BURTON. A Nobel. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY RONALD M'CHRONICLE, Esq. AUTHOR OF LEGENDS OF SCOTLAND, (FIRST AND SECOND SERIES,) &c. On what strange grounds we build our hopes and fears! Man's life is all a mist, and in the dark Our fortunes meet us. If fate be not, then what can we foresee? DRYDEN. VOL. II. LONDON: PRINTED FOR A. K. NEWMAN AND CO. LEADENHALL-STREET. BURTON. CHAPTER I. I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry" It is all barren;" and so it is, and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers. I declare, said I, clapping my hands cheerfully together, that was I in a desert, I would find out wherewith in it to call forth my affections. STERNE. The Journey. THERE are very few of the places in which it has been my fate to sojourn, that have not afterwards left some pleasurable recollection on my mind, and caused me at the time some pain to quit them. If a man's heart is well attuned to his fellowbeings, it is sure, wherever it goes, to form VOL. II. B some some of those social ties-some of those kindly affections, that, in the aggregate, constitute the grand link which binds us to existence, and the breaking of which is the great pang of death. It is sure, whereever it goes, to assimilate itself with something it can love when present, and must regret when it is gone. Even the place where we have enjoyed many pleasures, has a claim upon our attachment-to be left with sorrow, and to be revisited with delight. Far different from the eager anticipations of joy with which he used to contemplate any change of scene, were the ideas and feelings of Charles Melville, on leaving a city where thoughts and sensations totally different from any he had ever felt before, had caused a new epoch in his life a life hitherto devoid of interest, which, to one so thirsty after incident, was but barely existence. Though Charles had quitted the baroness with regret—though it was a painful struggle |