a museum. "The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses
or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth; Mizraim cures wounds, and
Pharaoh is sold for balsams." [Footnote: Sir Thomas Browne.]

What, then, is to insure this pile which now towers above me from sharing
the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time must come when its gilded
vaults, which now spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish beneath the
feet; when, instead of the sound of melody and praise, the wind shall
whistle through the broken arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered
tower--when the garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions of
death, and the ivy twine round the fallen column; and the foxglove hang
its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus
the man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his
history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.

THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By
arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's
works, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870-1898.]

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

A little before twelve, we took a cab, and went to the two Houses of
Parliament--the most immense building, methinks, that ever was built; and
not yet finished, tho it has now been occupied for years. Its exterior
lies hugely along the ground, and its great unfinished tower is still
climbing toward the sky; but the result (unless it be the river-front,
which I have not yet seen) seems not very impressive. The interior is much
more successful. Nothing can be more magnificent and gravely gorgeous than
the Chamber of Peers--a large oblong hall, paneled with oak, elaborately
carved, to the height of perhaps twenty feet. Then the balustrade of the
gallery runs around the hall, and above the gallery are six arched windows
on each side, richly painted with historic subjects. The roof is
ornamented and gilded, and everywhere throughout there is embellishment of
color and carving on the broadest scale, and, at the same time, most
minute and elaborate; statues of full size in niches aloft; small heads of
kings, no bigger than a doll; and the oak is carved in all parts of the
paneling as faithfully as they used to do it in Henry VII.'s time--as
faithfully and with as good workmanship, but with nothing like the variety
and invention which I saw in the dining-room of Smithell's Hall. There the
artist wrought with his heart and head; bu