from that moment; for the gangreen, which occasions the spots, had spread over her whole body, and she died in less than two hours: but still the mother continued crying out, not knowing any thing more of her child, several hours after she was dead. It was so long ago, that I am not certain, but I think the mother never recovered, but died in two or three weeks after."

ASSASSINATION OF DEMETRIUS, ONE OF THE CZARS OF RUSSIA.

Demetrius had received intelligence that fifteen thousand soldiers were in open revolt. Apprehensive of augmenting the evil by rigorous orders, he only enjoined the Poles to keep themselves in a state of readiness, and the Strelitzes, with four companies of his guards, were placed around his person to avert the destruction which hung over his head. These commands were notified to the several battalions, on the fourteenth of May; and the more effectually to conceal his fears of becoming the victim of seditious rage, he not only gave directions on the following day, for a masked ball, but also had intended to treat the people with the representation of the attack and defence of a town. To heighten the effect of this spectacle, a citadel of wood was to be raised and furnished with artillery. A malevolent report was circulated, and received with sufficient credit to fix the yet fluctuating minds of the people, that the Czar, having abandoned all hopes of recovering their precarious affection, and subduing their alarming insolence, had ordered his soldiers to fire on the people from the top of the citadel, while the Poles were enjoined to massacre all the noblemen invited to this military entertainment.

On the night before the spectacle was to be exhibited, Chouiski, the head of the conspirators, assembled at his house all who were known to be desperate in their fortunes, and daring in their courage, and all his kinsmen, friends, and their domestics. With a look which inspired alacrity and confidence, and with that eloquence which violent resentment infuses, he addressed himself to his numerous partisans, telling them it was now time to sally forth, and by one glorious effort to do a service acceptable to their God and country, by liberating themselves from the unbounded tyranny of the Poles, and the intolerable sway of a monk, whose enormous crimes had not only led him to abandon his habit, but the faith of his ancestors. These words, pronounced with all that impetuous ardour which actuates minds in hazardous undertakings, produced the desired effect on his audience. With one voice they cried out, "We are prepared to die in the defence of our injured country and religion." They then armed themselves in haste, aroused the city with the alarum bell, and, in conjunction with a frantic multitude, swore the immediate death of the impostor.

Demetrius slept in thoughtless security, unconscious of the sudden approach of ruin; and so much had his mind been prepossessed that the hasty spark of revolt had been utterly extinguished, that he permitted only thirty men, out of the four companies which he had formed, to remain near his person; whilst the whole force of the Cossacks and Poles would have guarded him with the most assiduous fidelity, had his fears but happily insinuated to him, that the rigour of discipline was still unrestored, the strength of faction unsubdued. This imprudent supineness satisfactorily refutes the report of his desperate intention to massacre, the next day, both the nobles and people; for even to the heart of the most callous the voice of conscience can speak with a force suffi

cient to banish all repose from his mind, when the hour arrives that the plot, framed at his suggestions, is to be put into execution.

The tremendous sound of the alarum bell presently awoke the astonished Basmanof, who slept in an adjoining chamber to the Czar. To stimulate the zeal of the rabble, who advanced with him to the palace, Chouiski marched at their head with the cross in one hand and a sabre in the other. The sight of that revered sign so much increased the blaze of their fanaticism, that they easily persuaded themselves that they were acting under the authority of divine commission, and that in his voice might be recognized the unalterable decrees of Omnipotence.

Demetrius soon started up from his dream of security, and rushed to the vestibule of his palace, in the hopes of quelling the revolt by his presence. But the storm was too outrageous to be appeased by this weak and injudicious expedient. The words he uttered were drowned by the shouts of menace and reproach. His natural intrepidity and unshaken constancy of mind entirely forsook him; and he retired, completely dismayed at this scene of wild confusion. Basmanof viewed their rage, not with the silent consternation of his master, but with a mind unacquainted with fear, and determined, if necessary, to fall in the cause of insulted royalty. With a firm and dignified air he advanced to those Boyars who appeared the most dispassionate in this tumultuous scene, and painted to them, with a generous though ineffectual ardour, the duty of their allegiance; exhorting them also to the honourable task of restraining the licentiousness of the people, by their discourse and example; he was silenced in the middle of this noble harangue by innumerable daggers. Our pity for his untimely fate must not however absorb our abhorrence at his unmanly desertion of Fedor.

