of very distant bells—­clear, silvery, and sweet—­upon mine ear, as the tones of a well-touched harp:  sad were they—­luxuriously sad; and their unearthly melody infused into my bosom a repose unknown to mortality.  As I listened with awe and rapture to that delicate minstrelsy, I seemed to become all soul; tears—­far indeed from tears of sorrow—­suffused my wondering eyes, and my heart, in the delirium of gratitude, raised itself in solemn thanksgivings to its Creator.

“Favoured mortal!” sighed near me a voice soft as a zephyr-breath.  I turned, and beheld a constellation of the radiant inhabitants of this ethereal country clustered about a portal, whose frame-work was of shining stones, and whose firm, but slender bars, were of purest gold.—­“Favoured mortal!” (the speaker was beside me)—­“favoured beyond even thine own conception, know that thou art permitted to behold the Elfin Paradise—­the true, the veritable Fairy Land.  Pollute it not by the tone of mortal speech; to us are thy thoughts not unknown, and partially are we permitted to gratify thy desire for information.  Thinkest thou—­so indeed hath man taught thee—­that this sweet world is but a vain illusion?  Know then, that we, the Elfin Band, are, in the order of the universe, spirits inferior to the angels, but superior to thee. We are the creatures and servants of the Most High! (be His glorious name by all His infinite creation reverenced and adored!)—­and we, in conjunction with the most exalted hierarchies of Heaven, are spirits, ministrant to man!  Amongst us, alas! are evil and wretched Fays, whose terrible study it is to subvert our beneficent labours, to prevent our entrance into this ethereal region, and in their own desolate and accursed country to insult the veritable Fairy Land by employing their small remnant of celestial power in creating imitations of it, as paltry as absurd.  Know also, O mortal! that whilst with, and for, man, we abide upon earth, we have no land, no home;—­like himself, ‘strangers and pilgrims’ are we; nor is it until the period when our ministry is accomplished (and of the finale of that period are none of us informed) that we are wafted on the gentle breezes of heaven to this celestial planet, which, lighted by the same sun which blesseth your own, is too small to be visible to the eyes of its inquisitive philosophers.  Hark! this day was a Fairy emancipated from earthly thraldom, and the bells of the Golden City are singing for joy!”

The voice died away in the breeze; yet still I listened, in the hope of hearing again those accents, as pure, distinct, and musical, as were the small, sweet harps which, seated on the greensward at no great distance from me, a group of Fays were tuning, whilst sundry light and rapid flourishes seemed to prelude an intended song.  The bells of the City of the Fairies sunk one by one into silence; the scented breeze flowed languidly as dropping into slumber; a hush of nature