let us be nobly, let us be willingly miserable; and let virtue be, to us, in the place of all other enjoyment! Perish, perish Adelaide, so the faith of my Valvaise live renowned through ages!

"O Adolphus," cried the youth, "you know not what a sacrifice I make you at this instant! Yes, thou bright perfection, I must bid a lasting adieu, while there is will, while strength is left to tear myself away! Adieu, fair enchantment, O, adieu, for"" For ever, O, for ever! is it not so," cried Adelaide; and her eyes began to fill." Yet, a moment, Valvaise; you must not debar me of one short farewell, the memory of which may serve, through life and in death, to be my consolation. It is an expression of the esteem which I owe to your honour."

So saying, she broke into tears, and threw her arms about him. The touch instantly thrilled his frame, and flew through his brain like a flash of ascending lightning. But, heroically declining any return to the dear embrace, he kneeled down, seized her hand, pressed it silently to his bosom, hastily rose and retired.

Adelaide had an only brother, an officer in the king's guards, whose name was Alleran. He came on a visit of affection to his sister; when, approaching, he beheld Valvaise in her arms. He instantly laid his hand on his sword, to wash away the imagined dishonour of his family. But, being struck with the reserved demeanor of Valvaise, he deemed it prudent to make no bustle in the business, till he had called the supposed aggressor to a strict but private

account.

During three days he was in diligent search of the disturber of his repose; but, unable to procure any intelligence concerning him, he went in his impatience, and earnestly besought a private audience of his majesty. He cast himself with emotion at the feet of the monarch, and asked, with a respectful ardor, if he had authorised Valvaise in any address to his sister Adelaide.

"Are you then the brother of the fair Adelaide ?" said the king; "if so, I think I may safely put my confidence in you.-Yes, Alleran, I did authorise Valvaise to address your sister; yet, not in his own name, but in the name of his master, in order to exalt and make her the beloved of my bosom, and the partner of my throne."

"Then you are betrayed, most basely betrayed," rejoined Alleran; "by all that is sacred to the soul of truth and honour, these eyes beheld that Valvaise fondly circled and caressed within the arms of my sister."

There wanted no more. A cloud of sorrow, black and pregnant with thunders, instantly involved the spirit and aspect of the monarch in darkness. His Valvaise had been too deeply rooted in his affections to be torn thence without many rueful pangs at the parting. But jealousy, disdain, and the uprisings of rage, at finding himself so ungratefully, so cruelly deceived, turned his heart into bitterness; and he consoled himself with the idea of seeing his late favourite expiring in slow agonies and vengeful tortures before him.

He sent pressing orders to have him instantly seized. But, being informed that Valvaise had absconded, he issued hot and hasty mandates, throughout his dominions, to have him proclaimed, pursued, and brought alive to his presence; for he deemed a simple death to be infinitely beneath the satisfaction that was due to his injured friendship; and he wished for the power of prolonging his life, that he might thereby prolong and perpetuate his torments.

Thus Adolphus continued in a state that might envy the most wretched of his vassals, his bosom torn with a variety of distracting and conflicting pas

sions; when, on the fourth day, he received the following letter from his detested, though late his so dearly beloved.

“Sire,—I am now fifty leagues removed from your presence, and trust soon to be past the justness of your resentment.-But no; I cannot fly it.-Would to Heaven I had rather stayed, and atoned my crime in part, by suffering the punishment that was due to my perfidy. Death would surely, at last, have delivered me from you, from myself, from the gnawing of the worm that dieth not within me, that no absence can mitigate, no distance evade !—Yes, Adolphus, your image, your friendship, cling fast to my memory; they continue to load me with insupportable favours, and my soul groans and struggles under the unremitting oppression. And is it then possible that I should have betrayed you? I can scarce think it possible. Did I not love you with a love passing that of self-preservation? Would I not have bled, have died for you; have suffered all extremities to bring you any accession of happiness? Yes, most assuredly. Alas! how is it then, that my will, against my will, has injured you, my master; has mortally wounded you in the most vital part, in your love for the adorable, the too fascinating Adelaide! Ah, why did I enterprise the perilous task enjoined me? While I wished, while I endeavoured and struggled to serve you, I fell in my own weakness; I fell myself a prey to her all-subduing beauties. Thus, while I constrained my tongue to plead the cause of my king, my eyes must have pleaded the cause of the traitor Valvaise. There, there lies the heart and pith of my transgression against you. I will not deceive you; I will not conceal from you, that I have robbed you of a portion of the affections of your Adelaide. But I will avenge you, my master; I will do you ample justice upon my own head. I tear myself away for ever. No more shall mine eye behold the heart-cheering face of friendship, or the seducing face of love. I tear myself for ever from Adolphus, from Adelaide, from the two, the only objects within the circling moon, that could cast a ray of comfort upon my benighted spirit. All else is a vacant wild, a vale of horrors and desolation. O misery! but I embrace it; my soul shall brood and dwell upon it; it is the portion, the only portion, that I choose on this side of eternity.

