entire fulfilment, in all their minute and terrible details, of the fiery and horror-inspiring denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy Book.

Why need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy of mankind?  That tenuity in the comet which had previously inspired us with hope, was now the source of the bitterness of despair.  In its impalpable gaseous character we clearly perceived the consummation of Fate.  Meantime a day again passed—­bearing away with it the last shadow of Hope.  We gasped in the rapid modification of the air.  The red blood bounded tumultuously through its strict channels.  A furious delirium possessed all men; and with arms rigidly outstretched towards the threatening heavens, they trembled and shrieked aloud.  But the nucleus of the destroyer was now upon us;—­even here in Aidenn I shudder while I speak.  Let me be brief—­brief as the ruin that overwhelmed.  For a moment there was a wild lurid light alone, visiting and penetrating all things.  Then—­let us bow down, Charmion, before the excessive majesty of the great God!—­then, there came a shouting and pervading sound, as if from the mouth itself of HIM; while the whole incumbent mass of ether in which we existed, burst at once into a species of intense flame, for whose surpassing brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the high Heaven of pure knowledge have no name.  Thus ended all.

* * * * *

SHADOW.—­A PARABLE.

    Yea! though I walk through the valley of the Shadow.

    ‘Psalm of David’.

Ye who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows.  For indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen of men.  And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.

The year had been a year of terror, and of feeling more intense than terror for which there is no name upon the earth.  For many prodigies and signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the black wings of the Pestilence were spread abroad.  To those, nevertheless, cunning in the stars, it was not unknown that the heavens wore an aspect of ill; and to me, the Greek Oinos, among others, it was evident that now had arrived the alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at the entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is enjoined with the red ring of the terrible Saturnus.  The peculiar spirit of the skies, if I mistake not greatly, made itself manifest, not only in the physical orb of the earth, but in the souls, imaginations, and meditations of mankind.