to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled-Gracious heaven! cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent, grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

right frame for it, and so I my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures, born to no inheritance but slavery: but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me

- I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then look'd through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what

kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferr'd. Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish in thirty years the western breeze had not once fann'd his blood

he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time nor had the voice of friend or kinsman

breathed through his lattice: - his children But here my heart began to bleed

and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notch'd all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there - he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down-shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. -He gave a deep sigh- I saw the iron enter into his soul-I burst into tears I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn - I started up from my

chair, and called La Fleur-I bid him bespeak me a rémise, and have it ready at the door of the hotel by nine in the morning.

-I'll go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul.

La Fleur would have put me to bed; but not willing he should see any thing upon my cheek which would cost the honest fellow a heart-ach I told him I would go to bed by myself- - and bid him go do the same.

CheStarling-Road to Versailles

I

GOT into my rémise the hour I promised: La Fleur got up behind, and I bid the coachman make the best of his way to Versailles.

As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short history of this self-same bird, which became the subject of the last chapter.

Whilst the Honourable Mr. **** was waiting for a wind at Dover, it had been caught upon the cliffs before it could well fly, by an English lad who was his groom; who not caring to destroy it, had taken it in his breast into the packet—and by course of feeding it,