es,--noses of stupendous size, which
arose, like ocean islands, amid the gloomy tabernacle of his brain,
and filled him with utter despair. At last, from bad to worse, he
became the mere shadow of his former self, the wreck of what he
was, and a picture of fallen and shattered genius. To drive away
the hideous phantasmagorias that tortured him, as with the stings of
demons, he had recourse to gin, and soon became a confirmed drunkard:
the next stage was lunacy; and he was confined for fourteen months in
Saint Luke's Hospital for the insane.

The fate of the barber was equally deplorable. The awful words
pronounced by Merton may be considered his death-knell. They rang ever
after in his ears; and, in a few weeks, his head was turned, his
shop shut up, and himself sent to Bedlam. "_Gracious heavens, what a
nose!_" This dreadful sentence--more dreadful than the hand-writing on
the wall to Belshazzar,--haunted him by day and by night. Reason was
dethroned, and "moody madness, laughing wild," was the result. Such
are the frightful consequences of _extreme susceptibility_, against
which the youth of both sexes ought to be constantly on their guard.

The worst remains to be told. These unhappy men were liberated from
confinement about the same time, and both returned to Oxford. They
seemed to have recovered their reasoning faculties, but the result
showed that this was very far from being the case; for, happening to
meet on the banks of the Cherwell, they attacked each other with
such fury, that, like Brutus and Aruns, they were both killed on
the spot,--the barber having been _burked_ in the encounter, and the
student having died of a wound which he received in the throat by his
antagonist's razor.--_Fraser's Magazine._

* * * * *

THE LAST OF THE FAMILY.

I bid thee welcome to my father's halls,
But fled for ever is their wonted mirth,
Death hath been busy in these fated walls,
Casting dark shadows o'er our house and hearth,
The brave--the beauteous from their home have past,
And I remain of that loved band the last.

Thou wilt not now my gallant brothers greet,
Hiding amidst the glades with hound and horn,
Nor my fair sisters, warbling ditties sweet,
While gathering wild flowers in the dewy morn;
Evening will come, but will not bring again,
The song--the tale--the dance--the festal train.

I can but bid thee to my lonely room,
Where in fond