quence, upon which I could procure a passage-But in this I was disappointed; for, on the fullest inquiry that I could make, I found that there was only one ship ready to sail, and no probability of any other for a considerable time after I did every thing I could to avail myself of this conveyance, but was disappointed, owing to a young lady being passenger, who was daughter to the owner of the vessel and the old gentleman did not approve of an English officer being of the party with his daughter. I used every argument without success, urging the resident, Mr. Strange, who had behaved very politely to me during my short residence at Venice, to interest himself about it: I likewise entreated Mrs. Strange, an affable, pleasant woman, to exert her endeavors, and made her laugh, by proposing to her to give me a certificate of my behaviour, and to pledge herself to the old gentleman that the happiness or honor of his family would not be disturbed by me during the passage.

Hearing, however, that a ship lay at Trieste, which was to sail thence for Alexandria in Egypt, I determined to embrace that opportunity, and, instead of my former intended route, go to Grand Cairo, thence to Suez, and so down the Red Sea, by way of Mecca, to Moca, and thence to Aden, which company's vessels, or India country traders are always to be found going to one or other of the British settlements.

I accordingly set out for Trieste, with all the impatience of a sanguine mind, anxious to change place, eager to push forward, and full of the new route I had laid down the charms of which, particularly of seeing Grand Cairo, the Land of Egypt, and the Pyramids, were painted by my imagination in all the glowing exaggerated colours of romance. The captain of the vessel was then at Venice, and I accompanied him to Trieste, which is about sixty miles from Venice.

Soon after my arrival at Trieste, I had the mortifica. tion to find, that the vessel was by no means likely to keep pace with the ardor of my mind, and that, owing to some unforeseen event, her departure was to be delayed; so, after a few of those effusions which may be supposed on such an occasion to escape a man of no very cool tem,

per hanging on the tenter-hooks of expectation, I found it necessary to sit down, and patiently wait the revolu tion of time and event, which nothing could either im pede or accelerate.

It has often been remarked, and is held as a point of faith by Predestinarians, that some men are doomed by fate to disappointment-and that, when they are so, no wisdom can obviate, no vigilance provide against, nor no resolution resist, her decrees; but, that, in spite of all the efforts of reason and industry, a series of sinister events shall pursue them through life, and meet them at every turn they attempt to take. Such has been my lot for the greatest part of my life-but I have neither faith enough in predestination, nor self-love enough so far to blind me to my own faults, as to suppose that lady Fate had any thing at all to do with it. No, no; it was often owing to a temper, warm, impatient, and uncontroled, which in almost all cases of momentary embarrassment, chased reason from her office, usurped her place, and decided as chance directed. Let every man examine the grounds of all his serious disappointments in life with candor, and he will find physical causes to which to assign them, without resorting to supernatural. For my part, when I hear a man say that he has been all his life pursued by ill-fortune, I directly conclude, that either he has been a blunderer, or those he dealt with, brutes. In the ordinary operation of earthly contingencies, mischances will happen; but an uniform life of mischance can only arise from mismanagement, or a very extraordinary chain of human injustice.

These reflections arose from the following incident:— I had procured a servant to attend me on my journey, who, from my short observation of him, promised to contribute very considerably to my comfort, my convenience, and, indeed, to my security, as he was apparently honest, sincere, active, and clever in his duty, and master of several languages, and particularly of the lingua Franca, a mixture of languages peculiarly useful in travelling through the East. Finding that I was likely to be delayed at Trieste, and conceiving that in this interim letters from England, for which I most ardently longed,

might have arrived at Venice for me, I imprudently and impetuously sent him to Venice, for the purpose of taking them up, and carrying them to me. But guess what must have been my feelings when I found, almost immediately after his departure, that the vessel was preparing to sail, and that I must either lose my passage or my servant: anxious though I was to get forward, and grievous though my former delay had been to me, I hesitated which to do; but prudence, for once, prevailed. over inclination; and I determined, at all events, to de part, under all the embarrassment attending the want of a servant and linguist, and all the poignant feelings of having been accessary to the disappointment, and perhaps the injury of a poor fellow, whom I really conceived to be a person of merit. In our passage to Alexandria we touched at Zante, an island on the coast of Greece, belonging to Venice; it was anciently called Zacynthus is about fifty miles in circumference, and contains fifty thousand inhabitants. Never before had I tasted any, thing equal to the delicious flavor of the fruits of this island the grapes exquisite, and the melons and peaches of prodigious bigness and unequalled flavor. The island, is abundantly fruitful in wine, currants, oil, figs, and corn, but is very subject to earthquakes. Near the seaport which we entered is as great a curiosity in nature as is any where, I believe, to be found. Two spring wells of clear fresh water throw up large pieces of real pitch in such quantities, that it is said, the people collect one year with another, one hundred barrels of it, which they use in paying their shipping and boats.

