denly starting, and laying my hand on ny fword; which fo terrified him, that he dropped the poniard, and fled precipitately to the place where I had found him. "And now," faid he, generous prince, if you ftill refafe to "take the life of him who had fo bafely purposed the deftruction of your own, "it fall at least be dedicated to your "future fafety. But my gratitude fhall "not be confined to words: Alla pre"ferve thee, gracious prince! When my prefence will be useful, you may ex"pect me at the dwelling of Elbrahoud, "the deftined place of your retreat. Saying this, he hathed my feet with his tears, and fled with the utmoft celerity; nor have I fince beheld him.'

66

The gentle breast of Oriana was fenfibly touched at the relation of dingers fo alarming; and often did her beauteous eyes resemble the fnowy cup of the lily full charged with the dew of the morning, and as often did the tender glances of her bofom's lord, the bright fun of her felicity, exhale the precious drops!

The good Alfaron, too, feverely felt every peril in which his pupil had been involved; and though his feeling heart difdained not the fympathetic tear, his attention was chiefly occupied in tracing the mysterious defigns of Providence in what had paffed, and in reflecting on the probable future. He praifed their commendable refignation to the will of the Omniscient Alla; he blessed them; and they all joined in prayer to the Eternal Difpofer of Events; thankful for the fafety they had hitherto enjoyed in the midit of danger, and fubmiffive to the lot which awaited them.

While they were thus piously engaged, on a fudden they beheld at a diftance a troop of armed men, who appeared evidently making towards them with an expedition which would have rendered in. effectual, every endeavour to retreat. Nytram, however, erew his fcymitar, and intrepidly awaited their approach; determined to protect lives that were fo dear to him with a zeal which fhould equal his regards. But what was his furprize! what his transport! when, as they drew near, he found they were preceded by the very perfon whofe life he had formerly preferved; and who now, with his whole retinue, fell proftrate at his feet, and faluted him Auguft Sultan of Paia

'mania!'

The prince gently raised him from

the earth; and defiring him to explain what at prefent appeared fo mysterious, the officer proceeded to relate, in few wordsthat, on his return to Kafrac, who was then on the throne of Paramania, and affuring him that he had flain his brother, he was loaded with gifts, and promoted to a very confiderable poft in the army—that Kafrac, however, fear,ul left he should fome time reveal the horrid fecret, foon laid a plan for his affaffination, which he was fortunate enough to difcover and elude that the vices of the prince had become every day more atrocious; rapine, violation, and murder, being equally the objects of his least pleasure or refentment -that his nobles, fanctioned by fuch authority, gave a loofe to every vicious inclination; and their dependants again following the example of their fuperiors, the greatest enormities were each moment committed, and fcarcely a fingle family of repute efcaped the dreadful confequences of unbounded luft, cruelty, or avaricethat, wearied at length, the citizens began to awaken from their delufion; and Kafrac having violated the daughter of their chief magiftrate, and maffacred the whole family on the father's expreffing his refentment of the injury, they role as one man, and while he was on his way to the hall of justice, for the purpofe of exercifing that authority which he had fo bafely perverted, he was seized by the enraged multitude, and torn to pieces fo effectually, in a few minutes, that not the finalleft atom could be traced-that, in the midst of this diforder, he had taken an opportunity to address the people, informing them that Prince Nytram was yet alive, and that he was acquainted with the place of his retreat-that they had unanimoufly expreffed their with for the offspring of the good Habenaffer to reign over them; afcribing all their calamities to the ill-treatment of that virtuous monarch, and the neglect of his equally virtuous fon-and that they would highly reward the happy perfon who fhould reftore the prince of their affections to his wretched and ungrateful country; which hoped, under his aufpices, again to recover that (plendor which their vices and indifcretion had fo fatally fullied.

Having finished his relation, a meffenger was dispatched to Elbrahoud, that he might receive that fare of the general felicity to which he was by his virtues, as well as his friendhip, fo fully en

titled;

titled; and they immediately fet out for the metropolis, where they foon arrived, without any material occurrence. They were received with the loudeft acclamations of univerfal joy-the unexpected felicity of finding at the fame time the good old Alfaron, and the amiable Oriana, both of whom they had long fince concluded as loft, confiderably heightened their tranfports-and the mingled tears of joy and contrition rolled plenteous from the eyes of the enraptured Paramanians; who, as they never again for

BLANDFORD

BY

MR.

got what they owed to Heaven for the bleffing of a virtuous prince, nor ceased to remember the dreadful confequences which attend the reign of a vicious one, fo they never again experienced thofe calamities with which the juftice of Alla feldom fails to vifit nations, who are unmindful that fuch earthly rulers as most pioufly adhere to the facred laws and injunctions of their Heavenly one, must be beft calculated to govern a virtuous and a happy people.

tate.

