oad;
louder and louder swell those short abrupt trumpet-notes as it draws
near, till the whole sad array, in its affecting beauty, is presented to
the eye. The _life in death_ that pervades the melancholy
ceremonial!--"Our brother is not dead, but sleepeth," seems written on
the impressive pageant; and we almost expect, while we gaze, to see the
deep slumber chased from the closed eyelids, and the recumbent form
start up again to claim the warlike weapons with which it was wont to be
girt, and that now lie, as if awaiting their master's grasp, in
unavailing display on the funereal pall. But a mightier than he has for
ever wrenched them from his hold, and vain the sword, the helm, the
spear, in that unequal conflict. The last contest is over, and "he is in
peace."

"Brother, wrapp'd in quiet sleep,
Thou hast ceased to watch and weep;
Wipe the toil-drops from thy brow,
War and strife are over now;
Bow the head, and bend the knee,
For the crown of victory."

But suppose not pathos confined to the "bugle's wailing sound," and the
sad subdued bursts of well-modulated military music--to the long files
of slow-pacing troops with reversed arms, and the riderless steed,
vainly caparisoned for the battle, that proclaim the obsequies of a
chief. We are not ashamed to confess that the tear has been wrung from
our eye by the plaintive notes of the few rude instruments that alone
lament over the poor private's simple bier--the inharmonious fife, and
the measured beats of the muffled drum; while the dull tramp of the
appointed mourners following a comrade to his obscure resting-place
falls chilly on the heart. Though even he, lowly in death as in life,
shares with his leader in the brief wild honours of a soldier's
grave--the sharp volleys of musketry pealing over his narrow home, a
strange farewell to its passionless inhabitant, on whom the sanctity of
the tomb has already passed; the unholy sound falls voiceless on his
dull ear, fast closed until

"The last loud trumpet-notes on high
Peal through the echoing sky,
And cleave the quivering ground"--

breaking, with dreadful summons, "the eternal calm wherewith the grave
is bound."

"Facilis descensus!" We cannot say that we admire the hurdy-gurdy, that
synthesis of a grindstone and a Jew's-harp, yea, of all that is
detestable, musically speaking, which must have owed its origin to a
desire on the part of Jupiter _Musicus_, in a bad temper, to invent a
suit