whole universe, full of materials, on which to employ it. He who is most elevated by nature herself, will use her gifts in the most diversified ways, and he who least uses them, approaches nearest to the brute.Nay, barbarian, roll not thy furious eyes on me; I sought thee not, and he who speaks to me must hear the truth."

For several minutes, however, the Hun did roll his eyes with an expression of fury that strangely contrasted with his perfect silence. Not a word did he speak-not a quiver of the lip betrayed the suppression of any angry tone, and it was not till the fierce glance of his wrath was completely subdued, that he replied, "Vainson of a feeble race, upon whose necks Attila, my lord and thine, has trod, boast not the use of arts which have reduced thy people to what they are, and made them alike unfit for war and peace. Look at their bones whitening in the fields; look at their cities levelled with the plains; look at their manifold and wicked laws, which protect the strong and oppress the weak; look at their silken and luxurious habits, which effeminate their bodies and degrade their minds. This is the product of the arts thou praisest. This is the degrading civilisation that thou huggest to thy heart."

"Not so, Hun," replied Menenius; "the corruption which thou hast seen with too sure an eye, springs not from art, or knowledge, or civilisation. It springs from the abuse of wealth and power. The Roman empire was as a man who, covered with impenetrable armour, had conquered all his enemies, and finding none other to struggle with, had cast away his shield and breastplate, and lay down on a sunny bank to sleep. In his slumber, new adversaries came upon him, his armour was gone, and he was overthrown. The armour of the empire was courage, decision, and patriotism, the slumber was luxury, and thus it was that the myriads of thy Lord penetrated to Constantinople, and destroyed the cities. The arts thou despisest, because thou knowest them not, had no share in bringing on the slumber which has proved so destructive; but let the Huns beware, for the giant may awake."

"Ha!" cried the barbarian, with

a triumphant smile," what is the city that could stand an hour, if Attila bade it fall?"

"Azimantium !" replied Menenius. The Hun threw back his broad shoulders, and glared upon the Thracian chief, with a glance more of surprise than anger-then gazed at him from head to foot, visited each particular feature with his eye, and marked every vigorous and wellturned limb with a look of scrutinizing enquiry. "Thou art Menenius!" he exclaimed abruptly, after he had satisfied himself, "Thou art Menenius! 'Tis well! 'Tis well!I deemed thou hadst been Maximin."

"And had I been so," asked Menenius, " would that have made a difference in thy language?"

"Son of a free and noble race," replied the Hun, "ask me no farther. That which may well become thee to speak, would ill befit the suppliant messenger of a conquered king; and that which I would say to the vanquished and the crouching, could not be applied to the brave and the independent. Happy had it been for thy country had she possessed many like to thee, for then she would have fallen with honour: and happy, too, had it been for Attila my Lord, for then his triumphs would have been more glorious.'

Menenius was silent. The tone of the Hun was changed. The rudeness of his manner was gone; and though he spoke with the dignity of one whose nation was rich in conquests, there was no longer in his language the assumption of haughty superiority which he had at first displayed.

"And thou," said Menenius at last

"Who am I to fancy thee?" "I am Onegesius, the servant of Attila the King," replied the Hun; "and mark me, chieftain of a brave people. Hold but little communion with the slaves of Theodosius as they pass through the dominions of the Huns. The lion may be stung by the viper, if he lie down where he be coiled. Now, farewell;" and thus speaking, the Hun turned, and with a proud firm step, each fall of which seem planted as for a combat, he took his path away from the Grecian tents.

The ambassadors pursued their way, and, after some days, encamped

late at night upon the banks of the dark and rushing Tebiscus.

The heavens were obscured by heavy leaden clouds driven by the wind into large masses, through the breaks of which, a dull and sickly moon glared forth with a fitful and a watery light upon the misty earth. The dim shapes of shadowy mountains, too, were vaguely sketched upon the sky, covered with quick passing shades, while ever and anon the winds howled forth their melancholy song, a wild and sombre anthem to the grim genius of the scene around.

