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A HUMAN HEART. 



"Me voici done seul sur la terre ; n'ayant plus de frere, de prochair, 

 d'ami, de societe,^ que moi-meme. Le plus sociable et le plus aimant des 

 humains, en a etc proscrit par un accord unanime." 



Les Reveries du Promeneur Solitaire. 



THIS memoir was discovered by accident in fact, a child was 

 the origin of the discovery. The spot distinguished by it is in Cum- 

 berland a wild, weedy, untrodden spot, bounded on one side by 

 the sea, and in other directions by ravines, morasses, swamps rather 

 than lakes, and surmounted by the peaks of a succession of bleak, 

 lofty, verdureless hills. None would penetrate to it by choice few 

 could by chance. To horse-feet it is impervious, and the pedestrian 

 pilgrim would turn aside from it owing to the thickness of the under- 

 grass, briars and impenetrability of the tract generally. In other 

 respects also it is unattractive. Its scenic character is cold, without 

 promise, or power to allure. Wild, without the picturesque, it is 

 solitudinous without grandeur ; neither sublime nor beautiful, but in 

 the highest degree harsh, unlovely, unrecompensing, and from which 

 the pencil of Salvator or of Claude would equally turn dismayed. 



On this spot in the bosom of a hut on this spot, the memoir here 

 entitled " A human heart!'' was found. 



But the locality is nothing, nor the memoir itself, possibly, any 

 thing to the accompanying event by which the discovery was signal- 

 ised, and which the introducer of the document to the public can 

 have no hesitation in pronouncing interesting and remarkable, and 

 surprising beyond whatever has transpired in the world whether of 

 history or romance, science, literature, or philosophy. 



It is hinted, a child was the medium of the discovery, a boy, a 

 mere child in search of eagle-eyries, among the cliffs on the sea- 

 shore of Cumberland. In his excitement he descended the cliff, to 

 whose summit (with hands and feet he had clambered by an un- 

 known chasm. The circumstance involved him in perplexity ; he 

 lost his way, preserved no knowledge of his route, and, consequently, 

 during many hours, was compelled to adopt at random any passage 

 or pathway of any wood, cavern, or glen which presented. Sud- 

 denly, from a distance, he thought he discovered an angle of a rude 

 deeply- embosomed habitation. So far was it buried among trees 

 and long waving grass, that it was scarcely distinguishable. Yet he 

 resolved to pursue the direction in which he imagined it to rise ; 

 naturally supposing it to possess inmates, through whose agency, ex- 

 tricated from the wilderness which enclosed him, his embarrassment 

 would be relieved. He proceeded in the direction, reached the 



