me, and the
smell of turf fires, and innocent sweethearting, and rising and setting
suns? Did it--but the dragoon's horse has become restive, and his
brass helmet bobs up and down and blots everything; and there is a
sharp sound, and I feel the great crowd heave and swing, and hear it
torn by a sharp shiver of pity, and the men whom I saw so near but a
moment ago are at immeasurable distance, and have solved the great
enigma,--and the lark has not yet finished his flight: you can see and
hear him yonder in the fringe of a white May cloud.

This ghastly lark's flight, when the circumstances are taken in
consideration, is, I am inclined to think, more terrible than anything
of the same kind which I have encountered in books. The artistic uses
of contrast as background and accompaniment, are well known to nature
and the poets. Joy is continually worked on sorrow, sorrow on joy;
riot is framed in peace, peace in riot. Lear and the Fool always go
together. Trafalgar is being fought while Napoleon is sitting on
horseback watching the Austrian army laying down its arms at Ulm. In
Hood's poem, it is when looking on the released schoolboys at their
games that Eugene Aram remembers he is a murderer. And these two poor
Irish labourers could not die without hearing a lark singing in their
ears. It is nature's fashion. She never quite goes along with us.
She is sombre at weddings, sunny at funerals, and she frowns on
ninety-nine out of a hundred picnics.

There is a stronger element of terror in this incident of the lark than
in any story of a similar kind I can remember.

A good story is told of an Irish gentleman--still known in London
society--who inherited the family estates and the family banshee. The
estates he lost--no uncommon circumstance in the history of Irish
gentlemen,--but the banshee, who expected no favours, stuck to him in
his adversity, and crossed the channel with him, making herself known
only on occasions of death-beds and sharp family misfortunes. This
gentleman had an ear, and, seated one night at the opera, the
_keen_--heard once or twice before on memorable occasions--thrilled
through the din of the orchestra and the passion of the singers. He
hurried home, of course, found his immediate family well, but on the
morrow a telegram arrived with the announcement of a brother's death.
Surely of all superstitions that is the most imposing which makes the
other world interested in the events which be