mmation of fate. Meantime a day again passed, bearing away
with it the last shadow of hope. We gasped in the rapid
modification of the air. The red blood bounded tumultuously
through its strait channels. A furious delirium possessed all men;
and with arms rigidly outstretched towards the threatening
heavens, they trembled and shrieked aloud. But the nucleus of the
destroyer was now upon us;--even here in Aidenn, I shudder while I
speak. Let me be brief--brief as the ruin that overwhelmed. For a
moment there was a wild lurid light alone, visiting and
penetrating all things. Then--let us bow down, Charmion, before
the excessive majesty of the great God!--then there came a
shouting and pervading sound, as if from the mouth itself of HIM;
while the whole incumbent mass of ether in which we existed, burst
at once into a species of intense flame, for whose surpassing
brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the high
heavens, of pure knowledge, have no name. Thus ended all."

"_Mosses from an Old Manse_," by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is the somewhat
quaint title given to a series of tales, and sketches, and
miscellaneous papers, because they were written in an old manse, some
time tenanted by the author, a description of which forms the first
paper in the series. We, have already intimated our opinion of this
writer. In many respects he is a strong contrast to the one we have
just left. For whereas Mr Poe is indebted to whatever good effect he
produces to a close detail and agglomeration of facts, Mr Hawthorne
appears to have little skill and little taste for dealing with matter
of fact or substantial incident, but relies for his favourable
impression on the charm of style, and the play of thought and fancy.

The most serious defect in his stories is the frequent presence of
some palpable improbability which mars the effect of the whole--not
improbability, like that we already remarked on, which is intended and
wilfully perpetrated by the author--not improbability of incident
even, which we are not disposed very rigidly to inquire after in a
novelist--but improbability in the main motive and state of mind which
he has undertaken to describe, and which forms the turning-point of
the whole narrative. As long as the human being appears to act as a
human being would, under the circumstances depicted, it is surprising
how easily the mind, carried on by its sympathies