It must have belonged to an accomplice, who was there by arrangement. Everything had been prepared to carry away the body of the poor fellow, which would have been secured in the sack, enveloped in the carpet, and covered with straw, and thus secreted in some lonely lock-up yard, until, at dead of night, it would have been conveyed to the dissecting-room. The boy's hat thrown upon the water would have turned inquiry off the scent, and induced delay. The strap, still buckled with cruel force about the poor fellow's arms and ribs, the chamois cushion I have mentioned, and the pitch-plaster fixed over the lower part of his face, were the only "properties" of the villain left to indicate his visit. The cool old assassin had carried off every other trace of his presence, and he and his comrade, taking the donkey-cart with them, had decamped with a celerity, and managed their disguise with an art which, as matters then were, and with a full hour's start, had baffled pursuit. No doubt with the police force now at our command, the result might have been different. As it was, no clue whatever was discovered; and this was positively marvelous, considering the marked peculiarities of dress and of person that belonged to the culprit. The persons best acquainted with the ways of our criminals at that period were of opinion that the strange details of the dress! the gait, the hair, the complexion, and the distortion of the figure, were parts of an elaborate piece of masquerading. There was some controversy as to the object of the projected crime. It was not until the terrific exposure at Edinburgh had made all the world horribly familiar with the machinery of that peculiar species of murder that all debate. upon the matter ceased, and the pitch-plaster was accepted as conclusive evidence that the body was intended for sale to the surgeons. No doubt these poachers on a great scale were thoroughly skilled in all the finesse and strategy of their contraband art. The regularity of my poor brother's solitary walk, its favorable hour. and the easy suggestion of drowning as the cause of his disappearance, had all been noted, and the enterprise was, as I have told you, very nearly accomplished, when an unexpected interruption saved him. My brother was ailing at the time this dreadful attempt was made upon his life. He survived it little more than ten months, and the able physician who attended him referred his death to the awful shock which his system had received. All the Year Round The Secrets of the Heart. May's first sunbeam's quiver; Why, at careless word or phrase, Seem a sign of ill: The secrets of the heart. Why a merry tune may bring Hidden weeping after; Why a mournful air may make Plea for happy laughter; Why one common day may be Sadly held apart, And another kept a feast, By the secret heart. Why some paths untrodden still All these little marvels lie Hallowed from the touch; Do not press upon their source, Girl from lover, friend from friend, Child from parent sacred keeps The secrets of the heart. Look on them as holy things, To the glare of day. One day thou, too, shalt know WINTER'S TRIUMPH. The time when all my hopes were bright, Then happiness was flying-flying, The time when all the leaves were green, When fields were green, and all the grass We laughed although the world was sighing. The time when even tears shall die, The frozen, bleak, and wintry days, Are seeking me by weary ways, And all my hopes like dead leaves lie: For he is gone, and life is flying, And death comes wearily sighing-sighing. FOR EVER. For ever and ever the reddening leaves For ever and ever the low grey sky Falls on bare bleak hill, and barren plain, For ever and ever the weary thoughts Are tracing the self-same track. For ever and ever, to and fro, On the old unchanging road they go, I left the spot with the utmost insolence, snapping my fingers at the soldiers, who, as I Thro' dreaming and waking, through joy and woe, passed them, stared at me with the most intense Calling the dead hours back. For ever and ever the tired heart Ponders o'er evil done. For ever and ever through cloud and gleam, CONFESSIONS OF A DREAMER. expression of awe. Soon afterwards I woke. This dream illustrates a mental condition diametrically opposite to that of Lord Lytton's enthusiast, but in some particulars 1 resemble him. I have a memory that extends from one dream to another, and, skipping over the events of the actual world, recognizes places seen only in preceding visons. Thus I am cognizant of a region between Fleet-street and Holburn that is totally distinct from Gough-square and its I never attained the condition of that strange vicinity. I see it from the tops of houses, man, described by Lord Lytton, in his Pilgrims along which I walk in perfect security, and it is of the Rhine, who so connected his successive generally inhabited by foul, slimy animals of dreams, that they formed one continuous life, to the dog kind, battening upon heaps of offal. him more valuable than the life of his waking hours, the fragments of which appeared to be so many unwelcome interruptions; but I have a notion that my own dreams are not quite as those of other people. I do not profess a shadow of belief in the prophetic value of our nocturnal visions, but to me mine are very important, inasmuch as they occupy a large portion of my time. I can not say with Hamlet, "to sleep, perchance to dream," for with me there is no chance in the matter. Sleeping without dreaming is to me a thing unknown. Certain I am that one of these creatures will eventually reach me, and bite my hand, remaining, perhaps, suspended when I raise my arm. The pain of the bite is not very acute, and sometimes I consent to endure it for a few seconds. When the situation becomes intolerable, I force myself, in the manner I have said, into wakefulness. I am also familiar with a museum of sculpture, which I call the British Museum, though it bears no resemblance to the edifice in Great Russell-street. The