Certain it is, indeed, that if children, borne away by fenfibility, at a period of life when the voice of Nature is yet too ftrong to refift that of Reafon, are too apt to facrifice every thing to Love; parents, on the other hand, forgetful how irrefiftible their own emotions, their own defires, had been, when they were themselves in the hey-day of youth, are not lefs prone to facrifice every thing to Prudence, or at leaft to what, by the morofe frigidity of age, is confidered as fuch, deftructive as it is of that very happinefs which it is the object of real prudence to promote and to establish.

From an excefs of fenfibility in the bofom of an inexperienced girl, more, it must be confeffed, than from an abuse of parental authority, never perhaps was the peace of a worthy family more fuddenly, more unexpectedly, or more irretrievably ruined, than that to which the lovely heroine of thefe pages belonged.Haplefs Sophia Rufport!-Even now, hardly can we help fhedding a tear to thy memory, while with the pen of truth we are endeavouring to record thy fufferings, to palliate thy errors, and to do juftice to thy virtues.

Sophia had not quite reached her nineteenth year, when the was firft brought to London by her father, Sir George Rufport; and when, of courfe, the was permitted to view a few of the fashionable fcenes of a town life-scenes of which the had before formed no conception beyond what might be derived from a perufal of fuch plays or novels as had been procured for her by stealth from the circulating library of an humble village.

The old gentleman, difappointed in his views at court when a youth, had not till this period faced the finoke of the capital fince the coronation.

The whole of this interval in his life -if in life it can be called an intervalhe had paffed in a state of philofophic repofe upon his eftate in Hampshire: nor would he have confented, even now perhaps, to vifit London again, had it not been to oblige a wife, to whom he could hardly deny any requeft; to gratify the wifh of a daughter, who was the pride of his declining years; and to procure for an only fon that preferment at St. James's to which formerly he had aspir

ed in vain for himself.

It was not till the very eve of their return into the country, that Sophia, in an evil hour, first met Captain Blandford, and beheld the only man on earth whom he had yet thought it poffible to love.

Blandford was, indeed, one of the moft engaging of all the youth that graced the circles of gaiety and fashion. But, alas!--fay, ye fair, for thousands of

you

you knew him, and thousands and thoufands of you may fee his likenefs again -fay, was he not alfo one of the most diffipated, one of the most abandoned ?

It was at one of Lady Charlotte Winmore's routes that Sophia met him; and the captain, charmed in his turn with the blooming graces of our artlefs heroine, who was indeed by much the fineft woman, in the rooms, was indefatigable in paying her every attention which the laws of mere politenefs might feem to justify to others; while to herfelf, with eyes which both by nature and art had been well instructed how to speak to the female heart, he tenderly vowed the ardour of an infant flame, and expreffed whole volumes of a love too powerful already, it would feem, for tongue to utter, for pen to defcribe, or for pencil to delineate.

All this, and much more, faid the infidious eyes of Blandford to a fimple but fufceptible girl; who, reared in the bofom of innocence, hardly knew what infidioufnefs meant.

On the above occafion, neither Sir George nor his lady were prefent. Relying on the difcretion of Lady Winmore, who was a diftant relation of the family, and ignorant of the modern refinements in gallantry, as practifed by adepts in the art of making love like the all-feductive Blandford, they felt no fcruple in entrusting Sophia for the night, efpecially as it was to be her laft in London, under the friendly roof of Lady Charlotte; with no protector under that roof but her brother, who was as much a ffranger to the modifh ways of the town as herself.

For that time, however, Sophia efcaped unhurt by the feductions of Blandford, otherwise than with the lofs of her heart; in which, however, as fhe experienced when too late, was involved the lofs alfo of that tranquillity of mind, that fprightlines of temper, which in the dear romantic fhades that furrounded the fequeftered manfion of her father, had been through life a fource of uninterrupted felicity to herself, and of triumph, as well as felicity, to her venerable, doating parents.

Thus it was that Sophia, on her return to Rufport Park, became a prey to her tenderness for a man whom the blushed to think the had never feen but once; and whom, at the fame time, fhe dreaded to think he never fhould fee again.

Diftraction attended the very idea of her fituation. In whatever light fhe viewed it, nothing appeared to her difordered imagination but a gloomy fcenę of horror, accompanied with all the agonies of defpair that can flow from difap. pointed love; a love which, imbibed as it had been by her at the very first fight of the adored object, and now cherished till it had obtained an influence that baffled every controul of reafon, fhe could not, without violating thofe fentiments of inborn delicacy and dignified pride that form the glory of the female character, reveal even to the dear authors of her exiftence. Hopeless as her paffion was, far from being capable of difclofing it to another, worlds would Sophia have given to banish the knowledge of it from herself.

