"

It was evidently not the "etiquette" on the roof of the Royal Sussex to
think much on the subject, and before my curiosity could reach the
length of actual imprudence, the coachman pulled up, and informed me
that I had reached the nearest turn to "the Hermitage." My valise was
lowered down, a peasant was found to carry it, and I plunged into the
depth of a lane as primitive as if it had been a path in Siberia.

It was brief, however, and in a few minutes I was within sight of the
villa. Here I at once discovered that Mordecai was a man of taste;
perhaps the very roughness of the Sussex jungle, through which I had
just come, had been suffered to remain for the sake of contrast. A small
lodge, covered with late blooming roses, let me into a narrow avenue of
all kinds of odorous shrubs; the evening sun was still strong enough to
show me glimpses of the grounds on either side, and they had all the
dressed smoothness of a parterre. The scene was so different from all
that I had been wearied of during the day, that I felt it with double
enjoyment; and the utter solitude and silence, after the rough voices of
my companions in the journey, were so soothing, that I involuntarily
paused before I approached the house, to refresh not more my senses than
my mind. As I stood leaning against a tree, and baring my hot brain and
bosom to the breeze, that rose with delicious coolness, I heard music.
It was a sweet voice, accompanied at intervals by some skilful touches
of a harp; and, from the solemnity of the measure, I supposed it to be a
hymn. Who was the minstrel? Mordecai had never mentioned to me either
wife or daughter. Well, at all events, the song was sweet. The minstrel
was a woman, and the Jew's household promised me more amusement than I
could have expected from the man of Moorfields. The song ceased, the
spell was broken, and I moved on, fully convinced that I had entered on
a scene where I might expect at least novelty; and the expectation was
then enough to have led me to the cannon's mouth or the antipodes.

* * * * *

THE VIGIL OF VENUS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN.

This old poem, which commemorates the festivities with which ancient
Rome hailed the returning brightness of spring, may, perhaps, awaken in
our readers some melancholy reflections on the bygone delights of the
same season in our own country. To the Romans, it would seem, this
period of the year never ceased to