THE present! it is but a drop from the sea In the mighty depths of eternity. I love it not—it taketh its birth Too near to the dull and the common ea… - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Mrs. Burgoyne passed the last twenty years of her life in a large, solemn-looking house at Kensington ; it is now a mad-house. How curiously do these changes in dwelling places, once cheerful and familiar, bring the mutability of our existence home ! It would be an eventful chronicle, the history of even a few of the old-fashioned houses in the vicinity of London. You ascended a flight of steps, with a balustrade and two indescribable birds on either side, and a large hall, which, strange to say, was more cheerful in winter than in summer. In summer the narrow windows, the black wood with which it was panelled, seemed heavy and dull ; but in winter the huge fire gave its own gladness, and had besides the association with old English hospitality which a blazing grate always brings. You passed next through two long drawing-rooms, whose white wainscoting was almost covered with family portraits. There cannot be much said for the taste of Queen Anne's time downwards — bagged, wigged, and hooped ; there was not a picture of which the African's question might not have been asked, "Pray tell me, white woman, if this is all you?”

God ! that this Earth should be so beautiful,
And yet so wretched !

But not like this is Nature's face,
Though even she must bear the trace
Of the great curse that clings to all ;
Her leaves, her flowers, must spring to fall :