The tents were pitched, the plain meal was over, the mead had passed round, and sleep had relaxed every weary muscle of the travellers' limbs, when suddenly a hurricane rushed over the whole scene, the river rose, the rain came down in torrents, and the temporary encampment was in a moment overthrown. Drenched and terrified, the legates of the Emperor disengaged themselves with difficulty from their falling pavilions, and called loudly for help. Noise and confusion spread around, and the roaring stream rising quickly over the meadow in which they had been sleeping, the howling of the overpowering wind, and the heavy pattering of the rain, added to the disturbance and fear of the scene.

A moment after, a blazing light upon the nearest hill rose like a beacon to direct their steps, and thither the ambassadors were led by the Huns.

Menenius, after he had provided for the safety of his horses and attendants, followed the rest. As he approached the light, he saw, by the figures of several Huns supplying a large fire of dry reeds with fresh fuel, that it had been raised on purpose to guide any travellers overtaken by the storm, to a place of shelter and repose. Attention and kindness awaited him, and he was instantly led into a large wooden house, where Priscus and Maximin were already seated by a cheerful hearth, at which a young widow, the wife of Attila's dead brother Bleda, was busy in the gentle cares of hos-pitality. Along the extreme side of the apartment was drawn a line of Scythian slaves, armed as became those who waited on the widow of a king; and as Menenius entered, their

rank was just closing, after having given exit to a form which made the Thracian chief start forward, as his eye caught the last flutter of her retiring robes. "Who passed?"-he exclaimed abruptly, forgetting, in the anxious haste of the moment, all idle ceremony. "Who passed but now ?"-" Ella, the daughter of the King, and her maidens," was the reply. The heart of Menenius sunk, and his eye lost its eager fire. In a few brief words he excused his abruptness; but the widow of Bleda was one of those whose kind hearts find excuses better than we can urge them. "The maiden is fair," she said, " and well merits a stranger's glance. In truth, she knew not that there was another guest of such a mien about to be added to our hearth, or she would have staid to pour the camus and the mead. Much would she grieve were she not here to shew that part of hospitality." And Bleda's widow sent a maiden to tell her niece that Menenius, the Azimantine chief, sat by the fire untended.

She came - a dark-haired girl, with a splendid brow, and eyes as pure and bright as if a thousand diamonds had been melted to furnish forth their deep and flashing light. A rose as glorious as that upon the brow of morning warmed her cheek, and a quick untaught grace moved in her full and easy limbs, like those of a wild deer. But she was not Honoria; and the eye of Menenius rested on her, as on a fair statue, which, in its cold difference of being, however lovely, however it may call upon admiration, wakens no sympathy within our warmer bosoms. She, however, gazed on him, as on something new and strange, and bright; and there was in her glance both the untutored fire of artless nature, and the fearless pride of kingly race, and early acquaintance with power. For a moment she stood and contemplated the Thracian chief, with her sandalled foot advanced, and her head thrown back, and her lustrous eye full of wild pleasure; but then suddenly a red flush rose in her cheek, and spread over her brow, and, with a trembling hand, she filled a cup of mead, touched it with her lips, gave it to Menenius, and again retired.

Menenius lay down to rest, but his dreams were not of her. Gay visions

of the former time rose up and visited his brain. From out the dreary tomb of the past, long-perished moments of joy and hope were called, as by an angel's voice, to bless his slumber-Honoria-Azimantium -happiness.

Pass we over the onward journey. After a long and tedious march, the ambassadors arrived at the royal village of the Huns, which was then surrounded by uncultured woods, though at present the rich vineyards of Tokay spread round the land in which it stood. Houses of wood were the only structures which were boasted by the chief city of the monarch of one half the earth; and to the eye of the Greeks, every thing seemed poor and barbarous in the simplicity of the Huns. Yet, even lowly as were their cottage palaces, they had contrived to bestow much art on their construction. Fantastic trelliswork, and rich carved screens, and wreathed columns, cut of polished and variegated woods, were scattered in every direction; and while the first faint efforts of an approach to taste were to be found in the taller buildings and more correct proportions of the royal dwellings, the idea of war -the national sport and habitual passion of the people-was to be seen in the imitative towers and castles with which they had decorated their dwellings of peace.

