_and I hoped to
have gathered the fruit_; _but Ahab came_. _Alas_! _for Naboth_.

The allusion was so pointed, both to the wrongs done me in Vienna, and my
sufferings in Prussia, that it made a very strong impression on the
Empress-Queen, who immediately commanded her minister to make every
exertion for my deliverance. She would probably at last have even
restored me to my estates, had not the possessors of them been so
powerful, or had she herself lived one year longer. To these my engraved
cups was I indebted for being once more remembered at Vienna. On the
same cup, also, was another engraving of a bird in a cage, held by a
Turk, with the following inscription:--_The bird sings even in the
storm_; _open his cage_, _break his fetters_, _ye friends of virtue_,
_and his songs shall be the delight of your abodes_!

There is another remarkable circumstance attending these cups. All were
forbidden under pain of death to hold conversation with me, or to supply
me with pen and ink; yet by this open permission of writing what I
pleased on pewter, was I enabled to inform the world of all I wished, and
to prove a man of merit was oppressed. The difficulties of this
engraving will be conceived, when it is remembered that I worked by
candle-light on shining pewter, attained the art of giving light and
shade, and by practice could divide a cup into two-and-thirty
compartments as regularly with a stroke of the hand as with a pair of
compasses. The writing was so minute that it could only be read with
glasses. I could use but one hand, both, being separated by the bar, and
therefore held the cup between my knees. My sole instrument was a
sharpened nail, yet did I write two lines on the rim only.

My labour became so excessive, that I was in danger of distraction or
blindness. Everybody wished for cups, and I wished to oblige everybody,
so that I worked eighteen hours a day. The reflection of the light from
the pewter was injurious to my eyes, and the labour of invention for
apposite subjects and verses was most fatiguing. I had learnt only
architectural drawing.

Enough of these cups, which procured me so much honour, so many
advantages, and helped to shorten so many mournful hours. My greatest
encumbrance was the huge iron collar, with its enormous appendages,
which, when suffered to press the arteries in the back of my neck,
occasioned intolerable headaches. I sat too much, and a third time fell
sick. A Brunswi