Zayda, once my heart was thine ;
I loved, I worshipped Zayda ;
Lightly vowed she to be mine,
But lighter still she changes,
But lighter still she changes.
He should harsh and heartless be,
Who seeks to fix thy fondness;
Love and truth are lost on thee,
Thou art so false and fickle;
Oh false and fickle Zayda,
Oh false and fickle Zayda!

And thus it continued, stanza after stanza, ringing the changes upon the name of Zayda, in the customary manner of the Spanish airs, half sigh and half song, to which the guitar and the castanet form so appropriate an accompaniment.

There was nothing striking, nothing elevated or extraordinary, still less any thing partaking of adventure, in this little scene; but nevertheless it interested and pleased, for it addressed the heart in the language of simple, artless, unaffected nature in its most unsophisticated form. I parted from the youthful triflers with regret: and I had ample leisure to reflect on the incident; for the way from Elche to Alicante is destitute of attraction, unless it be the prospect of its castle on the summit of a steep hill beetling over the calm blue waters of the Mediteranean.

Alicante is situated at the bottom of a small bay open to the sea, with a mole calculated to afford some imperfect protection to the anchorage ground

of the port. Upon a hill in the rear of the easternmost of the two capes forming the bay is the castle, while the buildings of the city stretch along towards the western cape, the first part being called La Villa Vieja, and the latter, which contains the principal shops and the cabildo, is distinctively termed La Ciudad. The whole range of the city, on the side next the Mediterranean, is fortified by a strong sea-wall, extending from the Baluarte de Ramiro at one end to that of San Carlos on the other; and suitable defensive works are constructed on the land side, so as to render Alicante a strong military post. It is a neat well-built town, with spacious squares and streets, and agreeable public walks ; and in other times has been busy and prosperous in the possession of very considerable commerce. There is a peculiarity in the position of its castle, which, imposing as it is to the eye at first view, ends in communicating the idea of great insecurity; inasmuch as the rock, on which the castle stands, rests upon a base of soft and crumbling earth, which constitutes the main bulk of the elevation. Its environs are celebrated for their wines; but the soil is wholly dependent upon irrigation for its productiveness, and derives a supply of water from a large reservoir constructed for the purpose. Such, in a few words, is a general idea of Alicante.

The Cathedral, dedicated to S. Nicolas, is not without merit and beauty as a work of art. It is constructed wholly of hewn stone, from quarries

behind the city, which furnish an abundant supply of excellent material for building. Over the entrance to the nave is a lofty dome, executed with much boldness and effect, but formed, like the rest of the interior of the structure, of naked stone, which, bare as it is to the eye, yet possesses withal an appearance at once dignified and simple. Arcades, opening into chapels, cover the sides of the church. Contiguous to the nave is a large chapel, denominated Capilla de la Comunion, composed of a dome supported on four arches, and ornamented entirely with sculptures; and from this chapel a very richly wrought door opens to a cloister or interior court planted with trees. As I stood in this chapel, the tinkling of a bell attracted my attention just in season to enable me to pay that deference, which it is neither safe, nor indeed reasonable, to refuse to the religious usages of the Spaniards.

A priest was conveying the consecrated host, for the purpose of administering the viaticum, or last rites of the church, to a soul about to depart on the great journey of eternity; and I fell on my knees in silence, in imitation of those about me, without stopping to reflect or desiring to reflect, whether the emotions of solemnity and awe, which the spectacle occasioned, were well or ill founded. I cannot say by what accident it had happened, that I never before was called upon for the demonstrations of reverence proper to such an occasion; and perhaps

it was the novelty of the fact, which contributed to give it a deeper hold upon my thoughts, and led me to make inquiry concerning the circumstances of the dying fellow creature, to whom the sign of salvation was to be borne. Fortunately I succeeded to a certain degree in gratifying my curiosity in this respect.

It was a young maiden, just blooming out into womanhood, on whose 'lovely limbs' death was laying his rude hands.' Her life had been spotless and serene, and her decease, if it rent asunder the dearest earthly ties, appeared rather like a glad assumption of the soul to its appropriate mansion on high, than a forced surrender of its mortal abiding place to the approaches of disease. She was made of

'That fragile mould,

That precious porcelain of human clay,'

which, too gentle and pure for the rude commerce of the world, scarce waits for the touch of time to snap asunder its transparent fabric. Consumption, -not in the form of a repulsive malady, but in that gradual decline of the functions of vitality, which fills the sorrowing parent or friend with contending despair and hope as he witnesses its almost insensible progress,-which steals upon us hour by hour as if only to prove to us how lovely and dear is the feeble being before us,-which seems to spiritualize the suffering body as it mines away its

energies, and, while it emaciates the frame and blanches the cheek, imparts a kind of seraphic sweetness to the soul, as if it were already purified from the dross of earth and were become a descended angel, rather than the mind of a mortal verging towards dissolution :—such was the cause and manner of her decease, whom the bereaved were now called upon to mourn in the agony of a wounded heart, and yet with the consolatory consciousness that she had exchanged the trials of time for the enjoyments of eternity.

She had hovered so long upon the wing, as if being just ready yet reluctant to depart, that none but a practised eye could have distinguished the immediate proximity of death. If, on that last day of life, any thing peculiar could be discerned in her aspect, it was not so much any manifestation or symptom of pain, as a more chastened gentleness of look, a more subdued sweetness of temper, the very air of immortality gathered like an aureola around suffering mortality, a breath of heaven breathed upon it as if to embalm the future denizen of the skies. She drooped with the declining sun, sinking, like him, with a softened, not a lessened brightness; and, as the last rays of his vanishing disk streamed into the windows of her apartment, -with an expression upon her fair features, which, if not indeed a smile, yet had all the sweetness of one, mellowed into that indescribable, saint-like serenity of look, which makes even death lovely,