I could not rest.  I sought the hills; a west wind swept them, and the stars glittered above.  I ran on, careless of outward objects, but trying to master the struggling spirit within me by means of bodily fatigue.  “This,” I thought, “is power!  Not to be strong of limb, hard of heart, ferocious, and daring; but kind compassionate and soft.”—­Stopping short, I clasped my hands, and with the fervour of a new proselyte, cried, “Doubt me not, Adrian, I also will become wise and good!” and then quite overcome, I wept aloud.

As this gust of passion passed from me, I felt more composed.  I lay on the ground, and giving the reins to my thoughts, repassed in my mind my former life; and began, fold by fold, to unwind the many errors of my heart, and to discover how brutish, savage, and worthless I had hitherto been.  I could not however at that time feel remorse, for methought I was born anew; my soul threw off the burthen of past sin, to commence a new career in innocence and love.  Nothing harsh or rough remained to jar with the soft feelings which the transactions of the day had inspired; I was as a child lisping its devotions after its mother, and my plastic soul was remoulded by a master hand, which I neither desired nor was able to resist.

This was the first commencement of my friendship with Adrian, and I must commemorate this day as the most fortunate of my life.  I now began to be human.  I was admitted within that sacred boundary which divides the intellectual and moral nature of man from that which characterizes animals.  My best feelings were called into play to give fitting responses to the generosity, wisdom, and amenity of my new friend.  He, with a noble goodness all his own, took infinite delight in bestowing to prodigality the treasures of his mind and fortune on the long-neglected son of his father’s friend, the offspring of that gifted being whose excellencies and talents he had heard commemorated from infancy.

After his abdication the late king had retreated from the sphere of politics, yet his domestic circle afforded him small content.  The ex-queen had none of the virtues of domestic life, and those of courage and daring which she possessed were rendered null by the secession of her husband:  she despised him, and did not care to conceal her sentiments.  The king had, in compliance with her exactions, cast off his old friends, but he had acquired no new ones under her guidance.  In this dearth of sympathy, he had recourse to his almost infant son; and the early development of talent and sensibility rendered Adrian no unfitting depository of his father’s confidence.  He was never weary of listening to the latter’s often repeated accounts of old times, in which my father had played a distinguished part; his keen remarks were repeated to the boy, and remembered by him; his wit, his fascinations, his very faults were hallowed by the regret of affection; his loss was sincerely deplored.  Even the queen’s dislike of the