Plans for the erection of public buildings, for hospitals, bridges, museums, and churches, schemes for new manufactories, hints for new establishments conducive to the public good, and sketches of new discoveries, lay in heaps before her; mixed with addresses of compliments, votes of thanks, complaints of grievances, petitions, secret informations; and in short all that multifarious collection of paper, with which a monarch is sure to be surrounded who is said to be anxious to ameliorate the condition of his people, or who is unhappily reported to possess a genius for improvement. Unfortunate is the man possessed of power, of whom such reports are current. He is directly surrounded by projectors, each presenting a scheme more futile than that of his predecessor; and discontented dependants, each bringing a long list of grievances, half of which are imaginary, but which have been conjured up by the complainants that they may not lose the precious right they enjoy of complaining. Unhappy he whose fate obliges him to decide between the rival claimants! certain alike to be blamed, if he give or refuse; if he accept, or if he reject! Elvira had not yet found the evils of power; but she now tasted of its sweets, and was enchanted. It seemed to her the most delightful thing in the world to hold in her hands the destinies of thousands of her fellow-creatures; and she thought not of the heavy responsibility it entailed, nor how often her path would be followed by curses instead of blessings. Some one has said that every time a sovereign confers a favour, he makes one ungrateful subject and nine discontented ones; but Elvira and Edmund as yet had not discovered the truth of this maxim. Since their present plan had been suggested, every thing with them had been the _couleur de rose_. I say, them, for Edmund was associated with Elvira in all these gigantic schemes of improvement; and as he had conceived the first idea of them, so it was he only who could carry them into execution. His active mind required something to employ it; and the same strong feelings which had formerly been devoted to love and glory, were now turned into another channel. The energies of Elvira's mind had also been awakened by the struggle for the crown, and the passion awakened in her breast by the youthful stranger; and she now felt that she could not quietly return again to the commonplace stillness of every-day life. The passions when once roused from their dormant state, must have something to occupy them, or they will prey upon themselves. Thus we generally see great warriors, or statesmen, or in fact any class of men who have passed their lives in activity, wither away when forced to the dullness of an obscure retirement: their minds and bodies decay alike from want of stimulants to call them into action.