Oh! had I come one moment fooner!-it bleeds to death his gentle heart bleeds with it. PEACE to thee, generous fwain! I fee thou walkeft off with anguifh-but thy joys fhall balance it; for happy is thy cottage, and happy is the fharer of it, and happy are the lambs which sport about you.. STERNE CHAP. II. LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. DISGUISE thyfelf as thou wilt, ftill, SLAVERY! ftill thou art a bitter draught; and though thoufands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no lefs bitter on that account. It is thou, LIBERTY! thrice fweet and gracious goddefs, whom all in public or in privateworship, whose tafte is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herfelf fhall change no tint of words can spot thy fnowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy fceptre into iron- with thee to fmile upon him as he eats his cruft, the fwain is happier than his monarch, from whofe court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven! grant me but health, thou great Beftower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion; and fhower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them. PURSUING thefe ideas, I sat down close by my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myfelf the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and fo I gave full fcope to my imagination. I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow. creatures born to no inheritance but flavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it nearer me, and that the multitude of fad groups in it did but distract me I Took a fingle captive, and having firft fhut him up in in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.. I BEHELD his body half wafted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of fickness of the heart it was which arifes from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I faw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood-he had feen no fun, no moon, in all that time-nor had the voice of friend or kinfinan breathed through his lattice. His children Bur here my heart began to bleed-and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait. He was fitting upon the ground upon a little ftraw, in "the furtheft corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the difinal days and. nights he had paffed there--he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rufty nail he was etching another day of mifery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopelefs eye towards the door, then caft it down-fhook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle-He gave a deep figh-I faw the iron enter into his foul-I burst into tears-I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn. STERNE, CHAP. III. CORPORAL TRIM'S ELOQUENCE. -My young mafter in London is dead, faid Obaş diah -HERE is fad news, Trim, cried Sufannah, wiping her eyes as Trim ftepped into the kitchen-mafter Bobby is dead. I LAMENT for him from my heart and my foul, faid L 6 Trim, fetching a figh-poor creature!-poor boy!-poor gentleman! He was alive laft Whitfuntide, faid the coachman.. Whitfuntide! alas! cried Trim, extending his right arm, and falling inftantly into the fame attitude in which he read the fermon,-what is Whitfuntide, Jonathan, (for that was the coachman's name,) or Shrovetide, or any tide or time paft, to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal (ftriking the end of his flick perpendicularly upon the floor, fo as to give an idea of health and stability), and are we not (dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a moment!—It was infinitely ftriking! Safannah burst into a flood of tears-We are not stocks and stones-Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all melted. The foolish fat fcullion herfelf, who was fcouring a fifh kettle upon her knees, was roufed with it.-The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal. your "Are we not here now, and gone in a moment?” There was nothing in the fentence-it was one of felf-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if Trim had not trusted more to his hat than his head, he had made nothing at all of it.. 66 "Are we not here now, continued the corporal, and are we not" (dropping his hat plump upon the ground-and paufing before he pronounced the word) gone! in a mcment?" The defoent of the hat was as if a heavy lump of elay had been kneaded into the crown of it.-Nothing could have expreffed the fentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and forerunner, like it; his hand seemed to vanish from under it, it fell dead, the corporal's eye fixed. upon it as upon a corpfe,-and Sufannah burft into a flood STERNE.. of tears. - ALL CHAP. IV. THE MAN OF ROSS.. LL our praises why fhould Lords engros? Rife, honeft Mufe! and fing the MAN OF Ross: Pleas'd Pleas'd Vaga echoes through her winding bounds, Who hung with woods yon mountain's fultry brow? But clear and artlefs, pouring through the plain Who taught that Heav'n-directed fpire to rife? Of debts and taxes, wife and children clear, This man poffefs'd-five hundred pounds a year. Blush Grandeur, blufh! proud Courts withdraw your blaze! Ye little ftars! hide your diminish'd rays. And what! no monument, infcription, stone? His race, his form, his name almost unknown! Who Who builds a Church to God, and not to Fame, CHAP. V. THE COUNTRY CLERGYMAN. POPE. NEAR yonder copfe, where once the garden smil'd, vagrant train, Claim'd kindred there, and had his claims allow'd: Sate by his fire, and talk'd the night away ;. Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of forrow done, Shoulder'd his crutch, and fhow'd how fields were won. Careless their merits, or their faults to fcan, Thes |