 grief and despair take possession of her whole soul;—nor does she suffer less from the sense of her decaying power. Unwilling to resign a good she is unable to enjoy, she thinks every hand that approaches, is eager to snatch a sceptre, she will not even in dying bequeath. Oh, sweet Matilda! if yet indeed thou survivest to witness this divine vengeance, thy gentle tears would embalm even thy most mortal enemy! thou couldst not without pity behold the imperial Elizabeth, lost to the common comforts of light, air, nourishment, and pleasure. That mighty mind which will be the object of future, as it has been of past, wonder, presenting now but a breathing memento of the frailty of humanity.—Ah, that around her were assembled all those aspiring souls whose wishes center in dominion;

were they once to behold this distinguished victim of ungoverned passion, able to rule every being but herself, how would they feel the potent example! Ah, that to them were added the many who scorning social love, confine to self the blessed affections which alone can sweeten the tears we all are born to shed!—Gathering round the weary couch where the emaciated Queen withers in royal solitude, they might at once learn urbanity, and correct in time, errors, which when indulged, but too severely punish themselves.
Absorbed and blended in the busy and woeful scenes this heart-breaking history presented to my mind—an anxious partaker in each succeeding calamity—I seemed to live over again the melancholy years we had been separated, in the person of my sister.—My own misfortunes—my darling daughter, the whole world vanished from before my eyes—deep-fixed

on objects no longer existing, or existing but to double my affliction: I remained almost the statue of despair; every sense seeming rivetted on the manuscript I held; and buried in so profound a reverie, that Lady Arundell judged it prudence to interrupt it. The consolatory reflections her friendship dictated, died on my ear, but reached not a heart which deeply pursued the sad chain of ideas thus presented to it.—Starting as from a frightful sleep, I, at last, sunk on my knees, and raising my eyes, with the manuscript, at once toward Heaven.—"Oh, mighty author of universal being! sighed I, thou who hast lent me fortitude to struggle with almost unequalled trials, support my exhausted soul against this last—this greatest.—Let not the killing idea that it is a human infliction, trouble the pure springs of piety, whence alone the weary spirit can draw consolation.—Rather strengthen me with the holy belief that it is
