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the yellow leaves which already began to strew the pathways; the rustling movement has only served to make the silence more enchanting; and the calm that has followed, has harmonized all my agitations, and brought back and cherished all the more kindly emotions of my soul.

"But who has words to describe the ever-varying and ever-refreshing objects of Nature? Who, dear Woods, can delineate a thousandth part of your charms? It is not in the still hour of Autumn, that you most enchant me! It is when the Spirit of the Wind is abroad; and makes you roar and groan through all your recesses, that you delight me most! Then I love to listen to your shrieks and your bellowings; and the loud tumult of your cries occupies and fills the activity of my soul! Then do I forget these petty passions of the worldling: and spurn and cast from me the memory of those little ones, who torment and disgrace our nobler nature!

"In these more congenial periods of my life, how deeply have I meditated; how many elevated schemes have I formed; how much above the vulgar throng have I confidently felt myself to stand! Then all the treasured wisdom of ages; all the essence of intellect distilled into books, was opened to my purified perception; and cherished and improved by meditation! The airs of heaven, unloaded with the squalidness of human misery, braced and invigorated the body, and sharpened the senses.

"But my mingled and restless temper has too

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often called me back again to "the squabble and the fray" of crowded life. I have longed to gaze on Beauty in all her splendour, however artificial; and to contend with talent, however hardened and unrestrained by nice and morbid sensibility! Certain ere long to be disgusted, and to incur some appalling neglect, or odious affront; yet experience could not extinguish my ambitious propensities; and teach me steadily to persevere in the only paths which true wisdom points out.

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"It is society which makes us wicked; which inflames the rivalry of all our bad passions; and urges us forward in the race of worthless ambition! The man who is best calculated for this race, must either be born without the highest kind of have worn down the finer edge of his mental energies. Cold and unruffled self-possession; a freedom from the blaze of sudden and confounding lights; a calm and persevering examination of parts in their regular succession; these are the qualities that give an aptitude for business; and for conquest in the fields of vulgar and mob-like resort!

"In my thirtieth year I married a lady of high rank, whom death took from me with her new-born child, in the tenth month, and left me once more solitary, and sunk in woe. In the rage of grief I had recourse to the dangerous and inflaming consolation of wine. But the animation of wine, that produced momentary flashes of hope, soon withdrew to let me sink into deeper gloom. My friends impelled me to

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violent exercise, that the fatigues of the body might allay and, ovewhelm the restlessness of the mind. I rode long journeys, and rapidly traversed the three kingdoms in numerous directions. The Lakes, the Highlands, the most barbarous parts of Ireland were all visited by me. Night-journeys, and adventures among dangerous passes, rather amused than displeased me. Mere weariness made me sleep; and Nature in her sublime forms reillumined my stupified imagination.

"In a lonely hut of the more savage recesses of Ireland, I met with one whose fiery and insulting temper I had often encountered, amid the more inviting accommodations of polished life. Already prepared to misconstrue each others words and actions, we quarrelled for the enjoyment of this humble place of reception. He overwhelmed me with bitter and insufferable taunts; we fought; and, at the last assault, when I had no other option but to sacrifice my own life, he died by my hand! His ghost yet haunts my terrified and insane fancy; and almost every look, when I mingle amid the busy concourse of mankind, seems cast upon me with reproach and dread!

"At the death of my antagonist, who was a man of high birth, and had inherited a large fortune, but who had been both a gambler, and indulged in every other expense, it was found that he had left his family destitute, having disposed of his whole estates for an annuity. A widow and two or three destitute children were left to struggle through the wide world as

they could. I knew them not; but I contrived, through a secret channel, to afford them a competent income, of which they never guessed the source. The mother was prudent and virtuous; she changed her name, (unknown indeed to me), that she might retire into privacy without remark. I would not for the world have committed the insult of approaching her; or interfering with her movements or habits of life.

shores of.--

"In the autumnal season, my restless feelings have urged me to wander from bathing-place to bathing-place, with only a single attendant. On these occasions, I have generally concealed my real name, that I might not be pursued by the afflicting story which thus belongs to me. On the solitary in a remote part of Scotland, I have frequently found something, both in the scenery and in the inhabitants, soothing to my harassed heart. I could sometimes talk with the shade of Ossian, and wrap myself up in his 'blue mists.' I listened with awe to the roar of the nightly torrents; and gazed with comparative calmness on the moon that was 'round as the shield of his fathers'.'

"Here I found society that seemed to receive me with satisfaction into its bosom; and to soothe and soften my eccentricities, my regrets, and my resentments. My fierce temper melted almost into feminine tenderness; and women and blooming girls appeared to enjoy my company.

"At the age of thirty-five my cheeks were pale with sorrow and meditation; and the hairs were

grey.

already profusely scattered on my temples. But the smiles of female Loveliness revived in me something of my youthful ardour; and I often found myself turning with too much fondness on eyes on which it was dangerous to look.

"Julia Bruce was now in her eighteenth year; her sister, Matilda, was two years younger: their brother James was not twelve; their mother scarcely thirty-four. Their friend and companion, Lady Janet Mure, had a family rather larger, consisting entirely of daughters, who were all accomplished, and some of them handsome. Margaret had the yellow hair of the Scotch, with a delicate complexion and elegant form. But Julia Bruce, with her light brown locks, and her brilliant and blooming skin, and airy figure, far eclipsed the rest.

"I loved to associate with them all; but Julia was my favourite. Julia, however, seemed at first to be repulsed by my stern countenance; and the gloom that by fits came over my manners. Her beauty caught me; her reserve rather inflamed my admiration. I kept down my enthusiasm; I absented myself for a few days; I wandered out on the lonely heaths till after night had closed upon me, (and I liked the blackest nights best); or lay upon the cliff at moonlight, listening to the hollow dash of the rising storm upon the shore. But these efforts cherished, rather than dissipated the rapidly increasing illusions of my mind.

"Julia Bruce had seized upon my fancy; but I

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