"Death is all I covet. When these pages are read, the hand that traces them will be powerless--the brain that dictates will have lost its functions. This is my last labour--my legacy to my fellow-beings. Do not let them disdain the outpourings of a heart which for years has buried its recollections and remorse in silence. The waters were pent up by a dam--now they rush impetuously forth--they roar as if pursued by a thousand torrents--their turmoil deafens heaven; and what though their sound be only conveyed by the little implement that traces these lines--not less headlong than the swelling waves is the spirit that pours itself out in these words. "I am calmer now--I have been wandering beside the stream--and, despite the lurking foe and deceptive moonbeams, I have ascended the steep mountain's side--and looked out on the misty sea, and sought to gain from reposing nature some relief to my sense of pain. The hour of midnight is at hand--all is still--I am calm, and with deliberation begin to narrate that train of circumstances, or rather of feelings, that hurried me first to error, then to crime, and, lastly, brought me here to die. "I lost my mother before I can well remember. I have a confused recollection of her crying--and of her caressing me--and I can call to mind seeing her ill in bed, and her blessing me; but these ideas are rather like revelations of an ante-natal life, than belonging to reality. She died when I was four years old. My childhood's years were stormy and drear. My father, a social, and, I believe, even a polite man in society, was rough and ill-tempered at home. He had gambled away his own slender younger brother's fortune and his wife's portion, and was too idle to attend to a profession, and yet not indolent enough for a life devoid of purpose and pursuit. Our family was a good one; it consisted of two brothers, my father, and my uncle. This latter, favoured of birth and fortune, remained long unmarried; and was in weak health. My father expected him to die. His death, and his own consequent inheritance of the family estate, was his constant theme; but the delayed hope irritated him to madness. I knew his humour even as a child, and escaped it as I could. His voice, calling my name, made my blood run cold; his epithets of abuse, so frequently applied, filled me with boiling but ineffectual rage. "I am not going to dwell on those painful days when, a weak, tiny boy, I felt as if I could contend with the paternal giant; and did contend, till his hand felled me to the ground, or cast me from his threshold with scorn and seeming hate. I dare say he did not hate me; but certainly no touch of natural love warmed his heart.