ABSTRACT
On my return to the inn, I found that the chaise had been waiting some time; and I immediately set out for Bristol. – The night was particularly dark, and my spirits, labouring under a painful depression, cherished such melancholy thoughts as seemed to deepen the gloomy hour of travelling. A thousand sad and desponding projects by turns took possession of my mind; and the long-meditated plan of self-annihilation seemed to predominate over every other. The caprice of fortune had wearied me into disgust, which rendered life scarcely worth preserving. I looked round the world – I beheld virtue and genius oppressed, and destined to encounter every humiliation, while vice and ignorance reared their unblushing heads, and smiled as they abjured all the sympathies of nature. When I compared the liberal, the amiable child of sorrow, with the herd of titled and exalted profligates – when I beheld the eye of genius dimmed with the tear of adversity – was it singular that I should turn from the scene with horror, and wish for repose – even in the oblivion of the grave?
