us the book of our destiny; but there we could trace no foothing characters of hope, or mercy. Every line was stamped with confpiracy, vengeance, defolation, and death; and the reading the events of the day left impreffions on our minds which often deprived us of fleep. We fometimes quitted the crowd in the public room, and, fhutting ourselves up in our own apartment, endeavoured, amidst the evils of this world, like Sterne's monk, to look beyond it. If fuch meditation. was calculated to wipe away our tears, it fometimes made them flow-" Let the fighing of the prifoner come before Thee: according to the greatness of Thy power, preferve Thou those that are appointed to die !"

LETTER III.

THE

HE days of my captivity are often brought back to my remembrance, by circumstances which feem fufficiently remote from forrows; by that connexion, of the past with the prefent, which Akenfide describes fo beautifully*: and you will perhaps think that my imagination is fomewhat difordered, when I tell you that the lake, from the luxuriant banks of which I fend you this letter, recalls to my mind our apartment in the prifon. The walls of that apartment were hung with tapestry which defcribed a landscape of romantic beauty. On that landscape I often gazed till I almoft perfuaded myfelf that the fcenery was alive around me,

*Pleafures of Imagination, book iii.

fo

fo much did I delight in the pleafing illufion. How often, while my eyes were fixed on that canvafs which led my wounded fpirit from the cruelty of man to the benignity of God-how often did I wish "for the wings of a dove, that I might flee away and be at reft!" To be feated at the foot of thofe fheltering hills which embofomed some mimic habitations, or beneath a mighty elm which rose majeftically in the fore-ground of the piece, and spread its thick foliage over a green flope, appeared to me the fummit of earthly felicity. Thofe hills, the torrentftream which rolled down their steep fides, the shady elm, and all the objects on the tapestry, are indelibly impreffed on my memory; and often when I am wandering through the charming fcenes of Switzerland, a country which nature seems to have created more for ornament than ufe, where she has spread over every landscape those lavish graces which in other

other regions belong only to a few favoured fpots, I have felt my eyes bathed in tears, while, amidst views of overwhelming greatnefs, fome minute object unobferved by others has led my imagination to the tapestry and the prison. A few days fince I paffed along the falls of the Teffino, rolling through narrow clifts under rocks of the moft terrific form, in a fucceffion of torrents, sweeping after each other down the abrupt descent, and broken in their courfe by enormous fragments torn from the cliffs; fometimes raifing their scattered furges into thin air, and fometimes difplaying the prifmatic colours on the foam. While I was ftanding on one of those daring bridges that are thrown across the gulph, and that tradition calls the work of fupernatural agency, after the first transport of admiration, in which the mind lofes all traces of the past, or thought of the future, had fubfided, the torrent-rill which rufhed

rushed down the Luxembourg tapestry prefented itself to my memory, while amidft the pendent groves of pine and fir, bending along the cliffs, and above the fweeping birch which dipped its drooping branches in the furf, I difcovered a towering elm, the form of which refembled the friend of my captivity-But how far have I efcaped from my prifon! -You will forgive this digreffion: my mind is full of thofe fcenes of beauty and grandeur which have calmed my troubled fpirit, and in which I have found a renovation of existence.

I have yet only given you a general outline of our prifon; but there was one scene of calamity which myself and my family were alone doomed to witness, and of which our fellow captives had no fhare. Our apartment, with two others adjoining, was feparated from the public room by a little paffage, and a door which the huiffiers carefully locked at night. It happened