and dashed my clenched fist through that part of the canvas which represented the assassin's terrific and bloody aspect. Having performed this feat, I began to consider that I had done mischief, because I had often heard that the great picture in the library was very valuable. I had hitherto felt nothing but indignation with regard to the globes, because my mother's violent, and harsh, and unwarranted, and menacing expressions had only served to irritate, not make ine sensible of my fault; but now I began to look forward with fear to the consequences of my having defaced the picture, and seriously set about endeavouring to make my escape; for which purpose I searched my pockets, and found a shilling, which I thought would support me very well till I got to London, more than one hundred and twenty miles distant, whither I intended to go, and take refuge with a married sister who lived in that town. This plan settled, I opened a window, and squeezed myself through the interstice between the iron bars, and found, to my great discomfiture, that the ground was at such a distance,

that it was morally impossible for me to let myself down without breaking my neck; and I had no cord, not even a handkerchief to assist me in procuring a nearer approach to the ground. I therefore shut the window, and reached down a large book with plates, which served to amuse me a while; but I now began to be very cold, for it was in the month of February, and I had been locked up in this frigid place more than five hours. Add to this, it grew dark, and my fears of apparitions rendered me almost frantic: I set up the loudest roar my lungs were capable of emitting for a full half hour; but in vain, for if I had possessed a hundred tongues, and a hundred mouths, and an iron voice, I could not have been heard by any one, so great was the distance between the house and the dungeon in which I was immured. At length, when it was very dark, and I was nearly exhausted with cold, and fear, and hunger, one of the maid servants let me out, and a blazing fire, a plentiful supper, and a sound sleep buried all my cares in oblivion. However, not a day was suffered to pass over my head, but my

mother charitably reminded me of the globes, till it had wholly lost its effect, and I cared no more about the globes, than I did for a broken peg-top, or a shattered kite; insomuch that after one of these diurnal portions of maternal tenderness, and judicious discriminating discourse had been doled out at full length, I told her that I had dashed my hand through the great picture in the library. At this her rage knew no bounds, and she declared she would lock me up there night and day. I vehemently asserted, that she might do as she pleased, she might kill me if she chose, but that she should never carry me alive to that horrid place. This had no other effect than to augment her passion, and I should certainly have taken up my abode in that detestable habitation, had I not threatened to tear to pieces and destroy every book in the library, if I was locked up there. This menace saved me, and I was dismissed with many opprobrious epithets, which, now their novelty was worn off, made not the least impression on my mind, unless to raise contempt and indignation. At length the ex

pected evening came, and my father arrived; I hid myself behind the curtain, and lay down on a large high window bench, that I might be a witness of the evening scene. Scarcely five minutes had elapsed, before my mother very tenderly and softly informed her husband, that John, in spite of all she had said to warn him to the contrary,' and she had said nothing to warn me to the contrary, had broken the globes all to pieces, and torn all to rags the picture in the library, when she had been obliged to lock him up; and that he had been so intolerably insolent ever since, that there was no such thing as living in the house with him.' My blood boiled within me when I heard this speech, the greatest part of which I knew not to be matter of fact, but a story twisted and warped by intemperate passion. My father replied, that, as

for the picture, he did not care a single farthing, its appearance was enough to frighten any child when alone and locked up in so gloomy an apartment; that he did not. wonder I had torn it; but that the breaking the globes was my own loss, because they

were intended as a present for me, and to teach me geography and astronomy, whereas now I must go without them, because he could not afford to buy me another pair.' This discourse of my father's was more than I could bear; I burst into tears, left my hiding place, and threw myself into his arms: he kissed me tenderly, and from that moment twined round my heart a bond of affection, of love, of gratitude, of esteem, and of honour, infinitely stronger than all the ties of blood, and which will never be effaced from my mind, long ' as winds shall roar, and waters roll."

ESSAY XXI.

NARRATIVE CONTINUED.

"It is impossible for any language to convey an adequate idea of the mental agony I endured at ....................... ........................) in comparison of which my bodily sufferings were not a drop of water to the ocean. Indeed, had