The conspirators abandoned this victim, and then broke down the gates of the palace in their eager search for Demetrius. In vain the guards attempted to oppose their fury; they soon fell a bright example of courage and fidelity. Their sovereign in the meantime had fled towards the inner apartments, in hopes of making his escape through ways unknown to the murderers; but to his despair and astonishment, he discovered every secret passage guarded with the utmost care by the victorious conspirators. In the anguish of his perplexity and fear, he at last espied a window which looked into a narrow court. Deserted and completely encompassed, in the madness of his despair, he threw himself into the court from this window, which measured forty feet from the ground, and in his fall he dislocated his leg, and inflicted a severe wound on his head. At his shrieking outcries, a few of his guards, with some of the people and Strelitzes, assembled around him. Compassion touched them all at beholding his deplorable situation. The guards and the Strelitzes, in carrying him into the palace, swore to perish in his defence. All the pressing supplications of the Boyars, to deliver to their just rage an impostor whom faction alone had placed on the throne, were heard with respect, but not with obedience. "We recognize," said these powerful protectors," in the person of our prince, the son of Ivan, in whose support we are prepared to shed the last drop of our blood." This firm and unexpected answer awed and intimidated the people : and the same nobles who were about to commit a detestable parricide with the approbation of the people, now felt their rage converted into fear at this sudden and suspicious change of their sentiments.

In this delicate and critical juncture, when the scales of fortune seemed to preponderate on the side of Demetrius, it required the nicest policy to restore them to their proper weight. Under the appearance therefore of a well acted

concern for the general weal, they proposed that the Czarina should resolve their doubts concerning the mystery of his birth; while their policy launched out at the same time into praises of the fidelity displayed by the soldiers and people. This proposal, which seemingly clung to moderation and justice, was relished by all parties. With a joy that could scarcely be concealed, Chouiski saw himself appointed to propose these questions. Accompanied by a few of his most devoted friends, he hastened to the convent with a speed suitable to the emergency of the office. On their return, they announced to the impatient and agitated people that the Czarina had spurned with contempt the filial pretensions of the impostor, being influenced no longer to conceal the truth by the fear of death.

These words turned their compassion into the most unbounded wrath. Even the guards and Strelitzes, unmindful of the recent sanctity of their oath, withdrew themselves, ashamed to protect the cause of an impostor. The people, no longer controlled by the presence of the soldiers, threw themselves on Demetrius, and terminated his life by a multitude of wounds. His body, after being exposed three days in the market-place, was then burnt to ashes by their barbarous and impotent rage.

GRATITUDE OF A JESUIT.

A gentleman had resided some time in Portugal, and was at dinner at the English Minister's, when he was called out of the parlour by a person who insisted upon speaking to him, and who told him, with great earnestness, and in a tone of voice not to be counterfeited, "You must fly this country immediately, and get on board a ship bound for England. I have very cogent reasons for giving you this advice, which I cannot explain now, but I hope, from the bottom of my heart you will follow it." The gentleman did as he was desired; and many years afterwards, walking in the streets of Wisbeach, in the Isle of Ely, he observed a butcher's servant dressing a calf. The butcher looked very earnestly at him; and the gentleman said to him, “I think I have seen your face before."—" So you have, sir; and if you will go out of the high street into a private place, I will tell you where." The gentleman did as he was desired, and was soon followed by the butcher; who said, "Do you not remember, sir, a person who gave you some remarkable advice at Lisbon ? I am that person. You had said something against the Inquisition of that city, and the officers of it were in search of you; I gave you that notice in consequence of some friendly office you did to one of my society (that of the Jesuits) at Rome. A kind action, as well as an unkind one, that is done to any of our order, is never forgotten, and we keep registers to record them."

SINGULAR SUICIDE.

In the year 1600, on the 10th of April, a person of the name of William Dorrington, threw himself from the top of St. Sepulchre's church, in London; having previously left on the leads or roof, a paper, of which the following is

a copy:

John

"Let no other man be troubled for that which is my own fact. Bunckley and his fellows, by perjury and other bad means, have brought me to this end: God forgive it them, and I do. And, O Lord! forgive me this cruel fact upon my own body, which I utterly detest, and most humbly pray him to cast it behind him; and that of his most exceeding and infinite

mercy

he will forgive it me, with all my other sins. But, surely, after they had thus slandered me every day that I lived, was to me a hundred deaths, which caused me rather to choose to die with infamy, than to live in infamy and torment.

"O, summa Deitas, quæ cœlis et superis presides, meis medere miseris ut spretis inferis, lætis superis, reis dona veniam."*

"Trusting in his only passion and merits of Jesus Christ, and confessing my exceeding great sins, I say- Master, have mercy on me!"

This paper was folded up in the form of a letter, and indorsed-" Oh, let me live, and I will call upon thy name !"

FATAL FULFILMENT OF A NATIVITY OF HIS SON,

CAST BY DRYDEN.

