from their incuriosity, their apparent indifference to their relative, or their obvious unacquaintance with reading of any kind, manuscript or books, his deposit would be safe.  He seems, in fact, to have acted like men, who, in distress at sea, intrust their letters and dispatches to a bottle sealed, and commit it to the waves.  The last lines of the manuscript that were legible, were sufficiently extraordinary. . . .

. . . . .

“I have sought him everywhere.—­The desire of meeting him once more is become as a burning fire within me,—­it is the necessary condition of my existence.  I have vainly sought him at last in Ireland, of which I find he is a native.—­Perhaps our final meeting will be in. . . .

. . . . .

Such was the conclusion of the manuscript which Melmoth found in his uncle’s closet.  When he had finished it, he sunk down on the table near which he had been reading it, his face hid in his folded arms, his senses reeling, his mind in a mingled state of stupor and excitement.  After a few moments, he raised himself with an involuntary start, and saw the picture gazing at him from its canvas.  He was within ten inches of it as he sat, and the proximity appeared increased by the strong light that was accidentally thrown on it, and its being the only representation of a human figure in the room.  Melmoth felt for a moment as if he were about to receive an explanation from its lips.

He gazed on it in return,—­all was silent in the house,—­they were alone together.  The illusion subsided at length:  and as the mind rapidly passes to opposite extremes, he remembered the injunction of his uncle to destroy the portrait.  He seized it;—­his hand shook at first, but the moldering canvas appeared to assist him in the effort.  He tore it from the frame with a cry half terrific, half triumphant,—­it fell at his feet, and he shuddered as it fell.  He expected to hear some fearful sounds, some unimaginable breathings of prophetic horror, follow this act of sacrilege, for such he felt it, to tear the portrait of his ancestor from his native walls.  He paused and listened:—­“There was no voice, nor any that answered;”—­but as the wrinkled and torn canvas fell to the floor, its undulations gave the portrait the appearance of smiling.  Melmoth felt horror indescribable at this transient and imaginary resuscitation of the figure.  He caught it up, rushed into the next room, tore, cut, and hacked it in every direction, and eagerly watched the fragments that burned like tinder in the turf fire which had been lit in his room.  As Melmoth saw the last blaze, he threw himself into bed, in hope of a deep and intense sleep.  He had done what was required of him, and felt exhausted both in mind and body; but his slumber was not so sound as he had hoped for.  The sullen light of the turf fire, burning but never blazing, disturbed him every moment.  He turned and turned, but still