. It was seldom even that I was sensible of loneliness,
though I must bear witness to the almost inspired truth of the poet,
when he says:--

"But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless,
This is to be alone--this, this is solitude!"

And no one but the solitary pedestrian, entering a crowded city in a
foreign land, can know this intense loneliness; but--

"To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean,
This is not solitude;"

and I could scarcely feel that I had even left my home, when, towards
the termination of my first day's walk, I came suddenly upon our old
friend Blue Beard's Castle! Le Chateau de Barbe Bleu, as it was here
designated. Not only was I for the instant transported back to my own
country, but to the very nursery; for here, "once upon a time," lived
the original and redoubted Blue Beard, the dreaded hero of our nursery
romance; and, doubtless, I enjoyed the same lovely and peaceful
prospect, though with somewhat different feelings, as "Sister Anne"
some centuries foregone.

Never, by any event, were my early days brought so vividly fresh
before my mind's eye, as at this moment. In those times, to my
recollection, the sun seemed to have been ever shining, the birds ever
singing, the trees ever in leaf, and everyone equally kind, and it
turns out to be but a silvery regretted dream, never to be re-dreamed.
But I comforted myself with the reflection of a better man--"after
all, the same blue sky bends o'er all of us, though the point above me
might as well beam a little brighter blue." But I have found even an
Italian sky to pall at last, to let us have as pleasing a variety of
cloud and sunshine, as the better taste of Providence will afford us
during our little day, and let us be content.

But the impartiality of Providence towards us in this respect, is very
conspicuous, or a little examination into the subject will clear away
what few doubts we may entertain concerning it; otherwise, we might
feel a difficulty in reconciling the various degrees of happiness
which we are apt to suppose prevailed throughout the world, or to
exist at present between different persons, with our notions of
justice, when we revert from t