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THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES.

[The Ancients entertained an idea, that the Celestial Bodies emitted melodious sounds on their passage through the Heavens-every Planet and Star, according to this strange fiction, being accompanied by Music of its own creating.]

SOFT are your voices, O! ye spheres, Even as the tones of other yearsUnheard, and yet remembered still, 'Mid gleams of joy or clouds of ill. Why move ye on from day to day, Scattering sweet sounds upon your way? Wherefore those strains, like incense flung By white-robed priest upon the wind, Or music from an angel's tongue, Whose echo lingers long behind, And fills with calm delight our ears? For such your murmurs are, O spheres! Solemn your march, and far remote The fairy region where ye float. No human power your tones may catch, No seraph voice their softness matchFancy alone, with listening ear, Their echoing streams of sound can hear; And thinks, as with enraptured eye She marks your bright orbs sweep the sky, To seize those notes which mortals deem A fabulous unsubstantial dream.

But never, tuneful orbs, to me

Shall your strange music fable be.

I hear ye float on airy wing

Upon the genial breath of spring.
By you the pointed beams of light
Are wing'd with music on their flight.
On falling snow and cloudlet dim
Your spirit floats-a holy hymn.
Methinks the South wind bears your song,
Blended with rich perfumes, along :
Even Silence with his leaden ear
Your mystic strain is forced to hear,
And Nature, as ye sail around

Her viewless realm, is fill'd with sound.
Such the wild dreams of airy thought
By Fancy to the poet taught.

Roll on, roll on, majestic spheres,
Through the long tide of coming years;
Voices to you of old were given
To sing your glorious path through heaven;
Voices to hail the dawn of light,
Voices to charm the ear of Night,
And make sweet music as ye stray
In Myriads through the milky way.

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Farewell! thou wast a flower that to the Farewell-farewell; although we are below, And thou in Heaven, thou shalt not be

day,

In beauty and in bloom, sweet perfume gave;

A star that shone o'er earth with lucid ray;

A white bird floating on the halcyon

wave.

Farewell! thy like again we may not know;
Farewell! to die untainted was thy lot;

forgot.

The blackbird singing, when the woods are mute;

The clear blue sky; the blossom on the

tree;

The tenderest breathing of the gentlest lute; All things of pure and fair are types of thee !

FRIAR BACON'S KEY.

"THERE are two modes, in the pre- west-end of the town. The object I sent day, by which any one may get had selected for the foundation of my the name of a liberal man, and in the new character as a "patronizing man," lottery of good things, I know few re- was a Venus or a Hercules, that Mr. putations more profitable. Be what C had to sell: the antiquarians you please, or do what you please, it could not decide which of the two matters little, so long as you have a characters above named properly becharacter for generosity. This single longed to it; and no wonder, seeing virtue, or, what will do just as well, that the god or goddess had been by the appearance of it, will stand you in time and accidents so reduced and stead of all the other virtues; it is a shorn of its original properties, as to cloak to cover the inward nakedness, bear no bad resemblance to a milean umbrella to keep off the pitiless stone-saving only in its material, pelting of the storm when it is pouring which, I can vouch, without being a somewhat too freely on the head of connoisseur, to have been genuine unworthiness. In short, what is it marble. Such as it was, however, not, in the way of profit or defence, the fame of this mutilated sculpture to the fortunate possessor? Nor is had roused the whole body of antithe obtaining of it, by any means, as quarians, equestrian and pedestrian, I have said, a difficult task to him who amateurs and professors. Anxious, has a purse, the roads to it being an at least, to be able to say I had bid hundred fold-among the best, say, for such a rarity, even though I should subscribing to some fund, where the fail to win it, for want of that species money is not wanted; or purchasing, of courage which, I opine, is the highat an enormous price, some works of est of all courage, namely, the courage art that you don't understand or care to part with one's money, I hurried to about, and setting up a museum. As the auction-room at an early hour, and to your children or relations, if you found the orator already risen, and happen to have any, you need not holding forth, with much eloquence waste a thought upon them; for, as and learning, upon a very equivocal all you may do on their account is no as well as humble article. What that more than what you ought to do, it article was, I must not venture to say; cannot redound to the praise of your wanting the speaker's exquisite powers liberality; and, therefore, you may as of periphrasis, which enabled him at well leave it undone." once to veil and ennoble that subject, which, to say the truth, stood in need both of one assistance and the other. Indeed, as my friend Dives remarked to me in a whisper, the dapper, smooth-chinned gentleman, with his starched collar, his oily tongue, and still more oily face, looked the very genius of crockery, the born Apollo of Delft

