name, with its array of titles—the inscription with its long flattery; and there was only the mouldering bones, and the dank vapour. God of heaven! how mortality mocks itself!—how far extends the solemnity of its foolishness, the vain-gloriousness of its delusion! The living console themselves by the honours which they pay to the dead; and yet this self-deceit is not all in vain. Every feeling that looks to the future elevates human nature; for life is never so low or so little as when it concentrates itself on the present. The miserable wants, the small desires, and the petty pleasures of daily existence have nothing in common with those mighty dreams which, looking forward for action and action's reward, redeem the earth over which they walk with steps like those of an angel, beneath which spring up glorious and immortal flowers. The imagination is man's noblest and most spiritual faculty; and that ever dwells on the to-come.
But to return to the Gothic chapel, and its mournful solemnities. A strain of music reverberated along the arches as a gloomy train entered, faces and shapes alike hidden in their black and sweeping garments. In the midst was the coffin, covered with a white velvet pall, on which was embroidered a golden border of the arms of