In this cruel condition, fhe now exhibited daily in her fair, but fading form, a living image of hopeless forrow; that forrow which has been fo emphatically described as preying like a worm i' th 'bud,' on the cheek of love-lorn beauty.

Sir George and Lady Rufport had for fome time been affiduous in contriving for their daughter every amusement which might tend to difpel that melancholy, under whofe baleful influence they now fo evidently beheld her pining, though unconfcious of the caufe.

One evening, about two months after their return from London, in walking homeward about dusk from the houfe of a neighbouring gentleman, where they had been on a familiar vifit, their ears were fuddenly affailed with the groans of a man feemingly in the agonies of death. Sophia, imagining that in thofe groans the recollected a voice which indeed there was too much caule for her to remember, attended her father and mother with anxious fteps till they reached the fpot whence they feemed to iffue; and, when there, with the little light that remained, they perceived a young gentleman bound to a tree, wounded in several parts of his body, and apparently ready to perish by the lofs of blood.

At the dreadful fight, Sophia felt the little colour fhe had left forfake her cheeks; and, ftepping close up to the bleeding traveller, with a fhriek, and the exclamation of - O my foreboding heart!-'tis he!-'tis Blandford!'Captain Blandford !'. - fhe fwooned away in the arms of her mother. To the astonished parents here was

now

now a scene of mystery upon mystery, of calamity upon calamity. This, however, was no time to think of requiring. an explanation; and, before they beftowed another thought on giving relief to the ftranger, their grand folicitude was to reftore life to their daughter.

Hardly had Sophia began again to open her languid eyes, when one of Sir George's fervants accidentally reached the fpot: with his affiftance, the gentle man was immediately untied, and his wounds were for the prefent bound up. He was then, though with infinite difficulty, conveyed into a carriage, which moved on flowly; while Sir George and his lady, with Sophia leaning upon them with each arm, and ready at every step to faint again, proceeded gradually after it on foot.

The very minute they had in this folemn manner reached home, Sir George dispatched a special metlenger for a furgeon, while the good lady accompanied Sophia to her chamber. Indeed, the wounds of Sophia, more fatal than thofe which the capt in had received in his journey, were far beyond the skill of either a furgeon or a phyfician to heal. Happily the found, for that night at least, a relief from within herfelf. The fource of her tears, on the fcore of her attachment to Blandford, was not yet dried up to thofe tears, long as they had been involuntarily fuppreffed, fhe now gave a free loofe on the bofom of an affectionate mother; who no fooner knew the real caufe of her Sophy's forrows, than fhe foothed them with a fympathetic return of tear for tear, and a cordial affurance that, from her reprefentation of the matter to Sir George, all should be well.

Lulled thus to repofe with hopes which Heaven, in it's infinite though incomprehenfible wifdom, had ordained never to be realized, Sophia arofe in the morning with a chearfulnefs and an alacrity to which for a confiderable time before fhe had been a ftranger.

Impatient to know in what manner the captain had been difpofed of, how he had refted, and what degree of danger there was in his wounds, the now obtain ed leave to accompany her father and mother to his apartment; there to condole with him on the accident that had befallen him; to enquire into the caufe of it; and to congratslate him on the fingular circumftance by which, arriving fo providentially to his relief, they had

been the happy means of conducting him alive to Rufport Park.

To this profufion of hofpitable kindnefs, fo affectionately expreffed by the old baronet, and fo fympathetically echoed by the good lady and her daughter, Blandford made every return which might be expected to flow from a heart fuddenly and irrefiftibly overpowered with a fenfe of unbounded gratitude; and the eyes of the too-fufceptible Sophia gliftened again with joy, when she heard from the captain's own. lips that his wounds were by no means fo alarming as had been apprehended-that he was free from every feverish symptóm in confequence of them-that, if he experienc ed any inconvenience at all, it was merely a little weak nefs through the loss of blood which he had fultained on the road, in vainly contending with a body of desperate ruffians.

Here finking back on his pillow,he paufed, and declared his ftrength too much exhaufted to utter more at that interview; but added, that when his fpirits were fomewhat more compofed, he would,with the approbation of Mifs-extendingforth his arm towards Sophia-explain why it was that he had on the prefent occafion vifited Hampshire; why, of all the gentlemen in the county, it was his first object to wait on the worthy Sir George Rufport; and why, without his friendhip, he would wish to die of his wounds that minute, rather than, by furviving them, linger on a life of pain.

