FROM THE MARQUESS OF NOTTINGHAM TO EDWARD MORDAUNT, ESQ.

MORDAUNT, I have destroyed her!-she is no more! and I,-1 who fancied I knew her,-could indulge the vain hope, even until the last, that she would have borne up against the stain attempted to be cast on her honour. It was my mad passion that drew shame and degradation on her name; it was I who consigned this pure and lovely being to an untimely grave, leaving her parents childless, to mourn their misplaced confidence in one so wholly unworthy as I have proved myself to be. Of her innocence they never could have a doubt-as who could that really knew her?-but of my weak and wicked conduct, in paying her those continual and marked attentions, to which no married woman can be subjected without a loss of reputation, they can form but one opinion; and that one, my own conscience tells me, I have but too well merited.

I am leaving England-perhaps for ever. My mind is so tortured that I can arrange no plans. Oh! why had I not courage to fly from her when I first discovered the state of my heart?-But, no; selfish and cruel as even the most obdurate could be, thoughtless of aught save my own gratification, I continued to hover round her until my passion became too evident, and thus lent a colour to the false charges against her. Never, never can I forgive myself! I, who could not bear to absent myself from her presence for a few hours, must now learn to bear the soul-harrowing conviction, that I shall see her no more; that she, the loveliest, the purest of her sex, is in the early grave to which my unworthy passion has conducted her. I embark for Spain to-morI can write no more. Your unhappy friend, NOTTINGHAM.

row.

MISS MONTRESSOR TO LA MARQUISE DE VILLEROI.

I AM a wretch indeed, Delphine, and the measure of my crimes is full. Augusta-the lovely, the pure, the wronged Augusta, is no more; and has found in death a refuge from the shame my vile plots brought on her name. Fool, fool, that I was, not to have foreseen, that a being of a nature like hers never could have supported a suspicion of dishonour.

I have destroyed her! I, whom she loved and trusted, and who should have shielded, her from the breath of evil, was the serpent who deliberately coiled around her heart to sting it mortally. There is a weight of guilt on my soul that oppresses it beyond endurance. I loathe my own existence; and am filled with self-abhorrence, by reflections that pursue me, night and day, with unremitting bitterness,-eternally suggesting the recollection of this lovely creature, as she was when I first used my evil influence over her innocent mind, which not all my arts could corrupt, and who, by my fiend-like machinations, I have sent, in a few short months, to an early grave, as a refuge from the shame I had brought on her.

This fatal intelligence was communicated to me by Lord Annandale. Even he, senseless as he is, is shocked; for he believed not that she was seriously ill. If he knew who it was that destroyed her! And he offers me consolation, too; dwells on my indulgence towards her errors, and the kind excuses I made for her when he had discovered her guilt! Oh, this unmerited praise, how it pierces my heart!-that heart which could, with unexampled and malicious cruelty, steel itself against the pleadings of humanity, and persevere in destroying so pure, so guileless a creature.

Lord Annandale says, that he has given orders to stop all legal proceedings, now that death has released him from a marriage he wished to dissolve; and that, as soon as a decent time shall have elapsed he will call on me for the fulfilment of my promise of becoming his. Little does this weak man dream of the difference between the innocent being he has repudiated, and the guilty one he would take to his arms. Little thinks he, that the one on whose brow he would place the coronet of his ancestral line, is the crouching, trembling slave of a low ruf fian; a wretch, whose hands are steeped in blood, and whose lips may, at any hour, stamp disgrace and infamy on the future Countess of Annandale.

Let

Let me come to you, Delphine, and rest beneath your roof until I become a wife, and entitled to some legal protection. Here, I have no friend-nay, no one to whom I could give the term, even in its broad sense, except the Comtesse Hohenlinden; and her house, the scene of continual gayety and dissipation, would be no fit abode for me under my present circumstances. me have a line, to say I may come, and I will instantly leave England, where every object reminds me of all that I wish to forget-my crimes, and their punishment. Once the wife of Annandale, I will become a different creature; my new duties shall be scrupulously, performed, my past sins deeply repented, and atoned.

There may be still pardon for guilt even dark as mine; and if that wretch, whose power hangs threatening over me, like the sword of Damocles suspended but by a thread, molests me not, I may again know peace on earth.

A letter has this moment arrived, apprising me that Augusta has secured me five thousand pounds, as a last token of regard. To me, who betrayed-who destroyed her! This is one of the rewards of my crime; it is the price of the blood of my victim! And she could think of me,-dear, suffering angel! and that kindly, too, even when the hand of death was on her; while I was anti

cipating the succession to her position, and, for the attainment of this evil object, not hesitating to sacrifice her fame, and, consequently, her life.

This last act of hers has flooded my heart with tenderness, which runs over at my eyes; and I feel relieved by the tears that seem inexhaustible. Would that I could shed them upon your bosom, Delphine! and that you could speak comfort to the tortured heart of your

CAROLINE.

MISS MONTRESSOR TO LA MARQUISE DE VILLEROI.

THE papers have announced to me, chère Delphine, that the unfortunate man arrested for the murder of my poor aunt has been tried, found guilty, and condemned to death. Oh, gracious God! how bitter are my feelings at the reflection that I knew his innocence-that a word of mine might have saved him, and that I dared not utter it! How dreadful, how appalling, to know that the existence of a fellow-creature depends on me, and be denied the power of saving him! Here is another crime added to the fearful catalogue of mine-another life, which I have been the means of sacrificing! Where, where will the fatal consequences of my guilt end? I cannot banish the terrible thought from my mind, that the blood of this innocent man rests on my head. In what a labyrinth of guilt do I find myself entangled-one crime following fast on the steps of the other! I wonder I do not lose my senses, and almost wish I did; for madness, if it produced obliviousness of this last year, would be preferable -oh, how infinitely preferable !—to reason.

Imagination pictures this unfortunate man, led forth to the scene of his death; his white locks waving in the breeze; his tottering limbs bending beneath the weight. of his languid frame; and his eyes turned towards that heaven, where, alone, he believes his innocence to be known. I see his wretched wife and children, bowed down by despair and anguish, surrounded by an unpitying crowd, who, believing him culpable, sympathise not with the grief of his family. I see him launched into eternity, to meet from his God that mercy denied him on earth; while II, who know his innocence, and might have saved him, have allowed him to be sacrificed! In utter hopelessness, I have thrown myself upon my knees before that Power whose might I feel, but whose clemency I hardly dare to supplicate-for I am steeped in guilt, that almost defies hope. What atonement can be made to the widow and orphans? what can efface the