DISCONTENT.
In the humble and seemingly-quiet shade of private life, as well as among the great and mighty, discontent broods over its imaginary sorrows; preys upon the citizen no less than the courtier, and often nourishes passions equally malignant in the cottage and in the palace. Having once seized the mind, it spreads its own gloom over every surrounding object; it every where searches out materials for itself; and in no direction more frequently employs its unhappy activity, than in creating divisions among mankind, and in magnifying slight provocations into mortal injuries.
In situations where much comfort might be enjoyed, this man’s superiority and that man’s neglect, our jealousy of a friend, our hatred of a rival, an imagined affront, or a mistaken point of honour, allow us no repose. Hence discord in families, animosities among friends, and wars among nations! Look around us! every where we find a busy multitude. Restless and uneasy in their present situation, they are incessantly employed in accomplishing a change of it; and as soon as their wish is fulfilled, we discern, by their behaviour, that they are as dissatisfied as they were before. Where they expected to have found a paradise, they find a desert.
The man of business pines for leisure; the leisure for which he had longed proves an irksome gloom, and, through want of employment, he languishes, sickens, and dies.
The man of retirement fancies no state so happy as that of active life; but he has not engaged long in the tumults and contests of the world, until he finds cause to look back with regret on the calm hours of his former privacy and retreat.
Beauty, wit, eloquence and fame, are eagerly desired by persons in every rank of life. They are the parent’s fondest wish for his child; the ambition of the young, and the admiration of the old; and yet in what numberless instances have they proved, to those who possessed them, no other than shining snares, seductions to vice, instigations to folly, and, in the end, sources of misery.
For sources of this continuing serial, see the [end of the Index file]. The final installment of the novel is followed by the “Address of the Translator” in two further installments.
THE VICTIM OF MAGICAL DELUSION;
OR, INTERESTING MEMOIRS OF MIGUEL, DUKE DE CA*I*A.
UNFOLDING MANY CURIOUS UNKNOWN HISTORICAL FACTS.
Translated from the German of Tschink.
(Concluded from [page 315].)
The King proposed in the council of state in which this decree was debated, that some of the criminals should be executed, but the rest imprisoned for life. The Marquis of **ira insisted, however, upon the execution of the legal punishment, and was seconded by the other members. The King mitigated the punishment of those who had been sentenced to be hanged, ordering them to be beheaded. The two prelates, whose fate had been left to his Royal pleasure, were doomed to eternal imprisonment.
Going to Court the next day, I heard Alumbrado had found means to escape from his prison. It was believed Oliv*rez had bribed the gaoler by a large sum to suffer him to liberate himself, which appeared to me very probable, as the latter could be found no where, and very likely had joined the villain in his flight, who, however, as it is to be wished for the best of human kind, will not escape the punishment due to his crimes[*].
What I am going to relate now, is the account of an eye-witness, for how could I have been present on such an heart-breaking occasion?
On the 28th of August a scaffold, covered with black cloth, was erected before the house where the prisoners had been confined the preceding night. On this scaffold three steps were seen, on each of which a chair was placed, the upper one for the Duke of Cam*na, the middle chair for the Marquis of Villa R*al, and the lower one for the Duke of Ar*amar.
The Marquis of Villa R*al was the first who stepped out of one of the windows of the house, which served instead of a door. He begged the bye-standers pardon in a short speech, and was beheaded.
As soon as his corpse was covered, his son made his appearance. His pale and staring countenance resembled that of a corpse. He uttered not a syllable, seated himself on the chair, and one blow severed his head from his body.
The pen drops from my hand, and the idea of that horrid scene curdles the blood in my veins. Reader, who art perusing these pages, look back once more on the road on which a noble young man, adorned with the most excellent genius, and the best of hearts, suffered himself to be seduced to a crime for which he atoned with his life!
[*] He did not escape the vengeance of Heaven if, as I have reason to suppose, Alumbrado is the same person with Vi*o*va. The latter fled from Port**al to Spa*n, deceived the Minister through his pretended occult knowledge, and continued to be connected with him after he had been removed from the helm of government. However, a journey which Alumbrado made to Tol**o, where he attempted to play off his magical delusions, brought on his destruction; he was seized by the officers of the Inquisition, and executed as a heretic and sorcerer. Oli*arez too was arrested by the Inquisition, when that ruthless tribunal was informed of his connection with the villainous Alumbrado: his relations are, however, believed to have dispatched him by poison, in order to spare him the disgrace of a public execution.
Marquis of Sau*****.
CONTINUATION.
(By an unknown Hand.)
