Cruel and inflexible Matilda! thou once wert bounteous as the hand of heaven, wert tender as the new born babe. What is it that has changed thy disposition to the hard, the wanton, the obdurate? Behold a lover's tears! Behold how low thou hast sunk him, whom thou once didst dignify by the sweet and soothing name of _thy friend_! If ever the voice of anguish found a passage to your heart, if those cheeks were ever moistened with the drops of sacred pity, oh, hear me now! But I will address myself to the rocks. I will invoke the knotted oaks and the savage wolves of the forest. They will not refuse my cry, but Matilda is deaf as the winds, inexorable as the gaping wave.
In the state of mind in which I am, you will naturally suppose that I am full of doubt and irresolution. Twice have I resolved to quit the kingdom of Spain without delay, and to leave the business of friendship unfinished. But I thank God these thoughts were of no long duration. No, Matilda, let me be set up as a mark for the finger of scorn, let me be appointed by heaven as a victim upon which to exhaust all its arrows. Let me be miserable, but let me never, never deserve to be so. Affliction, thou mayest beat upon my heart in one eternal storm! Trouble, thou mayest tear this frame like a whirlwind! But never shall all thy terrors shake my constant mind, or teach me to swerve for a moment from the path I have marked out to myself! All other consolation may be taken from me, but from the bulwark of innocence and integrity I will never be separated.
_The Marquis of Pescara to the Count de St. Julian_
I can never sufficiently thank you for the indefatigable friendship you have displayed in the whole progress of my Spanish affairs. I have just received a letter from the first minister of that court, by which I am convinced that it cannot be long before they be terminated in the most favourable manner. I scarcely know how, after all the obligations you have conferred upon me, to intreat that you would complete them, by paying a visit to Zamora before you quit the kingdom, and putting my affairs there in some train, which from the negligence incident to a disputed title, can scarcely fail to be in disorder.