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THE SUN'S ECLIPSE.

July 8, 1842.

BY HORACE SMITH.

'Tis cloudless morning, but a frown misplaced,
Cold, lurid, strange,

Her summer smile from Nature's brow hath chased.
What fearful change,

What menacing catastrophe is thus

Usher'd by such prognostics ominous ?

Is it the life of day, this livid glare,

Death's counterpart?

What means the withering coldness in the air,
That chills my heart,

And what the gloom portentous that hath made
The glow of morning a funereal shade?

O'er the Sun's disk, a dark orb wins its slow
Gloom-deep'ning way,

Climbs-spreads-enshrouds-extinguishes-and lo!
The god of day

Hangs in the sky, a corpse! th' usurper's might
Hath storm'd his throne, and quench'd the life of light!

A pall is on the earth-the screaming birds

To covert speed,

Bewilder'd and aghast, the bellowing herds
Rush o'er the mead,

While men-pale shadows in the ghastly gloom,
Seem spectral forms just risen from the tomb.

Transient, tho' total, was that drear eclipse;
With might restored,

The Sun re-gladden'd earth ;—but human lips
Have never pour'd

In mortal ears the horrors of the sight

That thrill'd my soul that memorable night.

To every distant zone and fulgent star

Mine eyes could reach,

And the wide waste was one chaotic war;
O'er all and each-

Above-beneath-around me-every where

Was anarchy-convulsion-death-despair.

'Twas noon-and yet a deep unnatural night
Enshrouded heaven,

Save where some orb unsphered, or satellite
Franticly driven,

Glared as it darted thro' the darkness dread,
Blind-rudderless-uncheck'd-unpiloted.

A thousand simultaneous thunders crash'd,
As here and there,

Some rushing planet 'gainst another dash'd,
Shooting thro' air

Volleys of shatter'd wreck, when, both destroyed,
Founder'd and sank in the ingulfing void.

Others self-kindled, as they whirl'd and turn'd,
Without a guide,

Burst into flames, and rushing as they burn'd
With range more wide,

Like fire-ships that some stately fleet surprise,
Spread havoc through the constellated skies.

While stars kept falling from their spheres-as though
The heavens wept fire,-

Earth was a raging hell of war and woe

Most deep and dire;

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A

LIBRARY

THE STUDENT OF LOUVAIN.

BY ELIZABETH YOUATT.

Like flower-seeds by the wild wind spread,
So radiant thoughts are strew'd,
The soul when those high gifts are shed

May faint in solitude.-MRS. HEMANS.

THE day was closing in at Utrecht, and the inhabitants, for the most part poor but industrious citizens, congregated at the doors of their houses to smoke their pipes, or converse together on the state of the times; and a set of more phlegmatic countenances and contented spirits could not well have met together. Before an abode, the neatness of which could not conceal the evident poverty of its inmates, and which you learnt by a rude inscription on the walls belonged to a barge-builder, sat a boy on the fallen trunk of a tree. His dress was coarse in the extreme, leaving his muscular limbs fully exposed, but there was something in the proud motion of his head as he threw back the tangled hair from his brow, and looked around with his wild, restless eyes, which at once distinguished him from the rest of his companions, and showed that thoughts incompatible with his present situation were busily at work in his young mind. Occasionally his father, a rude, unlettered man, but with a veneration for learning which has made his name respected to this day, and who now stood leaning against the doorpost, with his white shirt-sleeves rolled up above the elbow, and his brawny arms crossed upon his breast, would take the pipe from his lips, and address some kindly word to him, which was replied to as though the mind of the listener had wandered far away.

It would seem as if the boy was watching the blue smoke-wreathes as they rose up into the still air of evening and disappeared; but it is more probable that his aspiring thoughts followed each other as rapidly, and then became likewise lost in indistinctness. He was aroused at length by a low and gentle voice, and a young girl with bare feet, and a number of small brass coins coquettishly woven in her long braided hair, stood panting for breath by his side. She was an orphan, none knew even from what country she came, though the starry brightness of her large dark eyes, and the sweet accents of her voice, which made music of their harsh language every time she spoke, told of the sunny south. She had been the sole survivor of a vessel which foundered at sea, and adopted by a lone old man, an iron-worker of Guelderland, who had lately come to settle at Utrecht, and who loved her as if she had been his own child.

The boy looked up and smiled at her approach; but it was a dreamy smile which brightened as it met hers, as though all other thoughts melted away before its radiance; and he tried to draw her towards him that she might share his seat.

"No, no," said the girl, playfully eluding his grasp, "I cannot sit still here all this splendid evening.'

"Where would you go to, Esmeralda ?"

"Let us dance in the sunset, or chase each other along by the river; it always feels so fresh by the water."

Adrian sprang up with a joyous bound, and the old barge-builder dashed the tears from his eyes, as he watched them depart, for he knew it would be but little longer that he should have his son with him.

How merrily they danced, and laughed, and romped that night, until even the light-footed Esmeralda grew weary, and following her example Adrian sat down upon the ground, and amused himself by playing with the coins in her long hair.

