or the tenderness of sympathy could not mitigate;—a sorrow, which anticipated the work of time, had already faded his cheek and furrowed his brow, though yet in what might be termed the prime of man's life, not having attained his fortieth year; and sometimes so far overcame him, as to render him unable to bear even the society of his daughter, his only earthly comfort. At those periods he always wandered to the wildest and most sequestered spot that he could find in the neighbourhood of his residence.
'mid
.....thorns and mire;
......all forlorn,
To muse at last, amid the ghostly gloom
Of graves, and hoary vaults, and cloistered cells,
To walk with spectres thro' the midnight shade,
And to the screaming owl's accursed song,
Attune the dreadful workings of his heart.
Though one of his chief sources of pleasure (as I have already said) was derived from the culture of his daughter's mind, he was
