part in the world of realities.

I had not long to wait. The night had no sooner spread an even-coloured and almost impervious veil over the world, than the marchese, as if moved by a secret impulse to witness what he yet refused to believe, came to me at the cottage. He had scarcely arrived, when he heard the con- fused murmurs and turbulence of the populace; for we were near enough to distinguish almost every thing. As they did not meet with the defence of the preceding even- ing, the work they had undertaken was presently de- spatched. We saw the flames ascend. We recognised the shouts of infernal joy with which they witnessed the catas- trophe. When the marchese beheld what, till seen, he would never admit to be possible, he burst out into a sort of transport of misanthropy. He exclaimed that no innocence, and no merit, could defend a man from the unrelenting an- tipathy of his fellows. He saw that there was a principle in the human mind destined to be eternally at war with im- u
290
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provement and science. No sooner did a man devote him- self to the pursuit of discoveries which, if ascertained, would prove the highest benefit to his species, than his whole species became armed against him. The midnight oil was held to be the signal of infernal machinations. The paleness of study and the furrows of thought were adjudged to be the tokens of diabolical alliance. He saw, in the transactions of that night, a pledge of the eternal triumph of ignorance over wisdom. Above all, he regretted that his countrymen, his dear Italians, should for ever blot their honour and their character by such savage outrages. Though myself the principal sufferer, I was obliged to per- form the part of the comforter and consoler, and endeavour to calm the transport of agony that seized upon the sus- ceptible Filosanto. He was astonished, shocked, and beside himself : I viewed the whole with the gloomy firmness of a desperate resolution.
The worst event of this destested evening remains yet unrecorded. Even now I tremble, while I attempt to commit the story to my harmless paper. So far as related to the mere destruction of my property, I looked on with a philosophical indifference. I had no reason, and I dis- dained to regret the loss of that which I had it in my power to repair in a moment. I thought I had taken care that no human life should be risqued upon this critical occasion. But I was mistaken. I learned the next morn- ing with anguish inexpressible that Hector, the negro of the prison of Constance, was no more. He had eluded the vigilance of his keepers. No sooner was he at liberty, then he hastened, unknown to every one, to die^ as he had declared he would, in the defence of my house. The mob had burst into the house ; they seized him alive. They dragged him out in the midst of them ; they insulted over him, as the special favourite of the infernal king. They inflicted on him every species of mockery and* of torture ;
they killed him joint by joint, and limb by limb. The
pen drops from my lifeless hand.
What right had I to make this man the victim of my idle and unhallowed pursuits ? What has the art and multiplication of gold in it, that should compensate the
TRAVELS OP ST. LEON. 291
destruction of so ingenuous,, so simple-hearted, so noble a creature? If I had myself fallen into the hands of the populace, it had been well : I was a criminal, worthy of every retribution they could inflict upon me ! Some men perhaps will ask, why I lamented so bitterly over so un- cultivated and uninformed an individual as this negro. There was however something so truly tragical in the fate to which this creature in his generosity and remorse de- voted himself, that I believe for the moment I felt a sharper pang in it, than in the strange and extraordinary loss of my only son, or perhaps in the premature death of my beloved Marguerite;.