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For then, while languid Nature droops her
head,
She wakes the tear 'tis luxury to shed.'
HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS.

Better to exemplify my thoughts on the influence of the night's awful and sublime, yet often beautiful scenery, I will again quote from Dr. Drake.

'Some of the sweetest passages in the productions of the poets, ancient or modern, may be drawn from their descriptions of evening and night scenery, and many of these elegant sketches have been committed to memory, for their peculiar truth and beauty. Even when the delineation is merely that of inanimate nature, still the pensive train of thought which we usually associate with the decline of a fine day, or the tranquil lustre of a moon-light night, brings with it a fascinating charm; but when with these are mingled or contrasted the passions of the human breast, an interest of a stronger kind is excited, and the picture becomes complete. What can better harmonise with the sensations of love or friendship, than those delicious tints which a setting sun frequently diffuses over the face of nature? or what more congenial to the gentlest emotions of the heart, than the landscape lighted up by the soothing splendour of an autumnal moon? How are the tortures of an agonised mind, the wilder passions of the soul, heightened by the contrast of scenery such as this! When sorrow, disappointment, and despair, exert their energy, surrounded by images of the most beautiful repose, they rush upon the eye in so bold and prominent a style, as instantly and forcibly to arrest our feelings, and compel our keenest

attention.'

In going through Islington, I passed a house where a female once lodged, whose little history may not be uninteresting nor unimproving.

She was born and brought up at a town about fifty miles from London, in all the purity of innocence, and at a proper age was placed apprentice to a mantua-maker; before the expiration of her time with whom, her friends died, and she was left with a small property to the care of a guardian, who ever acted the part of a parent by her. When she was out of her time, some friends advised she might be sent to London for improvement, and, very unfortunately for her, her guardian acceded to it: to make short of my story, she was placed with a very fashionable dress-maker, in an extremely fashionable part of the mes tropolis.. Here in two years she for country, became corrupted in her got nearly all she had learned in the morals, and when her time was expired, positively went off with a man who had been but five weeks married to an amiable young woman. At this house she lodged, passing as his wife, till disgust succeeded to love (alas! how I have debased the name) in his mind, and he left her to misery.

Fortunately, at this time, her guardian discovered her retreat, took her again into his family, and by degrees restored her wounded mind to peace. She has now left this country, and in another realm is married, I hope happily.

May this be a caution to parents, and lead them to consider well with whom they place a daughter for improvement! I would willingly also hope it might be a warning to such libertines as was her seducer; but, alas! I fear it is a fruitless hope.

'Ye sons of night, whose each destructive word.

Stabs with more keenness than a ruffian's
sword;

Whose hydra love can triumph in offence,
A love that smiles at ruin'd innocence;
Say, did you ne'er reflect, when at your side
Truth bled, Peace groan'd, and murder'd
Virtue died?

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eyes;

Ah! did you ne'er with terror at his rod, Hear the loud voice of an affronted God? Say, has his rage, his vengeance, iost its fire? Is he not still almighty in his ire?

Is then his potent arm by thee o'er-rul'd? His thunders blunted, or his lightnings cool'd? Oh, no-e'en now his eye pervades the whole;

E'en now he views, he reads thy inmost soul:

Is there one thought, that (as the darting wind

Unform'd and fleeting,) glances o'er the mind? Is there an act thou trembled'st to prolong? Or word that died unfinish'd on thy tongue? Or form thou view'dst, the phantom of thy fear?

Or sound that languish'd on th' unfeeling ear? Didst act some hidden guilt, to man unknown?

And wast thou then, or thought'st thyself alone?

Mistaken wretch! whose blind, unequal

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IT has been so common to reromances as present novels and founded on truth, that it will, perhaps, hardly be believed, that the present one has its origin in something more than fiction; yet that certainly is the case. The history here related owes nothing to the flights of imagination, or the effu sions of fancy. The reader will, therefore, consider it as the pure and genuine memoirs of an unfortunate prince, and his still more unfortunate daughter, whose fate has too often drawn a tear from the eye of pity.

