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 silent.—Macpherson therefore continued: "So far we had succeeded but too well in our black attempt; but the fair boy intrusted to me sickened under the hardships to which I was obliged to expose him. The price agreed on was paid me. La Crusca joined me; and together we reared the child in a foreign country, so as I hope to do him honour. But a dark malady at times had fallen upon La Crusca. He would see visions of horror; and the sight of a mother and a child threw him into frenzy, till it became necessary to confine him. I had not heard for some time from my master. I wished to bring my young charge back to his own country, before I died. I wrote; but no one answered my letters. I applied to the Count Gondimar; but he refused to hear me.

"In the dead of night, however, even when I slept, the child was torn from me. I was at Florence, when some villain seized the boy. I had assumed