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Haggard and emaciated,-worn, for lack of sufficient food, almost to a skeleton, with eyes that, though deeply sunken in his head,―so deep indeed that the bony projection of the sockets displayed sharp circular rims around the cavities that contained them,-glowed with a fire that might have been lighted in some nether world;—with rigid angular features and dishevelled hair,—a countenance in whose every lineament was engraven the frightful intensity of the agony that consumed his vitals-who, beholding him at this hour, would have recognised the youth whose burletta had succeeded at Marylebone Gardens but twenty nights before? Even his mother would not have known her son; even his sister would not have flown to embrace her brother.

Chatterton had taken poison. The broken cup in which his own hands had mixed the deadly draught stood on a small deal table beside him. Strewed over the floor of the room were sundry fragments of paper,-poems, written in the fullest anticipation of success and fame, but which were destined never to be beheld by other eyes than his own, In his paroxysm of rage, when he had resolved to spurn the world, which had neglected and persecuted him, and which had deprived him of the mistress of his first and passionate affection, in which he had been scourged by menial hands like a sorry hound,-he had torn into these fragments his last compositions.

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"Oh God!" cried the dying Chatterton, throwing himself back upon the bed and writhing in convulsions, Have mercy!-These painsthese burning pains,-I cannot endure them-they are intolerable.— Help me, Lord-help me!-I do not fear death, but this agony, it is terrible-my vitals are consuming. Ha!-who speaks to me? Do not be angry, mother.-Give me water-water, Mary, my sister,—I am frightfully burning-Dash it on my temples.-They throb, they burn-my veins are swelled to bursting,-give me your hand-your hand, my mother-that is it-clasp my fingers tight-I am coming to you,-I am coming-I

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The room occupied by Thomas Chatterton was broken open on the following day. His body was found stiff and cold. His features were frightfully distorted. Some particles of opium were picked out from

between his teeth.

A coroner's inquest sat upon his body, and a verdict of "Temporary Insanity" was delivered. He was buried by the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, in the burial-ground attached to the workhouse in Shoe Lane, the present site of Farringdon Market.

Beneath the muniment room of the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, a monument thirty feet in height, surmounted by a fulllength figure of the poet in the dress of the Colston Charity School, was erected by public subscription in 1840. Upon a tablet in the base are engraved these lines, (according to the direction of Chatterton, in a strange composition written three months before his death, and styled his "Will," in which he enjoins the citizens of Bristol to erect him a monument on pain of being haunted by his ghost)" To the memory of Thomas Chatterton. Reader, judge not. If thou art a Christian, believe that he shall be judged by a superior Power. To that Power alone is he now answerable." It appears from this that he had long premeditated suicide.

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Lady Fanny

did not join her lover in the grave.

She acquired prudence and corrected (that is the word) her erring enthusiasm, which led her to love "a vulgar poet." In a few years she made an admirable match. She married a peer, who had grown prematurely old at thirty years of age, a worn-out debauchee, who would have given his fortune to have experienced a new sensation. She lived a short, dazzling, fashionable and unhappy life, and died in her twenty-eighth year.

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His youthful brow grew dark

As he thought of his brother brave,

How, but a short year since, his joyous bark

Was entombed beneath that wave.

And he fancied his brother's voice he could hear,

O'er the storm, and the sea-bird's cry,

"One prayer for my soul ere thine hour draws near,

The dark hour of destiny !"

But he laughed at his fears, and with mirth and with glee
He flew o'er the wave singing merrily-

"I must away!

I dare not stay,

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THE wildest and most inaccessible part of the north of Portugal is the province of Traz os Montes, literally, "beyond the mountains."

