tition with my virtue.' After she had uttered this answer, lord Raimond could not get from her another word; and rage, at length, succeeding to his love, he sternly exclaimed You must then feel my vengeance; suffering may subdue even obstinacy like yours.' Immediately he called an attendant, and ordered, that she should be confined in a damp and dismal dungeon, and there be fed on bread and water, till he gave further commands concerning her. The father of Adelaide, and her lover, in the mean time, having been released from their bonds by some travellers, reached the court of the count of Poitou, and informed him of the behaviour of his nephew, and in what a manner Adelaide had been violently seized and carried off, most probably by his orders. The good old count expressed the utmost indignation at the conduct of his nephew, and ordering his attendants to be summoned, immediately set out with a strong escort, and accom❤ panied by the father of Adelaide and Orlando, for the castle of lord Raimond; where, when he arrived, he abruptly demanded of him what he knew of the seizure of Adelaide, and where she had been conveyed to. Raimond at first prevaricated, and wished to have it supposed that he had no participation in the act of carrying her off; but the count would be satisfied with no answer but a positive denial, sanctioned by a solemn oath. The suspicion,' said he, my lord, that rests on you, is strong: the charge is of the most serious and disgraceful kind, and must be repelled with sincerity and honour. The ends of all government are lost, if those who govern may with impunity commit the crimes they were appointed to restrain. Foolish, as well as wicked, likewise, are such rulers, for they most ra pidly undermine their own autho rity. They may for a time be feared as well as hated, but they never can be loved and truly honoured, and, when least they expect, they may be hurled from the pinnacle of their grandeur and pride into the very dungeons into which they have plunged the innocent.' The count discoursed in this manner a long time with so much energy and vehemence, that his nephew, at length, unable to bear his reproaches, threw himself at his feet, and confessed, that, overpowered by disgraceful passions, he had caused Adelaide to be seized and confined; but he declared that he was now willing inmediately to release her, and make her every reparation in his power, if he might be restored to the favour of his virtuous uncle, whose generous goodness and noble conduct had made him despise himself for the unjust and base act he had committed. They immediately proceeded to the dungeon in which Adelaide was confined, and where she had passed many wretched hours; but without swerving in the least from her virtuous constancy, by what she had suffered or might fear to suffer. When the door now opened, she turned her eyes towards it with dread, as not knowing for what fate she was reserved. But what was her astonishment when she saw enter the good count of Poitou, her father, and Orlando, followed by the lord Raimond, who fell at her feet, and submissively entreated her forgiveness for all the insults and cruelties she had suffered from him. The scene appeared to her like a magical illusion of the senses, as it seemed scarcely possible that it should be real. The count of Poitou then advanced, introducing Orlando; and joining the hands of him and Adelaide, assured them that he would protect and provide for them: lord Raimond engaged to make them a present of a considerable portion of land; and their union, which soon after followed, completed the triumph of constancy and virtue. MADAME GRASSINI. (With a Portrait.) WE this month present our readers with the sketch of a portrait of Madame GRASSINI, similar to that which we gave of Signor NALDI. To give the eulogium of this performer would be unnecessary; her merits are well known to all acquainted with the science and practice of music. She is, we believe, a native of Naples, but has resided a considerable time in this country. The opera of Le Due Nozze ed un Sol Marito, the composition of Gulieglmi, has many passages particularly adapted to her voice and manner. Her voice is in fact of very limited compass, though she manages it with such excellent art as to produce the most pleasing and admirable effect. my life in the active scenes and bustle of the world, but have now retired from those scenes, and can calmly view their vanity, and, the vanity of almost all those which the world exhibits. My seat of retirement, a low, but clean, thatched cottage, stands a few feet above the level of a little spring, whose waters, sheltered by a weeping willow, rest unruffled by storms, and cool under the most scorching sun. A serpentine, whose turf is the pure green of the comture herself planted with tufts of mon, and whose uneven outline nahawthorn, and round clusters of the double-rooted bramble, leads to it, slightly sloping: my walk at morning and evening, where I pour out my heart in praise to him who gave add two great human blessings, me being; who has been pleased to health and