, accomplishing a still greater moral revolution, had entitled himself to the gratitude, not only of his own country, but of the whole human race. But that the baronet whom I had left ousted, powerless, and almost without a party, should occupy the proudest post of honour in front of the legislatorial palace, sorely perplexed my faculties. Yet did it recall to me the prediction of a Free-trade acquaintance, the only one of that obnoxious party whom I ever knew. "Posterity," he said, "will do that justice to Sir Robert which his contemporaries have denied; and if you yourself live ten years longer, I foresee that you will reverse Goldsmith's well-known lines upon Burke, and admit Peel to have been a great, bold, and successful legislator, who, feeling that he was— "Born for the universe, widen'd his mind, And the claims of his party gave up to mankind." Again did I gaze upon the occupants of the passing vehicles, and the face of one having awakened a recollection of England's primate, whom I had once known, I suddenly exclaimed, "I see not any bishops' carriages driving towards the house." "Because there are no bishops; their order hath been abolished," whispered my companion. "Ha! then all my worst fears are confirmed!" was my indignant exclamation-" democracy and sectarianism have triumphed, and another Puritan revolution has levelled all." "Speak not in the rashness of ignorance," interposed my companion, "it is pure and primitive piety that hath triumphed, and not any factious spirit of Dissent. Hearken to my words, for their import ought to gladden, not disturb thy soul. Nearly fifty years have now elapsed since a self-convened ecclesiastical synod met to deliberate whether or not their appointment, habits, and position, were consonant to the spirit of Christianity. On the one hand they reviewed their solemn renunciation, when ordained and consecrated, of all worldly pomps and vanities, more especially of all avaricious appetencies; they recalled the Scriptural averment that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven; they perpended the recorded opinion of the most learned episcopalian writers, that the office of bishop above other pastors in the church, has no foundation in the oracles of God; they frankly confessed the inconsistency of the fiction which, giving them a seat in the House of Lords as temporal barons, tempted them to become political partisans, rather than ‘ensamples of the flock,' as enjoined by St. Peter; candidly did they admit that the pledged abjurers of filthy lucre and all its degrading influences, ought not to clothe their numerous menials in purple and fine linen, to live in sumptuous palaces, to revel in luxurious indulgences, and accumulate enormous fortunes. 666 my reverend brethren!' exclaimed the primate of that day, 'let not the fearful words of the Lord be any longer applicable to us; they have reigned, but not by me; they have become princes, but I know them not.' Convinced that the false position in which they stood was a scandal to the church, the members of the synod, all of whom were conscientious men, deeply imbued with the spirit of Christianity, unanimously signed a petition to parliament, praying that their order might be abolished, and their revenues be applied to charitable purposes, which was done accordingly." An involuntary groan escaped from me at this astounding intelligence, and I could not help remarking, that such a wholesale surrender of rights and property in the prelacy, must eventually injure the whole body of the clergy, by raising a popular cry for the extinction of tithes. "Such might have been its effect," resumed my companion, "but it was rendered unnecessary by the clergy themselves, who, in imitation of their episcopal leaders, voluntarily resigned an impolitic impost, productive of endless disputes, lowering, while it professed to uphold, the Christian ministry, and abundantly confirming the words of Archdeacon Paley, when he declared that, ' Of all institutions adverse to cultivation and improvement, none is so noxious as that of tithes. They are not only a tax upon industry, but upon that industry which feeds mankind, upon that species of exertion which it is the aim of all wise laws to cherish and promote.' "And what," I impatiently exclaimed, "what has become of the church after this perilous severance from the state?" "Taking deeper root, and spreading its branches more widely over the land than ever, it hath returned to its primitive simplicity and purity, exemplifying the words of the same church dignitary who condemned the tithes. "Our religion, as it came out of the hands of its Founder and his apostles, exhibited a complete abstraction from all views, either of ecclesiastical or civil policy. In fact it is little better than profanation to imagine that the religion of God and of truth stands in need of the support of the state.' Let me confess, that at this moment a harrowing suspicion shot athwart my mind, especially when I recalled the saying, that the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. Is it possible, thought I, that a good angel could narrate, not only without indignation, but with manifest complacency, such revolutionary inroads upon our most hallowed institutions? The misgivings and the words of Hamlet recurred to me— The spirit that I have seen, May be a devil, and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps, As if to confirm this horrible suspicion, my companion, when I expressed a wish to visit the House of Lords, replied, "That it had ceased to exist by that title for nearly forty years! It was then discovered," such |