The face of the country is composed of lofty and rocky ridges, with sides rugged and precipitous, intersected by dark glens whose profound depths the eye cannot reach, and with numerous torrents foaming in their headlong course towards the gold-bearing waters of the Douro, which stream divides the province from Spain. In parts, too, there are broad and rich valleys, watered by meandering streams, on whose banks grow in vast profusion the sweet-flowering almond, the orange, the chestnut, the luxuriant vine, and innumerable other trees and shrubs, which afford a continual source of wealth to their cultivators. The inhabitants are esteemed the bravest and most hardy of the sons of Lusitania, having never, since the earliest period to which their history refers, bent their necks to the yoke of a conqueror, while the neighbouring provinces have succumbed one after another to the swords of the Spaniards or of the infidels. Their athletic frames, their light hair and blue eyes, bespeak them of the pure Gothic race, unmixed with any Moorish or other southern blood; and their manners retain that primitive simplicity which is the characteristic of most mountain people who associate but little with the inhabitants of the plain. They still cling to their ancient superstitions; nor have the monkish legends, relating to St. Anthony, and St. John, and various other saints, succeeded in eradicating the tales of wonder and horror which have descended to them from their early heathen ancestors. No one among them would presume to doubt the power of the feiticeira, or witch; the deeds of the accursed Brura, or the almost equally dreadful career of the hapless and condemned Lobishome; however incredulous they might perhaps be as to the efficacy of a hair of St. Anthony's beard in preserving their sheep from the rot, their fruit-trees from blight, or the necks of their goats among their mountain crags. In other parts of the country the inhabitants are better Catholics, if not more honest people, and from thence the histories of saints and saintesses, monks, priests, exorcisers, missals, and breviaries, have almost driven away all recollection of the more poetical legends of witches, hobgoblins, ghosts, fairies, and similar fantastic personages who figure even to the present day in more northern climes. Among others in which they place implicit faith, is that of the legend of "Lobishome."

Somewhere about the early part of the twelfth century, after the gallant Count Alfonzo Henrique, son of Henri of Besançon, had driven

Some writers, misled by the name of Lobishome, (Lobo being a wolf,) fancy it similar to the Loupgarou of France, but this is not the case, nor can I learn that the afflicted person is ever transformed into the shape of a wolf. I know not the derivation of the name, nor from what cause the curse is supposed to originate; but all families, rich or poor, noble or plebeian, are equally subject to it, if their sons or daughters pass the number of six; though the seventh is not always the sufferer; indeed, several may be possessed by it. The only infallible safeguard is to call the seventh son Adam, or the seventh daughter Eve. The afflicted ones sit and mope by themselves, their countenances betraying their fatigue and misery, till, pining gradually away, they die. It is believed that they are invariably changed into the form of a horse.

the unbelieving Moors from the northern part of Lusitania, and had been unanimously elected sovereign of the reconquered provinces, there dwelt in the Traz os Montes, a brave noble, Count Rodrigo Soares by name. His castle overlooked one of the valleys of which we have spoken, being situated on the summit of a rocky eminence almost entirely surrounded by a sparkling stream which fertilized the green meadows, extending for several miles along the centre of the vale, forming only part of the possessions of the Count. The mountains on each side of the glen were lofty and rugged, crowned in some places by the tall and slender pine, while in others the dark and naked rock pointed towards the sky, or projected from amid the rich foliage of the lower ground. Here and there also were spots which, though destitute of trees, were covered with herbage on which browzed numerous flocks of goats; their keepers, clothed in the skins of the animals they tended, leaning on their long spears, or grasping their tough bows ready to strike some soaring eagle, formed picturesque objects as seen against the pure blue ether of that lovely clime.

The Count, though as brave a knight as ever couched a spear, and accounted very amiable by his equals when he had his own way, was rather haughty to his inferiors; stern and inflexible when opposed, and, when any event occurred to displease him, easily thrown into a violent paroxysm of passion, during which period he was often guilty of acts at which, in his calmer moments, his feelings would have revolted.

He possessed a wife, a lady of great beauty and of high birth, who had already borne him six daughters; but their union was unblessed by any sons, a sore disappointment to the noble, who was naturally anxious to transmit his name and titles to posterity by a lineal descendant in the male line. He was still in the field with his chief, when the time drew near that his lady was expected to present him with another infant.