The Marquis of F*, to whom the preceding Memoirs had been entrusted for publication, dying nine weeks after the execution of his unhappy friend, left these interesting papers to me, after I had promised him on his death-bed to execute the last request of their ill-fated author. I have discharged the trust reposed in me some years since, and the character of the poor deluded young man has been vindicated in the eyes of the public, who have received the mournful tale of his misfortunes with tears of pity. The continuation of these extraordinary Memoirs, which I am going to add, is so wonderful and remarkable, that I wish it had been in my power to communicate it to the public along with the rest; the whole being, however, a secret of state, which I am not allowed to disclose while the persons concerned in it are alive, I shall, perhaps, be obliged to leave the publication of the subsequent pages to my children.
Nine years are already elapsed since the execution of the conspirators, and the death of the Marquis of F* and—the Duke of Ca*ina, whose hapless fate the latter has bewailed in silent grief, and who generally is believed to have been executed with the rest of his associates, is yet alive.
The King, who ardently wished to spare the life of the Duke, but at the same time was afraid of counteracting the decree of the council of state, who had doomed him to public execution, found himself in no small embarrassment. However, the Irishman, who wished with equal ardour to save the life of the poor misguided young man, soon found out means of dissolving the Gordian knot. “I could,” said he to the King, “make a mask, which no one should be able to discern from the real phisiognomy of the Duke; and this mask I could fasten to the face of some other person, in such a manner, that every one should believe that person to be the Duke. If, therefore, we can find a person who resembles him in size, and in the make of his body, and at the same time shall be willing to lose his head in the place of the Duke, it will not be difficult to save the life of the latter, without either offending the Senate, or leaving him at liberty to conspire a second time against the life of your Majesty. This person, who in every respect will answer our purpose, is Alumbrado. He is of the same size with the Duke, and if informed that he is condemned to be torn by horses, will not refuse to accept the mask, and to die by the sword in the place of the Duke. In order to cover this innocent fraud, we must give out that Alumbrado has escaped from the prison, and thus the benevolent wish of your Majesty can be accomplished with secrecy and safety.”
This plan of the Irishman was executed with the privity and assistance of only a few persons, who took a solemn oath never to disclose the secret, and Alumbrado was beheaded in the room of the Duke. The deceit was carried on so dexterously, that none of those who witnessed his execution, suspected him to be any other person but the Duke whom he represented.
The latter, however, knew nothing of this fraud that had been practised in his favour, for although the Irishman had modelled his face in wax, yet he had not received the most distant hint of the purpose for which it had been done. When he was carried out of his dungeon, a few hours after the execution of his father and the disguised Alumbrado, and led through a dark subterraneous passage, he fancied that he was to meet his doom. He was conducted over many secret staircases, and at length entered, through an iron door, a dark apartment where he was ordered to wait. But soon after a second door was opened, and an apartment illuminated with numberless torches presented itself to his view. There he beheld the King sitting at a table, and a man with a sack and a sword standing by his side, who beckoned to him to step nearer. The Duke having entered the apartment, the door was bolted after him, and he expected every moment to be his last. The King looked at him for some time without speaking a word, and at last began:—“You have designed the ruin of your country, and conspired against my life, what do you think you deserve?” “Death!” the Duke replied. “You have been doomed by the Council of State to suffer a very painful death; I have, however, mitigated their sentence into that of your being executed by the sword.” The Duke thanked the King for his clemency, and looked at the man, whom he mistook for the executioner. “Your sentence has been executed already!” the King resumed, after a long pause of awful expectation. The silence of the Duke, and the expression of his features, bespoke his desire for an explanation of these mysterious words. “You gaze at me;” the King added, “you doubt, perhaps, the truth of what I have said? however you shall soon be convinced.” So saying he made a signal to the man who was standing by his side, upon which the latter opened the sack, and taking out a head recently cut off, showed it to the Duke, who staggered back when he discerned his own features in the face of the bleeding head. The whole mystery was now explained to him, and the King added: “You owe your life to my mercy and the invention of the Irishman; it is, however, not in my power to restore you to human society. Although you are alive, yet you will be numbered among the dead, and be lost to the world for ever. You will pass your life banished from society, and deprived of liberty, yet you may rest assured that none of the comforts of life, liberty excepted, will be denied you.”
This sentence was executed literally, the Duke was confined for the rest of his life in a strong tower situated on the river Ta*o, where handsome apartments were allotted to him, and wanted nothing but liberty.
[The Address of the Translator of the preceding history to his Thinking Readers, being thought worthy their attention, it will be laid before them in our next, and succeeding number.]