regularly of all that passes." "Five of my horses thing. I should not like to serve with a man who

are dead of fatigue," he writes to Salicetti; "I cannot write to the Directory: I beg of you to inform it of what you see, and of what Louis will tell you verbally." "I do not hear from you so often as I wish ;""Let me know everything," are his constant exclamations. He found time for the minutest regulations. He enjoins the commandants of his garrisons what company they are to keep, and in what style they are to live. However distant might be the divisions of his army, he seemed constantly present among them, and was never absent where the true blow was to be struck. Succor always arrived where succor was most needed.

He had formed a correct judgment of the character of the Directory, and knew how to obtain its confidence. With success, he managed to remit it supplies. Before he had been six weeks in Italy, he proposes to send a million of francs to the army of the Rhine. A little later and the Directory find themselves able to draw on him for ten inillions. He knew the spirit of his employers, and sold peace dearly. He writes to the Directory, June 7:-

"I shall soon be at Bologna. Is it your pleasure that I should then accept from the pope, as the price of an armistice, twenty-five millions of contributions in cash, five millions in kind, three hundred pictures, statues and manuscripts in proportion, and that I insist on the release of all patriots confined for revolutionary acts? I shall have sufficient time to receive your orders, since I shall not be at Bologna for these ten or fifteen days.

Who can wonder that the Directors were in raptures at their choice? On the 8th of June he

writes:

"A commissioner of the Directory is come for the contributions. A million has been despatched to Basle for the army of the Rhine. You have eight millions at Genoa: you can reckon upon that. Two millions more were going off for Paris; but the commissary assured me that it is your intention that the whole should go to Genoa."

Under date of July 5 he writes to the commissioner of marine at Toulon

66

Eighty carriages loaded with hemp are about to start from Bologna for Nice, where they will be at your disposal.

"I have written to the minister of the marine to inform him that he might send commissioners to Rome, to receive to the amount of 4,000,000 in cash."

On the part of the Directory, Reveillere-Lepeux writes back to Napoleon, August 23, 1796 :

"The supplies which the ariny of Italy pours into the national treasury are the more valuable the more violent the crisis: they have contributed to thwart the plots of our internal enemies."

deems himself the first general in Europe; and I
think, besides, that it is better to have one bad
general than two good ones.
War is like govern
ment-it is an affair of tact."

To the Directory he is yet more explicit :-
"If you impose fetters of all kinds upon me; if
I must refer at every step to the commissioners of
the government; if they have a right to change
my movements, to take from me or to send me
troops, expect no more good. If you weaken your
means by dividing your forces; if you break the
unity of military conception in Italy; I tell you
with grief, you will have thrown away the fairest
occasion for imposing laws upon Italy.

"In the position of the affairs of the republic in Italy, it is indispensable that you should have a general who possesses your entire confidence; if it were not to be myself I should not complain, but I would strive to redouble my zeal to deserve your esteem in the post that you should confer upon me. Every one has his own method of making war. General Kellerman has more experience, and will do better than I; but, both together there, we should do nothing but mischief."

The next despatches brought news of great suc cesses, and the Directory yielded, avowing the confidence it had in his talents and republican zeal. He frequently arraigns the measures of the Directory with great bitterness. "Our administrative conduct at Leghorn, "is detestable. It makes us pass in the eyes of all Italy for Vandals." To reproaches of this kind the Directory replied submissively. Reveillere-Lepeux writes July 31, 1796

"he says,

"You possess, citizen-general, the confidence of the Directory: the services which you are daily rendering give you a right to it; the considerable sums which the republic owes to your victories prove that you attend at once to glory and to the interests of your country.'

In this campaign he began accustomed to col sider himself as entitled to the first consideration of the state. He calls continually for reinforcements, and uses persuasions, threats, and menaces to obtain them. "The more men you send me, the better I shall be able to feed them." When expecting the assault of a fresh army from Austria, he writes, Oct. 1, 1796:

"If the preservation of Italy is dear to you, citizens directors, send me all these succors. want also 20,000 muskets: but these things must arrive, and not be like all that is promised to this army, but never comes.'

The Directory were liberal in their promises. They continually write, expect 10,000 men from the army of the ocean, 10,000 from the Rhine, &c., &c. But Napoleon expected them in vain. The war administration was both corrupt and incapable, and promises were nearly all that Napo leon received. His mortification rose into rage at finding himself so often deceived. Desertion must have prevailed on the most extensive scale. He "Do not expect more than half the troops you send to reach me. The others will drop off on the road."

The Directors sold themselves to Bonaparte. He saw his advantage, and soon asserted the superiority of command. When it was proposed constantly says, to associate Kellerman with him, he decisively refused. His answer shows both his resolution and his judgment. To Carnot he says, May 14, 1796

"Kellerman will command the army as well as I, for nobody is more convinced than myself that

His style of composition is remarkable. It is abrupt, stern, and commanding. The opening of his letter to the minister of the king of Sardinia is very characteristic :

the victories are owing to the courage and daring "I am no diplomatist, sir; I am a soldier: you of the army; but I cannot help thinking that to will forgive my frankness. In different parts of unite Kellerman with me in Italy would ruin every- his majesty's dominions the French are murdered,

robbed. By the treaty of peace, the king, who is is animated with the best spirit, and in the best disbound to grant us a passage through his territories, positions." ought to make it safe for us, &c.