Attila himself had not yet returned from his last excursion; but a day

did not elapse before his coming was announced by warrior after warrior who arrived, their horses covered with gold, and their followers loaded with spoil. All his subjects went forth to gratulate their conquering monarch; and the Greeks, standing on a little eminence, beheld his approach. First came innumerable soldiers, in dark irregular masses, and then appeared, chieftain after chieftain, all the various nations that he ruled. Then was seen a long train of maidens, in white robes, walking in two lines, each bearing aloft in her hand one end of a fine white veil, which, stretching across to the other side, canopied a row of younger girls, who scattered flowers upon the path. Behind these, mounted on a strong black horse, clothed in one uniform dark robe, without jewel, or gold, or ornament whatever, came the monarch whose sway stretched over all the northern world. As he advanced, he paused a moment, while his attendants raised a small silver table, on which the wife of one of his favourite chiefs offered him refreshments on his return. He was still at some distance, but the Greeks could behold him bend courteously to the giver, and raise the cup to his lips. The table was then removed, and onward came the king-nearer -more near-till Menenius might distinguish the features of the dark Hun he had met in the forest.

(To be continued.)

It would now be very unprofitable to enquire whether the House of Commons ought to be reformed; the die is cast; Reform is resolved on by both the Ministry and the Country, therefore the question for beneficial discussion is what change ought to be adopted? In devoting this paper to it, our object is less to propose a plan, than to throw light on the present system, and the changes advocated by certain of the reformers. Plans, we fear, abound far more than the knowledge which is essential for preventing them from being ruinous.

All parties have been long the avowed friends of Reform; even the Tories, who profess the most decided opposition to it, have still their own plan, to which they give its name; on their declarations, they, as well as the Radicals, are Reformers. These men, for many of whom we entertain the highest respect, have therefore small right to cast censure on us, because our "pet system" does not happen to correspond with theirs; if they do not err in principle, we do not; and if we differ from them in measure, they are as liable to err in it as ourselves. We are, as we stated several months ago, the friends of such reform as may be cautious, gradual, and practical; but this avowal only makes us such reformers in principle as they profess to be; and it forms no proof that our views are more pernicious than theirs.

The system of reform, which has been for some time as warmly supported by Tory as by Whig, always appeared to us excessively objectionable in respect of both justice and policy. We of course allude to the transferring of the franchise from boroughs, proved to be corrupt, to other places. There is scarcely a principle of reason and equity which it does not violate. The right of sending members to Parliament belongs to the place, but not to the individuals who exercise it for life; posterity, however, is robbed of its inheritance, solely on the guilt of the life-tenant. If a place ought to possess the franchise, to disfranchise it

from the corruption of the electors, is to punish private guilt by the production of public wrong; if it ought not, the franchise should be taken from it without reference to the manner in which it is used. The system punishes the innocent for the misdeeds of the criminal. It is notorious that almost all open boroughs, large as well as small, are equally corrupt; therefore, according to it, almost all ought to be disfranchised: of course, if its application were coextensive with the corruption it professes to punish, it would deprive various of the most important interests and places in the empire of representatives.

