The fate of the barber was equally deplorable.  The awful words pronounced by Merton may be considered his death-knell.  They rang ever after in his ears; and, in a few weeks, his head was turned, his shop shut up, and himself sent to Bedlam. “Gracious heavens, what a nose!” This dreadful sentence—­more dreadful than the hand-writing on the wall to Belshazzar,—­haunted him by day and by night.  Reason was dethroned, and “moody madness, laughing wild,” was the result.  Such are the frightful consequences of extreme susceptibility, against which the youth of both sexes ought to be constantly on their guard.

The worst remains to be told.  These unhappy men were liberated from confinement about the same time, and both returned to Oxford.  They seemed to have recovered their reasoning faculties, but the result showed that this was very far from being the case; for, happening to meet on the banks of the Cherwell, they attacked each other with such fury, that, like Brutus and Aruns, they were both killed on the spot,—­the barber having been burked in the encounter, and the student having died of a wound which he received in the throat by his antagonist’s razor.—­Fraser’s Magazine.

* * * * *

THE LAST OF THE FAMILY.

  I bid thee welcome to my father’s halls,
    But fled for ever is their wonted mirth,
  Death hath been busy in these fated walls,
    Casting dark shadows o’er our house and hearth,
  The brave—­the beauteous from their home have past,
  And I remain of that loved band the last.

  Thou wilt not now my gallant brothers greet,
    Hiding amidst the glades with hound and horn,
  Nor my fair sisters, warbling ditties sweet,
    While gathering wild flowers in the dewy morn;
  Evening will come, but will not bring again,
  The song—­the tale—­the dance—­the festal train.

  I can but bid thee to my lonely room,
    Where in fond dreams I pass my blighted youth. 
  Musing on vanished loveliness and bloom,
    Man’s dauntless courage, woman’s changeless truth,
  And scenes of joyous glee, or tranquil rest,
  Shared with the early-lost—­the bright—­the blest.

  Yet chide me not—­mine is no impious grief,
    Meekly I pray for Heaven’s supporting grace. 
  And soon, I feel, his hand will give relief,
    And the last sad survivor of her race
  Quit this lone mansion for the home above. 
  Where dwell her happy family of love!

Metropolitan.
       * * * * *

CONVERSATIONS WITH LORD BYRON.

BY THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.