venge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at
thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set
right.--The fortunes of thy house shall totter,--thy character, which
led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it,--thy faith
questioned,--thy works belied,--thy wit forgotten,--thy learning
trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, Cruelty and
Cowardice, twin ruffians, hired and set on by Malice in the dark, shall
strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes:--The best of us,
my dear lad, lie open there,--and trust me,--trust me, Yorick, when to
gratify a private appetite, it is once resolved upon, that an innocent
and an helpless creature shall be sacrificed, 'tis an easy matter to
pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has strayed, to make a
fire to offer it up with.

Yorick scarce ever heard this sad vaticination of his destiny read over
to him, but with a tear stealing from his eye, and a promissory look
attending it, that he was resolved, for the time to come, to ride his
tit with more sobriety.--But, alas, too late!--a grand confederacy
with...and...at the head of it, was formed before the first prediction
of it.--The whole plan of the attack, just as Eugenius had foreboded,
was put in execution all at once,--with so little mercy on the side of
the allies,--and so little suspicion in Yorick, of what was carrying
on against him,--that when he thought, good easy man! full surely
preferment was o'ripening,--they had smote his root, and then he fell,
as many a worthy man had fallen before him.

Yorick, however, fought it out with all imaginable gallantry for some
time; till, overpowered by numbers, and worn out at length by the
calamities of the war,--but more so, by the ungenerous manner in which
it was carried on,--he threw down the sword; and though he kept up
his spirits in appearance to the last, he died, nevertheless, as was
generally thought, quite broken-hearted.

What inclined Eugenius to the same opinion was as follows:

A few hours before Yorick breathed his last, Eugenius stept in with an
intent to take his last sight and last farewell of him. Upon his drawing
Yorick's curtain, and asking how he felt himself, Yorick looking up in
his face took hold of his hand,--and after thanking him for the many
tokens of his friendship to him, for which, he said, if it was their
fate to meet hereafter,--he would thank him again and again,--he told