Such was the advice of my friend Dives; and, as it happened to chime in with my own notions of the truth, I resolved to send my poor relations to any one who might think proper to take them in; while, in the meantime, I opened my "collecting" campaign in a celebrated auction-room at the

and China-ware. But my mind was bent on higher matters, namely, on the Venus or Hercules, and I soon grew heartily sick of the tropes and similes that buzzed about my ears like so many May-chaffers on a warm summer's evening. All the bidding and battling previous to the struggle for the precious statue, appeared as so much tedious prologue to the grand drama, or skirmishing, by way of prelude, to the grand engagement. But still, in spite of my disregard or contempt, I grew out of patience as the delay continued. First I tried my snuff-box-next I beat the devil's tattoo with my feet-next I grew hotthen hotter-then boiling hot-then red-hot-till by the time the orator had come to lot ninety-seven, an antique key, the fever had exhausted itself, and with itself, exhausted me; and the previous tension of the nerves was succeeded by a gentle inclination to drowsiness, which was only at all resisted or kept back by the unaccountable interest I all at once seemed to take in this old key. It was only a key, and old, and green as the copper sheathing of a vessel after a twelvemonth's voyage ;-nothing more than an old-fashioned massive key with a sliding ring in place of the fixed one that crowns the modern handle. But for all this I could not help listening as the price rose, and what was worse, bidding, though every " I thank you, Sir," of the auctioneer, sounded in my ears marvellously like, "well nibbled, gudgeon; take another snap, fool; the hook is not well in your gullet yet!"

"Gentlemen," said the orator, "this key is a key-I mean a key katerochen-that is, ladies, par excellence, the key of keys,-it can be traced up into the possession of the celebrated Friar Bacon, the inventor of gunpowder. Look at it, ladies and gentlemen,-smell it,-taste it." Here Mr. Fudge suited the action to the word, and, licking his lips, went on with an air of ineffable relish.-"Excellent! I protest it has the true antique relish-none of your modern rust, but the genuine tinge of the old

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"Because I don't buy for myself; am only the lion's jackall, you know. Ha! ha!"

"You may rely upon its being genuine," continued the orator, seeing the little man still hesitate, though half convinced by the Latin which he did not understand, and by his own joke of the jackall." You may rely upon its being genuine.-Allow me to say five guineas, just to begin with, though, I trust, we shall not stop short of a hundred."

The little man nodded.

"Thank you, Sir," said the orator, bowing." Five guineas, gentlemen, is bid for this rare piece of antiquity, this gem that has existed almost three hundred years."

"Nearer six," cried a young man, who stood near me,-" that is, if it belonged, as you say it did, to Roger Bacon, the monk of Brazen Nose."

Mr. Fudge colored up to his eyes at this unsolicited correction of his chronology; but, as it was his business to buy golden opinions of all men, he replied, with a bow and a smile-the two usual adjuncts, by the way, of all his replies-" Much obliged to you, Sir, for the correction.-Six hundred years old.--Will no lady or gentleman say any thing?-Going for five guineas.-Really it is a mere giving away of this valuable relic.- Six,'-Thank you, Sir,- Eight,-Ten,-Twenty, -Twenty-five.' Twenty-five guineas are bid for Friar Bacon's key.--Going, -going, going for only twenty-five guineas, and the treasure perfectly unique!-a rarity that has not its parallel!-We may suppose that this was the key of the monk's sanctum,why should it not be ?-of that celebrated chamber, of which the legend says it is to stand till entered by a greater scholar than Bacon, when it is

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"Egad! Fudge goes beyond himself to-day," whispered Dives. "Was not that last a glorious bit of the sublime?" Magnificent!" I said, and SO loudly that the orator overheard me, and replied to the compliment, as if to a bidding, with his customary "Much obliged, Sir.-Twenty-five guineas.-Going, for the last time, and the relic six hundred years old! Here is a gentleman vouches for its being six hundred years old."

"I vouch for no such thing," said my young neighbor, "I only answer for the friar's having been dead that

time."

"Thank you, Sir,-much obliged for the correction," replied the smooth Mr. Fudge, who seemed as little able to travel out of his set phrases, as a horse to step beyond his tether."Thirty,-forty,-fifty,-pray, be speedy, gentlemen, for we have a host of treasures to get through.-In one minute, jacta est alea, the die is cast. -Going for fifty guineas-gone—.”

It was to myself that the key was knocked down at this enormous price, though why I had bid so much, or why I had bid for it at all, was a mystery past my own comprehension. I seemed to be acting under the power of some influence from without, independent of my own thoughts or my own volition. The key, however, was mine, and, being mine, I resolved to put good face on the business, and elevate its worth in the eyes of others, whatever I might think of it myself. Accordingly I handled my bargain with as much reverence as if it had been the purest gold instead of an old piece of iron eaten up with rust and verdigris, throwing into my face a certain imposing air of mystery, which seemed to say, "there is more in this, my merry masters, than you have the wit to fancy." Whether I succeeded or not in persuading any one else by this manœuvre, is more than I can pretend to say, but that I persuaded myself of it-strange as this will appear-is quite certain. The longer I

But

examined my prize, the deeper became my conviction that there was something in it, if I could only find out what that something was. there was the difficulty, which I could not contrive to get over, turn it which way I would. In short, I was much in the same plight with my friar's key that a savage of Otaheite would be, or rather would have been some years ago-he is wiser now-with a magic lantern, or a Dolland's microscopegood things enough in their way, if you only happen to know how to use them.

