the mean imposer, and submitted but to you. I knew the delicacy of your mind, and would not add to the weight which hung upon its nobler faculties, by a confidence that might wrong at the

same moment your duty. Ah! no, I remembered Williams, and was from that moment prudent, if not happy—yet as I know too well the horrors of mystery, in∣certitude, and silence, (for have I not spent ages in vainly guessing at your fate?) let me rescue you from a life of surmise, by perusing this sad memorial. Perhaps this astonishing separation will prove eter∣nal—If then my heart no more shall feel the throb of affection it has always given when yours pressed against it, (and some∣thing seems to tell me that pleasure shall never more be mine) receive in this reci∣tal a last proof of my tenderness, and oh, my dear, ill-fated sister, may it mitigate the keenness of your affliction, to learn you have not been the greatest sufferer.
In one part of this story I must ever have been obscure and insincere, but that Heaven has snatched away the worshipped object, of whose character we judged in so different a manner. Oh, pardon me all-gracious Heaven, if my opinion has been erroneous!—Pause here, Matilda, if your rising soul has taken the alarm, and weigh

well the love you bear me, for I shall need it all, unless I falsify the fact.
On the memorable day, when Heaven decided the destiny of the one sister, and perplexed that of the other, by presenting to the eyes of both the favorite of Eliza∣beth, how diametrically opposite were the impressions each took of his character! Astonishing that two agreeing in every instance till that moment, should for the first time differ in so decided a manner! more astonishing, that every following day only confirmed the separate judg∣ments. The darling alike of art and of nature, the eye, or mind, could demand no more than was comprized in the per∣son of Lord Leicester—but here, in my opinion, the charm ended. His heart, not warm by nature, had been rendered in a great degree callous, from having always passed his life in the chilling at∣mosphere of a Court. Unbounded in his projects, timid and subtile in his actions, tyrannick in his pursuits, the object he could not govern could never long attach him. Ambition, pride, and vanity, those

leading traits in almost every character, were in his so exquisitely blended, and corrected by the frost of his nature, that they might often be mistaken for nobler