settled down into a conventionalism-a circular range of upright stones, between which you caught a glimpse of the huge trilithons of the adytum. Its form had been stereotyped by Dr. Stukeley, and subsequent casualties had not affected a line in our most modern pictures. Peering through the outer circle, you may still see in many of them, one of those "sets or compages of stones, each consisting of two uprights, and an impost," which, more than half a century since, have fallen to the ground; and every where you can detect features now no longer visible ! We walked up reverently to the frowning range of stones that flank the grand entrance to the outer temple. Stukeley had described it as composed of thirty uprights and thirty imposts, symmetrically arranged, and all exactly equidistant. Assuming the structure to be of Phoenician origin, he had conformed all its measurements to the cubit of that people. The stones were each and all four cubits wide, and the interspaces precisely half as much. A graduated fishing rod, which we had taken with us, furnished the means of correcting these elements, and shewed us that neither the width of the stones themselves, nor of the intervals which separated them, was regulated by any such system. The central opening was just five and a half feet wide, whilst those on either hand, were respectively one and two feet less! The cubital theory was at one blow knocked from under us, and when we found the breadth of these stones themselves as variable as that of the intervening spaces, we were angry with ourselves for having so long blundered on in ignorance. We entered the "yawning ruins." Here and there the stones lay prostrate around us, each "like the haughty carcase of Goliah." Time had rounded down all roughnesses, and they glistened in the rain like polished marble, We examined the huge mortices in one of the fallen architraves, and the corresponding tenon in the leaning stone from which it had been dislodged. The Anakim and the Rephaim of mythic Britain seemed to be looking round upon us as we strutted to and fro, measuring and noting down such data as the chiding of the storm permitted. The largest of the stones we found to be more than twenty-one feet in height; the others, reported to be twenty, were three or four feet less. Our engraving figures the most perfect of these trilithons; and the name we have given to it has reference to a fact recorded by Dr. Stukely. "This trilithon," says he, "is entire, and composed of three most beautiful stones. The cornish happened to be of a very durable kind of English marble, and has not been much impaired by weather. My Lord Winchelsea and myself took a considerable walk upon it, but it was a frightful situation." Our curiosity was still unsated, when prudence dictated a retreat. The wild country that stretched away before us was quite unknown, and we looked in vain for any one to direct us. Fearful of repeating the protracted walk of the previous evening, we shunned the bosky valley on our left, and resolutely set forward over the downs, scarce knowing whither we went. Round hills, capped with fir plantations, a solitary road, huge grassy mounds, bell-shaped and conical; the "Oldest King's Barrows," the "Seven King's Graves"-these were the landmarks that loomed around, and inspired us with energy to brave the storm. We were alone with princes and rulers of the `earth, who had heaped up desolate places for themselves in this homeless, howling wilderness. The thought was in itself a sermon. We picked up a flint, wet, and gleaming in a slant of clearer light than we had yet seen, and thanked God, from a heart made serious by the gloom around us, that we did not live in those days of gigantic savagery when it would have been trimmed into an arrow-head to point some war weapon of our stern progenitors. It was crusted and embossed with particolored lichens-a little world of beauty which human eye seemed only to have lighted on by miracle. We kept it as a relic, and it has again and again proved to us a magic mirror, bringing up before "that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude," all the associations of our memorable morning on these inhospitable wilds. The barbarous Fenni-the aborigines of these Wiltshire downs-leading a migratory life, subsisting on the crude produce of the land, or following the chase, start into being before us, as we wander in imagination over this their old necropolis, and their sumptuous and sanguinary rites of sepulture are re-enacted. Buried beneath these vast mounds, our antiquaries have brought to light the types and symbols of their former calling, and as we look upon each grassy slope, we hear again the earnest wail of poor Elpenor's ghost Burn me; and raise A kind memorial of me on the coast, Heaped high with earth, that an unhappy man This do at my request, and on my hill But we hear a voice they never heard, that bids us sorrow not as those that have no hope. Seen through the light of Revelation, everything breathes of joy and immortality. A double lesson lies outspread before us, and we read at once the vain and empty and starving issue of worldly greatness; and the amplitude of those resources that guarantee the "honor which cometh from God only." The safety of the trusting soul and the glories of its better life are made ours by the same bond that secures