I fancy what I felt upon this occasion must have been expressed in my face, for the young man at my left hand, who had been at such pains to correct the orator's chronology, adding three hundred and odd years to the time since Roger Bacon had flourished at Brazen Nose, now stepped up to enlighten me.

"You have got a prize, Sir," he said, "though you must excuse me if I suspect you are not acquainted with its value."

"That is to say," I replied, "you think yourself the better antiquarian.” "I do not profess to be an antiquarian at all," said the young man, “ and if your purchase had no other value than its age, it would be, in my eyes, but a sorry bargain."

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"And what other value can it have?" I exclaimed. "Why, if the old friar himself were alive again, with all his art and magic to help him, I doubt if he could find any thing in this key beyond a piece of rusty iron." Why then, Sir, your bargain has been a sorry one. But you are wrong. The key has an intrinsic value, such as no antiquarian would have discovered, had he pored over it for a hundred years in the way he usually considers such things. If you will dine with me when all is over,-for this is not the fittest place to talk of these matters,— I will show you how this little piece of iron, if wisely used, may be worth to you more gold

ور

"More than I have paid?"

"More than is in the exchequer of princes."

Being somewhat of a saturnine temper, I have an antipathy to all jokes, whether practical or otherwise, and this wore the face of a very impudent one, yet I actually accepted his invitation. It is true, the young man had not the appearance of a joker ; on the contrary, his aspect, both from its longitude and lugubrousness was such as a professional mourner (where such artists are in request) would have deemed a fortune. And this, with a strong mixture of curiosity on my part, determined me to run all the peril of a hoax; the thing on earth I usually most dreaded, even beyond a mad dog or a lawyer.

I pass over the rest of the auction, which had now little interest for me, not excepting even the Venus, for a Venus Mr. Fudge pronounced the stone to be; and, if some people were right in their surmises, he had better reason than any one to be positive on the subject, having himself, as they said, superintended the manufacture of the deity. I thought no longer of any thing but my meeting with the young man at the coffee-house he had named, and the explanation to grow out of it. When the time did come, how tedious did the dinner seem! It appeared to my fancy as if it would never be over, so monstrous was the appetite of my host or guest, or so enormous my impatience conceived it. But as all earthly things must have an end, so had our meal. The last plate was cleared away, the last crumb swept from the cloth, the cloth itself borne off under the arm of the waiter, and a magnum of port wine placed between us with the remains of a bottle of sherry from the dinner. Now it was that I ventured to speak out plainly on the subject, to which hitherto he had not made the slightest allusion; and, at my first question, "What were the hidden virtues of the key he had so much vaunted?" the whole man was immediately changed, as if I had touched him with the rod of Aaron!

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hand, that my discourse will include things scarcely credible to men of this unbelieving age."

Why, truly," I replied, "we have not such an excellent capacity of belief as our forefathers had, but still we can do pretty well upon occasion."

"Yes," said my guest, with a sneer; "you do not believe in ghostsscarcely in a devil-but you do believe that a man's mental and moral qualities are regulated by the bumps on his skull-you do believe that ice ceases to be ice at the pole, and are even beginning to doubt shrewdly, whether you have souls; thus voluntarily abasing yourself from your high ranks, as things of immortal life, to the level of the brute beast-but let that pass, it concerns me not-and let me tell you in what consists the real value of that seemingly so worthless piece of iron."

"You would oblige me," I replied, "beyond measure. I am all impatience to hear the secret; and, as to the matter of belief, you will not, I fancy, find me a very hard customer, provided your goods wear any thing like the market stamp upon them."

"But it is strange," said my guest, in that low, emphatic tone, which strikes with such miraculous distinctness on the tympanum of an eager listener, "It is strange beyond the strangest wonder that science or history has yet recorded."

I was ready to burst with curiosity! "This little piece of green rusty iron," he went on, that, to judge from outward appearance, is hardly worth the trouble of picking from the ground, is—”

He paused again, and sipped his wine. In my heart I wished the port could be changed to salt and water; but I took care not to offend him by communicating this opinion.

"This key-and there are others, though not many, like it-commands the entrance to the central gardens of the earth; for this world is not quite what philosophers in their conceit have imagined it to be. If you have the courage to dare so far, in one hour you may be where gold and diamonds grow as thickly, aye, ten times more

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