content; and who, denying me relations, friends, and forand too low for envy: who has retune, placed me above dependence, moved me from mankind, and taught me with sincerity to call the worm that creeps upon the shrubs my brother, and claim relation with the gnat that stings me. Here, though secluded from the world of men, I live among a multitude of beings, in whose joys it is impossible for me not to share; and A SENTIMENTAL RHAPSODY. I were happy if it were not as dif To the EDITOR of the LADY'S SIR, MAGAZINE. If the following rhapsody meets your approbation, the insertion of it in your agreeable Miscellany will oblige an ficult to shut my eyes upon their accidental miseries. To-day the good old creature who attends upon me, a second time my nurse, set down the water for my. hands. Just as I dropped the ball into it there appeared a little water beetle, the native of my spring, whose ill fate having placed him near the bank, where she dipped in her hand, the whirlpool sucked him to her; and now the little wretch, I HAVE passed the greater part of ignorant of his fate, was darting OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT. Tewksbury, June 27. here and there in sportful motions, climbing up the bowl, and wantoning in his unknown captivity. I stood like him who pitied Belisarius, and, with locked hands and fixed eye, gazed upon the victim.What shall I do with thee?-And is thy mirth and jollity to cease this moment! Was all the care of Providence to form thee meant for so poor an end! Three years ago thy parent dropped upon the water lily's floating leaf the egg for thy production; and thy existence, creature as thou art of a superior order, was dependent upon the fate of that light weed. Hatched from the shell, thou creptst from off the leaf; and in the conduct of unerring instinct soughtst the bottom, saved from a thousand unknown enemies. From year to year thy tender limbs were formed under that rugged skin; and yesterday, perhaps, thou first sawest the light with these new powers; twice born! And was it for a fate like this?-Thy silky limbs wove in these toils of nature, did Providence defend them from the waters with that impenetrable mail, that thou shouldst die before they had felt the air? This sense of pleasure, and this love of play, were they bestowed on thee only to be enjoyed an hour! Even now, when thou hast begun to live in this more perfect state, art thou to die! thou to whose form antiquity raised statues; whose kindred Egypt numbered with her gods! advantage? Returning thee into thy native element, thou art a prey to fish, nay to innumerable murderers of thine own kind--for reptile, is to reptile as harsh and as unmerciful as man to man. But the destruction there is casual, here it is absolute and unnatural. Reader! who hast smiled at the debate, weep for the catastrophe!As I carried the little prisoner on my hand, towards his original dwelling, he took wing; and scarcely was he off my finger when a swallow, skimming low in the air, catched him to a more sudden death than that from which my frivolous attention would have saved him. Thus not improbably superior beings think of man-but it were well, alas! if men also thought thus of one another. We will attack these forces, says the conqueror; we shall beat them-and it will not cost us more than four thousand men! For what advantage? Why, we will lie to-night upon that ground where they slept yesterday!-That which you already have is just as soft as the other! Yet thus it is determined; and while the visionary, call him philosopher or moralist, debates the fate of an unconsidered insect, at one discharge five hundred rational beings fall by the arms of creatures like themselves, who hate them not, and whom they have not injured. Had not these men, as humble as the meanest reptile, an equal right to live, and to enjoy the produce of their cheerful labour? Yet many of them were compelled into that service where they fell! And had not every one of them the very stamp of heaven, a soul immortal and indis What if I take thee back, restore thee to the lucid fountain, whence thou wert taken, more justly thine than this is mine-man would laugh; for human nature feels not: but he to whom insect and man are equal-tructible? From the long past time he will perhaps approve! when they were helpless infants, how Yet if I spare thee what is thy many weary hours has each of these miserable victims cost his parents! how gloriously, how fearfully has he been formed! the image of his maker! And has that weary toil and length of time been wasted all for nothing? Have faculties of a superior nature been given to him! the reason of an angel, and the resemblance of a god, that he should perish in another's quarrel? that he should be the prey of ravens in a land far remote from that, where he was torn, perhaps, from a distressed wife and helpless progeny ! Blush, sovereign of the earth, whoever thou art, who triflest with thy fellow-creatures being; blush now and tremble.