friend, come and see me, and I will endeavour to get you provided for."

CONFLAGRATION OF MOSCOW.

During the conflagration of Moscow, a French family, consisting of a father, mother, and five children, were obliged to quit the smoking ruins of their habitation. They got outside the ruins, and protected themselves from the inclemency of the weather in the best manner they could. A party of Cossacks passing, killed the father. The mother died next day from grief, and the inclemency of the weather. A Russian courier going to St. Petersburg hearing that five children lay perishing of cold and hunger on the road, humanely took them into his travelling vehicle, and conveyed them safely to St. Petersburg. Here the poor fellow exhibited them in the market place, telling every one their lamentable story, and begging for a father and mother to them. At length a French merchant came ; took them home, supplied them with every comfort, and finally restored them to their friends in France.

CHRISTIAN II. OF SWEDEN.

Cicero has said, in speaking of the famous Dictator Sylla, "Sullana confers, in quibus omnia genere ipso præclarissima fuerunt moderatione paulo minus temperata." This reflection is perhaps still more applicable to Christian II. the last sovereign of the three United Scandinavian kingdoms, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The object of the Dictator was to preserve

and augment the power of the patrician order; and Cicero, one of that order, could not help judging tenderly of a tyranny which operated so much to its advantage. Christian, on the contrary, had constantly in view the enfranchisement of the burgesses and peasantry from the oppressive yoke of the clergy and nobility. Sylla counted among his friends, all who were distinguished by their education and knowledge. Christian had all that class of men for his enemies; for in his time none but nobles and ecclesiastics knew how to read or write.

The only contemporary history we have of Christian was of course furnished by men who were his enemies, and it is unnecessary to state the degree of credit which is due to the history of a dethroned prince, written by rebels to his authority, under the direction of the usurper of his throne. They have handed his name down to posterity with the surname of "The Cruel ;" and there is no sort of atrocity, however incredible, with which they have not endeavoured to sully his memory.

The best criterion to which we can refer for the character of a monarch and of his government, is undoubtedly the body of laws published during his reign. The defamers of Christian appear to have found it to their interest to use every possible exertion to consign this part of his history to oblivion. After Christian's fall, the ambitious Frederick, Duke of Holstein, his uncle, and usurper of his throne, not content with abolishing all the laws passed by Christian, ordered them to be publicly burnt by the hands of the executioner. Neither the rage of man, wasting hand of time, has however been able entirely

nor the

to cut the remembrance of them from off the face of the earth. Some copies of a very rare edition of these laws, printed at Copenhagen in 1684, are still extant; and they may be referred to for positive evidence in favour of Christian's character, far outweighing all the loose and aggravated charges which prejudice and Imalignity have been able to heap upon it. In this collection not one law is to be found which does not breathe a spirit of justice, and an earnest desire to make all his subjects participate equally in the national prosperity. A few examples which fall particularly under our present title will suffice to shew the spirit which animated the government of Christian.

Before the time of Christian, the peasants of Scandinavia were considered as a sort of merchandize, or rather as beasts of burden, belonging to the nobility and the clergy, exclusive proprietors of all lands. The lords had even usurped the right of selling their vassals and their offspring at pleasure. A law of Christian "the Cruel" freed the peasants from this shameful state of slavery; but his successor re-established it, and it took three ages of incessant struggling before the peasantry effected that emancipation, which Christian had spontaneously designed for them.

Among other innumerable abuses which originated in the night of time, we may also rank the law which adjudged to the owners of lands adjoining to the sea, the right of appropriating all shipwrecked goods and property. The exercise of this pretended right had given rise to the most horrible crimes. The bishops especially were accused of using it in a manner worthy only of the pirates of Tunis and Algiers. Christian "the Cruel" issued an edict which guaranteed the

lives and properties of persons shipwrecked. The bishops of Zutland represented to his majesty, that this regulation would cause a loss to the treasury of more than a hundred thousand crowns per annum. "God forbid," replied Christian, "that I should enrich myself by the misfortunes of others." One of the bishops insolently addressed a memorial to Christian, in which he said, that he did not find that the Holy Scriptures contained any thing which blamed the droit d'epave (right of wreckage). Christian, as a sufficient answer, returned him a copy of the following commandments of the Decalogue :

"Thou shalt do no murder."

"Thou shalt not steal."

To vindicate all the acts of this monarch's reign, is as foreign to our purpose as to our opinions. The "massacre (as it has been termed) of Stockholm," is a transaction of which it is impossible to speak without the deepest execration; but while such proofs of deliberate justice and humanity on the part of Christian are extant, they ought to incline us to be slow in believing, that his share in that deed of iniquity was so personal as his enemies represent. It is quite certain, that the enormity of the affair has been most grossly exaggerated, and it is probable that impartial history may yet discover, that Christian was involved in it more through the machinations of a wicked set of advisers, than from the natural impulses of his own breast.

MRS. FRY.

About four years ago, Mrs. Fry was induced to visit Newgate, by the representations of its state made by some persons of the Society of Friends. She found the female side in a situation which no language can describe. Nearly three hundred women sent there for every gradation of crime, some untried and some under sentence of death, were crowded together in the two wards and two cells which are now appropriated to the untried alone, and are found quite inadequate to contain even the diminished number. Every one, even the governor, was reluctant to go amongst them. He persuaded Mrs. Fry to leave her watch in the office, telling her that even his presence would not prevent its being torn from her. She saw enough to convince her that every thing bad was going on. "In short," said she to her friend, Mr. Buxton, in giving him this account, "all I tell thee is a faint picture of the reality; the filth, the closeness of the rooms, the ferocious manners and expression of the women towards each other, and the abandoned wickedness which every thing bespoke, are quite indescribable." One act, of which Mr. Buxton was informed from another quarter, marks the degree of wretchedness to which they were reduced. Two women were seen in the act of stripping a dead child, for the purpose of clothing a living one!

Circumstances rendered any effort on Mrs. Fry's part to reform this den of iniquity impossible at this time; but about Christmas, 1816, she resumed her visits, and succeeded in forming a Ladies' Committee,