Sir George, without the information of Lady Rufport, was at no lofs now to trace to their true fource all the forrows of his daughter; and great was his difpleafure at Sophia for daring, as he termed it, to bestow her affections on a man of whom he knew nothing; a man, too, of whofe fortune, family, and character, fhe seemed herself to be totally ignorant.

But all the fober objections of a paternal diftruft weighed not at that moment a feather with Sophia. With a heart ready to burft, however, at the frowns of a father whom he had never known to frown on her before, the ingenuously told him where it was that fhe had firft feen the captain; who, the added, could not be otherwife than a man of fortune from his figure; of family, from his manners; and of character, from the very circumftance of his being one of her coufin Winmore's vifitors.

The old gentleman, however-to ufe

the

the language of logicians was by no means difpofed to draw fuch conclufions from fuch premifes; and, as the evil genius of the captain would have it, Lady Winmore herself, a few days after, arrived at Rufport Park on a vifit; previous to which, Blandford, perfectly recovered from his wounds, had revealed to Sir George what he called the fecret of his love; and even fo far gained upon the esteem of the old gentleman, as to obtain a tacit confent to his union with Sophia.

The deluded girl now thought herself at the very pinnacle of happinefs: but how fuddenly did all her dreams of joy vanih, by the unexpected, yet wifhedfor appearance, of her ladyship!

Sir George, naturally anxious to know fomewhat more of his propofed fon-inJaw, than could be learned from his own lips, or from the lips of a love-entangled girl, took the earlieft opportunity to queftion her ladythip about him; when, to his infinite aftonifliment, as well as forrow, he obtained a description which exhibited the very reverfe of what he had been taught to expect in the engaging, the all-accomplished, or feemingly allaccomplished, Blandford.

From the irrefiftible teftimony of Lady Winmore, it now appeared that the captain, though beyond difpute a youth of family, and as fuch often promifcuoufly admitted under her roof, had al-ready furvived the laft fhilling of his fortune; and that, as for character, the little that remained to him on that fcore, might best be known by enquiring at a brothel or a gaming-houfe.

In this account of Blandford, harfhly as it might found, there was, alas! too much trutir; and, accordingly, the next morning, after a night of fleepless perturbation, Sir George-having already handed Lady Winmore to her chariot, thanked her for her vifit, and doubly thanked her for her information-repaired to the captain's apartment, and with out much circumlocution intimated to him, that from that hour his company at Rufport Park would be difperf ed with.

Blandford was thunder-ftruck. From a moment's recollection, however, he was at no lofs to guess that Lady Winmore was the caufe of his experiencing this uncourtly treatment; and all the fentiments of regard which might before have glanced acrofs his bofom for the VOL. I.

devoted Sophia, yielded now to thofe of revenge-an infernal defire, at least, of revenge upon her family.

To gratify that defire, he had another incentive, more powerful than might be fuppofed to actuate the breast of such a man, merely from a fenfe of injured honour; the incentive, indeed, which had been the fole caufe of his love-pretended vifit to Hampshire-that of poffeffing himself of a fortune amounting to ten thousand pounds; which, by the will of a deceased aunt, he knew that Sophia unhappily-yes, be it repeated, unhappily-had at command on the day of her marriage.

Though difmiffed from the prefence of Sir George, he thought it needless to difinifs himself from the vicinity of his hofpitable walls, or to give up the purfuit of his daughter, and of his daughter's fortune.

Adventurers, like Blandford, are never out of their way, efpecially when they have a coup de main to execute. The heart of the tender Sophia he knew to be implicitly at his devotion; and accordingly, ftooping to conceal himself difguifed in an obfcure hovel in the neighbourhood, he contrived ftill, day after day, to fee and to converse with the fond, the foolish victim, of his unmanly wiles.

It would be fuperfluous to relate all that paffed at thefe ftolen interviews-to relate what of courfe may be fuppofed

a

that, at all of them, Blandford gave loofe to the ruling propenfity of his nature, diffimulation: Sophia, to that credulity which, particularly when it influences the female bofom, is fure to be diffimalation's prey.

Suffice it to obferve, then, that they terminated in his obtaining the confent of Sophia to take a trip with him to the land of Caledonia-a land in which, whatever other reftraints or oppreffions may exift, Hymen, turning his back upon England, the boafted region of political liberty, laughs at fenators, and all the laws that fenators can enact gainft him.

Be this as it may, hardly had Blandford and Sophia reached the confines of Scotland, when they were welcomed by an unhallowed wretch, in a garb refembling that of a priest, who-with less formality, it must be confeffed, than the Archbishop of Canterbury, but not with lefs effect than if his Grace ha himself 2 I 3dministered