Covent-Garden, I waited for the conclufion of the play, in the Bedford Coffee-House. What a figure muft I have been! Indeed, I overheard one gentleman fay to a friend, that I looked as if I was out of my fenfes. Oh, how I wished for the play to be over! I had charged my piftols with the kindeft letter he ever wrote me; a letter which made me the happiest of mortals, and which had ever fince been my talifman. At laft, arrived the end of the play, and the beginning of my tragedy. 1 met them in the ftone paffage, and had then got the piftol to my forehead, but she did not fee me, (nor did any one, I fuppofe.) And the crowd feparated us. This accident I confidered as the immediate intervention of Providence. I put up my piftol, turned about, and fhould (I moft firmly believe) have gone out the other, way, and have laid afide my horrid refolution, had I not looked round and feen Mr. M. (whom I immediately conftrued into the favoured lover defcribed by G.) offer her a hand, which I thought thought was received with particular pleafure. The stream of my paffions, which had been stopped, now overwhelmed me with redoubled violence. It hurried me after them. Jealoufy fuggefted a new crime and nerved anew the arm of despair. I overtook them at the carriage, and and, at about the time I am now writing this, felt more than all the tortures of all the damned together. What shall I not feel at the neceffary re-cital of the tragedy, at my trial! LETTER LXI. To Mr. in Newgate, 17. April, 79. wishes If the murderer of Mifs to live, the man he has moft injured will use all his interest to procure his life. grateful to thy goodness, to be thought unworthy thy prefence, to be driven from the light of thy countenance. Well thou knoweft I could not brook the thoughts of wanting gratitude to things beneath me in the creation; to a dog, a horse: almost to things inanimate; a tree, a book. And thinkest thou that I could bear the charge of want of gratitude to thee! And, might-O might I refign the joys of the other world, which neither eye can fee, nor tongue can speak, nor imagination dream, for an eternal existence of love and blifs with her, whom Prefumptuous murderer! The bliss you ask were paradife. My father, who art in heaven, I bow before thy mercy; and patiently abide my fentence. These papers which will be delivered to you after my death, my dear friend, are not letters. Nor know I what to call them. They will exhibit, however, the picture of a heart which has ever been your's more than any other man's. How have I feen the poor foul affected at that recitative of Iphis in her favourite Jephtha! "Ye "Ye facred priests, whofe hands ne'er yet were ftained "With human blood!" To think that I fhould be her prieft, her murderer! In one of her letters fhe tells me, I recollect, that she could die with pleasure by my hand, fhe is fure fhe could. Poor foul! Little did fhe think It is odd, but I know for a certainty that this recitative and the air which follows it, Farewel, &c." were the laft words fhe ever fung. Now I muft fay, and may say, experimentally "Farewell, thou bufy world, where reign "Brighter fcenes I feek above, "In the realms of peace and love." Love! gracious God, this word in this place, at this time! Oh! Newgate, Newgate, Sunday, 18 April, 79. 4 in the morning. O, Charles, Charles-torments, tortures! Hell, and worse than hell! When I had finished my laft fcrap of paper, I thought I felt myself composed, refigned. Indeed, I was fo- -I am fo now. I threw my wearied body wearied, Heaven knows, more than any labourer's, with the workings of my mind-upon the floor of my dungeon. Sleep came uncalled, but only came to make me more completely curfed. This world was paft, the next was come; but, after that, no other world. All was revealed to me. My eternal fentence of mental mifery (from which there was no flight) of banishment from the prefence of my father, of more than poetry e'er feigned or weakness feared, was past, irrevocably palt. Her verdict too of punishment was pronounced, Yes, Charles-fhe, fhe was punished-and by whofe means punished? Even in her angel mind were failings, which it is not wonderful I never faw, fince Omnifcience, it feemed, could hardly difcern them. O, Charles, thefe foibles, fo few, fo undifcernible, were still, I thought in my dream, to be expiated. For my hand |