conscience, stricken and wounded, sinking beneath the weight of guilt, fully and sensibly alive to its irremediable state; at one moment convulsed with reflection, and at another receiving hope's last ray, and almost expiring with the ecstacy it afforded. To have witnessed the dissolution of the young, beautiful, and intellectual, when hope indulged in a long reign of enjoyment, and ambition presumed upon success in the daring schemes which the too fertile imagination of youth had depicted, and nourished; to see the bud, with the fresh and vigorous blush of nature apparently permanent on its leaf, and in a few brief succeeding hours to find it bereft of its charm, and broken by the tempest of misfortune, and prostrate with the earth. So chilling and discouraging are some of the lessons of experience,-so disheartening, but too often, is the issue of the fairest prospect, that one regards human nature, in its loveliest and most attractive forms, with repining, on account of the uncertainty of its future destiny; and man frequently shrinks from the fashionable circle of life, lest the over sensitiveness of his disposition for the distresses of others, should, by sympathy, excite a corresponding unhappy state of mind in himself. Who is there existing in the gay sunshine of popularity, the object of admiration, and perhaps even of adoration, without knowing that the idol which at one moment is extolled, at another lies broken, the victim of injustice, and perhaps of persecution. These ideas were the simple and natural reflections of my mind upon contemplating the remains of my deceased friend; and the usual rites having been performed, I endeavoured again to rally my discomposed spirits, which the reader will perceive by the tenor of the foregoing observations, were neither adapted for the arduous duties of life, nor calculated, in the tone of their despondency, to render me, in the society of my fellow-students, what medical professors should always endeavour to be, the cheerful and rational companion and friend. I determined, therefore, on exchanging the close and humid atmosphere of the metropolis, for the invigorating breezes of my native Cambria, and the fond companionship of my beloved and betrothed Emily. The third morning after my resolution had been formed, I was seated on the then heavy Shrewsbury coach, and descried, on entering the vale of Shropshire, in the grey light of the dawn, the bold outline of the Welsh mountains. How many and how varied had been my circumstances since I left this picturesque landscape! but how contrasted to them, and how glorious, and sublime, was the scene before me! The sun rose in grandeur and majesty, and the distant vallies reposed beneath its smiles; for it was that season of the year when the loveliness and warmth of summer was combined with the freshness and vigour of spring. The lover of the picturesque feels disposed to complain of the modern alterations in roads; but, at this time, the Holyhead road not being in existence, my taste for the wild and romantic scenery through a route almost unknown to the tourist, was most fully indulged. I proceeded on foot from Shrewsbury, and saw, for the first time, the beauties of Myvod, and the adjacent upland vales, until I arrived at the depopulated village of Llanvihangel, and then crossed the Berwen range, which divides the Dee and tributary streams of the Severn. Upon this mountainous expanse, as many of my readers are well aware, Henry II. was defeated by the intrepid heroes of Cambria, and it possesses, in addition, many features of interest to the artist, the botanist, and the antiquary. From the far-famed mountain of Cader Bronwyn rushes upon the view the legendary pool of Bala, and its grandeur, for the moment, paralyses the senses: the grave where fell of old the barons of iniquity, the eternal monument of Heaven's retribution; its dark and sullen waters were expressive of the tale of mystery, and of woe. The abrupt and sombre mountains of Arrenig swayed majestically the north-west barrier; the pyramidal and more graceful Arran lay upon the left; the peaks of the hills were seen in dim reflection on the surface of Llyn Tegid, and the sublimity of the scene, and the composition of this terrific landscape was such, as to entrance the mind, and to prepare my imagination for the events of the succeeding morn. Upon inquiring my road at the small cottage of a shepherd farmer, I received a hospitable welcome to share the evening meal, and sojourn for the night, which I gladly accepted; and, before sunrise, and ere the plover had offered its first plaintive whistle in apparent thankfulness for the repose and protection it had received in its bed of fragrant heather, I had resumed my pilgrimage, which, in the grey twilight, was more solemn than interesting. The dew, spiced with the wild fragrance of the hills, swept by the fresh early breeze, the golden ray of the sun just peeping o'er the distant rocky Bridden, awoke my mind to a higher contemplation of the beauties of nature, and the grandeur of scenery, than I had experienced even on the preceding evening. What! thought I, was this spot, now so exalted in majestic scenery, and its soil so prolific in affording the combined sweets of the mountain thyme and heather, once polluted by the mingled gore of Saxon and Walian heroes, whose uncurbed spirits form in history so striking a contrast to the still and peaceful scene around me? Did the wind, now so pure and odorous, once bear afar upon its bosom, the death shrieks of the expiring brave, and the acclamations of the victors? Yes! tradition, well authenticated, has consigned to this scene the defeat of England's second Harry, and the triumph of Gwynedd's Owain over the southern king and his mail-clad warriors. I was absorbed in the reflection which the events, connected with the local history afforded, when my ear suddenly caught the almost inarticulate wailing of some one in distress; I listened more attentively, and felt assured that my conjecture was correct. I hurried to a spot of more extended view, and the unhappy object who attracted my notice, and who, even in her frenzy, appeared beautiful, was seated on the still dewy heath, wildly shrieking, and in desperation tearing her hair, which hung in disorder upon her uncovered neck. This was no moment for explanation, and, with the assistance of a neighbouring shepherd, we conveyed the unfortunate girl to her home, which was providentially not far distant. An interest in her untimely wretched fate having caused myself and some friends to procure for her a more comfortable asylum, in one of her lucid intervals she was induced to confide to me some particulars of her past romantic life, which I have wrought into a short story, and have entitled it THE MANIAC MAID. The light of reason has never been dispelled so entirely by my misfortunes, but that it returns dawning over my weakened senses, like the flickering of the grey morn, casting its shadows over that portion of my existence