master, and if you knew but half the misery you have escaped, you would fall down upon your knees, and thank God for the blessing: I have heard your story, Mr. Chaubert, and when a man is in love, do you see, he does not like to have his mistress taken from him; but some things are better lost than found, and if this is all you have to complain of, take my word for it, you complain of the luckiest hour in your whole life.' He would have proceeded, but I turned from him without uttering a word, and shutting myself into my cabin, surrendered myself to my meditations. "My mind was now in such a tumult that I cannot recall my thoughts, much less put them into any order for relation. The ship however kept her course, and had now entered the mouth of the Garonne; I landed on the quay of Bordeaux; the master accompanied me, and young Lewis kept charge of the ship. The first object that met my view was a gibbet erected before the door of a merchant's counting house. The convict was kneeling on a scaffold; whilst a friar was receiving his last confession; his face was turned towards us; the Englishman glanced his eye upon him, and instantly cried out- Look, look, Mr. Chaubert, the very man, as I am alive; it is the father of young Lewis.'-The wretch had discovered us in the same moment, and called aloud- Oh Chaubert, Chaubert! let me speak to you before I die!'-His yell was horror to my soul; I lost the power of motion, and the crowd pushing towards the scaffold, thrust me forward to the very edge of it; the friar ordered silence, and demanded of the wretch why he had called out so eagerly, and what he had farther to confess. "Father,' replied the convict, this is the very man, the very Chaubert of whom I was speaking; he was the best of friends to me, and I repaid his kindness with the blackest treachery; I seduced the woman of his affections from him, I married her, and, because we dreaded his resentment, we conspired in an attempt upon his life by poison.'-He now turned to me, and proceeded as follows:- You may remember, Chaubert, as we were supping together on the very evening of Louisa's elopement, she handed to you a glass of wine to drink to your approaching nuptials; as you were lifting it to your lips, your favourite spaniel leaped upon your arm, and dashed it on the floor; in a sudden transport of passion, which you were addicted to, you struck the creature with violence, and laid it dead at your feet. It was the saving moment of your life-the wine was poisoned, inevitable death was in the draught, and the animal you killed was God's instrument for preserving you; reflect upon the event, subdue your passions, and practise resignation. Father, I have no more to confess! I die repentant. Let the executioner do his office."" CUMBERLAND. JUPITER AND THE DESTINIES. AMONG the various sets of correspondents who apply to me for advice, and send up their cases from all parts of Great Britain, there are none who are more importunate with me, and whom I am more inclined to answer, than the complainers. One of them dates his letter to me from the banks of a purling stream, where he used to ruminate in solitude on the divine Clarissa, and where he is now looking about for a convenient leap, which he tells me he is resolved to take, unless I support him under the loss of that charming perjured woman. Poor Lavinia presses as much for consolation on the other side, and is reduced to such an extremity of despair by the inconstancy of Philander, that she tells me she writes her letter with her pen in one hand, and her garter in the other. A gentleman of an ancient family in Norfolk is almost out of his wits upon the account of a greyhound, that, after having been his inseparable companion for ten years, is at last run mad. Another, who I believe is serious, complains to me, in a very moving manner, of a loss of a wife; and another, in terms still more moving, of a purse of money that was taken from him on Bagshot Heath; and which, he tells me, would not have troubled him if he had given it to the poor. In short, there is scarce a calamity in human life that has not produced me a letter. It is indeed wonderful to consider how men, are able to raise afflictions to themselves out of every thing. Lands and houses, sheep and oxen, can convey happiness and misery into the hearts of reasonable creatures. Nay, I have known a muff, a scarf, a tippet, become a solid blessing or misfortune. A lapdog has broken the hearts of thousands. Flavia, who had buried five children and two husbands, was never able to get over the loss of her parrot. How often has a divine creature been thrown into a fit by a neglect at a ball or an assembly! Mopsa has kept her chamber ever since the last masquerade, and is in greater danger of her life upon being left out of it, than Clarissa from the violent cold which she caught at it. Nor are these dear creatures the only sufferers by such imaginary calamities. Many an author has been dejected at the censure of one whom he ever looked upon as an idiot; and many a hero cast into a fit of melancholy, because the rabble have not hooted at him as he passed through the streets. Theron places all his happiness in a running horse, Suffenus in a gilded chariot, Fulvius in a blue string, and Florio in a tulip root. It would be endless to enumerate the many fantastical afflictions that disturb mankind; but as a misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer, I shall present my readers, who are unhappy either in reality or imagination, with an allegory, for which I am indebted to the great father and prince of poets. As I was sitting after dinner in my elbow chair, I took up Homer, and dipped into that famous speech of Achilles to Priam*, in which he tells him that Jupiter has by him two great vessels, the one filled with blessings, and the other with misfortunes; out of which he mingles a composition for every man that comes into the world. This passage so exceedingly pleased me, that, as I fell insensibly into my afternoon's slumber, it wrought my imagination into the following dream. When Jupiter took into his hands the government of the world, the several parts of nature, with the presiding deities, did homage to him. One presented him with a mountain of winds, another with a magazine of hail, and a third with a pile of thunderbolts. The Stars offered up their influences; Ocean gave in his trident, Earth her fruits, and the Sun his seasons. Among the several deities who came to make their court on this occasion, the Destinies advanced with two great tuns carried before them; one of which they fixed on the right hand of Jupiter, as he sat on his throne, and the other on his left. The first was filled with all the blessings, and the other with all the calamities of human life. Jupiter, in the beginning of his reign, finding the * Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, |