on my mind. I left her with execrations, which she received with the coolness of hardened vice, of experienced seduction. I rushed from her house, I knew not whither. My steps involuntarily led me home. At my own door I stopped, as if it had been death to enter. When I had shrunk back some paces, I turned again; twice did I attempt to knock, and could not; my heart throbbed with unspeakable horror, and my knees smote each other. It was night, and the street was dark and silent around me. I threw myself down before the door, and wished some ruffian's hand to ease me of life and thought together. At last the recollection of Emilia, and of my infant boy, crossed my disordered mind, and a gush of tenderness burst from my eyes. I rose, and knocked at the door. When I was let in, I went up softly to my wife's chamber. She was asleep, with a night-lamp burning by her, her child sleeping on her bosom, and its little hand grasping her neck. Think what I felt as I looked! She smiled through her sleep, and seemed to dream of happiness. My brain began to madden again; and as the misery to which she must wake crossed my imagination, the horrible idea rose within me,-I shudder yet to tell it !-to murder them as they lay, and next myself! -I stretched my hand towards my wife's throat! The infant unclasped its little fingers, and laid hold of one of mine. The gentle pressure wrung my heart; its softness returned; I burst into tears; but I

could not stay to tell her of our ruin. I rushed out of the room, and, gaining an obscure hotel in a distant part of the town, wrote a few distracted lines, acquainting her of my folly and of my crimes; that meant immediately to leave France, and not return till my penitence should wipe out my offences, and my industry repair that ruin in which I had involved her. I recommended her and my child to my mother's care, and to the protection of that Heaven which she had never offended. Having sent this, I left Paris on the instant, and had walked several miles from town before it was light. At sun-rise a stage-coach overtook me. It was going on the road to Brest. I entered it without arranging any future plan, and sat in sullen and gloomy silence, in the corner of the carriage. That day and next night I went on mechanically, with several other passengers, regardless of food, and incapable of rest. But the second day I found my strength fail, and when we stopped in the evening, I fell down in a faint in the passage of the inn. I was put to bed, it seems, and lay for more than a week in the stupefaction of a low fever.

A charitable brother of that order to which I now belong, who happened to be in the inn, attended me with the greatest care and humanity; and when I began to recover, the good old man administered to my soul, as he had done to my body, that assistance and consolation he easily discovered it to need. By his tender assiduities

I was now so far recruited as to be able to breathe the fresh air at the window of a little parlour. As I sat there one morning, the same stage coach in which I had arrived stopped at the door of the inn, when I saw alight out of it the young painter who had been recommended to us at Paris. The sight overpowered my weakness, and I fell lifeless from my seat. The incident brought several people into the room, and amongst others the young man himself. When they had restored me to sense, I had recollection enough to desire him to remain with me alone. It was some time before he recognized me; when he did, with horror in his aspect, after much hesitation, and the most solemn intreaty from me, he told me the dreadful sequel of my misfortunes. My wife and child were no more., The shock which my letter gave, the state of weakness she was then in, had not strength to support. The effects were, a fever, delerium, and death. Her infant perished with her. In the interval of reason preceding her death, she called him to her bed-side; gave him the picture he had drawn; and with her last breath charged him, if ever he could find me out, to deliver that and her forgiveness to me. He put it into my hand. I know not how I survived. Perhaps it was owing to the outworn state in which my disease had left me. My heart was too weak to burst; and there was a sort of palsy on my mind that seemed insensible to its calamities. By that holy man who had once before saved me from death, I was placed here, where,

except one melancholy journey to that spot where they have laid my Emilia and her boy, I have ever since remained. My story is unknown, and they wonder at the severity of that life by which I endeavour to atone for my offences.But it is not by suffering alone that Heaven is reconciled; I endeavoured, by works of charity and beneficence, to make my being not hateful in its sight. Blessed be God! I have attained the consolation I wished.Already, on my wasting days a beam of mercy sheds its celestial light. The visions of this flinty couch are changed to mildness. It was but last night my Emilia beckoned me in smiles; this little cherub was with her!

-His voice ceased, he looked on the picture, then towards Heaven; and a faint glow crossed the paleness of his cheek. I stood awe-struck at the sight. The bell for vespers tolled-he took my hand-I kissed his, and my tears began to drop on it.— My son," said he, "to feelings like yours it may not be unpleasing to recal my story: -If the world allure thee, if vice ensnare with its pleasures, or abash with its ridicule, think of Father Nicholas-be virtuous, and be happy."

66

No. 87. SATURDAY, Sept. 30, 1786.

-Sed in longum tamen ovum

Manserunt hodieque manent vestigia ruris.'

HOR.

THAT there is nobody in town, is the observation of every person one has met for several weeks past; and though the word nobody, like its fellow-vocable everybody, has a great latitude of signification, and in this instance means upwards of threescore thousand people, yet undoubtedly, in a certain rank of life, one finds, at this season, a very great blank in one's accustomed society. He whom circumstances oblige to remain in town, feels a sort of imprisonment from which his more fortunate acquaintance have escaped to purer air, to freesher breezes, and a clearer sky. He sees, with a very melancholy aspect, the close window-shutters of deserted houses, the rusted knockers, and mossy pavement of unfrequented squares, and the few distant scattered figures of empty walks, while he fancies, in the country, the joyousness of the reapers, and the shout of the sportsman enlivening the fields; and, within doors, the hours made jocund by the festivity of assembled friends, the frolic, the dance, and the song.

Though the prevailing incidents of my latter part of life have fixed it almost con