Fate fits on these dark battlements, and frowns, VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED FOR G. G. AND J. ROBINSON, 1795. MYSTERIES OF UDOLPH O. te home is the refort Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, THOMSON. ON the pleafant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gafcony, ftood, in the year 1584, the chateau of Monfieur St. Aubert. From its windows were feen the pastoral landfcapes of Guienne and Gafcony ftretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vines, and plantations of olives. To the fouth, the view was bounded by the majestic Pyrenées, whose summits, veiled in clouds, or VOL. I. B exhibiting 425506 A exhibiting awful forms, fern, andloft again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were fometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and fometimes frowned with forefts of gloomy pine, that fwept downward to their bafe. These tremendous precipices were contrafted by the foft green of the paftures and woods that hung upon their skirts; among whose flocks, and herds, and fimple cottages, the eye, after having fcaled the cliffs above, delighted to repose. To the north, and to the east, the plains of Guienne and Languedoc were loft in the mift of diftance; on the west, Gafcony was bounded by the waters of Bifcay. M. St. Aubert loved to wander, with his wife and daughter, on the margin of the Garonne, and to liften to the mufic that floated on its waves. He had known life in other forms than thofe of pastoral fimplicity, having mingled in the gay and in the bufy fcenes of the world; but the the flattering portrait of mankind, which his heart had delineated in early youth, his experience had too forrowfully corrected. Yet, amidst the changing vifions of life, his principles remained unshaken, his benevolence unchilled; and he retired from the multitude" more in pity than in anger," to fcenes of fimple nature, to the pure delights of literature, and to the exercife of domeftic virtues. He was a defcendant from the younger branch of an illuftrious family, and it was defigned, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth fhould be fupplied either by a fplendid alliance in marriage, or by fuccefs in the intrigues of public affairs. But St. Aubert had too nice a fense of honour to fulfil the latter hope, and too final a portion of ambition to facrifice what he called happinefs, to the attainment of wealth. After the death of his father he married a very amiable woman, his equal in birth, and not his fuperior in fortune. The late Monfieur |