ad of halfpence paid for one of his immortal works.

FOOTNOTES:

[M] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer
& Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New-York.

[N] As the conversations in the rest of this book are supposed to be
sometimes in French and sometimes in English, the translator will render
the terms of courtesy now by _signor, signora_, and _signorina_, and
again by _monsieur_, _madame_, and _mademoiselle_.

[O] The Comte d'Artois, afterwards Charles X.

TRANSFORMATION.

BY THE LATE MRS. SHELLEY.

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd
With a woful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale,
And then it set me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told
This heart within me burns.

COLERIDGE'S ANCIENT MARINER.

I have heard it said, that, when any strange, supernatural, and
necromantic adventure has occurred to a human being, that being, however
desirous he may be to conceal the same, feels at certain periods torn
up, as it were, by an intellectual earthquake, and is forced to bare the
inner depths of his spirit to another. I am a witness of the truth of
this. I have dearly sworn to myself never to reveal to human ears the
horrors to which I once, in excess of fiendly pride, delivered myself
over. The holy man who heard my confession, and reconciled me to the
church, is dead. None knows that once--

Why should it not be thus? Why tell a tale of impious tempting of
Providence, and soul-subduing humiliation? Why? answer me, ye who are
wise in the secrets of human nature! I only know that so it is; and in
spite of strong resolves--of a pride that too much masters me--of shame,
and even of fear, so to render myself odious to my species--I must
speak.

Genoa! my birthplace--proud city! looking upon the blue waves of the
Mediterranean sea--dost thou remember me in my boyhood, when thy cliffs
and promontories, thy bright sky and gay vineyards, were my world? Happy
time! when to the young heart the narrow-bounded universe, which leaves,
by its very limitation, free scope to the imagination, enchains our
physical energies, and, sole period in our lives, innocence and
enjoyment are united. Yet, who can look back to childhood, and not
remember its sorrows and its harrowing fears? I was born with