In the first stages of melancholy, consolation is rejected by the mind as premature. The heart, intent, as it were, upon supping full of woe, disclaims all advances of comfort, and feeds on grief alone. Hence the truly skilful in the human heart consider premature consolation as an aggravation of woe, and comfort only with condolence, well knowing that the tide of grief must take its course, and that, until it be first full, no hopes can be had of its retiring. The full force of this I began now. to feel. The disquietude of domestic embarrassment

L

the bitterness of separation from all I loved-the solitary sadness of my situation, wandering through unknown countries myself unknown and unfriended-aggravated at length by the loss of my servant, who was a sort of prop to my spirits and my being cast into a ship among a people whose language I little understood, without any soul or one circumstance to mitigate my sorrow, or console me under it; all these, I say, had wound up my feelings to the highest pitch of fortune-More miserable I could not be when the island of Zante received me, and, for the first time for a sad series of days, raised me with the transporting sound of an English voice.

I have promised, my FREDERICK, to give you a candid relation, in hopes that you will improve by it: but if I thought, that, on the contrary, any thing I said should tend to raise in your mind a sentiment injurious to your principles, or reflective on your father's conduct, but to be an example and admonitory guide to your own, I should condemn my candor, and curse the hour that I wrote but, I trust to your good sense and disposition, with my care to direct them; and shall, but not without hesitation, proceed. But, as I have already spun out this letter to such an extent, I will defer my further relation to another.

LETTER XXVI.

Ar the time I set out upon my journey over land to India, I was (though married, and the father of children) very young, naturally of a sanguine constitudimintion my attachment to the fair sex was no ways ished by a military education; and a warmth of temper, an ardent sensibility of mind, and a frank, unsuspicious disposition, left me but too often to regret the facility with which I yielded to the charms of women. regret for each error was wilfully smothered in vain determinations of amendment-and the promised amendment again broken in upon by some new error.

But the

Thus it

was, till riper years and circumstances of weight strengthened my reason, and gave it in some greater degree that dominion it should have over my actions.

Circumstanced as I have in my last letter described myself to be, and constituted by nature and education as I have mentioned above, I landed in the charming island of Zante, where nature herself seems to have conspired against chastity-making the very air breathe nothing but transport and delight. There I met a young lady, a native of England-extremely pretty, highly ac complished, and captivating in the extreme: she had been at Venice for her education-was a complete mistress of music, and expressed an intention of following it professionally on her arrival at England, whither she was going passenger in a vessel bound there from Zante. To have accidentally met with a native of England, even of my own sex, in such a distant corner of the world, under such circumstances as mine, just escaped from the horrid life I had for some time led, must have filled me with joy allowance, therefore, may be made for my feelings on meeting this young lady, and for my thinking of some expedient to prevent our separation. She labored, perhaps, under the pressure of feelings as disagreeable as my own, and expressed her satisfaction at meeting with a countryman so very unexpectedly. Reserve was soon thrown off on both sides: we entered into a conversation interesting and confidential, which increased my anxiety to keep her with me, and in order to persuade her to accompany me, I pointed out in the strongest colors possible, the great advantages she might derive from her accomplishments in India, where her musical talents alone, exclusive of her various captivat. ing qualities, would be an inexhaustible mine of wealth. In short, I so very eagerly enforced my proposal to ac company me, and time was so very short, that she consented, and in two hours we had arranged every thing for our departure together and here with shame and horror I confess, (nor shall ever cease to regret it) that this ecclairecissement communicated the first ray of substantial pleasure to my heart that it felt since I left Lon don.