which might have been happy, and affording its light only where misery and despair have already much worn down my broken spirit, and distempered imagination. I was the only child of parents whose inheritance was the land which their forefathers had tilled for many past generations, the spot upon which they had lived, the tenure which they had cultivated, and the sacred yew-tree, beneath whose branches their remains had been laid, had been hallowed by the proud recollection of ancestral antiquity. Can I ever forget the fondness with which they regarded the gradual developement of my youthful attractions, and directed those accomplishments of mind, of which anxiety and wayward fortune have since almost deprived me. My village friends, who called me the flower of have many of them lived to see how little of the bloom hath remained; but there was one once, who esteemed even the wild fragrance of the lowly cottage bud: he was a neighbour, and his life was given to the ocean. Our loves were pledged almost before we knew the tenderness and strength of the bond of affection; he was a youth whom I hardly dare to recall to mind; it excites my over-heated brain, and makes me too bitterly think of my blighted hopes. How little did he think,-his lightly bounding step, his fine hazel eye, subduing the rising im • Anxious to avoid unpleasant allusions to places and persons in connexion with this narrative, the writer has been induced to omit their names, and in some instances to misplace localities. pulses of his disconsolate heart,-when upon the brow of yonder declivity I bade him adieu, that our parting was the last farewell to his home, and to his love. Alas! he bled and died in his country's cause, and, at the early age of sixteen, my young heart experienced the virgin bitterness of human anticipations. This youthful bereavement, added to others, proved too severe a blow to those feelings which have been but frail to withstand the shocks which the Almighty ordained that they should sustain; I silently pined under the affliction, but endeavoured to rally my sinking frame, on account of the responsibility of that duty which I owed my parents. My mother, who was most tenderly attached to me, noticed the change effected in the character of my mind, and perhaps this circumstance, added to a painful illness with which she was assailed, bore her to an early tomb. Let me not think or speak of these past circumstances, they are trivial in comparison to others with which my broken heart hath been assailed. I have already said that our family possessed a small patrimonial estate, and that my father felt an equal pleasure with our progenitors in its careful cultivation; but the prosperity of the former times had ceased, and being unsuccessful in his plans, and unfortunate in his flocks, he was obliged to have recourse to the assistance of a rich proprietor, whose land closely adjoined our own, and who upon many occasions had, apparently with liberal designs, proffered his pecuniary aid to my unhappy father, who would have regarded with distrust the motives of our baronial neighbour, had he been more acquainted with the world, and the too frequent duplicity of those who appear to act from generous impulses. An engagement having been entered into for the supply of means to relieve the immediate necessities of my parent, for another twelvemonth time swept on with steady course; and I felt once more relieved from the feeling, that the fortunes of my family, which for centuries had been so uniformly prosperous, were destined, within my short career, to receive the overwhelming tempest which female constitution and mind, are by nature so ill calculated to sustain. Alas! the clouds at this moment were gathering in the horizon; and I, who had anxiously and carefully watched over and supported my only remaining friend upon earth, perceived the growing and increasing trouble, and agitation, of my father's bosom. I could have wished to share his counsels, but he appeared to withhold all information from my perplexed mind; and the shock which we were destined to receive, was to me to be as sudden, as when it came ruinous and decisive in its results. One fair morning, when nature belies the sorrows of the heart, and tells one that joy and peace are basking in the sunshine of human life; when the sweet essence of its fruits sport with the fancy, and delude the imagination; when the gaiety of scene, and serenity of air appear to banish the world's cares, and to make one feel, in joyous ecstacy, proof against all trouble; that dawn so treacherously lovely, was to me and to mine the last ray of earthly benignity. The same beauties are still, perhaps, displayed; the same mountain-lark carols over the fields, and the rivulet ripples to the stream; but the dark features of despair appear to me to overshadow all things. That morn, which I have described as one so beautiful, made my parent a beggar, myself an outcast, an orphan, and, I tremble to say the word, even perhaps a maniac. I watched day and night beside the couch of my broken-hearted father, who blessed me, and bid me never fear, but, that Heaven in its bounty, would befriend and protect me. He said, he should meet my sainted mother, and that in time the orphan would no longer be fatherless, but that the chills of fortune were Heaven's trials, to amend the heart, and fit me for eternity. I watched him in the last moment of dissolution, and an awful mystery came over me,—a dream, a fearful dream, that I am now a stranger in the land where I was once a native; that I am now a captive where I once was free to roam, in the blessings and the delight of glorious liberty. There is now a cloud upon the hills; a dark, gloomy, sullenness on the lakes; the flowers no longer bloom; the birds have ceased to sing; and what is this feeling? Oh God! it is the deprivation of the most precious of thy gifts, the aberration of that light which is the ray celestial to life's gloomy declivity. I wandered, at the close of one day, to mark the spot where I would have me laid, when the expiring lamp should burn no more. I thought that there was an unwonted brightness in the small churchyard, and, as I entered it, it appeared to me that it was less sombre than it had ever been before. I looked about me, and many of the gravestones bore my name. Some were so obscure, that the epitaphs were almost illegible; there was our good ancestor, whom all our country knew, and beside him lay a favourite daughter, and he had caused an inscription to be written over her remaims; it was from Hamlet, "Lay her in the earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh I had not lived alone in misery. It appeared that many of my race had been afflicted, and I thought I could trace somewhat of their histories from the characters of the epitaphs; but, as I moved indifferently from one to the other, at this moment feelingly commenting to myself on the marvellous stories and feats connected with their former lives, and at the next struck with |