Then pause beneath the lofty arch, and there
Survey the mouldings rich, and sculptures fair;
See how in giant groups the columns stand,
And cast long shadows o'er the yellow sand;
How the soft light on marble tracery plays,
And busts look life-like through that silvery haze;
Tread the long colonnade, where beauty's throng,
And queens of Yore, were wont to sweep along;
Through richly painted roofs, now cleft and riv'n,
The stars will shine, the changeless lamps of heav'n,
Ruin on ruin mouldering, still and lone,

Arch following arch, fane, massy wall o'erthrown,
And still beyond, some line of columns gray,
In long perspective stretching far away-
These will the moon in desolation show,
Shedding o'er all a soft etherial glow,
Till beauty scarce of earth around us beams,
And like the abode of spirits Tadmor seems;
Or half we think that Eastern story true,
Which tells of old his spell th' Enchanter threw,
And built by Genii, in one glorious night,
Those shrines of pride, and palaces of light.*

And are no dwellers here? no beings found
Within Palmyra's wide and haunted bound?
Yes, come and see-where Beauty, in old days,
Touched her sweet harp, and blushed at her own praise,
There rears the desert bird her callow brood,
And shrieks along the untrodden solitude.
Yes, come and see-where kings in council sate,
On ivory thrones, 'mid all the pomp of state,
There mopes the owl with shining, sleepless eye,
And growls the hyena, stealing slowly by.

Yet sweet, amidst these ruins, 'tis to trace
What yet survives a long-forgotten race;
Fair brook! that lift'st thy small and happy voice,
And like some sportive child dost here rejoice

* The Arabs, at this day, firmly believe that Palmyra was built by Genii, under the direction of their king, the great Magician Solomon. That the Hebrew monarch enlarged, if he did not found Palmyra, is certain, but the existing monuments are the works of the Greeks and Romans. The age in which they were erected has been a matter of dispute.

Untired by wearying ages, from thy spring
Up, up thou bubblest, like some fairy thing;
Cool is thy grot, and smooth thy bason's rim,
Though moss and ivy clothe the marble brim.
Sure Naiads watch thee with untiring care,
Lest aught pollute a thing so chaste and fair,
Defend thy low stone font from crushing years,
And on thy limpid bosom drop their tears;
Yet, pitying maids, they will not scare away
The desert wanderer, fainting 'neath the ray,
But smiling, view him stoop his thirsty lips,
And turn to nectar every drop he sips.

Thy playful bounding stream then quits the cave,
Palmyra's ruined walls and shrines to lave;
And now it chafes with columns prostrate thrown,
Its tiny rage in froth and murmurs shown;
Now, calm as holy dreams, it wanders by,
Gives back each ruin, and reflects the sky,

Till, tombed like some blest saint, its course is o'er,
And, lost mid sands below, is seen no more.*

A spring rises at the foot of the hills west of Palmyra, in a fine grotto, whence it gushes into a stone bason, and the stream, after running part of its course in an artificial channel, loses itself in the sands east of the ruin.-Vide Wood's Journey to Palmyra.

MARMADUKE HUTTON;

OR,

THE POOR RELATION.

BY WILLIAM DODSWORTH, ESQ.

CHAPTER XXXIV.*

WALTER'S companion noticed, as they stood at the door of the box, after rapping for admittance, that he had become all at once deadly pale; and surmising from the stern and fixed look that he preserved, that he was in reality suffering either in body or mind, did not venture to interrupt his musings.

At length, after knocking until his little stock of patience was entirely exhausted, the door was opened, and Walter, followed by Stephen, walked in. A momentary confusion, which was, however, immediately concealed by more than his usual coolness and audacity, marked his reception by Mr. Linton, who, conceiving that it was the safest way to put a good face upon the matter, welcomed Stephen with great apparent cordiality, and even shook hands with Walter as well.

"What has brought you up to London, nephew?" said he, in a loud tone, apparently with the intention of distracting Lord Cavendish's attention from Dinah. "Your mother, I hope, is quite well?"

"Quite well, thank you."

"A holiday, perhaps? Young men like to see the world," said Joseph Linton, with a good-humoured smile.

"Partly. My sister Lucy is married, and I have accompanied her husband and herself on their wedding trip," said Stephen, quietly.

• Continued from page 331, vol. lii.