In

There are at this moment two cases- -the Evesham one and that of Liverpool, before Parliament. the former, only a very trifling proportion of the electors are represented to have been bribed; in the latter, nearly three-fourths are accused: while this is the case at present, the one place has at the least been quite as corrupt in past times as the other. Steps have been taken to disfranchise Evesham; and if this be done, Liverpool can only be spared through the most gross injustice on the part of the Legislature. Yet who will venture to say that a place like the latter ought to be deprived of sentatives? Thus the Legislature must either trample on justice, or produce a great public evil.

repre

Many of the close boroughs are regularly sold; that is, the owners at every election sell their votes for a sum of money,-as the corrupt burgesses of open boroughs do. Yet these, the system of reform in question does not attempt to touch, although the bribe of the boroughowner is not a whit more defensible than that of the burgess. Thus the same conduct is legalized in one man as innocence, and punished in another as guilt; moral law is made a matter of political expediency.

Most of the members for open boroughs, as well as those for close ones, are elected through bribery; it therefore follows, that the men who sit in judgment on a borough charged with corruption, are, with their

constituents, guilty of precisely similar corruption. The country knows this-it knows that the shameless fellow who inveighs against the guilt of one place, has produced the same guilt in another; and that he represents burgesses who have been made as corrupt through him as those are whom he seeks to punish. The proceedings, therefore, in disfranchising a borough, only excite public scorn and disgust; and they are rather serviceable to the cause of general bribery, than the contrary. They fix no stigma, and promote no virtue; the great example and source are spared; and the principal effects are, the House of Commons is covered with public odium on the one hand, and corruption is taught how to make itself more secure and extensive on the other.

The system asserts that boroughs which are corrupt ought to be disfranchised, yet it makes not the smallest effort to detect them. In general, at elections the candidates and their committees are all equally guilty of bribery, and they give pledges to each other against bringing it under the notice of Parliament; it is in consequence scarcely possible for sufficient evidence of corruption to be voluntarily tendered against any place. Thus one solitary case is about all that flows from a general election. While it is matter of notorious fact that nearly all boroughs are as guilty as the few which are punished, it is matter of proof that the system punishes hardly any, and is wholly incapable of producing that reform which it declares to be necessary. It follows that the principal fruits of the system are comprised in this-it feeds and justifies the cry for reform, and the distrust with which the country regards the House of Commons.

This alone is amply sufficient for demonstrating, that, on the doctrines of the most violent of the anti-reformers, a far more efficient system of reform than their own is imperiously called for by public good. It is aided by an overwhelming mass of other evidence. Their system does not attempt to remove many evils of the first magnitude, which either exist in defiance of the constitution and laws, or could be removed withspeculative change and innova

tion. Some of them we will enu

merate.

1. To a large extent, a single individual regularly sells both the seats of a borough to whomsoever he pleases; and through his power to do so, he regularly sells himself and his members to the Ministry or Opposition. No one will venture to say that the constitution ever intended an enormity like this to have existence, or that it is sanctioned by the laws.

2. A man, no matter what his talent and virtue may be, can only obtain a seat in the House of Commons by making himself a party slave, or throwing away a pretty large fortune. He must at the door of this House sacrifice his independence, or plunge himself into debt, and rob his family, if he be not very rich, else he can never enter it. In consequence, the best qualified men are excluded, and the House is composed of the least trustworthy and capable. This is just as much at variance with the spirit and intention of the constitution, as with the letter of the laws; and it is equally at variance with the public weal.

3. The power to elect members is in the majority confined to the aristocracy and the lower orders; it is virtually withheld from the middle classes. For example, Liverpool, it is said, contains somewhat more than four thousand electors; the overwhelming majority of them consists of mechanics, labourers, &c., and the respectable, intelligent part of the inhabitants are in a great measure destitute of votes. The case is the same in all open boroughs, and, under the present system, it must continually get worse. Thus, while disqualification gives the seat to the representative, it also gives the vote to the elector. Because the power to elect is mainly vested in the ignorant and corrupt, the member is chosen without regard to fitness, and on the ground of destructive creed, or willingness to distribute liquor and bribes. It follows, that members for open boroughs can only hope to retain their seats by sacrificing duty to the passions and prejudices of the populace. The constitution never intended this to be the case, and a remedy could not be other than beneficial.