But I have no wish to extenuate my faults or crimes, with the flimsy excuse that my actions were controlled by some unknown but powerfully operating cause, compelling me to pursue a pre-ordained course of existence: on the contrary, I am persuaded that such a doctrine is wholly inconsistent with the principles of religion, and subversive of morality: no; I feel-I know that I was free from the first to choose between good and evil; that I had a perpetual option of adopting or rejecting any given course of action: unhappily, my choice was an erroneous one, nor did I perceive my mistake till it could not be rectified.

Without violent passions, and naturally disposed to quiet and retirement, I have been, by a concurrence of circumstances, reduced to a state of misery, which has dried up the natural current of my feelings, and rendered my heart, once the habitation of the tenderest emotions, a wilderness and place of burning sorrow.

The early years of my life I pass over as being of no importance to my story. They passed in a regular, uninterrupted course of happiness. They are days that we recur to with feelings of pleasure

and regret; days of joy, that once gone never again return; "for life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim." Yet, though we dwell on them with feelings of rapture, they are times of which little can be said by the biographer of his own life. Their very serenity, and the uniformity of their placid delights, precludes the possibility of making them part of a narration. Like a landscape of level country, which we look upon with pleasure, but without intense feelings of admiration, they present no prominent points of view on which a writer can dwell. It is with unusual occurrences-with narrations of deep misfortune or vivifying joy-the harsh rocks and dazzling beauties of the landscape of life, that he has to deal.

I was about the age when youth begins to be lost in manhood, when I saw Mary Stukeley. I was on a visit at a friend's. Rambling one morning among the most beautiful scenery I ever knew, I saw this fair creature. I saw and loved her. I know these first-sight affections are not much in vogue at this time of day. I even acknowledge the justness of the ridicule which is thrown out with an unsparing hand against them: like most

-Such was my first love; and there are feelings in a first love which no subsequent attachment can yield. The realization of those visions that the imagination has long been wont to create, and the mind to dwell upon; the floating and indistinct ideas (more beautiful from their very undefinedness) of rapture, and confidence, and happiness, which the warmth of youthful feeling infuses into youthful hearts; the novelty of the emotion; the exquisite vibration of hope, and fear, and joy, and sadness; the devotedness with which the soul is given up to one object, and one passion, conspire to give charms to the dream of first love, which are but faintly shadowed in a subsequent attachment.

The day was fixed for our marriage. I anticipated it, as may be conceived, with ecstatic joy. I thought my bliss was certain. Alas! how soon was I to find the futility of such hopes! The evening before the appointed day, I walked out alone, to enjoy, uninterrupted, the pleasure of my varied emotions. Mary was at home, reading a new work I had procured for her. It was a lovely summer's evening. The sun had set; the day had been intensely hot, and the lightning

blazed from the sky in vivid sheets. I gazed on it with pleasure as it flashed from the ether, and was reflected on the rippling waves of the river, which ran beside me. On the banks of the stream dark evergreens lifted their frowning tops, mingled with the lighter green of the willow and the beech. A lovely country spread itself around me in every direction, and the view was terminated by the dusky blue mountains that rose in dim majesty, scarcely distinguishable from the clouds that rolled on their tops. I stood to look on the scene, and enjoy the freshness of the air. I was filled with pleasant musings. I was in a state of what might be called affluence. I was a lover and beloved, and the next day was to crown my happiness. How little I imagined what to-morrow would bring forth-that I should be a fugitive and a wanderer !

While I was thus engaged, a female passed by me, at a little distance. She was above the middle size, of a commanding appearance, and the most expressive countenance I think I ever beheld. She was not, perhaps, what many might call beautiful, but I never knew any one who possessed so much the power of interesting at a first