On some futile pretence of seeing his friend, Luxmore, the poet, Thorndale returned to England. Luxmore had published, and failed. Thorndale found him in a Special Pleader's office, studying for the bar. Luxmore held steadily to his books of Practice, till, in an evil hour (he had parted with all his poets), he bought at a stall a cheap edition of Shelley. It wakened the old spirit. He would emigrate. He would clear the forest and the jungle. He would grow corn by the Mississippi. But he must see the South American mountains first; and so he sailed for Rio Janeiro. Thorndale greatly doubted to the last whether he had ever 'worked his way round' to the farm he had talked of. Luxmore's character and career are ably and skilfully sketched; but we cannot say that we are especially struck by the specimens given of his poetry.

In the great steamer, as it lay off Southampton, Thorndale bade his friend farewell. He had loved him, he tells us, as a brother, and an elder brother. Thorndale's pliant nature was plastic in those robust hands. Sadly depressed, he betook himself to a little cottage at Shanklin, once more alone but for the old companion--the box of books. It was Thorndale's especial misfortune that, with a native craving for some attached companion to dwell under the same roof, he was by circumstances always doomed to days of solitude. But a new interest now arose. Symptoms of disease, disregarded in the excitement of the last days with Luxmore, now forced themselves on his attention. Some business matter compelled him to write to his uncle, thus informing his relations at Sutton Manor, for

the first time, that he had returned to England. Kind messages and regrets came in reply: Winifred especially chiding him for his unsocial habits. It seemed 'a wild strain of irony.' Yet the few lines she wrote wakened old feelings, never quite asleep. Surely she would come and see the poor invalid? So strong did the impression grow, that, catching sight one day of a female figure in the garden, bending over the flowers, he felt sure it must be Winifred; and watched breathlessly, with violently-beating heart, till she turned her face, and the delusion was dispelled. Still, for days he cherished the vain expectation that she would come, and restore him, by her very presence, to life, and hope, and faith. That was all he needed.

If I could see thee, 'twould be well with me!

Now there came consultations with this and that great physician and soon the death-warrant decidedly expressed. Then was a first moment of confusion and agony; and then followed an indescribable calm. It was now all smooth water before him. He betook himself to his last retreat at Villa Scarpa; but he did not see Winifred before he left England for ever. Kind letters followed him from her mother. Lady Moberly would come over to take care of him, with a doctor in either hand. Of course she never came. And now the last days are gliding over swiftly:

The day is never long. I have, indeed, ceased to take note of the measurement of time. One hour is more genial than another; thought flows more rapidly, or these damaged lungs breathe somewhat more freely at one time than another: but where the

present hour stands in the series which makes up day and night, what the clock reports of the progress of time, I have ceased to ask myself. There is but one hour that the bell has to strike for me.

Yet life is not quite over, even after Thorndale has found his last harbour of refuge. Present incident proves the completion of past remembrance. The Third Book of the manuscript volume is entitled, Cyril; or, the Modern Cistercian.

In watching a little point of beach which was visible from his terrace, Thorndale had often been struck by the figure of a youthful monk, wearing the white habit of the Cistercian order, who passed slowly by the seamargin, and sometimes paused in thought. Thorndale had constructed a whole theory of his thinking and history, and began to feel towards him as towards a friend. At length, in his ride, Thorndale passed two monks, one of whom had sunk exhausted by the wayside. He conveyed the monk to the monastery in his carriage, and recognised in him the Cistercian so often watched. A further surprise awaited him. On entering the Cistercian's cell, he recognised in him an old acquaintance-Cyril. Cyril had entered the Roman Catholic Church, through the gate of the monastery. He had sought a peaceful, pious, and harmonious life within those walls; and he assured Thorndale that he had found all he sought. His history had been a tragical one. Brought up in a pious family, he had been assailed by sceptical doubts. His father was an enthusiast for reformatory punishment. The house was full of books on the subject. And from these

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Cyril imbibed the notion that one grand end of all punishment should be the reformation of the criminal himself. To punish for mere revenge was unchristian and irrational. How, then, of God's punishments inflicted in a future life? The pious father appeared to claim for the human legislator principles more noble and enlightened than those he attributed to the Divine. Eternal punishment aims not at the reformation of the guilty. Cyril was plunged into all the miseries of doubt. And brought up in the conviction that unbelief was the extremest sin, his anguish was indescribable. He became restless, gloomy, morose. And so, leaving Oxford, Thorndale left him. Thorndale was at Dolgelly, in Wales, when he learned that Cyril was at Barmouth, and rode over to see him. He met him, just come off the water. Cyril's joy at the meeting was extreme. They sat cheerfully down to supper. Cyril never had been so gay. At length, absently, he drew from the pocket of his rough great coat a large mass of iron, the fluke of an old anchor. of it, suddenly recollecting himself, he violent flood of tears. He confessed to his friend that an accident only had prevented him from throwing himself into the sea, during the sail from which he had just returned. He had gone out with that purpose, driven to it by his agony of doubt, and (strange as it may seem) by the fear of death. His fear of death was such, that he longed to make a plunge and have it over. And amid all the misery of his scepticism, he says, surely with sad truth,

At the sight burst into a

I am quoted by my family and my friends as a monster of

impiety and guilt. I am frowned upon, avoided, expostulated with—and pious ministers reprove me―for intellectual pride!

We can well believe that a pious father or mother, deeply loving their son, would yet rather see him laid. in his coffin than see him turn doubtful of their own simple faith. What malady makes a breach so totalwhat leads to a doom so fearful-as unbelief? But let it be remembered that in many cases it is a malady: a disease for which a man is no more guilty than for consumption or for typhus. No doubt there is a wilful blindness, a preference of falsehood to truth, a flippant, hateful self-sufficiency, in the case of some: and let these be held responsible. But surely there are earnest spirits, battling for the truth-shedding tears of blood because they cannot believe, though they long to do so. Let us be thankful that in almost every such case the disease is a temporary one. It will wear away. Unto the upright there ariseth light in darkness.' Unbelief is a crisis which must be passed through by the thinking human mind, as certainly as measles and hooping-cough by the human body. Of course a blockhead, who never thinks at all, will not be troubled by it. The humble and earnest man comes out of it, with a faith grounded so deeply that it can never be shaken more. Let us pity, then, the young doubter: let us aid him by God's blessing: let us not accuse him, and so perhaps drive him to despair. The guilty unbelief is that of the man who knows in his conscience that he would rather not believe. There is another kind of want of faith which the Almighty will not condemn. It is that which utters the creed

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