Dryden, with all his understanding, was weak enough to be attached to judicial astrology, and always used to calculate the nativity of his children. When his lady was in labour with his son Charles, he being told that it was decent to withdraw, laid his watch on the table, begging one of the ladies then present, in a very grave manner, to take notice of the exact minute of the child's birth, which she observed, and acquainted him therewith. About a week after, when his lady was pretty well recovered, Mr. Dryden took occasion to tell her, that he had been calculating the child's nativity; and observed with grief, that he was born in an evil hour; for Jupiter, Venus, and the Sun were all under the earth, and the lord of the ascendant afflicted with a hateful square of Mars and Saturn. If he live to the eighth year (continued he) he will go near to die a violent death on his birth-day; but if he should then escape, of which I see but little hopes, he will in his twenty-third year be under the same evil direction; and if he should then also escape, the thirtythird or thirty-fourth year is, I fear-Here he was interrupted by the immoderate grief of his lady, who could no longer hear so much calamity prophesied to befal her son.

The time at last came, and August was the inauspicious month in which the young Dryden was to enter into the eighth year of his age. Dryden being then at leisure to leave town, he was invited to the country-seat of the Earl of Berkshire, his brother-in-law, to spend the long vacation with him at Charlton in Wilts: his lady going at the same time on a visit, to pass the remaining part of the summer at her uncle Mordaunt's. When they came to divide their children, his lady wished him to take his son John with him, and let her have Charles. But Dryden was too absolute, and they parted in anger: he took Charles with him, and she was obliged to be content with John. When the fatal day arrived, the anxiety of the lady's spirits caused such an effervescence of blood, as threw her into so violent a fever, that her life was despaired of, till a letter came from Dryden, reproving her for her womanish credulity, and assuring her that her child was well, which revived her spirits, and in six weeks after she received an eclaircissement of the whole affair.

Dryden, either through fear of being reckoned superstitious, or thinking it a science beneath his study, was extremely cautious of letting any one know that he was a dealer in astrology; therefore could not excuse his absence on his son's birth-day, from a hunting-match, which Earl Berkshire had made, to

* O supreme God, who inhabitest the highest heavens, heal my afflictions; as with the wretched in hell, the joyful in heaven, shew mercy to the guilty.

1

which all the neighbouring gentlemen were invited. When he went out he took care to set his son a double exercise in the Latin tongue, which he taught his children himself, with a strict charge not to stir out of the room till his return, well knowing that the task which he had set him would take him up longer time than he could be absent from him.

Charles was performing his exercise in obedience to his father's command, when, as ill fate would have it, the stag made towards the house, and the noise alarming the servants, they hastened out to see the sport: one of them taking young Dryden by the hand, led him out along with him, when, just as they came to the gate, the stag being at bay with the dogs, made a bold push, and leaped over the court-wall, which being low and very old, the dogs followed, threw down a part thereof, and poor Charles was buried in the ruins. He was presently got out, but much bruised, so that he languished for six weeks in a very dangerous way, which accomplished the first part of his father's prophecy.

In his twenty-third year, being at Rome, he fell from the top of an old tower belonging to the Vatican, occasioned by a swimming in his head with which he was seized by the heat of the weather. He recovered this also; but ever after remained in a languishing sickly state, till the thirty-third year of his age, when, being returned to England, he was drowned at Windsor, being taken with the cramp as he was bathing in the Thames with another gentleman, to whom he called for assistance, but too late.

Thus the father's prophetical calculation proved but too true.

FATAL EFFECTS OF FEAR.

There was, in the Turkish empire, a person who had incurred the displeasure of the bashaw; and in those countries the sentence of death is only in the disposal of the chief minister of the province, so he varies it according to his own caprice, or that of his favourite. It happened here, that the sentence was to have the great arteries opened, and the unhappy criminal to bleed to death. But some curious English gentlemen, being at the court, petitioned the bashaw with so good success, that the sentence was repealed, and the man put into their power: every thing had now happened according to these gentlemen's wish, as they had no other motive than that of humanity, and the desire to gratify their own curiosity, in seeing how far the apprehension alone of the sentence would hurt him.

When the day of execution came, the unhappy criminal appeared, seated on a machine which kept him from moving; at the bottom of which, was a bathing tub: he was then blind-folded, and the executioner, who had received his secret orders, was now told to begin; which he did, by giving him two or three small scratches, and at the same time some small spouts, which had been procured for the purpose, were (to carry on the deceit) supplied with warm water which ran trickling into the bathing tub at the bottom. The deluded victim appeared in all the agonies of death, and, notwithstanding the utmost magnanimity, with which he had acted on the occasion, his mind could not bear an apprehension so dreadful, but nature sunk under the burden, and he died in a few minutes.

Another case happened in Italy, and was in the following manner:

Nicolo, marquis of Ferrara, was taken ill of a quartan fever, which continued so violent that his physicians gave him up, and sent him to a house he