ng hand cold, the sympathetic eye
closed, and the villagers feared still more the death that had selected a
choice victim, shivering in dust the heart that had beat for them, reducing
to incommunicable annihilation the mind for ever occupied with projects for
their welfare.

Whoever labours for man must often find ingratitude, watered by vice and
folly, spring from the grain which he has sown. Death, which had in our
younger days walked the earth like "a thief that comes in the night," now,
rising from his subterranean vault, girt with power, with dark banner
floating, came a conqueror. Many saw, seated above his vice-regal throne, a
supreme Providence, who directed his shafts, and guided his progress, and
they bowed their heads in resignation, or at least in obedience. Others
perceived only a passing casualty; they endeavoured to exchange terror for
heedlessness, and plunged into licentiousness, to avoid the agonizing
throes of worst apprehension. Thus, while the wise, the good, and the
prudent were occupied by the labours of benevolence, the truce of winter
produced other effects among the young, the thoughtless, and the vicious.
During the colder months there was a general rush to London in search of
amusement--the ties of public opinion were loosened; many were rich,
heretofore poor--many had lost father and mother, the guardians of their
morals, their mentors and restraints. It would have been useless to have
opposed these impulses by barriers, which would only have driven those
actuated by them to more pernicious indulgencies. The theatres were open
and thronged; dance and midnight festival were frequented--in many of
these decorum was violated, and the evils, which hitherto adhered to an
advanced state of civilization, were doubled. The student left his books,
the artist his study: the occupations of life were gone, but the amusements
remained; enjoyment might be protracted to the verge of the grave. All
factitious colouring disappeared--death rose like night, and, protected
by its murky shadows the blush of modesty, the reserve of pride, the
decorum of prudery were frequently thrown aside as useless veils. This was
not universal. Among better natures, anguish and dread, the fear of eternal
separation, and the awful wonder produced by unprecedented calamity, drew
closer the ties of kindred and friendship. Philosophers opposed their
principles, as barriers to the inundation of profligacy or despair, and the
only ra