Alphonso, who is the principal subject of the following history, had lived, during more than thirty years, in a kind of hut, shut out from soin a certain forest, where he dwelt ciety, and sequestered from the world, Scarcely ever did any human being. approach his habitation. Sometimes, indeed, in wandering abroad, he would perceive the footsteps of

horses, whose riders had been hunting, the part of the forest where he resided being admirably suited to the chase, but without the good fortune of meeting with any one he could speak to. In this abode, the companions of his solitary hours were his lovely daughter, the fair Almira, and Ursula, an old woman, As to the partner of his bed, she had been carried off by a fit of sickness soon after the birth of her child.

her nurse.

It is seldom that Providence abandons the good and virtuous. Hence, nothing could be more delightful than the abode of Alphonso, which had formerly been the residence of some poor hermit, grown weary of the world, and tired of its vice.

A number of trees, of the tallest and most beautiful kind, encircled the hut, and shaded it from the sun, except where it was suffered to come for the purpose of ripening some of the finest grapes, that clustered around a particular part. A small rivulet took its course on the south side, abounding with the finest fish; while plenty of fowl of every kind daily served his table, by means of a kind of snare invented by him, and artfully placed wherever they were likely to alight or assemble, by which they were caught as occasion required.

Nature, ever just in all her ways, having thus furnished Alphonso, little anxiety will be raised as to the manner in which he, and his little family, were subsisted. Plenty and variety went hand in hand together in supplying their wants, yet was Alphonso far from being happy or contented. Without any relish for the rarest food, or choicest fruits, the verdure and beauty of the scenes around him excited no pleasure in his mind. Sorrow sat heavily on his brow, and buried him, as it were,

under a load of anguish and dejection: nor did his distress remain long unperceived by Almira, who used a thousand little tendernesses towards him, in hopes to soothe away his cares, or make him sit vain. Deep-corroding grief pierced more easily under them; but in his heart, and every attempt to allay it only served to disturb him the secret agent, to believe that his birth more, moved, as he was, by some entitled him to a better fate.

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possessed a greater share of filial Almira, than whom no one ever duty, could not be sensible of her father's uneasiness, without participating in it. Though nothing could hurt the brilliancy of her eye, the concern she felt on her father's cheek, and cast a melancholy sadness account entirely discoloured her around her. Bending under a sense of her situation, and despairing of better fortune, she became sad and pensive, till she gave herself entirely up to a life of solitude and reflection, sometimes wandering along the banks of the rivulet, gathering the daisies spread around, and forming them into a kind of wreath to deck her father's brow; sometimes calmly reposing herself where nature, as it were, had prepared a kind of bower in the adjoining woods, lulled to rest by the tuneful birds, whose happiness every now and then giving vent to she sighing wished her own; and her grief by the tear that bursted down her cheek.

of retirement that Almira accidentIt was in one of these moments ally met her father, and had just enquired the particular cause of his unhappiness, for he had never imparted to her the idea he possessed of an exalted birth, when Alphonso interrupted her, by informing her that he had been in search of her, that she might accompany him to Ursula, who then lay dangerously

ill, and earnestly wished to disclose a secret highly interesting to them both.

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Upon their arrival at the hut, they found her approaching very fast I find towards a dissolution. myself,' said Ursula, too far gone to entertain any hopes of a covery, and would wish to unfold a story, good Alphonso, of the most important nature to you and Almira.' Having said this, a flood of tears bedewed her cheeks, while the father and daughter stood struck with amazement and surprise. You are no son of mine,' resumed Ursula, as soon as she could collect herself sufficiently to proceed, but Your father, of illustrious birth. Antonio, was king of Sardinia: his brother, equally cruel and ambitious, no sooner heard of the death of your mother, which happened before you had attained your seventh year, than he determined to prevent your being any obstacle to his succeeding to the throne. Alas! that I should have been selected out by your uncle as a proper instrument to work his design. He accordingly sent for me, and putting ten thousand ducats in my possession, made me a promise of as many every year, upon my agreeing to put an end to your life. I took the bribe, and attempted to execute the deed-but a sudden fit my purpose. of horror arrested What could I do? I was obliged to conceal from your uncle my want. of courage, while my conscience prevented from proceeding-in short, I could neither recede nor In this situation, and dreadgo on. ing, at length, the anger and resentment of your uncle, I resolved to retire to some remote part of the kingdom. I therefore quitted Sardinia, now, alas! thirty years since, bearing you in my arms, with a child of my own, and after wandering about in the forest for some

me

time, Providence at length guided
me to this hut, when my daughter
arriving at years of maturity, I gave
you her hand, and soon had an op-
portunity of witnessing your mutual
love in the birth of Almira. After
my death, which I feel near at hand,
buried behind the hut, you will
find the sword of state, with which
your father, before he came to the
crown, fought a duel. The inscrip-
tion on it you will find curiously en-
graved on the blade. I found means
to bring it with us in order to testify
your birth, should occasion ever re-
quire it. Heaven preserve you both!

