With all a fiery whirlpool's force,

Be cold, and motionless, and still
A tenant of its lowly bed;
But let not dark delirium steal--


* * * * *

The stanzas with which Kirke White's fragment of the "Christiad"
concludes, are not so painful as these lines. Had this however been more
than a transient feeling, it would have produced the calamity which it
dreaded: it is likely, indeed, that her early death was a dispensation
of mercy, and saved her from the severest of all earthly inflictions;
and that same merciful Providence which removed her to a better state of
existence, made these apprehensions give way to a hope and expectation
of recovery, which, vain as it was, cheered some of her last hours. When
she was forbidden to read it was a pleasure to her to handle the books
which composed her little library, and which she loved so dearly. "She
frequently took them up and kissed them; and at length requested them to
be placed at the foot of her bed, where she might constantly see them,"
and anticipating a revival which was not to be, of the delight she
should feel in reperusing them, she said often to her mother, "what a
feast I shall have by-and-bye." How these words must have gone to that
poor mother's heart, they only can understand who have heard such like
anticipations of recovery from a dear child, and not been able, even
whilst hoping against hope, to partake them.

When sensible at length of her approaching dissolution, she looked
forward to it without alarm; not alone in that peaceful state of mind