He with his hand, the old man, scoop’d the flood,
And there came flame about him mix’d with blood;
He bade me stoop and look upon the place,
Then flung the hot-red liquor in my face;
Burning it blazed, and then I roar’d for pain,
I thought the demons would have turn’d my brain. 
   “Still there they stood, and forced me to behold
A place of horrors—­they can not be told —
Where the flood open’d, there I heard the shriek
Of tortured guilt—­no earthly tongue can speak: 
‘All days alike! for ever!’ did they say,
‘And unremitted torments every day’ —
Yes, so they said”—­But here he ceased and gazed
On all around, affrighten’d and amazed;
And still he tried to speak, and look’d in dread
Of frighten’d females gathering round his bed;
Then dropp’d exhausted, and appear’d at rest,
Till the strong foe the vital powers possess’d;
Then with an inward, broken voice he cried,
“Again they come!” and mutter’d as he died. {13}

LETTER XXIII.

Poena autem vehemens ac multo saevior illis,
Quas et Caeditius gravis invenit aut Rhadamanthus,
Nocte dieque suum gestare in pectore testem. 
                              Juvenal, Satire xiii.

. . . .  Think my former state a happy dream,
From which awaked, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this,—­I am sworn brother now
To grim Necessity, and he and I
Will keep a league till death. 
                     Shakespeare, Richard II.

--------------------------

Prisons. {14}

The Mind of Man accommodates itself to all Situations; Prisons otherwise would be intolerable—­Debtors:  their different kinds:  three particularly described; others more briefly—­An arrested Prisoner:  his Account of his Feelings and his Situation—­The Alleviations of a Prison—­Prisoners for Crimes—­Two Condemned:  a vindictive Female:  a Highwayman—­The Interval between Condemnation and Execution—­His Feelings as the Time approaches—­His Dream.

’Tis well—­that Man to all the varying states
Of good and ill his mind accommodates;
He not alone progressive grief sustains,
But soon submits to unexperienced pains: 
Change after change, all climes his body bears;
His mind repeated shocks of changing cares: 
Faith and fair Virtue arm the nobler breast;
Hope and mere want of feeling aid the rest. 
   Or who could bear to lose the balmy air
Of summer’s breath, from all things fresh and fair,
With all that man admires or loves below;
All earth and water, wood and vale bestow,
Where rosy pleasures smile, whence real blessings flow;
With sight and sound of every kind that lives,
And crowning all with joy that freedom gives? 
   Who could from these, in some unhappy day,
Bear to be drawn by ruthless arms away,
To the vile nuisance of a noisome room,