my temper, instead of being softened by this humiliating circumstance, became, if possible, more ungovernable than ever; and, as the man had disappeared, I vented my indignation on my mother, my tutor, my brother, and my attendants. The most trivial disappointment would throw me into a violent fit of passion; during the paroxysm of which, I neither respected the age, rank, or situation of the person who had happened to provoke my anger.

After being the terror of the country for some years, I was at last accompanied by my servile tutor to Oxford. Here I entered into all the excesses which the warmth of my dispo sition, my large fortune, and the contempt that I entertained for discipline, led me to commit. My mornings were spent in hunting, my evenings in drinking, and my nights in making riots in the streets. My debaucheries drew at length the notice of the officers of the university. I was two or three times reprimanded for my conduct, and had exercises set me as a punishment. I laughed at their censures; and as to the latter, I contented myself with ordering my officious tutor to write them. At last, in a drunken frolic, having broken the windows of a respectable inhabitant, a mob collected, and the proctor appeared. He represented to me the impropriety of my behaviour, and ordered me instantly to return to my college. I could not endure this public indignity, and, bursting with rage, aimed a blow at him who dared to speak to me in the language of authority. The next day I was summoned before the heads of houses; and, having refused to make any apology for my offence, was banished the university.

My pride was a little mortified at this circumstance; yet I affected to despise it, declaring a college life unsuited to the feelings or habits of a gentleman.

I now purchased a commission in the army, as the only profession in which a youth of spirit could engage. For some time I was pleased with my new situation; and, though somewhat disgusted with the discipline which compelled me to obey my superior officers, endeavoured to indemnify myself for this mortification, by exercising the utmost authority over the men. In the mess-room, where the distinction of rank was suspended, I displayed my usual arrogance; and, after violent disputes with all my companions, fought a duel with one of them, which ended in my receiving a wound, that was

at first thought mortal, but from which I at last recovered, after languishing six months in great pain and debility. This accident softened, for a while, the violence of my temper; and as I now behaved with less cruelty to my inferiors, and more decency to my brother officers, I began to recover the good opinion which I had universally lost. This calm was of short duration. An old officer, who had been twenty years in the service, having expressed an opinion on a military subject, in which he was particularly conversant, that differed from mine, I entered into an altercation with him, and maintained my sentiments with my usual violence. He attempted to reason with me, but I was deaf to every argument. My rage soon became ungovernable; and, on his again asserting his remark, I plainly denied the truth of what he said. He demanded an explanation of my conduct, and an apology for the words I had uttered. I seized the decanter, which was near me, and threw it at his head. He immediately drew his sword; and, after two or three passes, disarmed me. By the command of the colonel, I was instantly put under arrest; and, after a trial for ungentlemanly conduct, was, by the sentence of the court-martial, declared guilty, and dismissed his majesty's service.

I now retired into the country, where I knew I should experience little contradiction from my neighbours, the greater part of whom were my dependents. I married the daughter of a gentleman, whose estate joined to mine. She was handsome, highly accomplished, and of the most amiable disposition. All my violence she met with smiles and good humour and the extreme patience with which she bore my occasional barbarity, became a fresh source of passion. I was provoked, that I had not the power of making her angry; and often accused her of sullenness and spleen, when she gave the most striking instances of submission and forbearance. Notwithstanding the tyranny with which I treated her, her conduct was admirable; and the pains she took, in order to moderate my violence, though they had little effect at home, saved me often from exposing myself in public. When we were at the table of others, if she perceived the well-known symptoms of my rising anger, she would instantly turn the subject; or, by helping me to some favourite dish, contrive to divert my attention. At my own house, when I abused any of the ser

vants, she either took the fault on herself, or, on some pretence or other, sent the person who had offended me out of my presence. She acted in a similar manner about those acts of violence which, in moments of rage, I too frequently practised. If she heard that I had beaten any of the working people in my employ, which was, I am ashamed to say, not an unfrequent habit with me, she sent directly to their families; and, by presents to them, or their wives, prevented the disgrace of a public trial. When I punished, with the utmost severity of the law, those who accidentally encroached on my manors, or dismissed, without reason, tenants whose families had lived for centuries on the estate, she would find opportunities of interceding for the sufferers, and, in the mean time, gave them money for their immediate support. By this conduct, she not only often prevented my falling into difficulties of the most serious nature, but likewise performed an act of great humanity, in tempering my injustice with her benevolence.

