and position can give, to the interesting phenomenon that was expected; the grounds, though small, are so well disposed, and the prospects are so extensive and varied. From one spot of the garden, the view over the vast Christiania Fiord, with its numerous islands, picturesque objects, and elevated opposite banks, is most exquisite. This spot is a high, grassy mound, simple as if Nature herself had made it, and isolated by a screen of flowering shrubs from all view but the one I describe at least, attempt to describe. There I have spent some tranquil, thoughtful moments, but none at all like those vouchsafed to me on the memorable "twenty-eight."

It is said-how truly I know not-that the poor nuns who were expelled from this charming neighbourhood at the devastating era of the Reformation, still haunt the place in the form of two black cats. The reverse will be my fate; the place will haunt me: I see it now, shall ever see it, as I saw it under the strange influence of the solar eclipse of July, 1851.

I reached Mr. Crowe's about one o'clock, an hour and a half before the moment when the eclipse was predicted to be total. I found each of the family already occupying the post of ob

servation which he had assigned. In the yard, through which I entered the gardens, the merryhearted child of the family, a young lady who boasts of being a true-born Lapp, was commissioned to make observations on the behaviour of calves, pigs, turkeys, and poultry in general. On the open gravel walk ascending from that yard, an English astronomer had planted his glass, just beneath the level of the neighbouring observatory, and directed it to the object of anxious expectation, which flitting clouds threatened to obscure. In the flower-garden below, a very pretty girl was walking, musing doubtless on pleasant things, while her task was to watch the influence of a solar eclipse upon the flowers. On my favourite point of view, a fine young man was stretched along, with pencil and paper, fancying himself intent on taking observations.

I too, they said, must have a post of observation and a charge. They gave me the latter-I forget what it was-perhaps the colouring of vegetation, and the conduct of the birds. I chose my own post on the grassy mound, but I fear that, under the impression of the entire of that strange scene, I forgot to observe the particularity of its details.

Having selected my post, I went into the house and passed a short time with a most interesting invalid. I was hurriedly called back to it, from a conversation which filled my mind with serious thoughts; and, throwing a large white shawl over her head and shoulders, she came out with me, and sat on a chair on the garden walk. She was a young wife and mother, full of tender care, not for what she soon might be called to enter upon, but for what she soon might have to leave in the world behind her. She trembled then for her babe, the daughter to be left motherless in infancy; and that babe, that plump and rosy babe, has since been very speedily housed, sheltered before herself, in the Good Shepherd's fold. The mother who had trembled for it to be left motherless, was herself left childless. She was left behind it.

She sat now, wan and wasted, on a chair just facing the sun, which had already begun to assume an ominous aspect. She gazed on it

solemnly, as if it were about to disappear for ever from her earthly eyes.

Already the dark body that was to eclipse it was seen visibly contracting its orb. The clouds we had dreaded passed away, our view was clear

and unimpeded, but that remarkable expression of holy writ came strongly to my mind, "the sun shall be ashamed." Just so it appeared to be, -blushing, shrinking, discountenanced. Over its bright surface the dark spot, which had for some time appeared at its rim, became "as the shadow of a man's hand." Its progress was distinct to the naked eye, for such was mine. A gloom was gathering over the sky, a gloom stealing over the earth; slowly, slowly it came on; it was not the least like the shadowing of a cloud, nor the gloom of a gathering storm. We looked up and around; we doubted, as if taken by surprise, and asked ourselves, "Does it not grow dark?" The darker body advanced, and the gloom seemed to move on faster, the more palpable it became. The predicted hour was drawing on, and with it came the darkness-faster, faster, faster-visibly sweeping on, unlike anything I ever saw, I ever could have imagined. It was a moving, almost tangible darkness, rushing on at the last as if borne on the wings of the wind.

Our very hearts stood still; nature itself grew suddenly silent; the songs of birds ceased; the animals huddled together, and cowered in silence. The darkness swept on, swept over us, wrapped

its wings around us; a strange greenish-yellow hue mingled with it, and gave it the most supernatural aspect. The horizon wore a belt of that greenly-yellow hue, the vegetation around us assumed it, the human faces on which I looked reflected it.

The Fiord, with its waters and rocky islets, was covered in that strange pall; and through the mysterious and impressive gloom up, rose the tall pines from these islets, looking like gigantic spectres rising from out of chaos-a paler, yellower shade than the darkness around them. All was unearthly seeming, but unspeakably grand, full of awe and solemnity. In that moment, my knees involuntarily bent to the ground. The mighty power and presence of God constrained the movement.

The young, fresh bloom on other cheeks had paled, that greenish-yellow had chased away the colouring of the eloquent blood from pretty cheeks. I looked to the invalid; she sat there with the white shawl shrouding her livid face; her form inclined forward, the hands clasped on her bosom; the large, tearful blue eyes fixed in trembling awe on the darkening orb. It was a painter's image for the scene of the Last Day; the form of