LETTER VI.

WHILE he was yet speaking, we found ourselves close under a colossal edifice of stone, which towered far above its neighbours ; whose sides seemed calculated to brave with impunity the storms of Time, to transmit the fame of its founders to remotest posterity. The instant I fixed my eyes on it, a rush of confused recollection, dim and shadowy as the vapour of the lake, passed before them: I held my hand to my forehead and gasped for breath. "What ails you? you are ill?" said Lwith kind alarm, and catching my arm fearful of my falling; "I have seen it before," I muttered. "Seen what?" said he.-"I tell you I have seen it, this building is familiar to me." "You rave," said L- "when? how? This is the chief place of worship in the city, your imagination deceives you." As he spoke, the mist seemed to roll away, and my thoughts recovered their equipoise: "I see now," I exclaimed, "a reality; last night I dreamed." "Oh!" said he, gaily, "if its only a dream, there is not much the matter; but really,

whatever your dream was, it seems to make a deep impression; pray, what was it about?"

I thought, as I gazed on a vast building like this, it fell and crushed me.

And so you connected your visionary fabric with this substantial reality? that's very commonly done, but beware of giving way to impressions like these: they soon become sources of real terror to those minds who have not firmness to bear up against them.

And yet my sleeping fancy was so strongly impressed, that the connection between the real and supposed object formed its own chain, spontaneously, without an effort of thought. "I know it," said he, "I comprehend your feelings easily enough; I have often felt the same, but with less intenseness: I often see places and persons, and converse with those whose appearance and voice seem familiar to me, though how, I cannot tell: I can only try to account for the phenomenon, by supposing I have seen figures like them in the visions of the night, perhaps at a long interval before, and that the impressions then made are called up anew, and embodied by their similitudes seen in reality. If it be objected, how the impressions made during sleep can lie dormant until renewed by accidental occurrences when awake, I answer, let it be remem

bered, we often wake with a consciousness of having dreamed vividly, and yet memory refuses to lend its aid in supplying one atom of the subject matter.

"How wonderful is sleep!" said I, wishing to continue the conversation on this topic. "It is indeed," said L-, "it is like every other function of Nature, wonderful and beautiful: I own, I delight in looking at a person stretched in refreshing slumber. Did you never watch the sleep of innocence, of infancy? you may fancy the senses wrapped in threads of gossamer. Contrast with this, the oppressed, but half-forgetful night-heaviness, I can call it by no other name, of some of riper years, the slaves of passions, of desires foreign to their nature; note the clenched hand grasping vacancy, the muscular contortion in every feature is their's the temporary oblivion, the periodical renewal of tone and vigour to both body and mind, given by Nature to all her children? Surely not. Sleep is besides wonderful, inasmuch that the brain though suspended in many of its nicer operations, turns to, and is sharpened in others; it loses its powers of discrimination, but acquires increased fertility of imagination; is still affected by extrinsic incident: if the digestive organs are impeded, the owner fancies himself eating,

to sickness; if the nostrils are oppressed, he struggles with a sense of suffocation; and if sudden noise breaks the film in which it has become enveloped, it again throws itself into functional arrangement. But, we are at the entrance, we will ascend this building; the prospect from the summit will amply repay our toil. When we arrive at the top, I mean to hazard a few conjectures.

We began the ascent, and after considerable fatigue emerged through an aperture near the summit; I still felt giddiness and terror, which were not at all diminished by the steepness of the ascent. When we came to the rails of iron which surround the circular walk we stood on, I clung to them to prevent my falling; I thought the building rocked in the gale, but the freshness of the latter soon dispelled my oppression, and I felt ready to hear L―'s remarks. "Now," said he, "that you are recovered, draw back and listen." I did so, and heard the hubbub of the multitude below ascending through the haze, like the night-roar of the ocean, heard while unseen. The dwellings of men joined in every variety of form and size, were seen intersected by passages now seemingly narrow, along which an endless succession of human beings, reduced to an insignificant size from the distance, poured

in all directions, like ants in the paths of our woods. On another side, the river which divides the city might be traced, winding sluggishly along, bearing on its dark surface innumerable vessels; and its banks lined with quays and buildings; many of the latter throwing up columns of smoke.

"Well," said L--," what think you, is not this an astonishing scene?”—“I know not what to think,” replied I, "my faculties are enchained."-"No wonder," said he, "so were mine once; but I have long since learned to soar above first impressions, they are seldom correct, and always need accurate weighing. I am no longer bewildered, but pierced with sorrow; not from the reflection that, in a short space, every one of these myriads will be extinct; but from the awful conviction that this city, now so crowded with animal life and swelling in boastful pride, will in a space of time, which in the abyss of eternity will be but as a drop of water in the ocean, lie prostrate in her own dust, and silent as the desert."

"Impossible!" said I: "from what causes will such mighty changes spring? What adequate catastrophe will work events so improbable, so contrary to the present state of things?" "You know not what you say," said L-"when you speak of that as improbable, which