She and obtained at length her entire confidence, she hid nothing from me, and all her secrets were also mine. Henry imagine my happiness (when the death of my uncle enabled me to offer my heart to Sophia) to hear her avow, that hers had been given to me some time. "1 ought" said she, smiling, "to put amongst the advantages of blindness, the facility of hiding a sentiment that is always betrayed by the eyes; yes, Charles, I sought to hide from you, although I divined it was partaken; but could I imagine that with such a misfortune I could ever be yours! You will find in me always the tenderness of a friend with the love of a wife, but those attentions which ought to be reciprocal in a married life, I shall receive from you without the power of returning," "You can give me enough for my happiness," cried I," and without Sophia there could none exist for Charles." yielded at length to my ardent solicitations, and the certainty that I would never marry any other woman. This conversation, which decided the felicity of your friend, took place in that very arbour where I had seen you so penetrated with the inestimable price of my treasure, and where friendship now recalls thee. This month Sophia will take my name, and belong entirely to me. Sophia so good, so tender, to strange children, what will she be to ours if I have the happiness to become a father. Ours-this word alone tells me how happy I am! The tender joy of my Sophia's parent and mine adds to it still. "My daughter will not then be alone when I shall have ceased to exist," said she to me, "she will still possess the eyes and heart of a friend." My good Henry, the happiness of your Charles passes all expression, he wants but your presence. Recall how often in our childish conversations I have hoped that my wife might have fine eyes, I was ignorant then how much more beautiful is a lovely soul, and I have attained that how much better than my wish! To be the choice of Sophia comprehends all my pride and felicity. Come to witness my happiness and to heighten it; come, Sophia wishes for you also; we will wait for you in the arbour you quitted with so much regret. Your happy friend, CHARLES." Alas! these regrets were more lively than ever! I threw down the letter, I took it up again; my heart was divided between the most bitter grief and a tender sentiment for the happiness of those I so tenderly loved. "Be happy,” cried I at length; Charles, Sophia, you love each other, you are worthy of each other; Be happy!" But it was a long time before I could go to the arbour in the garden. THE BURNING KEY. A LEGENDARY TALE. THERE is perhaps no land like our beautiful England, so, abundant in legendary associations, so adapted to the mind of a weakly and nervous wanderer (who, wearied and palled, with the monotony of common history and common life, seeks, in the contemplation of the past, a diet more congenial with his sickly appetite) spotted as it is with the vestiges of departed ages, and every glen, and every road, and every stream, the scene of some traditionary marvel; the present with its deceit, and its vanity, and hypocrisy is forgotten, and the broad stream of the past, again floats over the face of the land. In the North broad and massy fragments, and ruined turrets, burst upon us at every point; in the West the habitation of man is now only indicated by the waving of the ripe corn, where once were congregated the thousands of the children of the kings of the world; in the East are the remains left by the fugitives of a more modern tyranny; and in the South, rich and deep woodlands and forests, hitherto unprofaned by the axe, but variegated by the lighter and more polished structures which have arisen in a more civilized age; yet, at a period still so remote that the hand of time has done its work on the feeble turrets, and the rich cornice, and the carved wall, and the variegated marble now crumbling into dust. Of such a structure, after a long and severe indisposition which had left my mind but the wreck of its former self, with a body proportionably enfeebled, I had become the tenant; one habitable turret alone remained of a spacious quadrangle, that, many years since, had fallen a prey to the devouring flames; but in that turret have I wasted hours in the contemplation of the ruin that surrounded me; or as my strength gradually, though slowly, returned, thence have I issued on many a tranquil eve, to wander through its deserted galleries, or gaze upon the lovely night from its decaying walls. Enough of the building yet remained to demonstrate its departed magnificence, and each portion still retained, in the traditions of the peasantry, the name by which it was once designated, when, to my imagination, the court yard was thronged by the young, and the VOL. II, gay, and the noble, where now a few aged animals were allowed to brouse upon the long grass that forced its way through the interstices of crumbling fragments of the ruined wall, or covered an irregular surface, where once, it is said, a fountain played. There was the damask chamber, the velvet saloon, and the chamber of images, and the banquetting hall, but all alike roofless! the chapel too, where I could yet fancy I heard a pealing chorus, or a Vesper hymn, was alike the scene of desolation; two or three elder trees, and a spreading ash, had possessed themselves of the floor, and the ivy climbing along, and clinging to the walls, had entwined itself around the niches of sculptured saints, which, blanched by the action of the fire, looked in the receding light, ghastly, contrasted with the dark and living drapery