near me, and that the multitude of fad groups in it did but diftract

me

-I took a fingle 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 wafted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of fickness of the heart it was which arifes from hope deferr'd. Upon looking nearer I faw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once fann'd his blood-he had feen no fun, no moon in all that time-nor had the

voice of friend or kinfman 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 fitting upon the ground upon a little ftraw, in the fartheft corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little calendar of small fticks were laid at the head, notch'd all over with the dismal days and nights he had paffed there he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of mifery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a

hopeless

hopeless eye towards the door, then caft it down-fhook 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 figh-I faw the iron enter into his foul -I burst into tears. I could not fuftain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn-I started up from my chair, and calling La Fleur, I bid him befpeak me a remise, and have it ready at the door of the hotel by nine in the morning.

-I'll go directly, faid I, myself to Monfieur Le Duc de Choifeul.

La

La Fleur would have put me to bed; but not willing he should see any thing upon my cheek which would cost the honeft fellow a heartach-I told him I would go to bed by myself

and bid him go do the

THE STARLING.

ROAD TO VERSAILLES.

I

GOT into my remife the hour f 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 fhort history of 'this self-fame bird, which became the subject of the last chapter.