Languages & literature > Key to the drama

( 194 )
Think how wildly I was in that moment
agitated, to behold innocence and beauty,
and that innocence and beauty which had
awakened in me all the filial refpedt and
gratitude which her warm attachment to
the noble inftrument of my exiftence could
call forth, now expofed to the violation of
a flagitious ruffian! to the humane propen-
fity of protecting the innocent, and dif-
charging fo immenfe a debt due to the
friends of a worthy father; think, I fay,
when in the author of this violation, I faw
before my eyes the inhuman murderer of
that father, how the terror of the one, and
the rapacity of the other, afteCted me, then
in a fituation which reftrained my offering
relief without the imminent hazard of my
own life, which was, however, a very light
confideration, compared to the much
weightier one of expofing my only bene-
fadtor, .Angus's daughter, the deareft ob¬
ject of my foul, and all his family, to inevi¬
table deftruction. To fpeak, would have
been to little purpofc; I had no weapon
near me that could reach the ravager; the
wall was of fuch a height, that I mult have
maimed myfelf by an attempt to defcend
it: the natural feeblenefs of Ifabella ren¬
dered her incapable of refiftance •, in groans
of agony, ffie lay motionlefs and fpeechlefs
iij the villain’s power; and he, pitilefs to