“Whatever Paleski may have discovered to your Grace with respect to me, yet I am assured that he cannot have said any thing for which my conscience condemns me, though I should not be able to defend it before an ecclesiastical, or a civil court of justice. I have deceived you; however, I have done it for a great and noble purpose, and by order of a powerful being, whose authority I and you acknowledge. I should despise myself, if mean, or self-interested views, could have prompted me to do what I have done. To stimulate you to take an active part in the delivery of your country, was the sole reason for which you have been imposed upon. Although Paleski should not have disclosed the secret to you, yet you would not have remained in the dark much longer, because it was the plan of the Unknown to remove the veil from your eyes, and to introduce you into a new world, for which you was to be prepared by the delusions which you have experienced. Man is led to truth by error, according to an eternal law of nature. It was necessary that you should be made acquainted with delusions, that your look might be sharpened for future knowledge; it was necessary you should experience the highest degree of delusion, that you might acquire the prerogative of discerning fraud from reality, and of never suffering yourself to be imposed upon again. Then, and not sooner, the time would have arrived, when the Unknown would have shown himself to you in his real shape, and embraced you not only as a preserver of your country, but also as a member of that sacred society of wise men, who are admitted behind the curtain of nature, whither no eye of common short-sighted men can penetrate. A power and a happiness of which you can form no adequate notion, would have been your reward. Your tutor already enjoys that reward, and if you had been keen-sighted enough to penetrate, without assistance, the mist of delusions with which you have been encompassed, you would have been admitted some time since to the sanctuary where that reward awaits you. More I dare not say at present; however, I would advise you not to postpone your journey, and neither to betray me or the Unknown. If you slight my advice, then you must ascribe to yourself all the bad consequences which may arise from it, and you never will meet again in this world your tutor or Amelia. I conjure you not to mistake this for a new delusion. If you, on the other side, are inclined to profit by this advice, you will continue your journey with all possible expedition, and not think it finished before you shall be arrived at Ma***d, the capital of Sp***n, you will meet the Unknown, Amelia and your tutor, on the road. At *ubea you will stop at the inn which bears the sign of the golden mirror, where you are to receive an important visit. You will have the goodness to send my trunk to the post-house, where one of my people will call for it. I remain, with that respect and love with which I always have been,
“Your Grace’s, &c. &c.”
I must confess, I never should have expected such a letter. I fancied it would be couched in terms of repentance and submission, and when I opened it, found it to be a letter of a man of good conscience, who took it upon himself to advise and to warn me. What he told me of a hidden sanctuary to which the Unknown had designed to introduce me after I should have completed my time of probation, was an utter riddle to me, but what he told me about my tutor was still more so. At first I fancied this to be nothing but a varnish, by which he would conceal his deceptions, and an artifice to ensnare me a second time; however the idea that the matter might be as he had stated it, made me uneasy, and his menaces with respect to the bad consequences of my discontinuing my journey, frightened me. The bare possibility of the execution of his threats, was sufficient to determine me to continue my journey.---Pietro, my faithful servant, endeavoured indeed to persuade me to drop my design assailing me with tears and prayers; however, nothing could change my resolution. I would have encountered any danger and difficulty in order to meet Amelia and my tutor again, and departed with the first dawn of day. I left the Count’s trunk at the post-house at **zin. At ***jelo, I was, at length, so fortunate as to find a key to the cyphers which I had despaired to unfold. I had already tried all languages which I was master of, and succeeded at length with the Latin. How amply did I think my trouble rewarded, when I found the papers to be copies of letters which the Unknown had wrote on my account to Pinto Ribeiro, privy counsellor of the Duke of Br**za. Here follows the translation:
“Your Excellency knows how carefully we endeavoured to conceal the place of our secret meetings from the intrusion of prying strangers, by spreading the report that it was haunted. However, this did not deter a young nobleman who is on his travels, from entering last night the castle, in company of his tutor, with the intention of forming an acquaintance with the ghosts. No sooner had we been informed of their being arrived at the castle, when Georgio de M**** offered to chastise them for their inquisitiveness, fixing twelve o’clock at night for the execution of his design. He disguised himself as the most dreadful spectre which ever has appeared at midnight. Concluding from the undertaking of the two strangers that they were men of spirit and resolution, he put on a coat of mail, and covered his face with a mask made of bull-skins, in order to be proof against swords and pistols; a precaution which, as the event proved, was not superfluous. Thus accoutred, he approached at twelve o’clock the apartment of the strangers with a tremendous noise. Their door was bolted from within as he had apprehended; however, all the locks and bolts in the castle being constructed in such a manner that they can be opened from without, Georgio found it not difficult to push their door open. I remained at the threshold in order to wait the event. Georgio no sooner had entered the room with a design to chastise the young man who was sitting near the window, at a table on which two candles were burning, than his tutor started up, aiming a blow at him from behind which would have done his business at once, if Georgio had not been protected by his coat of mail. The pretended spectre threw the old gentleman so violently on the ground that he was unable to move a limb. This sight entirely disconcerted the young man, who was on the point of firing a pistol at his frightful visitor, rushed on him with a thundering voice, extinguished the candles, and beating him in such a manner as if he was going to beat him to atoms. Georgio’s dress being anointed with a salve composed of phosphorus, he appeared in the dark, to be all on fire. The dreadful impression which this sight produced on the mind of the young man was increased by the howling, groaning, and the tremendous noise which some of our company raised in the apartment over his head; he seemed to be senseless. As soon as Georgio perceived his helpless state, he lighted the candles with phosphorus, and left the apartment which he carefully bolted and locked.
“An hour after this scene had been acted, Georgio returned to the apartment, partly with the intention of seeing what effect the incident had produced on the strangers, and partly with a view to deter them from paying a second visit to the castle, and renewed the former scene. Both of them were again stretched senseless on their beds. As soon as Georgio had done with the young nobleman, he left the room without kindling the taper, for fear of being watched by the young spark, if he should recover his recollection a little too soon. He was not mistaken. But who would have thought that the young man would be so daring to pursue the spectre on his return through the dark passage? Georgio, who did not entertain the most distant idea of such an attempt, neither looked back, nor shut the trap-door thro’ which he had jumped down into the subterraneous vault, upon a heap of hay and straw. He had not advanced four steps, when the report of a pistol re-echoed through the subterraneous fabric. Some of our company who were at hand, hastened to the spot from whence the report of the pistol had proceeded, wrapt in black cloaks, and provided with torches and swords. They found the young man lying upon the straw upon which he had fallen in the dark through the trap-door. He was instantly seized and conducted to the assembly-room, where the conspirators, who had previously masked their faces, were sitting around a long table. Hearing that he was to pay with his life for his rashness, he drew his sword, but was soon disarmed and confined in an adjoining chamber.
(To be continued.)
CURSORY THOUGHTS ON THE FICKLE GODDESS, SHEWING WITH WHAT INJUSTICE SHE GENERALLY DISPENSES HER FAVOURS.
It has long been the complaint of the experienced, that no human foresight, no prudence, can at all times ensure prosperity, and avert ill fortune. Something still arises to baffle the counsels of the wise, and to counteract the intentions of the good. The Roman satirist has indeed asserted, that fortune is a deity of our own creation, and that he, who submits to the guidance of prudence, needs not the interposition of any supernatural power; but experience proves the assertion to be rather the effusion of rigid and affected philosophy, than the cool suggestion of well-informed reason.
The observation of a sacred moralist, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, is more agreeable to truth, and has been confirmed by the repeated testimony of some thousand years. Wisdom is often found guilty of folly, and ingenuity of error.