THE CONVICT A TALE. BY G. P. R. JAMES. COPYRIGHT Edition FOR CONTINENTAL CIRCULATION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. A German translation of this work is published by the Author at Berlin with S/ 18v 2.60 4-11-10 975 PREFACE. To tell a very simple story, in the simplest possible manner, was the object of the author in writing the work which follows. Very few words, therefore, are necessary in way of preface; and none, perhaps, would have been written, had it not been pointed out to me, that men might suppose one of the characters in the work to be intended for the type of a profession, when, in reality, it is nothing more than the picture of an individual. In the priest, I have represented a person acting upon principles which I have heard maintained by a living man, and performing deeds which there is much. reason to believe that living man performed. The same acts could not have been perpetrated by a Protestant in any ordinary circumstances, because he would not have had at command the same means of influencing the minds of others; but I beg most distinctly to state, that I do not put forth this personage as a specimen of the Roman-catholic clergy, many of whom are amongst the most estimable men I ever knew. THE CONVICT. CHAPTER I. IT may be very well in most cases to plunge, according to the rule of the Latin poet, into the middle of things. It may be very well even, according to the recommendation of Count Antoine Hamilton, to "begin with the beginning." -But there are other cases where there may be antecedents to the actual story, which require to be known before the tale itself is rightly comprehended. With this view, then, I will give one short scene not strictly attached to that which is to follow, ere I proceed with my history. of an In a small high room of the oldest part of St. John's College, Cambridge, in a warm and glowing day of the early spring, and at about seven o'clock in the morning, there sat a young man with his cheek leaning on his hand, and his eyes fixed upon the page open book. There were many others closed and unclosed upon the table around him, as well as various pieces of paper, I traced with every sort of curious figure which geometrical science ever discovered or measured. The page, too, on which his eyes were The Convict. I. 1 |