useful in their own department, but will not stir an inch out of it; he resolved to be satisfied with a country lad, and form him to his own modes.

For this purpose he took into his service Joseph Payne, a boy fifteen years old, who had lived at Lambourne, in the same county, with a farmer, who was a quaker of regular life and conversation.

In the house of this person, reading the scriptures and discoursing on religious subjects was the employment of every leisure hour; on these occasions Joseph was frequently present, but this family duty did not prevent his regular attendance at the parish church, as had been previously agreed when he was hired, a necessary and useful precaution, as I know many sectaries who make a parade about liberality, and expect it in others, but refuse this reasonable liberty to their own domestics.

Soon after his residence at Reading, his fellow servant was very much alarmed by Joseph's falling down in a fit; not used to such accidents the woman ran for assistance, and returning with several persons, they were struck with surprize to find him apparently recovered, sitting on the spot where he had fallen,

and pronouncing a pertinent religious discourse.

Fixed in astonishment they waited to see the event; at the end of half an hour he rose, as they expressed it, as from a trance, or like one awakened from sound sleep, and on being questioned, solemnly declared himself unconscious of what had passed, and that he did not know a word of what he had said.

The affair being reported to the gentleman with whom he lived, he directed that the conduct and conversation of the boy should be narrowly watched, and the persons with whom he had intercourse, as it was thought he might be made the tool of some wild enthusiast, a description of men very much disliked by his master: no circumstance occurred to justify this suspicion, and Joseph continued at intervals to be seized in a similar way, and before he recovered, to preach regularly at the conclusion of every paroxysm.

Dr. Hooper, at that time an eminent accoucheur, well known in London, was visiting his son at Reading, and their curiosity being raised by so extraordinary a circumstance, they requested to be sent for the next time Joseph had a fit. An opportunity

soon

soon offered for gratifying the doctor's wish, the boy fell down in his customary way, (apparently in what is called an epilepsy) and the two gentlemen in consequence of a message soon arrived.

The patient was just recovering and commencing his discourse, of which Dr. Hooper's son, being a writer of short-hand, took an accurate copy, not losing or adding a word.

This singular sermon is preserved; and I was disposed to have presented it to my readers, but am told that sermons, except in a few instances, are considered by the trade as a very unpromising speculation; yet a sermon pronounced under such circumstances, could not fail exciting general curiosity.

While pronouncing it he sat up with great composure, his eyes open, but immoveably fixed, introducing his discourse by a sort of conversation with his former neighbours.

"Will you go to church? it is Good Friday, I have asked my master to let me go, and though he do not hold with Saints' days himself he has given me leave."

After a few more unconnected but intelligible sentences, he commenced, and the text he chose when the doctor at

tended was-They led him away to crucify him.

What he said on this occasion was sensible, well delivered and practical: occasionally holding forth his hand, a person present held a lighted candle so close as to raise a blister; but he neither flinched nor discontinued speaking.

As if every circumstance should tend to corroborate the authenticity of this surprising fact, only a few weeks had passed, when the farmer with whom Joseph had lived, and the clergyman whose church he had formerly frequented, were called by business to Reading.

The boy's-new master accidentally meeting with them, he naturally mentioned what had happened to his servant; and enquiring if any thing similar had ever taken place while he resided at Lambourn, was answered in the negative. The travellers mentioning in a cursory way the inn they were at, passed on; but in the course of the evening the maid servant was dispatched to say, that if they wished they wished to see Joseph's uncommon affection, he was now seized with a fit.

They came and saw and heard; after the boy had ceased holding forth and was recovered, they both took considerable pains

to

to examine him, and from their previous knowledge, as well of his moral character and general deportment as of other circumstances, were convinced that he had no consciousness, either before or after, of what was taking place.

The clergyman remarked, that some passages in Joseph's discourse nearly resembled in tendency and structure one of his sermons; and the quaker observed that the text given out, had been frequently the subject of discussion with his own family, in the presence of the boy.

This remarkable affair was attested by Dr. Hooper, who frequently spoke of it to persons now living, and its authenticity is further corroborated by the boy's master, Captain Fisher, for many years an inhabitant of Reading, generally respected, and probably in the memory of some of my readers.

To remember passages in sermons and the subjects of conversations, we have heard, in early life, with lads of tenacious

judgment, at a moment when the sensorium is evidently paralysed, and the intellectual powers are apparently suspended, may afford matter of reflection to the minute observers of the phoenomena of that miraculous machine, called man.

