dy shall they arise.
Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust! for Thy dew is as the dew of herbs;
and the earth shall cast out her dead!"

Surely, to the sincere believer death would be an object of desire instead
of dread, were it not for those ties--those heartstrings--by which we are
attached to life. Nor, indeed, do I believe that it is natural to fear
death, however generally it may be thought so. From my own feelings I have
little right to judge; for, although habitually mindful that the hour
cometh, and even now may be, it has never appeared actually near enough to
make me duly apprehend its effect upon myself. But from what I have
observed, and what I have heard those persons say whose professions lead
them to the dying, I am induced to infer that the fear of death is not
common, and that where it exists it proceeds rather from a diseased and
enfeebled mind, than from any principle in our nature. Certain it is, that
among the poor the approach of dissolution is usually regarded with a quiet
and natural composure, which it is consolatory to contemplate, and which is
as far removed from the dead palsy of unbelief as it is from the delirious
raptures of fanaticism. Theirs is a true, unhesitating faith; and they are
willing to lay down the burden of a weary life, in the sure and certain
hope of a blessed immortality. Who, indeed, is there, that would not gladly
make the exchange, if he lived only for himself, and were to leave none who
stood in need of him--no eyes to weep at his departure, no hearts to ache
for his loss? The day of death, says the preacher, is better than the day
of one's birth; a sentence to which whoever has lived long, and may humbly
hope that he has not lived ill, must heartily assent.

* * * * *

MASANIELLO.

The last No. (8,) of the _Foreign Quarley Review_, just published, contains
an attractive article on the Revolutions of Naples, in 1647 and 1648, in
which Masaniello played so conspicuous a part. The paper is in the easy
historical style of Sir Walter Scott; but as little could be selected for
our pages, except the Adventures of the Rebel Fisherman, and as we have
given the leading events of his life in an early volume of the MIRROR, we
content ourselves with the following passage. After a tolerably fair
estimate of the character of Masaniello, in which Sir Walter considers his
extraordinary rise as a work of fortune and contingency rather than of his
o