statues, situated on a very One of the peculiarities of my dreams is, that high floor, generally represent gigantic horses, I am never absorbed in them entirely. I never and stamp their hoofs while I gaze at them lose the conviction that I am dreaming, and alone. I know, too, a large white house in the whatever visionary troubles befall me, I know vicinity of an imaginary Camberwell, with a that they will come to a speedy end-a comfortable assurance, since my dreams are almost invariably bad. If I am hotly pursued by a wild beast or an irresistible foe, I throw myself, as I suppose, on the ground, and covering my face with my hands, by a violent action of the will, force myself into wakefulness. lawn in front of it, and a very spacious hall. It is evidently intended as a place of amusement, and the hall would serve admirably for balls or concerts on the largest scale. But no amusement ever takes place, and I walk through it alone, feeling that I am in a ghostly presence. Less familiar is a piece of artificial water, so transparent that I can see hideous river gods at the bottom, and so shallow, that I feel that if I attempt to swim they will clutch me with their huge damp hands. I will give a curious instance of my peculiarity in this respect. In the course of one of my dreams, I was brought as a captive into the presence of some Algerian despot, who sat on a throne, with a numerous body of soldiers on From my childhood I have felt, even in each side of him, and who menaced me with waking hours, a strange horror at a single horrible tortures. I listened patiently, and figure spouting water in the midst of a dark pond. I had a mysterious dread of a bronze in the morning, pleasant visits in the evening; Triton which used to stand, and may be still and I puzzled my brain to discover under what standing, on a terrace in the Kent-road, near circumstances an affair so agreeable was sudthe Elephant and Castle, and of the mermaid, denly broken off. Also I was doubtful as to now destroyed, which was prominent in Cam- what exact period of my life the interesting berwell-grove, before the house which once be- episode belonged. However, as I thought on, longed to the celebrated Docter Lettsom, and and more perfectly recovered the condition of which some connect with the story of George wakefulness, it turned out that no such person Barnwell. The persuasion never left me that if as the lady of the Albany-road had ever existed. I leaped into the water they would suck me into Now the question is, whether she was the figure their tubes, and that I should be horribly in a dream of several years ago, or whether, in crushed. a state of "doze," I dreamed a memory of someA very singular instance of dreamy memory thing that had never been present even to my occurred to me the other night. I should tell imagination. The total want of connection beyou that, in my dreams, my powers of locomo- tween the conflict with the bullocks and the tion are preternaturally great. I can leap from pacific idyl, by which it was immediately folany height, without fear and without peril; and lowed, is worthy of observation. 1 have a talent for descending a staircase by placing my feet on the edge of the topmost stair, and then rapidly gliding from edge to edge, till I reach the bottom. These powers are not unfrequently checked by the nightmare, with which I am terribly intimate in all its horrid forms Sometimes my legs grow so heavy that I can not walk, save by lifting them with my hands; sometimes I have to ascend the spiral steps of a column, which narrows and threatens to hold me fast; sometimes I lose the use of my voice. And whenever these accidents occur I am in a position of imminent danger, and need the full use of my faculties. The expedient of throwing myself on my face to escape from impending horrors, sometimes fails in an extraordinary manner. By sheer force of will I indeed destroy the vision, and find myself apparently awake in my bed. But the chamber, though exactly like that which I actually occupy, is another dream, from which I must awake anew, and which is probably peopled with forms more terrible than those which I have annihilated, because they more closely approach reality. Once I experienced a singular pause on the boundary line which parts the visionary from the actual. I dreamed that I was present at a ball, where the most Now, dreaming the other night, I found my conspicuous figure was a lady, dressed in white self in an upper room, where I was convinced satin. When I woke, I was in my veritable an effort would be made to detain me against my room; but though the other figures had will. Rushing out, I made my way down to the vanished, the lady in white was standing on the street-door, taking a whole flight of stairs at floor, all the rest of the vision having melted every single leap. The handle of the door around her. She broke into little pieces, like resisted me, and at first I had a difficulty in those of a dissected puzzle, each of which moving it; but I ultimately triumphed, and, vanished by itself. This case, of the fragment again at a single leap, cleared the outside steps. of a dream remaining, when all the rest was Soon I found myself on an embankment by the gone, I never experienced before or since. river, close to a cab-stand. I called for a There are circumstances, generally of a painvehicle to conduct me to one of the West-end ful kind, under which certain objects so firmly hotels; but the cabs were all occupied, and take possession of the mind, that even in sound from one of them a drunken-looking man- sleep they unwillingly relax their hold, and are about-town "chaffed" me as I passed. As the ready to appear at the first wakeful moment, darkness increased I was aware of the approach when they put on a terrible freshness. Such of a drove of bullocks, and as the river was on objects are, of course, prominent in our dreams; one side and the cab-stand on the other, I felt it seems as if that anxiety for the