"In the meantime, my lord, be you your own advocate. Appear, in your native attraction, before the eyes of the deluded beauty, and the memory of Valvaise will quickly fleet away, as the gleam of a transient meteor before the rising light of the sun.

"Be happy, O Adolphus, be happy in your Adelaide, be happy above conception! When I hear that you are so, a beam of returning joy may once more enter the breast of VÁLVAISE."

Adolphus, in entering on the first part of this letter, was instantly stung with vexation and disappointment, by the fear of being defeated of his revenge on Valvaise. As he proceeded, however, his heart began to be softened by the condemnation which the criminal denounced against himself. But again, when he came to where Valvaise dared to avow his passion for Adelaide, and her answering regards, the flame of his resentment rekindled and rose aloft. Yet this fire was much allayed by the subsequent sentiments; and he found himself, at the close, inconsistently agitated by a variety of tumultuous and opposite passions.

He wished not any eye should see how he was affected. He took the letter apart, and shut himself in; he scanned it over and over; and, pausingly, over again. At every revisal, his Valvaise appeared more acquitted, more innocent,

more excellent; while the virtues of humanity descended on his soul, as dew on a nightly tempest, and bid the storm be still.

"Ah!" he cried, " Valvaise also, I find, is a son of the fallen Adam! Were any exempt from frailty, he surely had been the man. Yet, he fought, he resisted; and, when he found he could not prevail, he tore himself from temptation, though the temptation was Adelaide. He does more, he detests himself for partaking of the human fallibility of our nature; he denounces endless vengeance upon his own head, for having involuntarily injured the friend, whose happiness he prefers to his own existence. This is more than to have conquered: such frailty rises even above perfection!-Return, then, my brother! return, my Valvaise! You grieve for having reluctantly bereft me of my love; bereave me not of friendship also; for so should your king be without consolation. Return, I say, my brother! and I will strive to be your competitor in honour and generosity. You would deprive yourself of your beloved for the sake of your friend: but your friend shall return the boon; he will endeavour to be happy in the happiness of his Valvaise!

The desolate Valvaise had dispatched the foregoing letter from a house that stood far on his route to the frontiers of Norway. In his early years at the academy, he had contracted an intimacy with two young students, the one named Duplaise, and the other Christiern; and, when he came into favour, he prevailed upon the minister to prefer his two friends to two lucrative employments in the north of Sweden. He, therefore, justly inferred, that he had a right of asylum with those who were indebted to him for their honours and emoluments.

Duplaise received his benefactor with transport, and entertained him with magnificence. On the next morning he cautiously entered the chamber of his guest before day. Having gently awaked him," Pardon," said he, "my dear patron, this necessary intrusion! Yesterday, toward noon, a herald arrived, and fixed a writing on the town-house, whereby you are proclaimed a traitor, and twenty thousand ducats proposed for your head. I will not ask how you incurred the displeasure of your king; it is sufficient to know that he builds upon hollow ground who lays the foundation in the favour of princes. I trust that you are not known here to any save myself; it may be otherwise, however, and the temptation to betray you is great. I forbore to apprise you of these matters last night, for fear of discomposing you. Alas! while I endeavoured to appear cheerful, in honour of my guest, my heart was wrung on his account. Haste, my beloved friend, escape for your precious life! A short repast, with other matters, are prepared for your departure; and my three swiftest horses, by the morrow's early noon, shall convey you and your faithful followers-such I trust they are quite clear of all danger."

Though Valvaise, at the time, regarded not his own life, yet he gratefully regarded those who approved their regard for it. He straightly embraced his host. "I thank you, my friend," said he, "but I will not take the ad/antage of your hospitality. You are a subject; you are in office : do your duty to your sovereign, and the laws of your country: I resign myself to your custody. I knew I was a lost man; but I will console myself in hoping that my depression may be the means of exalting the generous Duplaise."

Duplaise, for the first time, turned an eye of resentment and indignation on his patron. "Has Adolphus," he cried," another kingdom to give me in exchange for my integrity? Or, though he had, can there be any property, any peace to a traitor ?"

"If nothing else will prevail," replied Valvaise," the law of self-pre

servation must constrain you to deliver me up to justice; your own life will, otherwise, be the forfeit of my escape."

"I would to God," rejoined Duplaise, "that it even be so! with what transport should I then embrace my fate! A death, in the act of virtue, how eligible, how desirable! I would not exchange it for the longest and happiest life upon earth."

"Brother of the sentiment of my inmost soul !" cried Valvaise," be it so ! you have conquered; it is but just, that the greater virtue shall triumph over the less." He then opened a small casket, and taking a diamond buckle which the king had stripped from his own hat, and given to his favourite: "Accept of this, my friend," said he, “as a kind though little remembrancer! when you shall hereafter look upon it, let it remind you that such a person as your unhappy Valvaise was once among the living."

