multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me— — I took a single captive; and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture. I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood - he had seen no sun, no moon in all that time-nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice his children : - But here my heart began to bleed and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait. He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed a little calendar of small sticks were laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there— he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down-shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle- He gave a deep sigh—I saw the iron enter into his soul-I burst into tears I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn- I started up from my chair, and calling La Fleur, I bid him bespeak me a remise, and have it ready at the door of the hotel by nine in the morning. I will go directly, said I, myself to Monsieur le duc de Choiseul. La Fleur would have put me to bed; but, not willing he should see any thing upon my cheeks, which would cost the honest fellow a heart ache I told him I would go to bed by myself, and bid him go do the same. I XLII. THE STARLING. ROAD TO VERSAILLES. GOT into my remise the hour I proposed: La Fleur got up behind, and I bid the coachman make the best of his way to Versailles. As there was nothing in this road, or rather nothing which I look for in travelling, I cannot fill up the blank better than with a short history of this self-same bird, which became the subject of the last chapter. Whilst the honourable Mr.- was waiting for a wind at Dover, it had been caught upon the cliffs before it could well fly, by an English lad who was his groom; who, not caring to destroy it, had taken it in his breast into the packet and by course of feeding it, and taking it once under his protection, in a day or two grew fond of it, and got it safe along with him to Paris. At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little cage for the starling; and as he had little to do better the five months his master staid there, he taught it, in his mother's tongue, the four simple (and no more) to which I owned words Upon his master's going on for Italy —the lad had given it to the master of the hotel - But his little song for liberty being in an unknown language at Paris-the bird had little or no store set by him so La Fleur bought both him and his cage for me for a bottle of Burgundy. in a In my return from Italy, I brought him with me to the country in whose language he had learned his notes-and telling the story of him to lord A lord A begged the bird of me week, lord A gave him to lord B-lord B made a present of him to lord C—and lord C's gentleman sold him to lord D's for a shilling-lord D gave him to lord E-and so on -half round the alphabet-From that rank he passed into the lower house, and passed the hands of as many commoners- but as all these wanted to get in—and my bird wanted to get out - he had almost as little store set by him in London as in Paris. It is impossible but many of my readers must have heard of him : and if any by mere chance |