the mystery of his baptism-he may ponder on the significance of the rites-why the mother, pale and silent, bore him to the temple, where the priest laid him in the coffin-cradle-why water from the golden cup was thrown over him before he was covered with the red mark of acceptance ;-he may ask of Nature and his own soul why, and what means, the double baptism of fire and water— why, and what means, the strange brute-worship in which his brethren have veiled their homage to the incorporeal Eicton :all these are questions meet for him, but not for these lighthearted maids! And of each stern faith they can but cull the brightest portions; they can but enshrine sweet Athor in their mirrors' handles, and worship her and the young Ehôou-Isis and Horus-as the later Greek knelt to Aphroditè and Phœbus in the groves of Cytherea and of Delos. And time flows on, the fair young girl slowly passes from her morning loveliness to the chaste, subdued, and ripened beauty of a gentle matron-mother. The laughing eye has become more grave; the thoughtless brow is not so smooth as of yore; the heart, which thrilled with awe at a religion which had not Love. as its spell-word, has learnt to enframe itself a faith, peculiar and proper for its own needs, from this; the bosom which seemed to promise love to all, has chosen one to be its life-enduring matethe bloom of the fresh spring-tide has fled! And time flows on rapidly, rapidly! The days have passed, and the months and the years; and lo! old age has followed and claimed possession ; and then DEATH comes in! And she is dead! That bounding life has ceased-that wild mad joy of being is over! She is deadthat thing of life, and love, and beauty-she has gone for ever from our sight! And what remains? Tread softly! ye are in the chambers of the grave-ye breathe the air of the tombs ! Cold and silent are the guests, but gilded are the chambers, and bright with vivid colours, and gay and gorgeous. For what? For the mouldering skeletons in yon gaudy coffins, wrapped in perfumed bandages, heavy and stiff with goid and paint; for the sad tenements of a one-time youth and loveliness, now empty and deserted, but, to the faithful Egyptian, still holding the principle of life. And this is true. Well to thee, Egypt, that thou knewest this truth that, by myth or by doctrine, thou couldst teach thy children, that death and life were the same! Now fare thee well, our sweet young maid! Thou, too, hast laid thee down to sleep-to sleep until the Future Awakening. We have watched thee in thy morning beauty; we have loved thee in thy noontide splendour; in old age we have not passed thee by; in death we will not forget thee. Thou hast sprung up from the silent tomb; and, at our bidding, thou hast lived over again one brief day of thy happy life. We have looked on thee through thy cerecloths, and have clothed the fleshless bones in all their former grace and youth. This, in fancy,—in the hereafter in reality. Sleep, sleep thy dreamless slumber! Thou hast not the stern Onnofre to judge thy waking, and another than Thoth* shall register thy deeds. The Angel of Mercy shall be thine assessort the GOD of LOVE thy judge! Peace to thee, Maid of Egypt! Fear not the day of thy doom! for thy weakness was not crime, and thy frivolity was so gentle, that even justice must relax to look upon it. Thou passedest through life as a beautiful bird; thou broughtest joy in thy presence; thou couldst not leave sorrow for thy departure. Thou wert lovely, thou wert beloved in the hour of thine existence; Come! let us still give thee the same in thy death! Roses for the grave! Young flowers for the tomb! Scatter them thick and fast; for Beauty is the undying spirit that haunts the wide universe, and broods, like the arkite dove, over the waste of the grave. And like that dove it will return, bringing with it the promise of life and of delight; for the Beautiful is the sole thing that cannot die! It is the Life of the Universe! TESTIMONIALS AND TESTS. WHEN innocent country folks, somewhat vain-glorious on the strength of their familiarity with "botany and grass," denounce London as a heartless place, in which people do not know their next-door neighbours, and modest merit blushes unseen along the * Thoth registers the deeds of the soul in his tablets. There are forty-two in number; to us have a little likeness to the Erinnyes, in some of their attributes. by-ways, while sophistication and iniquity drive coaches-and-six down Piccadilly, (these being country innocents who do believe in coaches-and-six, in spite of all the Broughams which come and go,) they are angry, I must say, not merely at peril of their veracity, but also of their reputation, as being able to read. To me, it seems impossible to take a walk abroad, or to consult a journal, whatsoever its politics, whatsoever its clients, whatsoever its leaders and its underlings, without being struck by the enthusiasms of friendship and the effusions of gratitude. Seriously, there is no Southcote so outrageously self-complacent or secure as to the world's end, who cannot get followers to receive her strange sacraments-no pill so venomous in its power to sever soul from body, without its list of cases as long as, and more glorious than, those catalogues of accredited cures which science, modest when maturest, simply puts forth; pretending the vulgar mundane creature!