"Why do you wear these ?" he asked at length, "I never see any of the other children with their heads dressed after this strange fashion."

"Possibly not; but I have a dreamy recollection that they were worn thus in my own country and I never hear them tinkling as I dance without thinking of home."

"I had forgotten that you are not one of us," said Adrian, looking into her beautiful face with a mixture of boyish reverence and love; "for ought any one knows to the contrary, you may be a queen!" "Ah, if I was!" exclaimed the girl, smiling joyously.

"And what would you do then, my Esmeralda?"

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Buy every

book that was ever written, so that you might read all day long if you chose. That would make you happy, would it not, Adrian?"

"But yourself, dearest ?"

"Ah! I had forgotten myself.

I would have masters and study to be wise, in order that you might love me, and never intrude upon you, except you were weary or sick, or when you sent for me."

"Silly Esmeralda! why I should be always sending for you; even as it is I love you better than any thing else in the world.

"Except books," interrupted the girl, holding up her finger with a merry laugh, come, confess, Adrian ?"

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"Well, well, except books then, since you will have it so. And yet I am not quite sure," added the young scholar, dazzled by the bewildering brightness of the dark eyes which sought his so mirthfully, whether I shall admit any exception at all. But it grows late for you to be out, had we not better return?"

The girl rose up that instant, and went bounding on before him like an antelope, her sweet laugh now close at his ear, while her cheek touched his, and then growing fainter in the distance as he strove in vain to keep up with her fleet steps, and mingling with the fairy-like tinkling of her long braided hair. As they approached the dwelling of her protector she assumed a more demure pace, and suffered herself to

be overtaken.

"What a race you have led me, Esmeralda!"

"Poor Adrian! you do look tired;" and she parted the hair upon his flushed brow with her cool fingers, and laughed mischievously: "but you will come in and rest?"

"Not to-night, dear."

"Well, I shall see you to-morrow," and she held up her sweet face for the accustomed kiss, which we will not take upon ourselves to swear was not given as well as received; but then they were but children.

The old barge-builder was anxiously awaiting the return of his son, and that night they sat up long, talking of the past, and yet more earnestly of the future, which their sanguine hopes made bright. The following day it was known all over Utrecht that Adrian would never settle down to his father's business, but was about, with his permission, to quit his native place and proceed to Louvain, at which university the old man had been long and secretly trying to get him admittted gra

tuitously among the students, and was at length successful. Some laughed at the scheme, as such people are apt to do at what passes their comprehension; others thought it would have been better for Adrian to have followed the honest calling of his forefathers, while a few read on the high brow and flashing eyes of the young scholar something of the glory which he went forth to struggle for and to win; but Esmeralda only wept.

There is much real kindness among the poor, whatever may be said to the contrary; and when it became generally known that Adrian was going away to be a great man, as they simply but prophetically expressed it, many a trifling but most acceptable offering aided his father in the arduous task of his equipment, which, plain and frugal as it was, left him nothing but his blessing to bestow. But what do the young, the aspiring, want more? Every obstacle is a fresh incentive to exertion-a fresh triumph when overcome; and they are proud with their own hands to hew out a road, and carve for themselves an everlasting niche in the temple of fame!

Esmeralda was worthy of the young scholar; to the last she spoke not of herself, of her loneliness when he should have gone from her, but rather of the joy it would be to her and his father to hear of his success; the deep self-sacrificing love of the woman, mingled with the passionate fondness of the child, and made her careful to be rather the guiding star than the meteor which might tempt him aside from the bright destiny he had chosen, and they parted at length in hope.

The university of Louvain established by John Duke of Brabant, and containing among its professors some of the most learned, and among its pupils the rising geniuses of the age, was a hallowed object in the eyes of the young student; and the deep feeling of reverence with which he stood for the first time before its massive walls, often made him smile to think on in later days. History proceeds to inform us how for a few successive years he toiled on in the pursuit of knowledge, but the phrase is surely incorrect; if it was a toil, let us at least call it a labour of love! What if his cheek paled, and his form withered; if his flashing eyes grew dim, and ached so that at times he was fain to close them for very weariness, had he not got his wish? Was not the burning thirst of his aspiring spirit slaking itself at the living waters of universal knowledge? Was he not holding daily and hourly commune with all that makes the past great and holy, and laying up for himself a treasure of wisdom which life only could exhaust?

The more aristocratic but less talented pupils of the university had long envied the growing fame of the young student, and sought eagerly to lower him in the estimation in which he was so justly held by the professors; but for some time without success, poverty and an intense love of study compelling Adrian to a life of strict frugality and privation. At length, however, it was discovered that he invariably stole away from the university as soon as it became dusk, and did not return until long past midnight, always taking one direction, and declining on various pretences the company of any of his fellowstudents.

"Depend upon it those quiet ones are always the worst," said Jans Durland. "Who knows but what he may belong to some of those midnight bands of whom the good people of Louvain tell such fearful tales ?"

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