s that composed the name of
a popular or eminent citizen. Thus the false taste is equally ancient
as the pure; and the retired traders of Hackney and Paddington, a
century ago, were little aware, perhaps, that in their tortured yews and
sculptured box, they found their models in the most polished period of
Roman antiquity, in the gardens of Pompeii, and the villas of the
fastidious Pliny.

This walk now, as the noonday sun shone perpendicularly through the
chequered leaves, was entirely deserted; at least no other forms than
those of Olinthus and the priest infringed upon the solitude. They sat
themselves on one of the benches, placed at intervals between the trees,
and facing the faint breeze that came languidly from the river, whose
waves danced and sparkled before them--a singular and contrasted pair;
the believer in the latest--the priest of the most ancient--worship of
the world!

'Since thou leftst me so abruptly,' said Olinthus, 'hast thou been
happy? has thy heart found contentment under these priestly robes? hast
thou, still yearning for the voice of God, heard it whisper comfort to
thee from the oracles of Isis? That sigh, that averted countenance,
give me the answer my soul predicted.'

'Alas!' answered Apaecides, sadly, 'thou seest before thee a wretched
and distracted man! From my childhood upward I have idolized the dreams
of virtue! I have envied the holiness of men who, in caves and lonely
temples, have been admitted to the companionship of beings above the
world; my days have been consumed with feverish and vague desires; my
nights with mocking but solemn visions. Seduced by the mystic
prophecies of an impostor, I have indued these robes;--my nature (I
confess it to thee frankly)--my nature has revolted at what I have seen
and been doomed to share in! Searching after truth, I have become but
the minister of falsehoods. On the evening in which we last met, I was
buoyed by hopes created by that same impostor, whom I ought already to
have better known. I have--no matter--no matter! suffice it, I have
added perjury and sin to rashness and to sorrow. The veil is now rent
for ever from my eyes; I behold a villain where I obeyed a demigod; the
earth darkens in my sight; I am in the deepest abyss of gloom; I know
not if there be gods above; if we are the things of chance; if beyond
the bounded and melancholy present there is annihilation or an
hereafter--tell me, then, thy faith; solve me these doubts