MARIA.

MOULINS.

I never felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till now-to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of France-in the hey-day of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is lifted up-a journey through each step of which music beats time to labour, and all her children are rejoicing as they carry in their clusters to pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at every group before me → and every one of them was pregnant with adventures.

Just heaven!-it would fill up twenty volumes-and, alas! I have but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into-and half of these must be taken up with the poor Maria my friend Mr. Shandy met with near Moulins. *

The story he had told of that disordered maid, affected me not a little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood where she lived, it returned so strong into my mind, that I could not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league out of the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, to inquire after her.

It is going, I own, like the knight of the Woful Countenance, in quest of melancholy adventures-but I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them.

The old mother came to the door, her looks told me the story before she opened her mouth-She had lost her husband; he had died, she said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria's senses, about a month before- she had

See in Tristr. Shandy, vol. 1x, ch, 28, the first part of Maria's Story, which is reprinted at the end of this volume.

feared at first, she added, that it would have plundered her poor girl of what little understanding was left-but, on the contrary, it had brought her more to herself still she could not rest-her poor daughter, she said, crying, was wandering somewhere about the road

-Why does my pulse beat languid, as I write this? and what made La Fleur, whose heart seemed only to be turned to joy, to pass the back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it? I beckoned to the postillion to turn back into the road.

When we had got within half a league of Moulins, at little opening in the road leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar-she was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand-a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.

I bid the postillion go on with the chaise to Moulinsand La Fleur to bespeak my supper-and that I would walk after him.

She was dressed in white, and much as my friend described her, except her hair hung loose, which before was twisted within a silk net.-She had, superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green riband, which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe. Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her girdle; as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string«Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio: said she. I looked in Maria's eyes, and saw she was thinking more of her father than of her lover or her little goat; for, as she uttered them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.

I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away, as they fell, with my handkerchief.-I then steeped it in my own-and then in hers-and then in mine

and then I wiped hers again-and as I did it; I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted from any combinations of maller and motion.

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world, ever convince me of the contrary.

MARIA.

When Maria had come a little to herself, I asked her if she remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt her and her goat about two years before. She said, she was much unsettled at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts-that, ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, that her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat bim for the theft-she had washed it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket, to restore it to him in case she should ever see him again, which, she added, he had half promised her. As she told me this, she took the handerckhief out of her pocket to let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine leaves, tied round with a tendril – on opening it, saw an S marked in one of the corners.

I

She had since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round St. Peter's once- - and returned hack-that she found her way alone across the Apennines -had travelled over all Lombardy without money - and through the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes-how she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she could not tell-but God tempers the wind, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.

Shorn indeed! and to the quick, said I; and wast thou in my own land, where I have a collage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee: thou shouldst eat of my own bread, and drink of my own cup-I would be kind to thy Sylvio-in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee, and bring thee back-when the sun went down, I would say my prayers; and when I had done, thou shouldst play thy evening song upon thy pipe, nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted, for entering heaven along with that of a broken heart.

Nature melted within me, as I uttered this; and Maria observing, as I took out my handkerchief, that it was steeped too much already to be of use, would needs go wash it in the stream. And where will you dry it Maria? said I—I will dry it in my bosom, said she—it will do me good.

And is you heart still so warm

Maria? said I.

I touched upon the string on which hung all her sorrows she looked with wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then, without saying any thing, took her pipe, and played her service to the Virgin―The string I had touched ceased to vibrate in a moment or two Maria returned to herself let her pipe fall rose up.

and

And where are you going, Maria? said I- She said, to Moulins. Let us go, said I, together. Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the string, to let the dog follow in that order we entered Moulins.

-

MARIA.

MOULINS..

Though I hate salutations and greetings in the marketplace, yet when we got into the middle of this, I stopped to take my last look and last farewell of Maria.

Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of line forms affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce earthly still she was feminine and so much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for, in woman, that, could the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza's out of mine, she should not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup, but Maria should lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.

Adieu, poor luckless maiden ! imbibe the oil and wine which the compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into thy wounds

the

Being who has twice bruised thee can only bind them up for ever.

THE BOURBONNOIS.

There was nothing from which I had painted out for myself so joyous a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through this part of France; but pressing through this gate of sorrow to it, my sufferings have totally unfitted me : in every scene of festivity I saw Maria in the back-ground of the piece, sitting pensive under her poplar; and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade across her

Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw- and it is thou who lifts him up to heaven - Eternal fountain of our feelings!-it is here I trace thee-and this is thy divinity which stirs within me — not that, in some sad and sickening moments, my soul shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction-mere pomp of words! but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself all comes from thee, great great SENSORIUM of the world! which vibrates, if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotest desart of thy creation.-Touched with thee, Eugenius draws my curtain when I languish hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou givest a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant traverses the bleakest mountains -he finds the lacerated lamb of another's flock - This moment I behold him leaning with his head against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon itOh! had I come one moment sooner!-it bleeds to death -his gentle heart bleeds wit it

Peace to thee, generous swain! I see thou walkest off

SC. I.

Vide Cato's soliloquy, in Addison's celebrated tragedy, act. 5,