SIXTY YEARS OF THE LIFE OF JEREMY LEVIS. BOOK FOURTH. CHAPTER I. Vale, conjux dulcissima. I Anc. Man. Inscription. WHEJf we parted at the close of the last book, dear Reader, I stood at the marriage altar with the woman who held the highest place as well in my esteem as my affections. Look now upon this tomb-stone, and learn the unsteadiness of human happiness :— MARY, WIFE OF JEREMY LEVIS.' Died—October Mdccxcii, • UiKli XIII YEARS. CHAPTER if. And now I give my sensual race the rein. Meaturc for Measure. Prolofue or epilogue—I.m the man!—I.ll write you both. The Dramatist. Still another. Thus, through life, have I been doomed to see all I loved drop from me in decay, just when I had learned their true value, and begun to cling to them with most attachment.—Thirteen months of nearly perfect happiness I enjoyed with Mary; for her virtues grew upon acquaintance. I might say, indeed, and be pardoned the exaggeration, that every day served to unfold some amiable trait of character that I had not sup. posed to exist, or to place in a new and beautiful light excellencies I had before admired and thought unsusceptible of further lustre. A son had blessed our union, a noble child, whose birth increased my affection for the mother, as it added new ardour to that mother's love for me,—for Mary's attachment to her husband differed from that which bound him lo her; her's was love—real love, such as is implied when we speak of it as existing between the sexes; .mine was rather a fervent friendship, the growth of pure esteem, deriving its occasional passion merely from temporary excitement. Such was the felicity which I was scarcely permitted to taste, before the cup was snatched from my enjoyment. A month's sickness parted Mary and me, and left me to grieve. My sorrow was not like that, which, in another land, was soon to bow me almost to the earth; but yet it was sincere as ever husband was afflicted with, for never wife was more deserving of it. It must be pardoned me that I dismiss this subject with so much haste. As I presume that no reader (that is worth writing for) travels through any book, and especially one of this nature, without occasionally stopping to indulge in contemplation of the scenes presented to his view, I have thought that merely to mention the death of my poor Mary, as in the preceding chapter and the paragraph immediately above, was a better way to excite the sympathy I desire, than to mix the pure silk of the subject with common stuff, in order to weave a tissue of such sentimental nonsense as may be gathered ready made from a schoolboy's essays. If my own reader has not, hitherto, thus perused these memoirs, I hope that what I have now said may serve him as a caution for the future; for no work, (that is not mere patchwork,) can be perused with profit, or even with real enjoyment, except the mind be employed much more than the eyes. I have now to disclose the broadest stain that marks my history.—Not four months had the sod pressed the bosom of my Mary, before I relapsed into my old habits of debauchery. The morality on which I had so prided myself had been owing merely to the absence of temptation: now, that I was once more unmarried, my former dissolute companions again sought my society, and I was child enough to be laughed out of virtue and applauded into its opposite. My little boy, to whom I had given the name of Edward-Clayton Arne, had been placed immediately on his mother's death under the care of Lady Arne. During the short period of four months above mentioned, it was my custom to visit him daily; but, as roy dissipated habits grew upon me, I became less punctual in my attentions, not so much from a decrease of affection—though paternal affection, like every other proper feeling, shrinks before the selfishness of debauchery—but from a dread of meeting the just reproaches of my mother-in-law. This restraint acted very unfavourably; for I felt ashamed that 1 was ashamed, and as it is thoughts from the more painful subject that then occupied them, and enabled me to disperse the curious party which, much to my horrour, I found assembled in that room." "And could they leave me thus, without knowing what my fate might be?" The surgeon either did not remark the peculiar tone of interest in which this inquiry was made, or was too polite to notice it, for he merely answered :—" No, monsieur— they would have awaited your recovery; but I begged them to depart while they could do so without notice— knowing that, the moment he should recover from his alarm at your situation, the old man would lead them back to the melancholy subject which now engrosses his thoughts, and perhaps excite himself too violently. But, Monsieur, I must take care of my reputation—you are the most dangerous patient I have ever had; for you are constantly making yourself uneasy. I must forbid nil further conversation." "Only one question more.—I am seriously alarmed at the singular manner in which the old man endures his affliction. Did his grief take alike course with his wife's, I should res,t contented that it is as it should be; but this gloomy quiet is so unnatural. It is awful'to look upon, and strikes me as like the calm that precedes the tempest. Have you ever known such instances before, sir?" "Yes; but not often. Madame Le Bonhomme, you will find, will soon recover; but the old man has received a deeper shock, whose violence is the more to be dreaded as it is as present smothered. It will, most probably, stretch him on a bed of sickness.—But enough, monsieur; you must talk no longer. Your constitution is wonderful: but, Monsieur, you are my patient." The excess of any passion is often its relief:—the wretch condemned, after passing through the worst agonies which the fear of death can make man suffer, has been known to sleep through the whole night previous tr his execution, and only then to be awakened by |