472 REMNANTS OF TIME. ing where you shall hear some of the best pieces of music that ever were composed, and performed, by some of the best hands that ever touched an instrument. To- morrow I will wait on you to the play, or, if you please, to the new opera, where the scenes are so surprising and so gay, that they would almost tempt an old hermit from his beloved cell, and Dell back his years to three and twenty. Come my friend, what have the living to do with the dead ? Do but forget your grievances a little and they Will die too : Come, shake off the spleen, divert your heart with the entertainments ofwit and melody, and call away your fancy from these gloomy and useless contemplations." Thus he ran on in his own way of talking, and opened to his mourning friend the best springs of comfort that he was acquainted with. Lucius endured this prattle as long as he was able to endure it, but it had no manner of influence to stanch the bleeding wound or to abate his smarting sorrows: IIis pain waxed more intense by such sort of applications, and the grief soon grew too unruly to contain itself. Lucius then asked leave to retire a little; Florino followed . him softly at a distance to the door of his closet, where indeed he observed not any of the rules of civility or just decency, but placed himself near enough to listen how the passion, took its vent : And there lie heard the distressed Lucius mourning over Serena's death in such language as this : What did Florino talk about ? Necessity and fate ? Alas, this is my misery, that so painful an event cannot be reversed, that the divine will has made it fate, and there is a necessity of my enduring it. Plays and music and operas! What poor trifles are these to give ease to a wounded heart ! To a heart that has lost its choicest half ! A heart that lies bleeding in deep anguish under such a' keen parting stroke, and the long, long absence of my Serena! She is gone. The desire of my eyes and the delight of my soul is gone. The first of earthly comforts and the best of mortal blessings. --She is gone, and she has taken with her all that was pleasant, all that could brighten the gloomy hours of life, that could soften the cares and relieve the burdens of it. She is gone, and the best portion and joy of my life is departed. Will she never return, never come back and bless my eyes again ? No ; never, never. She will no more come back to visit this wretched world and to dry these weeping eyes. That best portion of my life, that dearest blessing is gone, and will return no more. Sorrows in long succession await me while I live ; all my future days are marked out for grief and darkness. Let the man, who feels no inward pain at the loss of such a partner, dress his dwelling in black shades and dismal formali- ties: Let him draw the .curtains of darkness around him and
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