riest have died upon mine ear, and his figure and countenance, with the
myriad forms and faces, of the insulting multitude around me, are lost in
suffocating volumes of uprising, dense, white smoke! The blaze enfolds me
like a garment! my unspeakable tortures,--my infernal agonies have
commenced!--the diabolical shouts and shrieks of the fiendish
spectators--the crackling and hissing of my tender flesh--the bursting of
my over swollen tendons, muscles, and arteries, with the out-gush of the
crimson vital stream from every pore,--I hear,--I see,--I feel,--and in my
morbid imagination, die many deaths in one! I fancied myself brave; alas!
I never fancied myself--_burning!_ But, no more; since I have taken up my
pen solely to wile away these last, brief, melancholy hours, in narrating
those circumstances of my past life, which shall have tended to shrivel
ere long, amidst diabolical agonies, the trembling hand that records them,
like a parched scroll, and to scatter the ashes of this now vigorous body,
to the winds.

ROME,--the beautiful--the Eternal,--was my birthplace; and those, whom I
was taught to consider as my parents, said, that the blood of its ancient
heroes filled my veins. If so,--and if Servilius and Andrea, were indeed
my progenitors, our family must have suffered the most amazing reverses of
fortune; they were venders of fruit, lemonade, and perfumed iced waters,
in the streets, but a kind-hearted pair, and for their station,
well-informed.

In the clear moon-light of our Italian skies, in those soft nights, when,
instead of ingloriously slumbering away the cool calm hours, all come
forth who are capable of feeling the beauties and sublimities of nature,
and of inhaling inspiration with the rich, odorous breeze,--in those fresh,
fragrant, and impassioned hours, did Servilius and Andrea delight to lead
me through ROME, and to _read_ the Eternal City unto me, as a book; and
then fell upon me, in that most sacred place, a portion of divine
enthusiasm, of holy inspiration, until, in a retrospect of the thoughts,
feelings, schemes, and aspirations of that infantile era, freely could I
weep, and ask myself, were such things in sober earnest, _ever?_

It was singular, that Servilius and Andrea, never suffered _me_ to toil;
their sole care seemed to be, to bestow upon me, during their intervals of
labour, all the instruction and accomplishments which their limited means
allowed; and without vanity I may affirm, tha