Thus passed away, as happily as my unfortunate temper would allow, five years of my life; during which time, we had two children born, a son and a daughter. The latter I left to the care of her mother; but the former I considered as coming immediately under my authority. This poor infant soon experienced the violence of my temper. From a very early age I took the management of him, and the most trivial error was punished with a degree of violence, which often drew tears from the eyes of his mother. She, who had calmly submitted to all my cruel treatment, when applied to herself, could no longer be silent, when her helpless child fell under the anger of his unrelenting father. For some time, she contented herself with supplicating my pity; but when she perceived that her entreaties only increased the severity with which I treated the unfortunate boy, she assumed a character of greater spirit, and endeavoured to rescue him from my fury. I considered these attempts as most unpardonable insults; and to such a frenzy of rage did they drive me, that I more than once (how shall I say it?) inflicted on my wife those blows which were intended for her son.

At last, in an unmanly contest of this kind, I treated her with such barbarity, that terror brought on, unexpectedly, the pains of labour, and she died in giving birth to a third child, who survived her only a few hours.

Her death roused in me some pangs of remorse; but as my feelings, violent on all occasions, easily found vent, it produced no great alteration in my conduct; and, in a short time, I was as irrascible as ever. It will be needless for me to specify the different acts of cruelty and injustice, which, in moments of anger, I committed on all those who unhappily fell within my power, or the kind of execration and contempt with which I was viewed by my neighbours. Suffice it to say, that, by degrees, I was excluded from the society of all my former acquaintance, and lived in disgraceful solitude.

As I had nobody left on whom I could vent my anger, but my servants and my son, (for I had sent my daughter to school,) the latter was more than ever the victim of those passions into which I was now thrown, on the most trivial occasions.

Coming one day unexpectedly home from hunting, I found the unhappy boy playing at cricket on the lawn, when I had ordered him to learn a lesson in my study. This venial of fence threw me into an immoderate rage; and, jumping from my horse, I beat him on the head and shoulders with such severity, with my whip, that the blood flowed in torrents down his back. At this moment my brother (who was now an eminent barrister, and was attending the assizes in the neighbournood,) rode up to the door. The poor child, covered with his wounds, was on his knees, begging my mercy. Anger flushed from my eye, and I had scarcely yet satisfied my passion. My brother, whose humanity was moved by this dreadful sight, could not help remonstrating with me on the cruelty of my conduct. For a while I heard him with tolerable patience; but when, at last, he recalled to my recollection the premature death of my unhappy wife, occasioned by a similar scene to that which he had now witnessed, I could not endure a censure which I so well deserved; and, considering him who could mention it as the worst of enemies, seized the cricket-bat, which the child had dropped in the first moment of terror, and threw it at the head of my brother.He fell. His eyes closed. He had every appearance of being dead. I called for assistance: he was lifted from the floor, but no symptom of life appeared. A surgeon was sent for: he declared the danger imminent. Crowds collected; and, as I was universally detested, it was quickly rumoured, that I had murdered my brother. A neigbouring magistrate

thought it his duty to interfere. A constable, with a party of dragoons, (for, knowing my temper, resistance was expected,) came to my house. 1 was taken into custody, and committed to the jail of the county, charged with the foulest of all crimes; aggravated in my case, if aggravated it could be, by the relationship of him whom I was supposed to have murdered.

It was in this prison that my haughty spirit was at last subdued. On entering its dismal walls, I shed an involuntary tear; and, in the dreadful hours which ensued, as I prepared myself for the ignominious death which I had deserved and expected, I took a view of my past life. Great God! what were my reflections? Born with all the advantages of fortune, commencing the world in the full sunshine of happiness, I had, by the indulgence of the worst of passions, thrown from me the joys which courted my acceptance, and reduced myself to the lowest state of guilt, horror, and degradation. My wife, my child, my brother, these injured objects were for ever present to my mind; and, like the voice heard by Macbeth, seemed to cry,

Sleep no more; thy crimes have murdered me!

Death alone could relieve me from the agony of my own thoughts; and, ignominious as was the shape in which I was to receive it, I still wished for the day which should end an existence, not less painful to myself, than injurious to others. Alas! even this last sad comfort was denied me. My brother recovered; but how did he recover? not to the use of his senses, not to the enjoyment of life, or to the alleviation of the crime of his assassin. His skull was trepanned, and the effects of the operation rendered him for ever a senseless idiot. I was discharged from jail; but what power on earth can discharge my mind from the load of guilt which this object must perpetuate? I have not flown from the wretched spectacle of my crimes. I pass all my days in contemplating the ruins of that fine mind, which the savage barbarity of my fury has destroyed. His puerile tricks plant daggers in my heart; for they remind me of the happy hours we once passed togeearly infancy his unconscious sinile tells me what I have done; for it is the emblem of his innocence; and in the

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