-Weak, inconsiderate man, can you believe the life even of the least of these is not of equal value in his eye who made you with your own? Have you not read that murder is a crime; or is it possible that you can conceive your actions will be less examined than those of such as live in humbler stations? These men may be replaced-And SD may you! Another man will make as good a soldier; another man as good a king. What are you more than these? A fly, a grape-stone, or a hair, may kill you; and the system of nature will go on just as it did before, unaltered by your fall. Your palace was possessed by another before you. The turf on which you tread to-day so proudly will rise as fresh and blooming for your successor; and the trees which cast their shade upon you will grow as if they never had belonged to you. Nay the little mound, that rises scarcely regarded, with its humble verdure, re mains, and shall remain, while gene rations perish. Vain and transitory as thou art, consider this; and know that thine and the beetle's life are one; but that there is for thee eternity behind. That when the swallow sweeps thee from the earth, crowns and distinctions perish: that thou art next to stand before a throne of justice, examined and arraigned a naked spirit; with no guard but thy virtue. There wouldst thou choose to appear the slaughterer of mankind, or the father of thy people? Thus will he who wishes only good talk of kings, and those who are beneath them; taught by contented poverty to laugh at all distinc tions but what are given by wisdom or goodness, and secure from ill by the armour of an honest mind and the contempt of death; considering men as men; not as they are sovereigns or subjects, not as of one nation or other; indifferent to all, but as their characters distinguish them: and if you ask his country, knowing no other, he will point with the old Greek to heaven. This lesson teaches man to look upon himself as man alone, and not as high or low, as great or humble; that he should see the sovereign, the reptile, and himself, as three links of that eternal chain by which the earth is hung to heaven; that he should know the difference here is but an hour, and is not worth his notice; and that all that is real, or that can be really useful, is the integrity of his own conduct, virtue, and religion, HARRIET VERNON; OR. CHARACTERS FROM REAL LIFE. A NOVEL, BY A LADY. (Continued from p. 299.) LETTER XXIV. Colonel Ambrose to Mrs. Ambrose. My dear sister will be surprised to hear that I have been in town and quitted it without seeing her, and that I am returned to the country for another fortnight. You must know I received a very angry letter from Mr. Vernon, in consequence of one I had written him, which, if it had been the real state of the case, I richly deserved. He threatened the law; and I own I was pleased to observe the spirit with which he seemed to vindicate his sister's honour. I thought the best measure I could pursue was to see him, and endeavour by personal conference to set matters right. I accordingly set off to his house, where I saw Harriet, and was informed by her of many particulars, which, no doubt, you also by this time know. By her representation, I seemed to discover that the hope of gaining a little money had influenced this sordid brother in his present conduct more than the honour of his sister. On this discovery I could be at no loss what method to adopt. To make my story short, I have secured Maria's peace, my own credit, and Mr. Vernon's friendship (that is to say, acquaintance, for friendship must ever be a stranger to a VOL. XXXVIII. sordid breast), for the paltry consi deration of one hundred pounds. All-powerful gold answered every question, silenced every doubt, and convinced him of my honour, far more forcibly than an harangue of a Cicero could have done. How would Maria's feelings be hurt if she knew this circumstance! but I have bound him by the forfeiture of the money if he acquaint her; so that of this I am not apprehensive. The two charming sisters are going, as doubtless they have informed you, to visit their Wiltshire relations. By the time they return I hope to have gained fortitude enough to enjoy their society without a sigh. Come, reason, come, generosity, come, disinterested friendship, to my aid! I invoke your powers; and I likewise invoke the kind soothings and consolations of my dear sister, whose ever affectionate friend and brother will endeavour to merit them. CHARLES AMEROSE. LETTER XXV. Mrs. West to Miss Vernon. I RECEIVED my dear Maria's letter, the contents of which gave me more pain than I had ever experienced before on her account. Accustomed to speak my mind to you, my dear, on all occasions, I will not on the present disguise my sentiments, although from the fear of giving you pain I might be tempted so to do. You must be sensible that what I may say is dictated by a sincere anxiety for your welfare, and the result of long experience will add a weight to my advice. But not to preface, I proceed to answer your letter, which lies before me, and over which I have shed a mother's tear. What is done I acquiesce in, from the impossibility of a remedy? that Z z |