cracked, the
sails rent, and bent in a careless, unseamanlike manner, the shrouds
tangled and broken. She drifted towards the harbour, and was stranded on
the sands at the entrance. In the morning the custom-house officers,
together with a crowd of idlers, visited her. One only of the crew appeared
to have arrived with her. He had got to shore, and had walked a few paces
towards the town, and then, vanquished by malady and approaching death, had
fallen on the inhospitable beach. He was found stiff, his hands clenched,
and pressed against his breast. His skin, nearly black, his matted hair and
bristly beard, were signs of a long protracted misery. It was whispered
that he had died of the plague. No one ventured on board the vessel, and
strange sights were averred to be seen at night, walking the deck, and
hanging on the masts and shrouds. She soon went to pieces; I was shewn
where she had been, and saw her disjoined timbers tossed on the waves. The
body of the man who had landed, had been buried deep in the sands; and none
could tell more, than that the vessel was American built, and that several
months before the Fortunatas had sailed from Philadelphia, of which no
tidings were afterwards received.

CHAPTER IV.

I RETURNED to my family estate in the autumn of the year 2092. My heart had
long been with them; and I felt sick with the hope and delight of seeing
them again. The district which contained them appeared the abode of every
kindly spirit. Happiness, love and peace, walked the forest paths, and
tempered the atmosphere. After all the agitation and sorrow I had endured
in Greece, I sought Windsor, as the storm-driven bird does the nest in
which it may fold its wings in tranquillity.

How unwise had the wanderers been, who had deserted its shelter, entangled
themselves in the web of society, and entered on what men of the world call
"life,"--that labyrinth of evil, that scheme of mutual torture. To live,
according to this sense of the word, we must not only observe and learn, we
must also feel; we must not be mere spectators of action, we must act; we
must not describe, but be subjects of description. Deep sorrow must have
been the inmate of our bosoms; fraud must have lain in wait for us; the
artful must have deceived us; sickening doubt and false hope must have
chequered our days; hilarity and joy, that lap the soul in ecstasy, must at
times have possessed us. Who that knows what "life" is, would pine for