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spread grief and alarm through the house. Constantia tended her sick parent both by day and night, with the devotedness of filial piety: the rest of the family watched over him with all the ardour of friendship: fresh advice was called in, and every resource of art was lavished upon the patient: but all was vain; and one of the physicians, having caused his daughter to be removed from the room, told the burgomaster that it was his painful duty to desire him to prepare for death.

An unfeigned astonishment, unmixed however with the smallest consternation, spread itself over Beverning's features at this declaration. A stranger, who had considered his moderate age, his fine constitution, his healthy appearance, his large and athletic form, might have almost imagined that death would have been afraid to look him in the face; and Beverning himself, who had never experienced an hour's illness, and therefore never calculated upon being cut short in the very middle of his career, was more under the influence of amazement than of any other feeling, at the tidings he had just received.« Hey Slapperloot! death!» he exclaimed: surely you must be mistaken. I have no time to die yet: I have a thousand things to do, and above all I should be sorry to leave the world till I have punished the rogues at Amsterdam.»>

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« You must forget the affairs of this world,» replied the physician-« your disease is not less inexorable in its nature than rapid in its progress; and as to punishing those who have offended you, it is your duty at this trying moment to forgive all your enemies.">

<< What! the Jacks in office, who imprisoned me for

$

nothing, and robbed me of a heavy fine? the perjured villains who lodged false accusations against me?"

« It is incumbent upon you, as a good christian, to forgive them all.”

« Well, if I must, I must: I forgive them then; and now, I hate them with a clear consuppose, I may science; and I hope they will be so visited by the stings of guilt as to be unable to forgive themselves. How long have I to live?»

<< Not many hours,” replied the physician.

« Let me, then, see no more of you or your medicines," cried the dying burgomaster, whose prejudice against the profession was confirmed by his present experience of its inefficacy to save him.-« My will is made; I have left every thing to my darling child. My affairs in this world are settled: send me a clergyman, that I may consider the rem prorsus substan

tialem."

From this moment he never lost his calmness and self-possession, nor uttered a word of repining at being so unexpectedly summoned from the world. After receiving the consolations of religion, he took an affecting leave of his friend and his family; reminded the almost heart-broken Constantia that he was only going to visit her dear mother, where they should await her joining them; and shortly after died as he had lived, with the confidence and fortitude of a virtuous and honest man.

VOL. III.

2

CHAPTER II.

« Thou sure and firm-set earth!

Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my where-about,

And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it. While I threat, he lives-
go, and it is done; the bell invites me.»

I

SHAKSPEARE.

ON the morning after the agitating conversation between Julia Strickland and our hero, at Haelbeck, he made preparations for quitting that melancholy abode, and bidding adieu to its mysterious and world-severed inmates. For this purpose, he obtained an interview with the exile, whom he had not seen for several days, and whom he now found in a state of the deepest alarm and despondency, from an apprehension that his departure, following so immediately upon the receipt of a letter, was connected with some plot for giving him up to his enemies.-« What, Sir!" he exclaimed, as Jocelyn approached, at the same time bringing his shaggy beard, and gaunt features close to him, « you are come to take another view of your victim, that you may swear to me with safety. Gaze your full, Sir;

gaze on these wild eyes, this wan and haggard face, this wasted form, these feeble outward evidences of a wretchedness within, that defies a full expression of its intensity; then go, and give up this poor scared and heart-broken being to the blood-hounds that are seeking his life; to the hootings of an infuriated world; to a public gibbet; to posthumous infamy. You are capable of all this, because you are a man; likely to perpetrate it, because you have taken shelter beneath my roof, and shared my bread; almost certain to be guilty of it, because you have sworn secrecy, and have called yourself my friend. Go, Sir, and act like yourself; for you are a human being. You are of that mongrel race, which possesses the form of a god, with the mind and attributes of the blackest devil. Look at your victim once more, and then, begone, you celestial demon !»

Jocelyn, who had never accosted him in such an angry mood, and never witnessed such a paroxysm of misanthropy, was at a considerable loss what course to pursue, or what arguments to adduce, for allaying his apprehensions. He showed him the letter, containing the summons from his friend Tracy; even offering to defer his departure, if his longer continuance at Haelbeck could contribute to the removal of his doubts: but the miserable man clung to his suspicions with all the tenacity of a morbid mind, until his wife appeared, and joined with Jocelyn in endeavouring to disabuse him of his error. Her tender and affectionate tones, her calmness and self-possession, seldom failed to soothe or shame him out of his delusion: he received confidence as suddenly as he had lost it; and stretching out

his hand to Jocelyn, exclaimed, « Forgive me, Sir; I insulted you by calling you a man, when you are, like myself, one of his victims; a sufferer from his baseness and injustice. You will not wonder that I loathe and spurn at the mischievous biped, when you reflect that disappointed hope turns to disgust, and unrequited affection to hatred. Farewell, Sir; I cannot wish you better than I wish myself; that you may be speedily released from a world that makes life a daily death, by laying your head in the tranquil grave, that makes death an eternal life."

Such was his parting with the misanthropical exile. His wife preserved her usual sedate dignity, blended with a cordiality of manners, and such fervent prayers for his happiness, as she bade him farewell, that he knew not which most to admire, the fortitude and even heroism with which she endured her own sorrows, or the ardour with which she strove to alleviate those of others. Julia, she informed him, was too much indisposed to appear and bid him adieu; but she had charged her mother with the expression of her regard, and all cordial goodwishes for his prosperity and welfare.

Cheerless and repulsive as had appeared to Jocelyn the desolation of Haelbeck, and the mode of his reception upon his first arrival, his feelings upon quitting it partook much more of regret than of exhilaration. It was only when he thus tore himself away from her, that he felt how his heart lingered behind him, and longed to remain with Julia; while there appeared an unmanly sort of cruelty in leaving so young, beautiful, and vivacious a creature, to be buried alive, and suffered to wi

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