"Lucy married!" exclaimed Mr. Joseph Linton, shaking his hand again, still more warmly. "That pretty, quiet girl, I admired so much when I was down at your house? I am delighted, my dear nephew, to congratulate you on such a happy event. And you probably intend staying some time in London, Stephen?"

"I can scarcely say," said the young man, as his eye wandered over the house. "We have never fixed any definite period to turn our faces homewards."

"Worse luck!" thought Joseph Linton, who foresaw in this an appalling vision of being pestered with these country cousins, heaven only knew for how long; but he did not say a whit the less pleasantly on that account, "Then I must insist upon having the pleasure of seeing you all very frequently in Bakerstreet. Now, no excuses, nephew. You must come, and very often, too," and he shook Stephen by the shoulder with a hug a bear might have envied.

"We shall certainly accept your invitation, my dear sir," rejoined Stephen, who began to think this new uncle of his not such a bad fellow, after all. "I think you said you lived in Baker-street. I shan't forget it," and Stephen began to watch the performance again.

Walter, in the meanwhile had stolen to the side of Dinah Linton, his heart throbbing violently in his breast, and a wild thrill of pleasure agitating his manly frame. He took her hand. How it trembled, as it lay in his own, that was hot and cold by turns! and although his rival stood in the back of the box, watching them keenly, he ventured to raise it to his lips, accompanying the action with a pressure which he certainly meant to be a declaration of his own passionate devotion to its fair mistress.

"Dear Dinah," he whispered, almost breathless with agitation, and scarcely conscious of what he intended to say, "we have been long and cruelly parted from each other. When I talked on that eventful night of setting forth upon the world to seek my fortunes, and you prompted my flagging resolution with your own brave and courageous forebodings of success,neither of us little dreamed that you would so soon leave the retirement of the Abbey Holme, for such a gay and fashionable sphere as I now see you moving in."

"Mr. Mordaunt," began Dinah, in a broken whisper, "pardon me if I do not call you Walter, as we used to do in those happy times of old."

"Oh Dinah!" burst in the young man, with impetuous warmth, "why not bless my ears with that, old, familiar name? it is the one you used to give me in those happy times when

little of sorrow or care had damped our courage; and I fondly dared to worship you as some poor captive in his dungeon ventures to adore the sun that sheds one of his glorious rays even through the bars of his dreary prison."

"Dear, dear Walter!" murmured Dinah, looking wildly round, lest either her father or her hateful lover should overhear them; 'you terrify me more than I can express by such language. My father will hear us, or Lord Cavendish, who is affecting to converse with Stephen, although his eye is very often fixed upon us."

"Dinah, I cannot, and I will not, control my feelings," murmured Walter, who felt himself quite carried away by them at this moment. "I have loved you long and passionately; I am poor and unknown, but I am young and hopeful; and the prospect of one day sharing my home, however humble it might be, with you, would nerve me to dare and bear much for your sake."

"But my father," said Dinah, stealing one of her terrified glances towards the omnipotent Joseph; "he will never sanction such a scheme, Walter."

"You are not bound, dearest, to regard him alone in such a case. He abandoned you from infancy to the care of good old Mrs. Harding, and never once troubled himself to inquire whether you were alive or dead, until the selfish thought entered his heart, that your beauty and talents might be turned to account."

Dinah gave an involuntary start as her lover said this, which was so fearfully true, and for which, however, Walter had no other foundation than his own suspicions. Walter, however, met her startled gaze with a look of such ardent love, that, as she bent her head again, the sweet tears of happiness and love filled her eyes, and she forgot for the moment her terrors for the future in her enjoyment of the present.

"Sorrow and joy alike make us very selfish, Walter," she said, more calmly, after a time, lifting up her beautiful eyes to his countenance, " or I should have asked earlier after dear Lucy and Dick, who, I see, are still sitting in the stalls."

"Lucy is now Mrs. Richard Burton," said Walter, glancing down to them as he spoke; "and they have come up to London partly to enjoy their wedding trip, and partly in the hope of discovering you, Dinah."

He then narrated how he had encountered the wedding party at Hereford, not omitting to paint his own despair on learning from Lucy that Dinah had not only left them, but that the actual place of her abode was entirely unknown to them, and that this news had terrified him so much that they had instantly