A splendid victory gained, and the approach of the winter season, enabled him, with the other leaders, to break up the army, and, as was the custom in those days, to retire with their forces to their homes, to till their fields and to attend to their other agricultural pursuits.

He reached his castle gate in high hopes that a son and heir was about to be born to him. He expected to behold the white dress of his lady fluttering on the battlements to welcome his return, surrounded by their daughters. His pennon was displayed, he sounded his horn, and at the well-known signal the drawbridge was lowered, when, followed by his faithful escudeiro, he hurried beneath the iron portcullis.

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"Is my lady well?" he exclaimed, as the whiteheaded major domo hastened out to meet him. Has the event taken place?" he continued. "Heaven be praised! And my boy, he is doing well?—a fine hearty fellow, like me, I'll warrant. Ha, ha! we'll soon teach him to couch a spear against the infidels," he exclaimed.

He stopped short on observing the distressed look of the old man."What, dotard, speak!" he added hastily; "is it not a boy? Hast thou been deceiving me, ha?" And a dark frown mantled on his brow.

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Alas, my lord," answered the old steward, "it is no fault of mine nor of my lady's; the saints so will it."

"What, is he dead then?" asked the husband, breathlessly.

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Alas! no, my lord," answered the steward, with a trembling voice. "No boy was born; it is a seventh girl, my lord."

Now, curses on the puling infant! am I thus to be ever baulked of my just hopes?" exclaimed the enraged father, dashing his gauntlet with terrific force upon the stone pavement, where it fell with a loud clanking sound, and the feeble wail of an infant came like a distant echo from the lattice of a neighbouring turret.

"Oh, my lord! withdraw that curse from off your child's head," cried the faithful old servant, seizing his master's bridle, and bending his knees in a supplicating posture; Remember that curses, like

pigeons, always come home to roost at night."

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Bah, old man; interrupt me not with thy croakings," cried the knight, throwing himself from his saddle, and striding up and down the narrow court-yard with hurried steps.

"Will not my lord wish to see my lady?" said the steward. "She is well enough to receive you, and longs to welcome your return."

"No," answered the knight, shortly; and continued his walk, his followers looking on in dismay, no one daring to interrupt him; for never before had they seen their lord in such a state, and knew not what might follow.

The wail of the new-born infant again sounded in his ear. "Now, curses rest upon that sound; a boy would give a lusty cry. I would I could without sin drown it in the moat like a puppy.'

As he spoke, an old woman who unperceived had crossed the drawbridge, and made her way through the crowd of attendants, approached so as directly to face him when he turned in his walk. He started as he beheld her; for a being further removed from all appearance of humanity could scarcely be imagined. Almost bent double, apparently by age and infirmity, she supported her emaciated form on a curiously shaped twisted stick, whose coils seemed to turn and wriggle like those of a live serpent. The light of one of her eyes was quenched for ever, but the other made up for the loss in brightness, if not in size, as it glared out from its deep socket, like a twinkling lamp at the further end of a cavern before the shrine of some saint. The skin of her face and hands was of a dull yellow, wrinkled somewhat like burnt parchment; her nails were like the talons of a bird of prey, and her long black teeth projected far beyond her thin and colourless lips; her head possessed no other covering than a few tangled grey locks, and her costume consisted of a dark mantle which hung in rags and tatters to the ground, leaving her skeleton-like arms completely bare. The retainers hung back in dismay, for no one could tell how this strange being came among them.

"A feiticeira! a feiticeira!" (a witch, a witch,) they muttered, with looks of terror.

The Count quickly recovered his confidence, for he was not a man to be daunted by an old woman. "What want you with me, minha Tia?" (mine aunt) he asked, in a somewhat less angry tone than he had before used.

"What want I with you, proud Count? To warn you that curses, like pigeons, always come home to roost at night," answered the old crone. These words, the same spoken by the major domo, again roused the choler of the knight. "Begone, old hag!" he exclaimed fiercely.

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