tomb set in a ring.

It is in truth a tale of love and sorrow, not of anguish and terror.
We behold the catastrophe afar off with scarcely a wish to avert it.
Romeo and Juliet _must_ die: their destiny is fulfilled: they have
quaffed off the cup of life, with all its infinite of joys and
agonies, in one intoxicating draught. What have they to do more
upon this earth? Young, innocent, loving, and beloved, they descend
together into the tomb: but Shakspeare has made that tomb a shrine
of martyred and sainted affection consecrated for the worship of all
hearts,--not a dark charnel vault, haunted by spectres of pain, rage,
and desperation.

The poem, which opened with the enmity of the two families, closes
with their reconciliation over the breathless remains of their
children; and no violent, frightful, or discordant feeling, is
suffered to mingle with that soft impression of melancholy left within
the heart, and which Schlegel compares to one long, endless sigh.

"A youthful passion," says Goethe, (alluding to one of his own early
attachments), "which is conceived and cherished without any certain
object, may be compared to a shell thrown from a mortar by night: it
rises calmly in a brilliant track, and seems to mix, and even to dwell
for a moment, with the stars of heaven; but at length it falls--it
bursts--consuming and destroying all around even as itself expires."

* * * * *

PALACE OF CHARLEMAGNE, AT AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.

At Aix-la-Chapelle, situated nearly in the centre of his vast
dominions, and in a salubrious climate, Charlemagne had fixed upon a
spot for building a palace, in the neighbourhood of some natural warm
baths,--a Roman luxury, in which the Frankish monarch particularly
delighted. All that the great conception of Charlemagne could devise,
and the art of the age could execute, was done, to render this
structure, and the church attached to it, worthy of their magnificent
founder. But no account can be given;[9] for nothing has come down to
the present age which can justify any thing like detailed description.
Nevertheless, a number of circumstances in regard to this building are
occasionally mentioned in the historians of the time, that convey an
idea of vastness and splendour, which probably might have been lost
had minute examination been possible. Immense halls[10]--magnificent
galleries--a college--a library--baths, where a hundred persons could
swim at large--a