-to no infallibility. And in these warrants, credentials, compliments, (call them what you will,) there is far more of sincerity, and less of selfishness, than the world dreams-unless it be, that the root of all fanaticism is Self-the idea of a Self that shall prophesy; of a Self that shall heal; of a Self that shall overthrow; and to which all prophesying or healing or overthrowing done in others' fashions, is offensive and distasteful. People love to believe-especially be the fact large enough, sufficiently sweeping, and one which slaps in the face established truths-and from believing pass on to generalise with a delicious contempt of objection. The Heir of Castle Pimple, who seems to have been actuated by no other principle of life and conversation, than the fear of falling as the leaves do in October,' did well, when in an extremity of effervescence and fever, and irritability, to "surprise his stomach" (as my Mrs. Bell drily put it) by cold water, and to give his limbs a chance, by brisk exercise up a hill, with only a plain dinner" at the top. And no wonder that Pimpleton of Castle Pimple is grateful, warm in praise of the cold element, when he finds that he is now able to sleep without "night-mares in his bed," to eat without terrors by way of grace before, and twinges by way of disgrace, after his meal-now that his head has become clear enough to take pleasure in dwelling upon the concerns of the Carbuncle Cottages, or to organise a vigorous resistance against the branch of Lady Salisbury's pet railway, which was to root up his mother's jointure house. He would be no human 66 Pimple if he did not gush with gratitude. But he has the misfortune to be connected with the Leanshanks family-spare, melancholy, gray-complexioned, feeble people—not one of whom, since the days of "Bluff King Hal,' was ever known to " be carried to bed;" and who, for the last two hundred years, have been lifting up small voices in admiration of early hours and blue milk. And he happeneth to pounce upon Meagre Corner, at the very time when Miss Lavinia, the seventh daughter of the house, after pining ever since she was born, seems now as resolute as a Leanshanks can be, to "give up the whole affair as a lost case;" in plain English, "to go out" (for there are departures from life, which hardly deserve an appellation more vigorous). Cousin Pimpleton was always a kind soul: craving to be lethargic, he has become boisterously kind. Something must be done for the fading Lavinia; and that in the "wringing of a sheet." He will have her off to Umberslade, or Malvern, or Ilkley, with all the speed of a cataract! She is to be wrapped up in wet clouts, as she sits in his open carriage on a raw March day! She is to drink a cup of cold water every time she changes horses; and, when they stop for the night, to pass an hour in the rain-tub, ere she is dismissed to bed. These strong measures have the result which any one, save a Naiad, or Nereid, could have foreseen. Ere three weeks are over, poor Miss Lavinia's monument cuts a genteel and woful figure in the churchyard; and her kindhearted cousin and friend wipes his eyes (execrating them the while, that she was let to slip through their fingers, by the drenching having commenced at too late a period) and rushes off to make amends for the waste of this poor dear " drop in a bucket," by a doubly energetic assault on some other ailing creature-let us hope with better success, though with no better sense! These are the people by aid of whom the Solomons thrive, and the Morisons build their Gamboge Castles. There is nothing they won't swear to; they will sign every thing. If a thumb but has ached, they will vow that they had lost the use of one side! If they were apt to see double "of afternoons," they will print, as a fact, that their "visual organs had, for a considerable period, been essentially impaired." They would put their portraits on the ambulating advertisers, which make such an odd addition to our London vehicles. What do I say ?-they would drive a machine themselves, rather than ungratefully, or out of false delicacy, hang back from sharing with others facts so inestimable; a deliverance so precious! The Faculty may counsel caution. Since the days of Job, doctors have been old noodles, or worse. They know better. Friends may recal past counsels, warnings, encouragements, &c., &c., and the like. Friends lie; they always do. And every one (save themselves and the projectors of the nostrum elect) is leagued to keep the human race in the dark; and sickly, and wound round with absurd prejudices, for purposes, the wickedness of which lies on the surface! Stated as above, can anything seem much more absurd than gratitude running a-muck-than enthusiasm knocking down the feeble, by way of helping them to hold themselves up? Yet I appeal to those who have no particular matter in hand of their own, to say whether the humour in which testimonials are oftentimes given-when given voluntarily-is caricatured in my specimen Figure. Ah! long live Faith! Long live Earnestness! Long live sympathy! but long live, too, permission for the bystander to demand a reason for these-to ask what manner of man it is that bloweth his trumpet so loudly, without said bystander being branded as infidel, or put to do penance in the broad sheet, as irreverent, or lashed by brute sarcasm (there is a brute sarcasm no less than a brute force and a brute folly) as bigoted. any But would that these were the only testimonials going! Vanity is a noxious thing. A Duke who fancies he has a taste in sculpture, and picks out a stone-cutter for his protégé, may disfigure London with a Monster on an Arch, past the power of Press earthquake to dislodge. A fine lady who believes in the philanthropic clairvoyance of a Mademoiselle Felicité, may inspire her coterie of fine Ladies with curious assurances, that the same Parisian demoiselle is to cure them of the need of employing rouge, or hair-dye, or any other material for the making-up of Evening Youth and Candle-light Beauty. And a Monster, as has been said, or a false colour given to several silly women, may come of it, past all hope of redress or cure: to the vexation of all touchy and honest persons. But think of the testimonials which are not given in good faith!-Think of the rubbishy statues, and the rubbishy French-women, authenticated "for a consideration "the Public not choosing, nor desiring, even to examine ! Consider to dwell upon an important topic, as Mr. Carlyle will |