the setting sun, and it held a great sand-glass, run out, which was believed to be a token that the end of time was come. The sun itself was dim and ineffectual; an eclipse overcame it like an eyelid, and there was a cry that his light was gone out. A fiery star appeared in Orion, and many thought it was the torch of the angel of the judgment coming to burn the world. The earth trembled, and vast vestments, with the dark outlines of terrible forms, were seen hurrying to and fro in the skies; and a woman-child was born with two tongues. Indeed, all historians say, that, at this epoch, portents and prodigies became so rife, and yet continued so wonderful, that many thought and feared some new evil was confusing the germins of nature. The minds of all sorts of men were in consequence excited to a state of wild and boding expectancy; insomuch, that every new thing, to which ought of interest or curiosity attached, was magnified into something mystical and marvellous. Thus it happened, that the news of the vessel with the Florentines, though of itself of no seeming importance, was described as having been caught by the multitude as an event by which the destinies of the kingdom were to be affected. Thousands on thousands passed to the shores of the river to see her come; and boats went to meet her, as if she had been bringing home all the freightage of some great chance in their fortunes. The Lady Albertina, with Rothelan and Adonijah, were among the first who hastened to greet their arrival, and they stood together at a window to see her pass to the moorings at London bridge. "It is strange," said the lady, "and what can it portend, that none of the boats go close to her, but all you see suddenly suspend their oars as they approach her?” She hath had a hard voyage," returned Rothelan; "look how dishevelled she is in the cordage. Some of her top-sails, too, are hanging in rags; and I can see, as it were, strips of green moss down the seams of the others. They have surely been long unhandled."

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Adonijah continued looking towards the ship, and appeared thoughtful and touched with care, as he said, her voyage had been very long-all the way from the land of Egypt-but she was in Italy as she came, and her course hath been in the sunny days with the gracious gales of the summer; yet is she like a thing of antiquity, for those signs of waste and decay

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are as if oblivion were on board. They have not come of the winds, nor of the waves.' The crowd on the shores," added the lady, grows silent as she passes." There are many persons aboard," said Rothelan. Yes," replied Adonijah, "but only the man at the helm hath for some time moved; all the others are in idleness-still, still. A cold fear is crawling on my bones, to see so many persons, and every one monumental Some of those who are looking over the side," said Rothelan, partaking in some degree of the Jew's dread, droop their heads on their breasts, and take no heed of any object. Look at those on the deck; they sit as if they were indeed marble, resting on their elbows like effigies on a tomb." "Merciful heaven!" cried the Lady Albertina, "what horror does she bring?"

At that moment the boats, assembled round the ship, suddenly made rapidly for the shore; many of the watermen stayed not till they reached the landings, but leaped into the river; then a universal cry arose, and the people were seen scattering themselves in all directions. Rothelan darted from his mother's side, and ran towards the spot, to which, instead of holding onward to the moorings, it was evident the vessel was steering to take the ground. In his way thither, he met his old friends, Sir Gabriel de Glowr and his lady, who, at his request, were still remaining in London. They, too, had been among the spectators, and were hurrying from the scene. The lady was breathless with haste and fear, her mantle was torn, and she had lost a shoe in her flight. The Baron of Falaside, before Rothelan could inquire the cause of so singular a panic, looked at him wildly, and shook his head, dragging his lady away by the arm. Stop!" exclaimed Rothelan, and tell me what is the cause of all this?" But they would not stop. He also addressed himself to others, but with no success. "Turn back-come back!" every one said to him, as he rushed against the stream of the crowd. The pressure and tide of the multitude slackened as he advanced; and when he was within a short distance of the place where the ship had in the meantime taken the ground, he found himself alone. He paused for a moment: as yet he saw nothing to alarm, but only the man at the helm, who, the instant that the ship touched the ground, had leaped on shore, and was coming towards him. Rothelan ran forwards to meet

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him, in order to inquire how it was that all on board appeared so motionless; but scarcely had he advanced ten paces, when, casting his eyes forward, he saw that each of those who were leaning over the vessel's side, and resting on the deck, were dead men, from whose hideous anatomy the skin had peeled, and the flesh had fallen: they had all died of the plague. It was not only the witnesses of Rothelan's legitimacy that fell by the plague; for although the only man that arrived in the ship was excluded from every door, and wandered desolate until he fell down dead, yet the contagion was communicated to the city, where, in its malignancy, it engrossed the ill of all other maladies, and made doctors despicable. Of a potency, equal to death, it possessed itself of all his armouries, and was itself the death of every other mortal distemper. The touch, yea, the very sight of the infected, was deadly; and its signs were so sudden, that families, seated in happiness at their meals, have seen the plague-spot begin to redden, and have wildly scattered themselves for ever. The cement of society was dissolved by it. Mothers, when they saw the sign of the infection on the babes at their bosom, cast them from them with abhorrence. Wild places were sought for shelter; some went into ships, and anchored themselves afar off, on the waters. But no place was so wild that the plague did not visit-none so secret that the quick-sighted pestilence did not discover-none could fly that it did not overtake. Justice was forgotten, and her courts deserted. The terrified jailers fled from the felons, that were in fetters; the innocent and the guilty leagued themselves together, and kept within their prisons for safety; the grass grew in the market-places; the cattle went moaning up and down the fields, wondering what had become of their keepers; the rooks and the ravens came into the towns, and built their nests in the mute belfries; silence was universal, save when some infected wretch was seen clambering at a window.

For a time all commerce was in coffins; but even that ended. Shrift there was none; churches and chapels were open, but neither priest not penitent entered;--all went to the charnel-house. The sexton and the physician were cast into the same deep and wide grave; the testator and his heirs and executors were hurled from the same cart into the same hole together. Fires became extinguished, as if its element too

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had expired; the seams of the sailorless ships yawned to the sun. Though doors were open, and coffers unwatched, there was no theft; all offences ceased, and no crime, but the universal woe of pestilence, was heard of among men. wells overflowed, and the conduits ran to waste; the dogs banded themselves together, having lost their masters, and ran howling over all the land; horses perished of famine in their stalls; old friends but looked at one another when they met, keeping themselves far aloof; creditors claimed no debts, and courtiers performed their promises; little children went wandering up and down, and numbers were seen dead in all corners. Nor was it only in England that the plague so raged; it travelled over a third part of the whole earth, like the shadow of an eclipse, as if some dreadful thing had been interposed between the world and the sun-course of life.

Many friends of Rothelan died: but Sir Amias, followed at a distance by Ralph Hanslap, went every where in quest of the infection, but he could not die. He confessed aloud, to every one he met, the wrongs he had done to the widow and the orphan, but no one heeded his tale; for all were flying, they knew not whither, from the pestilence. He ran to the house of Adonijah, the Jew, to make restitution. The door was open, and he rushed in; but a swarm of horrible flies came buzzing into his face, and he heard the sound of swine grovelling in the darkness within. Ralph Hanslap, being summoned before the Bishop of Winchester, confessed his part of his knavery, and Rothelan was restored to his title and estates. He married Blanche, the daughter of the Earl of Lincoln; and Adonijah, "whose household blood" had all perished by the plague, lived and ended his days with the Lady Albertina.

THE BARBER.

Barbers are distinguished by peculiarities appertaining to no other class of men: they have a caste, and are a race of themselves. The members of this ancient and gentle profession-foul befal the libeller who shall designate it a tradeare mild, peaceable, cheerful, polite, and communicative : they mingle with no cabal, have no interest in factions, are open to all parties, and influenced by none;" and they