in making him my confident in the present instance. I
repeated to him minutely every thing that had passed, and concluded with
a solemn declaration that, though treated with caprice, I was not
anxious for myself; no inconvenience or danger should ever lead me to a
pusillanimous behaviour; and I felt only for my patron, who, with every
advantage for happiness, and being in the highest degree worthy of it,
seemed destined to undergo unmerited distress.

In answer to my communication, Mr. Collins informed me that some
incidents, of a nature similar to that which I related, had fallen under
his own knowledge, and that from the whole he could not help concluding
that our unfortunate patron, was at times disordered in his intellects.
"Alas!" continued he, "it was not always thus! Ferdinando Falkland was
once the gayest of the gay. Not indeed of that frothy sort, who excite
contempt instead of admiration, and whose levity argues thoughtlessness
rather than felicity. His gaiety was always accompanied with dignity. It
was the gaiety of the hero and the scholar. It was chastened with
reflection and sensibility, and never lost sight either of good taste or
humanity. Such as it was however, it denoted a genuine hilarity of
heart, imparted an inconceivable brilliancy to his company and
conversation, and rendered him the perpetual delight of the diversified
circles he then willingly frequented. You see nothing of him, my dear
Williams, but the ruin of that Falkland who was courted by sages, and
adored by the fair. His youth, distinguished in its outset by the most
unusual promise, is tarnished. His sensibility is shrunk up and withered
by events the most disgustful to his feelings. His mind was fraught with
all the rhapsodies of visionary honour; and, in his sense, nothing but
the grosser part, the mere shell of Falkland, was capable of surviving
the wound that his pride has sustained."

These reflections of my friend Collins strongly tended to inflame my
curiosity, and I requested him to enter into a more copious explanation.
With this request he readily complied; as conceiving that whatever
delicacy it became him to exercise in ordinary cases, it would be out of
place in my situation; and thinking it not improbable that Mr. Falkland,
but for the disturbance and inflammation of his mind, would be disposed
to a similar communication. I shall interweave with Mr. Collins's story
various information which I afterwards received from othe