CHAPTER XVII.
"His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,
....his thoughts immaculate;
His tears pure messengers sent from his heart;
His heart as far from fraud as heav'n from earth.'
Shakspeare.
Time, the sovereign softener of human sorrow, had, in its flight, in some degree freed and disengaged Douglas from that intolerable load of affliction and despondency he had formerly endured; yet with a heart desolated, blighted of its cherished hopes and fairest prospects, how, with a memory faithful to an object he could never behold again, every sense throbbing with the painful though pleasing retrospection of departed bliss, and every tie that might have rendered life attractive, and strewed his path with flowers—how could he resolve to link his future destiny to another? None, in all the multitude of his acquaintance, had he ever dared to compare with Rosilia, in mind and person; how infinitely short did they fall of the excellence she possessed! Never, he felt assured,