which time had flung fantastically around them. The abbey itself had been seated in one of the wildest glens at the foot of the South Downs, embowered in deep woodlands, and surrounded by elm and larch, and oak, and acacia, the growth of ages; and from many points of the building, over the surrounding woods, a long range of hills was visible in the setting sun. At that hour, and while the old game-keeper, to whom the desolate turret was intrusted, and whose avocations, old as he was, aroused him with the lark, was at rest, I would steal forth from my chamber, take my solitary station at some disconsolate oriel, or some craggy arch, to the alarm, perchance, of the belated peasant, who hurried by with averted glance, as his eye caught in the dim twilight the motion of my arm, or the waving of my dress as it rose and fluttered in the evening breeze. There were many traditions in circulation regarding the conflagration to which the structure had fallen a victim; secluded as I was, however, but few of them had reached me, and though my mental weakness was prepared for the reception of any tradition however wild, none had made any impression on me. Day after day, evening after evening thus fled away; but ever as I took my evening station, which had, like other habits, now become necessary to me, I had observed first dim and indistinct in the distance, the figure of an aged peasant apparently angling in the stream, which deepened and confined by the abbey walls, had once served as a kind of moat, and been passed by a bridge, whose ancient cycloidal* arches *It is a singular circumstance, that the cycloidal arch which has been supposed to do so much honor to Mr. Rennie as the inventor, and of which we are accustomed to regard the Waterloo Bridge as the only specimen hitherto perfected, occurs more than once in Sussex, there is one on the property, I think, of Lord I still remained, but which dwindled into a small, but rapid rivulet in the distance, wound itself circuitously into a wild and romantic valley more than once crossing the road, which, like most of those in the wild part of the country, appear to have been in some remote age, the channel of a mountain stream, of which the hand of man had taken advantage for his own purpose of communication. I am no fisherman, or this rivulet would have had temptations for me, which would probably have weaned me from my solitary vigil by night, for it had the reputation of an excellent trout stream. have known, however, those who are, and I was therefore the less surprized that the old man should forever resume his nightly occupation on its bank, ́regardless of wind or sleep; but it at length struck me, as not a little singular, that whilst on every succeeding night he took his station nearer, and his motions became more distinct, I should never have observed him to be successful in his operations: his line seemed ever in the water; but he never appeared in the act of one who has what is termed 'sport;' his occupation seemed, in fact, as monotonous as mine, save that at times the wind would bear to me the low murmurings of a song, a singular anomaly as I then thought in my simplicity, having ever been taught to consider fishing a silent sport; at length his approaches were brought so near, that I could distinctly trace the words of a wild melody, which he chaunted at times in a low voice more resembling the weaving of a charm, and then with rapid transition, in a quick undulating tone, that seemed to keep time with the wave that rippled at his feet. No time will efface the burthen of this melody from my recollection: THE ANGLER'S SONG. Rapidly, rapidly over its bed The bubbles as they rise, And so forgotten dies; Robert Spencer, near Midhurst. It has two perfect cycloidal arches, and I should conjecture cannot have been built less than 200 years. HOPKINS, And struggles ever but to die, Drives the rain, or drifts the sleet When clouds in hurried contact meet, But woe! alas! for the fatal hour, I had so often listened, almost without consciousness to the wildness of this strain, and without reference to the import of its words, that when they first became intelligible, I remember starting like one who had been the unconscious auditor of some tremendous warning of evil addressed to himself, and which he only comprehends when too late to avert it; but, from that instant, there was a fascination in his voice that ever led me to the spot and kept me there. It was no longer the love of lonely misery, a high and more momentous impulse was upon me; I felt myself the conscious agent of some great work to be accomplished; the old man's song was ever after addressed to me, and to me only; at length I accosted him; he shewed no symptom of surprize, that Ifa stranger, should address myself to him, his reply was as to one with whom he was familiar, or for whose appearance he had been prepared; he entered too on the explanation I required of him with an alacrity, and an unhesitating freedom, whilst, not for an instant was his task remitted; but what was my amazement when I at length learned that all his efforts were for the recovery of a key, a charmed key! his tale was comprized in a few words, at first I treated it as the wild imagination of a diseased intellect; by degrees my mind accustomed itself to receive it as reality, until at length I no more thought of doubting it than my own identity; "the abbey had," he said, and as I well knew, "from time immemorial, belonged to the Montagues; he was himself the only remaining tenant of the last of the race, who had, in the pride of his power, and his |