 of Lord Leicester. The charm was in truth simply affection.—The amiable Henry had early been accustomed to every kind of homage but that of the heart, and had too much sensibility not to feel the want he knew not how to supply. Deeply susceptible of the true regard I had conceived for him, impressed at once by my mind, my manners, and my mien, with the idea of mystery, and the desire of obtaining my confidence, it was only by his own candor he sought to gain upon mine. Slowly and by degrees he deigned to repose with me those regrets and anxieties from which the utmost indulgence of nature and fortune cannot exempt a single individual. He often lamented the dangerous distinction of being the firstborn

born of his father's children, since it cost him every other.—Separated almost in infancy from his parents—surrounded with mercenary, sycophants, who sought to make their court to the reigning King by a partial representation or misconstruction of his actions, he had shot up unloved, uncherished, and seen those tender affections he was born to share, gradually center in that son from whom his parents had nothing to fear.—Nor were wanting insidious flatterers equally ready to undermine his filial duty, by pointing out the weaknesses of his father, even where they were most likely to wound him. He had punished himself, he added, for yielding to these impressions by an absolute, obedience to his authority, but it was with grief he remembered that was now the only tye between them.—Nor would I wonder, he continued, it should be so, if I considered that, born as he was to imperial power, with an ardent passion for glory, he had hitherto been shut up in the narrow sphere of his own court, languishing away the

flower of his youth without a choice, a friend, or a pursuit:—Till the infamous Carr should deign to decide what foreign Prince's bribe he would condescend to accept, and to what bigoted Papist he should sacrifice the son of his master.
While the admired Prince of Wales, the idol of the People, the heir of Empire, the endued of Heaven, thus confided to me the simple and rational griefs which clouded a fortune so brilliant, could I fail to meditate on the equality of providence?—Which graciously allots even to the lowest situation, some portion of happiness, and depresses the highest with the sad sense of misfortune.
It is the fatal peculiarity of youth to throw the strongest light on every secret grief, and waste away under an oppression imagination often doubles. To cure this propensity is therefore the province
