Vessel--he shall be preserved, and his children and his children's

children carry down the name and form of man to latest time.

Above all I must guard those entrusted by nature and fate to my especial

care. And surely, if among all my fellow-creatures I were to select those

who might stand forth examples of the greatness and goodness of man, I

could choose no other than those allied to me by the most sacred ties. Some

from among the family of man must survive, and these should be among the

survivors; that should be my task--to accomplish it my own life were a

small sacrifice. There then in that castle--in Windsor Castle,

birth-place of Idris and my babes, should be the haven and retreat for the

wrecked bark of human society. Its forest should be our world--its garden

afford us food; within its walls I would establish the shaken throne of

health. I was an outcast and a vagabond, when Adrian gently threw over me

the silver net of love and civilization, and linked me inextricably to

human charities and human excellence. I was one, who, though an aspirant

after good, and an ardent lover of wisdom, was yet unenrolled in any list

of worth, when Idris, the princely born, who was herself the

personification of all that was divine in woman, she who walked the earth

like a poet's dream, as a carved goddess endued with sense, or pictured

saint stepping from the canvas--she, the most worthy, chose me, and gave

me herself--a priceless gift.

During several hours I continued thus to meditate, till hunger and fatigue

brought me back to the passing hour, then marked by long shadows cast from

the descending sun. I had wandered towards Bracknel, far to the west of

Windsor. The feeling of perfect health which I enjoyed, assured me that I

was free from contagion. I remembered that Idris had been kept in ignorance

of my proceedings. She might have heard of my return from London, and my

Visit to Bolter's Lock, which, connected with my continued absence, might

tend greatly to alarm her. I returned to Windsor by the Long Walk, and

passing through the town towards the Castle, I found it in a state of

agitation and disturbance.

"It is too late to be ambitious," says Sir Thomas Browne. "We cannot hope

to live so long in our names as some have done in their persons; one face

of Janus holds no proportion to the other." Upon this text many fanatics

arose, who prophesied that the end of time was come. The spirit of

superstition had birth, from the wreck of our hopes, and antics wild and

dangerous were played on the great theatre, while the remaining particle of

futurity dwindled into a point in the eyes of the prognosticators.

Weak-spirited women died of fear as they listened to their denunciations;

men of robust form and seeming strength fell into idiotcy and madness,

racked by the dread of coming eternity. A man of this kind was now pouring

forth his eloquent despair among the inhabitants of Windsor. The scene of

the morning, and my visit to the dead, which had been spread abroad, had

alarmed the country-people, so they had become fit instruments to be played

upon by a maniac.

The poor wretch had lost his young wife and lovely infant by the plague. He

was a mechanic; and, rendered unable to attend to the occupation which

supplied his necessities, famine was added to his other miseries. He left

the chamber which contained his wife and child--wife and child no more,

but "dead earth upon the earth"--wild with hunger, watching and grief,

his diseased fancy made him believe himself sent by heaven to preach the

end of time to the world. He entered the churches, and foretold to the

congregations their speedy removal to the vaults below. He appeared like

the forgotten spirit of the time in the theatres, and bade the spectators

go home and die. He had been seized and confined; he had escaped and

wandered from London among the neighbouring towns, and, with frantic

gestures and thrilling words, he unveiled to each their hidden fears, and

gave voice to the soundless thought they dared not syllable. He stood under

the arcade of the town-hall of Windsor, and from this elevation harangued a

trembling crowd.

"Hear, O ye inhabitants of the earth," he cried, "hear thou, all seeing,

but most pitiless Heaven! hear thou too, O tempest-tossed heart, which

breathes out these words, yet faints beneath their meaning! Death is among

us! The earth is beautiful and flower-bedecked, but she is our grave! The

clouds of heaven weep for us--the pageantry of the stars is but our

funeral torchlight. Grey headed men, ye hoped for yet a few years in your

long-known abode--but the lease is up, you must remove--children, ye

will never reach maturity, even now the small grave is dug for ye--

mothers, clasp them in your arms, one death embraces you!"

Shuddering, he stretched out his hands, his eyes cast up, seemed bursting

from their sockets, while he appeared to follow shapes, to us invisible, in

the yielding air--"There they are," he cried, "the dead! They rise in

their shrouds, and pass in silent procession towards the far land of their

doom--their bloodless lips move not--their shadowy limbs are void of

motion, while still they glide onwards. We come," he exclaimed, springing

forwards, "for what should we wait? Haste, my friends, apparel yourselves