Surely, to the sincere believer death would be an object of desire instead of dread, were it not for those ties—­those heartstrings—­by which we are attached to life.  Nor, indeed, do I believe that it is natural to fear death, however generally it may be thought so.  From my own feelings I have little right to judge; for, although habitually mindful that the hour cometh, and even now may be, it has never appeared actually near enough to make me duly apprehend its effect upon myself.  But from what I have observed, and what I have heard those persons say whose professions lead them to the dying, I am induced to infer that the fear of death is not common, and that where it exists it proceeds rather from a diseased and enfeebled mind, than from any principle in our nature.  Certain it is, that among the poor the approach of dissolution is usually regarded with a quiet and natural composure, which it is consolatory to contemplate, and which is as far removed from the dead palsy of unbelief as it is from the delirious raptures of fanaticism.  Theirs is a true, unhesitating faith; and they are willing to lay down the burden of a weary life, in the sure and certain hope of a blessed immortality.  Who, indeed, is there, that would not gladly make the exchange, if he lived only for himself, and were to leave none who stood in need of him—­no eyes to weep at his departure, no hearts to ache for his loss?  The day of death, says the preacher, is better than the day of one’s birth; a sentence to which whoever has lived long, and may humbly hope that he has not lived ill, must heartily assent.

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MASANIELLO.

The last No. (8,) of the Foreign Quarley Review, just published, contains an attractive article on the Revolutions of Naples, in 1647 and 1648, in which Masaniello played so conspicuous a part.  The paper is in the easy historical style of Sir Walter Scott; but as little could be selected for our pages, except the Adventures of the Rebel Fisherman, and as we have given the leading events of his life in an early volume of the MIRROR, we content ourselves with the following passage.  After a tolerably fair estimate of the character of Masaniello, in which Sir Walter considers his extraordinary rise as a work of fortune and contingency rather than of his own device in the conception, or his own exertions in the execution—­the writer says—­

“It would be doing Masaniello injustice, however, if we did not add, that having no distinct prospect of rendering essential service to his country, he was at the same time totally free from any sinister views of personal aggrandizement.  He appears to have been sincere in his wishes, that when he had set Naples free,—­by which he understood the abolition of imposts,—­the government of it should be committed to a popular management.  The Memoirs of 1828 record a singular circumstance with regard to this point, on the authority of De