I would say more-but fate calls
me to my long-wished-for home.'

And is my father still living?" exclaimed Alphonso. Ursula, seizing hold of his hand, endeavoured to reply-but in vain. Her speech had entirely left her, and her dissolution presently took place without a single groan.

CHAP. II.

Alphonso resolves to quit the Forest. -Almira meets with an extraordinary adventure.

THE secret disclosed by Ursula was of too much consequence to Alphonso and Almira, not to have an extraordinary effect. They attended to her with an equal share of astonishment and surprise. Alphonso seemed in a manner rivetted to the tale he heard, while Almira's bosom heaved with expectation, impatient and anxious to learn in what it would end.-Alphonso and Almira looked with wonder and amazement at each other; but neither could utter a single word, to express the thousand thoughts that rushed into their agitated minds.

But the strongest agitations of the mind, however violent when first produced, or whatever the cause

from which they arise, yield to time and reflection. A few days were sufficient to recover Alphonso and his daughter from the consequences of the surprise they had been thrown into; and having buried Ursula in an adjoining piece of ground, as well as circumstances would admit of, Alphonso began seriously to consider what course he should pursue. Acquainted with his history, he grew every day more and more impatient under his situation. Resentment against his uncle succeeded the wonder with which he had heard of his conduct towards him, and he determined, at all events, to seek that station to which his birth entitled him; but all he knew of the world was no more than the little he had heard of it from Ursula.

It is seldom that Providence long neglects to work the ends of justice. While Alphonso was deliberating within himself on the means of quitting the forest, distracted with a thousand obstacles that presented themselves to his view, an adventure befel Almira, as happy in its consequence as it was extraordinary in its occurrence.

and tenderly pressing his hand, enquired whether he was hurt; but the fall had stunned him to such a degree as to deprive him entirely of the power of speech. This circumstance gave Almira an opportunity of revolving in her mind the nature of the accident, and the propriety of what she had done. A supposed indeli cacy on the part she had acted, at first gave her some reason to think she had proceeded too precipitately in throwing herself in the way of a perfect stranger; and no very com mon emotions disturbed her breast in the thought of being, upon the youth's recovery, in the hands of one she had never seen, alone, and at a considerable distance from her father, the only help and succour she could fly to. But the purity of her intentions fully justified her, and rendered her insensible of any dan ger.

Unconscious of any offence herself, she suspected none in another. There were besides every thing to captivate and ensnare her. She beheld a youth alone, of the age of twenty, of an admirable stature, and handsome face; and she found a sensation within her, of too pleasing and delightful a nature to be re sisted.

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The stranger on his recovery was equally charmed and surprised. Heavens!' (exclaimed he, in a kind of extacy), to what angel has Providence directed me?'

Sauntering through a neighbour ing grove one morning, buried in contemplation on her hard condition, a human voice assailed her ear. Frightened and alarmed, Almira immediately resolved to fly to the hut, and was making all possible haste back to it, when a sudden impulse checked her on her way, and carried her insensibly towards the spot from whence the cry proceed ed. She had scarcely time to reflect on what she was doing before she espied a horse, bridled and saddled, without any person on it. The reason, however, presently appeared, when, looking with a mixture of wonder and pleasure at the animal, she beheld the rider of it at its feet. To one of the most unfortunate She instantly flew to his assistance, of beings,' replied Almira. VOL. XXXVIII.

And it would have been extraor dinary, indeed, had he not felt himself more than commonly agitated, upon his coming to himself, to be hold one of the most beautiful women, perhaps, that ever nature formed, for such, without exaggeration, was Almira.

Tell me,' said the stranger, 'to whom am I indebted for this kind

ness

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