Duplaise at once turned his head and heart aside from the dazzling temptation; and, thrusting the gift back with a nobly averted hand, "Talk not to me," he cried," of tokens and remembrances: is there a bit I eat, a respect I receive, any object I see about me, that does not hourly put me in mind of your friendship and your bounty? When my wife and infants are around me, Valvaise smiles in their smiles, and comes to my heart in the midst of their caresses. O, my friend, my beloved; even next and near to my God! I feel no irksomeness, no weight under your many obligations; the burden is light and delightful unto me; and the sense of my own gratitude doubles every enjoyment that I derive from your affection."

They parted; and Valvaise put on with such speed, that, ere it was turned of noon, he had gained upward of twenty leagues, and deemed himself past danger of caption or pursuit.

His principal attendant then rode up, and, taking out a large purse stuffed with gold of different coins, "My lord," said he, "your friend, Duplaise enjoined me not to present you with this, till the distance should put it past your power to return it; and he prays you to accept it, in part of tribute for the revenues which he enjoys from your liberality."

Valvaise, ere night, might have reached the frontiers, and have gotten clear of the dominions and power of Adolphus; but being fatigued, and coming to a large town where Christiern presided, he held it unkind to pass his fellowstudent without a visit.

Christiern welcomed his patron with demonstrations of joy surpassing those of Duplaise, and with respects befitting none save his king, or rather his God. His entertainment was such, that the generous Valvaise deemed it ungrateful not to place an entire confidence in him; and, taking him apart, he informed him of the disgrace he was in with his master, and of the tempting reward that was promised for his capture.

The countenance of his host instantly fell on this intelligence, his converse grew confused, and his demeanour constrained. Valvaise, however, was unsuspecting of treachery in the case, till he was awakened by sixty armed men in the morning.

They rudely hastened him to rise; and, having loaded him with chains, they put him into a close carriage, and set out in the way to Stockholm.

In the meantime, the disconsolate Adelaide pined in secret during the absence of her beloved, and the hidden malady began to prey upon her health and her complexion. At length she heard of the fatal orders that had issued against her Valvaise; and, casting all concerns, save those of her passion, aside, she hurried to court, and precipitately cast herself at the feet of Adolphus, where,

happily none were present save the officers in waiting, who kept a respectful distance.

The king was at once surprised and affected by the suddenness of her appearance, and the distress of her action. He would have spoken, but was prevented." Ah, my liege!" she exclaimed, "what is it that I hear? If Adolphus has death in store for those who wish to lay down their lives for his sake, what recompence does he keep in reserve for traitors?" "I understand you," replied the monarch; " but death is due to all who would deprive me of Adelaide. Valvaise also is a traitor; he confesses himself a traitor; he was seen in your embraces!" "That may be, my lord; but no eye ever beheld me in the arms of Valvaise." "Let him give me your heart, and I will give him my kingdom." "Ah, my lord, it is a worthless heart; he prizes it not! he would gladly have given it to you, with all the kingdoms of the world, and with his own precious heart and life and soul also. I wooed him for myself; he wooed me only for his master; and when I would have retained him by my tears and my caresses; he rent himself from my arms, and vowed, at his departure, that, could I have joined heaven to the offer of my person, he would not accept an eternity of bliss at the cost of a single act of infidelity to Adolphus."

"O, Adelaide!" exclaimed the monarch, " you yet know not half his worth: he, alone, can deserve the whole treasure of your affections! I wish to be just, and to render you his more than princely merit. He loved, he loved you with passion, while he tore himself from you: but the love of his friend and of virtue, in a breast so noble as his, surpassed even his love of Adelaide !

At that instant the caitiff Christiern broke into the presence. Audacity sat on his brow, and self-approbation exulted through his demeanour. He bowed low at the feet of royalty; but, quickly rising again to the top of his stature, he confidently addressed the throne:

"So please you, my liege, you now behold before you the most loyal, the most attached of all subjects that now are, or perhaps ever were upon earth; a man who, in his fealty to his prince, sinks all other duties, all other considerations. Valvaise and I were bred together from our infancy; we were fellow-students, sworn brothers: his friendship procured for me whatever I now enjoy of honours or possessions. He lately came to my house, claiming the protection of my roof, and in confidence told me he had the misfortune of falling under your displeasure. But, as soon as I understood that he was obnoxious to my king, and that the royal proclamation had issued against him, I became a Sampson in my allegiance; I rent all other ties and obligations to shreds; I had him seized and laden with fetters; and he now attends the sentence that your justice has passed upon him."

Adolphus, for part of an hour sat in silent astonishment: he was shocked, he was terrified. He looked on Christiern with a disgusted and indignant eye, as somewhat newly started up, some horrid novelty in nature.

"And who, wretch !" at length he cried, "who told thee that the breach of all laws, divine and human; that the bursting in sunder of every kindly band of gratitude and friendship, of confidence and hospitality, could give thee a recommendation to the favour of Adolphus? He who feels not these ties can have no faith, no allegiance; but is equally a traitor to his king and to his God. Here! take this miscreant, plunge him down into the mines, a thousand fathom deep, from the detesting face of the sun; and let all who are of his blood be banished our dominions for ever, lest Sweden should shortly be over-run with monsters!"