"Your curse is upon me; and like Cain, a fugitive and a vagabond, I am about to wander over the surface of the earth. The voice of thy brother's blood crieth up to me from the ground; and I, too, can reply, in the beautifully pathetic language of Scripture, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear.'

"When first I knew you, whatever I might

previously have been, I was walking in the path of rectitude; I sinned neither in deed nor in thought. If not inspired by any enthusiastic passion for virtue, yet my mind was in a state of quiescence, which habit and reflection might have strengthened into a religious stability.

"You appeared, and my whole nature changed; my slumbering energies were awakened, and I laid them at your feet, for

you to direct to good or evil. How you have fulfilled this trust, ask your own heart.

"Others have a thousand pursuits: ambition, pleasure, all the paths of wisdom, or frivolity, are open before them. In policy, in literature, in art, in all the various professions, men have a stake and an interest, and toil for gold, power, or renown. But I possessed none of these resources, virtuous or vicious. I had set my life upon a cast; I had but one thought, one object in existence; and, directly or indirectly, every action, every desire was associated with it. You were that object; and in you were comprised my life, world. Again, I demand you to

and my

ask yourself, how you have replied to this devotion?

"Now, hear my answer. On the showing

of an aggrieved, and therefore a partial, witness, you learn the crime of my youth. Your blood is inflamed by this exaggerated statement; and, without considering that the man may regret the errors of the boy, you indulge the impetuosity of your vindictiveness. This was not just; yet, so far, your conduct was comparatively venial. But my tale ends not here. Remorselessly, relentlessly, in spite of the most abject humiliation, though I stood before you in heart-broken penitence, and solemnly warned you of the consequences of your implacability-warned you, that on your decision depended the lives of two and the salvation of one-yet, in cold-blooded self-possession, when the delirium of passion was past, deliberately, callously you cast me off from you for ever. This was your deed;

and verily it has met-ay, and shall continue

to meet-its reward.

"What may be my future fate, I know not: but should sorrow and suffering so far undermine the little moral strength which remains to me, as to induce me to perpetrate the last, and weakest act of human folly, believe, and tremble at my prophecy,-Hereafter, my blood will be required at your hands.

"Ponder on what I have written-and live -live for ever-to lament that you were born.".

In framing this letter, I was the victim of contending emotions. The love which I still

felt for her, perpetually instigated me to introduce expressions of tenderness and charity; but, my misanthropy prevailed. I looked on myself, and I said, Behold what she has made me! And is she, the cause of all, to be exempt from retribution? Am I to be the only victim? No! let her drink, and drink to the dregs, of the waters she has herself spontaneously imbittered!

And I smiled exultingly as I pictured to myself her cheek of health-her radiant eye -her elastic step--her soft and blooming cheek, converted into sickliness and emaciation-into sorrow and prostration: and I anticipated the bliss of saying, This is my work.

During my voyage, I vainly endeavoured to withdraw my thoughts from the considera