to the sacred veil. The tissue, which I feared to find too heavy for the strength of my arm, was of the lightest silk; and the corner, which I touched, yielded to my slightest movement. In a moment the earth is brightened by a new day, and all is changed around me: broken rocks throw up their sharp points here and there; steep paths appear in the distance, mingled with perilous gulfs; the serpent rears his head, but it is no longer armed with the envenomed dart; again the precipices become easy to avoid or pass over; and there is no path so rough as not to be carpeted with flowers.

Emboldened with these changes, I proceeded to raise the rest of the magic curtain, and prostrated myself, dazzled and amazed, under the floods of light poured out from the new world around me. The dark vault of the cavern was opened, the firmament displayed above my head its globes of flame, and I seemed to hear the sublime harmony of the spheres, celebrating the praises of Him, who created sentiment and intelligence, the Infinite and the Eternal. My feeble sight could not have penetrated this ocean of splendor, even had I presumed to think of reading the bright volume of the skies. But near me, upon a vast tripod of bronze, with her eyes elevated towards heaven, and a balance and square in her hand, sat the auspicious Divinity, whom I had so often invoked. She displayed, under a light tunic, her transparent, her divine beauty, sometimes exhibiting only the stature, the

look, the appearance of a simple mortal, sometimes escaping from my dazzled sight, and sometimes elevating her radiant brow into the region of innumerable suns and of eternal melodies. Around her shone a brilliant and balmy atmosphere, which developed in my heart, as I breathed it, a joy indescribable, and a force as it were superhuman.

Farther off reposed upon the clouds, like travellers whose journey is ended, about sixty whitehaired spirits. The remotest of them were clad in the spoils of wild beasts; others in the flowing oriental robe, the Greek mantle, the Roman toga ; some in the tunic of Christian priests, others in armor of warriors from the north, or in the costume of later times. Whatever else might distinguish them, whether they held to view the trowel of Semiramis or Cheops, the tables of Solon or Numa, the crosier of our pontiffs, or the compass of Columbus,-all, gashed and bloody, bore at the same time in their features something of a cruel and agonized look. Still, as my eye receded from the first among them, whose hair was wet as if he had just risen from amid the waters, their attitude or their countenance manifested more of intelligence and of dignity, more of satisfaction and of energy. He among them who sat nearest to me, remarkable for an air of meditation mingled with an expression of irony, was engaged in removing blood-spots from his hand, while near him appeared one still young, who, in listening to his companion, agitated vehe

mently a book and a sword, concealed beneath his mantle. The youthful genius approached the mysterious figure.

'I come,' said he, 'to reproach you with the vanity of your promises. You proclaimed that the long sufferings of mankind should not be lost upon them; that a brighter future was about to bless the earth; and I believed I might at length march on free and fortunate. So far from it, conquerors enslave the world; it is filled with prejudices, and given up to oppression.-Speak:-Is it not I, whom mortals call the nineteenth century; and if so, what faith is due to your assurances ?'

'Son of time, listen,' she replied, detaching her eyes from the balance, on which they were fixed; 'the evils whereof you complain are at the same time the work and the chastisement of mankind. You would not inherit the miseries of your sixty predecessors; why have you partaken of their passions and their vices? Why, after the experience of six thousand years, are not the governors at last weary of corruption, and the governed of abasement? Why is it that the nations continue to vibrate between slavery and anarchy? The human race. received from the Author of being the benefit of free will; let man employ it but once, in preferring moderation to violence, justice to force, the manly enjoyments of liberty to the lethargy of servitude. -I have promised that one day they shall do so; but this future, you alone can hasten it on. Al

ready is your condition better than that of all the ages which have preceded ;-you have received in deposit, knowledge more vast, doctrines more elevated, institutions more nearly allied to equity, manners more gentle; may you, constant in your purposes, extend the progress of reason and of public morals! May it not be your lot to deserve that future generations should curse your memory, and accuse you of having perverted the destinies of

man !'

'What derision,' replied the genius, 'to utter vows, which you yourself might accomplish! Why, instead of happiness and of glory, do you send me misfortunes and outrages?'

'Rash being,' answered the Immortal, 'must I tell you once more, that your sufferings attest my justice? The whole human race is but as a single man in presence of the Father of life. He declared, when the ages sprang into birth, that evil should grow out of vices, and good from virtues. The decree, once pronounced, continues to be accomplished forever. Reflect on yourself; interrogate your recollections of bygone times; and you will perceive that wherever there is a reverse, error had preceded it. The fall of empires, war, bloody reactions, all those great vicissitudes, which the world, in its impiety, calls the sports of chance, are nothing but merited expiations. I promise that I will cease to send tyranny upon the earth, whenever there shall be neither excesses to provoke, nor cowardice to suffer, its outrages.'

The genius inclined his head in chastened submission, and passed on. I burned with desire to consult the oracle in my turn. O thou, whoever thou art,' I cried, 'is it forbidden a simple mortal to interrogate thee?'

'Speak,' replied the celestial voice, 'I answer to all who address me, and it is but too rarely that I have occasion to answer.'

'Who art thou,' I continued, 'thou whose hand seems to hold the reins of the world?'

'Who am I? Men call me Fortune. They think me blind and changeable. You see that I repose on a throne of brass, and bear the balance of justice in my hand, instead of the bandage of blind fate on my eyes. Daughter of the Most High, who created me after his own image, I am Conscience, appointed by Providence to be the minister of his judgments, and the arbiter of human vicissitudes. It is I, who, weighing all actions and all thoughts, have received the mission of rewarding and punishing. I dispense to families, to states, happiness or misfortune, according to their several merits.'

'Oh queen of the earth,' cried I, 'when pestilence, war, and famine desolate our provinces, these fatal ravages strike without discrimination, and the just suffers with the unjust.'

Think you,' she replied, 'that many of those who fall, have invariably been sincere friends, faultless husbands, incorruptible magistrates? The