home is the resort
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported, polish'd friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss.*
*Thomson


On the pleasant banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony,
stood, in the year 1584, the chateau of Monsieur St. Aubert. From
its windows were seen the pastoral landscapes of Guienne and Gascony
stretching along the river, gay with luxuriant woods and vine, and
plantations of olives. To the south, the view was bounded by the
majestic Pyrenees, whose summits, veiled in clouds, or exhibiting
awful forms, seen, and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled
along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of
air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy pine, that swept
downward to their base. These tremendous precipices were contrasted
by the soft green of the pastures and woods that hung upon their
skirts; among whose flocks, and herds, and simple cottages, the eye,
after having scaled the cliffs above, delighted to repose. To the
north, and to the east, the plains of Guienne and Languedoc were lost
in the mist of distance; on the west, Gascony was bounded by the
waters of Biscay.

M. St. Aubert loved to wander, with his wife and daughter, on the
margin of the Garonne, and to listen to the music that floated on its
waves. He had known life in other forms than those of pastoral
simplicity, having mingled in the gay and in the busy scenes of the
world; but the flattering portrait of mankind, which his heart had