The article of a former volume in which a case somewhat resembling this occurs, I could not at the commencement of my present subject recollect, it is DELAVAL; a rapid sketch drawn without ill design, but which involved the editor in a ridiculous embarrassment, that would if related, create a hearty laugh for my readers; but no man is fond of relating a story which tells against himself.

The affair might however have ended profitably, had he chosen to have practiced what was once done in a certain work of rather more importance than his, cancelled a leaf; it was at a time too when one of Abraham Newland's billet-doux, though returned, would have been very useful.

to utter repeatedly long and connected harangues, in which argument is supported, and exhortation enforced by reference to various passages of scripture, to heaven, hell, death, and a future

of a peasant at Montalto, a village in the Papal territory of Ancona, who discovered at an early age quick parts and a retentive memory; but the poverty of his parents obliged them

to

to part with him when only nine years old, and he was placed in the service of a neighbouring farmer.

In this situation Felix did not satisfy his employer; he was perpetually finding fault with the lad for his unhandiness in husbandry work, and observing that correction served only to aug. ment his apparent stupidity, he dismissed him from the house, the barn, and the stable, to what was considered as a more servile and degrading species of occupation; taking care of a number of hogs on an adjoining com

mot.

In this solitary place, deserted and forlorn, his back still smarting with repeated stripes, and his eyes overflowing with tears, he was surprized by a stranger at his elbow, enquiring which was the nearest road to Ascoli.

This person was a Franciscan, who travelling to that place had lost his way; in fact, the poor boy was so absorbed in grief that he did not perceive any one approaching till he heard the voice of the friar, who had spoken to him several times before he could procure an answer.

Affected by his melancholy appearance he naturally asked the cause, and received an account of his hopeless condition related in a strain of good sense

VOL. IV.

and vivacity, (for on speaking to him he resumed his natural cheerfulnes) which surprized the holy father when he considered his age and wretched appearance.

"But I must not forget that, you are going to Ascoli," said Felix, starting nimbly from the bank on which he was sitting; then pointing out the proper road, he accompanied the friar, who was charmed at finding so much untaught politeness in a little rustic.

Considering himself as sufficiently informed he thanked the boy, and would have dismissed him with a small present, but he still continued running and skip. ping before him, till father Michael asked in a jocose way, if he meant to go with him quite to the town.

"Not only to Ascoli but to the end of the world," said Felix, unwilling to quit his companion; "Ah, sir," continued the lad after a short pause, in a tone of voice and with one of those looks which make their way at once to our hearts, “Ah, sir, if you or any other worthy gentleman would but get me the place of an errand-boy or any other employment in a convent, however laborious, however laborious, where I could procure a little learning and get away from those filthy hogs and the owner of them,

who is little better, I would try to make myself useful, and should be bound to pray for and bless you as long as I live.”

"But you would not take the habit of a religious order?" said the Franciscan," Most willingly!" replied Felix.

"You are little aware of the hardships, the fastings, the toil, the watchings, and the labor, you would undergo.”

"I would endure the pains of purgatory to become a scholar," was the boy's singular reply.

Finding him in earnest, and surprized at his courage and resolution, he permitted the stripling to accompany him to As coli, where he introduced him to the society of Cordeliers he was going to visit, informing them at the same time of the eircumstance which first introduced him to this new acquaintance.

The superior sent for the boy, put many questions to him, and was so well pleased that he immediately admitted him; he was invested with the habit of a laybrother, and appointed to assist the Sacristan in sweeping the church and lighting the candles; in return for these and other services, he was taught the responses and instructed in gram

mar.

In acquiring knowledge, the little stranger was found to unite a

readiness of comprehension with unceasing application; his progress was so rapid, that in 1534, being then only fourteen years old, he entered on his noviciate, and after the usual time, was admitted to make his profession.

On taking deacon's orders, he preached his first sermon to a numerous congregation; it being the feast of the Annunciation, when he soon convinced his hearers, that the man who was instrueting them possessed no common share of abilities.

The service being concluded, a prelate then present, thanked Felix publicly for his discourse, encouraged him to persist diligently in his studies, and con, gratulated him, as well as the society of which he was a member, on the fairness of his pros pects.

He was ordained a priest in 1545, took the degrees of bachelor and doctor with considerable credit, and being chosen to keep a divinity-act before the whole chapter of his order, father Montalto (that being the name he now assumed) distinguished himself, that he secured the esteem, and afterwards enjoyed the patronage and protection of two qardinals, Carpi and Alexandrino.

The time indeed was come when a friend was necessary to defend him against the nume