IIARUILT BYRO\,

Letter XXXII.

Miss Byron. In Continuation.

Friday morning, eiglit o’clock, October 27. The apprehensions with which I was so weak as to trouble you, in the conclusion of my last, laid so fast hold of my mind, that, going immediately from my pen to my rest, I had it broken and disturbed by dreadful, shocking, wandering dreams. The terror they gave me, several times awakened me; but still, as I closed my eyes, I fell into them again. Whence, my dear, proceed these ideal vagaries, which, for the time, realize pain or pleasure to us, according to their hue or complexion, or rather according to our own?

But such contradictory vagaries never did I know in my slumbers. Incoherencies of incoherence! For example I was married to the best of men: I w^as not married: I was rejected with scorn, as a presumptuous creature. I sought to hide myself in holes and corners. I was dragged out of a sub-teiTancous cavern, which the sea had made when it once broke bounds, and seemed the dwelling of howling and conflicting winds; and when I expected to be punished for my audaciousness, and for repining at my lot, I was turned into an angel of lig’it; stars of diamonds, like a glory, encompassing my head: a dear little baby was put into my arms. Once it was Lucy’s; another time it was Emily’s; and at another time Lady Clementiiia’s! I was fond of it, beyond expression.

I again dreamed I was married: Sir Charles again was the man. He did not love me. My grand-mamma and aunt, on their knees, and with tears, besought him to love their child; and pleaded to him my love of him of long standing, begun in gra-titude; and that he was the only man I ever lovud. how I wept in my dream! my face and bosom were wet with my real tears.

My sobs, and my distress and theirs, awakened me; but I dropt asleep, and fell into the very same reverie. He upbraided me with being the cause that he had not Lady Clementina. He said, and so sternly! I am sure he cannot look so sternly, that he thought me a much better creature than I proved to be: yet methought, in my own heart, I was not altered. I fell down at his feet. I called it my misfortune, that he could not love me: I would not say it was his fault. It might, perhaps, be his mis-fortune too! And then I said, Love and hatred are not always in one’s power. If you cannot love the poor creature who kneels before you, that shall be a cause sufficient with me for a divorce: I desire not to fasten myself on the man who cannot love me. Let me be divorced from you. Sir You shall be at liberty to assign any cause for the separation, but crime. I will bind myself never, never to marry again; but you shall be free And God bless you, and her you can love better than your poor Harriet. Fool! I weep as I write! What a weak creature