to us "the rain and the snow from heaven." Every leaf, every blade, every flower that clothes the soil around us, is a seal that God is true. The very wind that now sweeps so rudely over the untrodden turf, will not visit too roughly the shivering harebell at our feet. There! it has only shaken out its surcharge of moisture, and it lifts again its delicate and beautiful flower to glorify that little knoll and gladden other eyes than ours. The clouds are breaking, and a softer, clearer, gleam of light falls upon the heaving hills that front its influence. But still the rain falls pitilessly, and the wind comes sobbing over the dark mounds which shut in our horizon. We seek the friendly shelter of the fir woods, wading ankle-deep through the long grass that skirts it, heavy with rain; and are now walking along its formal arcades strewn with dead wood, grotesquely bearded with mosses, listening to the " sea-like sound" of the dark boughs above us. We hear the clank of sheep bells, and on the round hill-side before us, crouching and cowering, we see the scared flock tended by a weather-beaten shepherd and his drowsy dog. We wonder how the spirit of the scene affects him, and venture out to ask. He tells us it is "mortal wild work" keeping his solitary watch in such a lonesome place, but he thinks little and feels less, of the strange and solemn associations that invest this vast city of the dead. We question him touching the old tumuli around him, and the fierce rites to which they bear witness; but unsophisticated as he seems, he knows nothing of them but their market-value. Some of them he has seen opened, but "they wasn't equal to what was expected." Flint arrow-heads, celts, beads, trinkets, old bones, spears, and such like were found there; "but there warn't no gold!" We were about to turn away in disgust, for we had expected on these primeval downs, to find a soul above "the diggins." But on second thoughts, we changed our minds; for with all our sympathies widely awake to the poetry of the place, we found it very convenient, as a stranger in a strange land, to have about us a sufficiency of that which "answereth all things," and which presently procured us the shelter of a cheerful hearth. ROCKING THE CRADLE. ONCE in the dusk of the evening, a mother sat rocking the cradle. It was harvest time: the day had been hot, and she had been out gleaning. A bundle of wheat lay beside her on the brick floor; she sighed from heat and weariness, but the baby was restless and she began to talk to it in soothing tones, as with her foot she kept gently and mechanically rocking the cradle. A young lady sat opposite to her: there had been a pause in their previous conversation; the mother interrupted it by pushing the bundle of wheat further from her, and remarking that it was a very small one. "Yes," said the young lady, in a soft voice, "it seems not much to have toiled for a whole day, and such a hot day!" As she said this, a sound of distant singing struck upon their ears: it was very boisterous and unmelodious singing. Their eyes met, and the young lady continued, "I did not like to ask where John was, Martha, but I'm afraid, now he can leave his bed again, he goes on in the old way?" The woman sighed, and as a waft of evening air made the drunkard's song audible again, she rocked the cradle with a quicker motion, and set her face with a resolute expression, gazing at the still glowing sky. Every note in that song seemed to cut her to the heart: it was a sore subject, but by silence only she answered the question. And when she lifted her apron to wipe her tanned and heated face, she said, without changing her attitude or withdrawing her steady eyes from the sky,-"I am kindly obliged to Missis for the needlework." "Mamma thought it was better for you than working in the fields," said the girl. The woman's foot moved more quickly still: the song was too much for her, and she threw her apron over her head and sobbed. "Do'nt cry, Martha," said the girl compassionately, as she rose and quietly closed the casement; "that does no good, you know, and only makes you feel the more." The baby in the cradle threw up its little arms and uttered a cry-perhaps the hasty movement of the mother's foot had startled it. Nothing could be more tender than the slightly broken voice in which the poor woman soothed it, saying, "My dear jewel, I hope thou'lt be happier than I am; I hope thou❜lt never have a drinking husband.” "She is going off to sleeep again, Martha," said the girl, as she stooped over the cradle. "Bless her," replied the woman, with a sigh of fatigue, "I hope she'll not have to work as hard as her mother does. When I think what it is—such a hard life-such a deal of labor to be brought up to, and such language to bear, and such coarse eating and drinking-and as for covering-Ah, dear! think sometimes, as I lie awake at nights waiting till John comes home from the ale-house-I think, though I love her dearer than all the world, I would give her away from me if I knew any body that wanted her, and could bring her up better." "Give her away?" said the young girl, with a smile-" no, that I am sure you would not, Martha!" “Well, I like to think of it," returned the woman, “but I might find it hard to do; however, somehow I can't keep my head from running on it sometimes; but you know, miss, people |