future, which that I must force my way through this unwieldy has occupied us during the day, also lasts crowd. With some difficulty I elbowed myself through the night. This state of mind, howinto the midst of it, till a human agent in my ever, is fortunately exceptional, and under rear, hitherto unnoticed, pressed me against a ordinary circumstances, I can say for myself, colossal animal, which rendered further passage that my dreams have nothing whatever to do impossible. In my despair I awoke, and, with the events of the preceding day. This changing from a state of terror into an idyllic experience directly opposes the theory that the mood, I fell into a pleasing remembrance of the objects of our thoughts before we fall asleep days when I paid my addresses to a young lady form the substance of our nightly visions, or resident in that Albany-road which leads to the rather confines the application of this theory to Bricklayers' Arms. I recalled pleasant visits an abnormal state of things. When my mind is tolerably at ease, my dreams generally refer disfigured than adorned them, and emphatically to a period of my life which has passed away declared one day that he would have no more long ago, and has left scarcely a trace behind it, "buckrams." We were less awed than puzzled. whereas of the persons with whom I converse Why, in the name of wonder, were our verses almost daily, and in whom I take a serious in- called "buckrams"? They were doubtless terest, I rarely dream at all. During the period replete with faults, but certainly these did not in question, I was studying, or pretending to comprise stiffness, of which buckram is the study, the law in a solicitor's office; but I never accepted symbol. We generally had recourse to seriously followed the profession, and at last I the "gay science" for the purpose of abusing gave it up altogether. It was a period of seven each other, thinking that rhyme gave a special years, but though I had many associates and sting to satire; and when a boy in his teens was on good terms with all my fellows, there is wishes to bestow ill names on his associates, we not one among them with whom I am intimate may be sure that, if he invokes the Muse, she now. As for my friends of the present, when I will accord to him the gift of ready utterance. tell them that I was once a lawyer, they smile Then why "buckrams"? After mature delibwith bland incredulity, so different is the eration I arrived at the conclusion that the capacity in which I have long been known. word "buckram" was a corruption of "epiYet, strange to say, to this unfruitful, unprofit- gram." That this corruption does not belong able period, unmarked as it was by a single to London I am convinced, and I should be stirring incident, do I commonly recur in my obliged if some north-country reader would indreams, when my mind is not troubled. Again form me whether it is a product of Yorkshire. I am in that old-fashioned City office, feeling Let me .drop the wide-awake days of my that it is my duty to be there, and somewhat youth, and the philological lucubrations thereuneasy lest I may be reprimanded for coming with connected, and return to the subject of late. The person who may possibly reprimand dreams. Of what material is that huge unreal is the senior partner, who has ceased to take a world, in which we apparently pass so many very active share in the business, and whose hours, and which, while it lasts, so strongly energies are commonly wasted in a vain endeavor resembles reality-of what material is it actually to bring us youngsters to something like a sense composed? In my case, when I am in a normal of discipline. He is a native of Yorkshire, and state, it is not made up of fragments collected though he has been from his youth a resident from the immediate past, nor among all my in the Great City, he speaks with a provincial visions have I ever found one that in the bluffness which awes young cockneys, though slightest degree pointed to the future. Some of they know that at bottom he is thoroughly them looked portentous enough, and inspired good-humored, and though they not unfrequently me with a superstitious fear that "something" smile at the slips in grammar of which he is was going to happen. But nothing ever did occasionally guilty, and which have no connec- happen that could be tortured into an event tion with the dialect of his country. Of this predicted by the dream. And how in my sleep good old gentleman, dead long ago, and distin- do I construct houses, and gardens, and streets, guished even from the men of his time by his that I have never seen at all? Platonizing unwieldy figure, his ill-fitting black coat, and enthusiasts will perhaps argue that in this case, his drab breeches, continued by gaiters, I never I recall a previous state of existence. I don't think by any chance during my wakeful hours, believe it; there never was a past state of and I only think of him at the present moment existence, in which there was a vast region because I am penning these confessions. And between Fleet-street and Holborn, built as they yet, as I have said, he is one of the most familiar are, which did not include Gough-square. I figures in my dreams. ask again, whence is the material of our dreams obtained? Shakespeare talks of the stuff that dreams are made of; but of what does the stuff consist? While he is before my mind, I will record a fact connected with him, which has no reference to my subject, but which is too curious to be passed over. One of our favorite amusements consisted in scribbling verses, usually of a satirical kind, on the panes with which a wooden partition dividing two offices was liberally furnished, and which, deprived of transparency by a coat of whitening, could be conveniently used as tablets. Now, our old friend, who was not a votary of the Muses, was of opinion that the flowers of poetry, which cropped up so luxuriously on his panes, rather SORROW. Should Sorrow lay her hand upon thy shoulder |