world without even a profession, looked in vain for a channel through
which to direct its energies. Even the precarious hope, which his
father's favor held out, had been purchased by an act of duplicity which
his conscience could not approve; for he had been induced, with the
view, perhaps, of blinding his father's vigilance, not only to promise
that he would instantly give up a pursuit so unpleasing to him, but to
take "an oath equivocal" that he never would marry Miss Linley.

The pressure of these various anxieties upon so young and so ardent a
mind, and their effects in alternately kindling and damping its spirit,
could only have been worthily described by him who felt them, and there
still exist some letters which he wrote during this time, to a gentleman
well known as one of his earliest and latest friends. I had hoped that
such a picture, as these letters must exhibit, of his feelings at that
most interesting period of his private life, would not have been lost to
the present work. But scruples--over-delicate, perhaps, but respectable,
as founded upon a systematic objection to the exposure of _any_
papers, received under the seal of private friendship--forbid the
publication of these precious documents. The reader must, therefore, be
satisfied with the few distant glimpses of their contents, which are
afforded by the answers of his correspondent, found among the papers
entrusted to me. From these it appears, that through all his letters the
same strain of sadness and despondency prevailed,--sometimes breaking
out into aspirings of ambition, and sometimes rising into a tone of
cheerfulness, which but ill concealed the melancholy under it. It is
evident also, and not a little remarkable, that in none of these
overflowings of his confidence, had he as yet suffered the secret of his
French marriage with Miss Linley to escape; and that his friend
accordingly knew but half the wretched peculiarities of his situation.
Like most lovers, too, imagining that every one who approached his