 ah! deign to gild awhile this gloomy world!—how inexpressibly sweet are at intervals the trances of my mind!—care, sorrow, suffering, mortality itself is forgotten; absorbed in a bright obscure, every high-wrought faculty hovers proudly on the verge of a long eternity—fye on this

earthy covering, how it drags down my soul, my soaring soul.
I wake from these day dreams, and return to my subject—in fruitless and tedious negociations were thus consuming those days we would in vain recall, those important days fraught with the very fate of the noblest of mankind.
The long delays, the eternal disappointments, exhausted my patience; agitated by a thousand apprehensions, which no less concerned my lover than myself, misery once more struck her iron fangs through my quivering heart. Compelled to struggle with a soul justly conscious of purity; to support an apparent tranquillity; to adopt an artificial character; to suffer Tiroen to delude himself into a persuasion the tye between me and Essex was dishonorable, lest an uncertain one should want power to restrain him, how many implicated indignities did I patiently endure!—Persecuted with

his base solicitations; overwhelmed with bribes as splendid as they were contemptible, I could ward off his expectations only by a feint my nature disdained. In answer to his unbounded offers, and tender protestations, I one day bad him remember that in those instances he could not surpass the generous lover he sought to rival; for that it was in the power of Essex to give me every thing but his title.—Tiroen paused indignantly for a moment, and my heart exulting in its artifice, fondly hoped the spectres of his whole line of royal ancestors would sweep before him, precluding every idea of a union so dishonorable. His whole estimation, and the success of the war depended, I well knew, on his retaining the affections of the people, and how could he hope for those if he disgraced the blood of the O'Neal's? He scarce credited the boldness of idea which appeared in this hint of mine, and struck with a persuasion I must be of some superior rank to dare thus to elevate my eyes to him, he once more attempted to

dive into a mystery so carefully and obstinately concealed. I was however on my guard, and sunk again into my original obscurity. Still eager to possess a woman he could not esteem, he at last assured me (after having observed that an engagement to a lady of his own family alone held his party together) that he would bind himself in secret by every tye I should dictate. I unwarily replied, the conduct and