His perception of character seems to have been instinctive. He formed his judgment of his officers at once, and rarely appears to have been mistaken. The note in which he gives his opinion of his generals of division to the Directory is striking:

66

Occasionally short sentences of profound wisdom People judge of men, sir, by their actions and general applicability are found in his hurried alone the integrity of the king is universally letters. Alluding, April 16, 1797, to the hesitaknown; yet one is almost forced to think that tion of Moreau in crossing the Rhine, he says:there are political reasons which cause atrocities" He who is fearful of losing his glory is sure to so revolting to be encouraged or at least toler- lose it." And again" Never since history has ated." recorded military operations has a river proved a real obstacle." His sarcasm is cutting. Of Genoa he remarks, it will be easy to attach it to France, "if no attempt is made to extract from them their money, which is the only thing they care about." He asks the Directory to send him some cavalry officers who have fire, and a firm resolution never to make a scientific retreat." Fond of daring actions, he could yet discriminate between rashness and decision. "That man,' ," he says, speaking of Beaulieu, "has the daring of madness and not that of genius." Noticing the approach of the dog-days in Italy, which would stop all operations, he exclaims:-" Miserable beings that we are, we can only observe nature, not overcome it." Relating a stratagem he had formed for the surprise of Mantua, he expresses himself doubtful of its result:-"The success of this coup-de-main, like others of the same kind, depends absolutely on luck, on a dog or a goose."

"Head-quarters, Brescia, August 13, 1796. I think it useful, citizens directors, to give you my opinion of the generals employed in this army. You will see that there are very few who can be of service to me.

"Berthier: talents, courage, character-everything in his favor.

66

Augereau: a great deal of character, courage, firmness, activity; habit of war; is beloved by the soldiers; lucky in his operations.

"Massena active, indefatigable, daring; has quickness of apprehension and promptness in de

cision.

"Serrurier: fights like a soldier, takes nothing upon himself, firm, has not a very good opinion of his troops; is ill.

66

Despinois soft, without activity, without daring, has not fighting habits, is not liked by the soldiers, does not fight at their head; has, for the rest, hauteur, intelligence, and sound political principles fit to command in the interior.

"Sauret: good, very good soldier, but not enlightened enough to be general; not lucky.

Abatucci: not fit to cominand fifty men.

Garnier, Meunier, Cassabianca: incapable, not fit to command a battalion in so active and so seri

ous a war as this.

Macquart: : a brave man, no talents, fiery. "Gauthier fit for an office (bureau); never was engaged in war.

The faithlessness of Napoleon's character often breaks out in these volumes. He had for truth not only a disregard, but a contempt. He never negotiated but to deceive. Falsehood, he seems to have regarded as an allowable artifice. Relating to the Directory, the means by which he extracted supplies from Venice, and had entangled that state in a quarrel, he says, June 7, 1796 :

"If your plan is to extract five or six millions from Venice, I have purposely provided this sort of indemnity for the battle of Borghetto, which I was rupture for you. You might demand it by way of obliged to fight in order to take that place. If you have more decided intentions, I think you ought to keep up this subject of quarrel, inform me of what you design to do, and await the favorable moment, which I will seize according to circumstances; for we must not have all the world upon our hands at "" once.

"Vaubois and Sahuguet were employed in the fortresses; I have transferred them to the army: I shall learn to appreciate them; they have both In his dealings with Genoa, he was equally faith-acquitted themselves extremely well of the com-less. He writes to the French agent in that city.. missions that I have hitherto given them; but June 15, 1796 :the example of General Despinois, who was all right at Milan, and all wrong at the head of his division, orders me to judge of men by their

actions.

"BONAPARTE."

All his despatches are short, but full of matter. He never fences with his subject. He expresses himself with clearness and precision, but in few words. His account of the defeat of the last army Austria on this occasion sent into the field, is in his usual energetic style :

Thus during the last three or four days the fifth army of the emperor is entirely destroyed. We have taken 23,000 prisoners, among whom are one lieutenant-general and two generals; 6,000 men killed or wounded; sixty pieces of cannon, and about twenty-four colors. All the battalions of Vienna volunteers have been made prisoners their colors are embroidered by the empress herself. General Alvinzi's army was nearly 50,000 strong part of it had come post from the heart of Austria. In all these affairs we have had but 700 men killed and about 1,200 wounded. The army

But it was in his negotiations with the court of Rome that his duplicity was the most conspicuous. Agreeing to Bonaparte's representations, the Directory authorized him (October 15, 1790) to continue negotiations with Rome until, having settled other affairs, he felt himself strong enough to march against the Papal States:

"We can now think with more advantage of chastising the obstinacy of the pope, who has refused the conditions of the peace; but the taking of Rome is a great and delicate operation in the state in which we are at present, and ought not to be undertaken till the most favorable moment. You have seen by one of our late despatches that, to cover our ulterior plans, we have enjoined our commissioners with the army of Italy to spin out the

negotiation with the pope; but we request yon to inform citizen Cacault that he is exclusively charged with the measures which he has to take, in order to keep up a feeling of security in Rome, and to prevent any suspicion of our designs, till you can engage in the execution of them."

These sentiments were in perfect conformity with those entertained by Napoleon. Indeed, he did not want to receive them to carry out the deception they recommended. He wrote to Cardinal Mattei, urgently entreating him to use his influence with the pope to prevent hostilities, and stated in the most express and solemn terms his desire for peace :

"Head-quarters, Ferrara, Oct. 21, 1796. "The court of Rome has refused to adopt the conditions of peace offered by the Directory; it has broken the armistice, and, while suspending the execution of the conditions, it is arming; it wishes for war, and shall have it; but, before I can in cold blood foresee the ruin and death of those senseless persons who would pretend to oppose the republican phalanxes, I owe it to my nation, to humanity, to myself, to make a last effort to bring back the pope to more moderate sentiments, conformable to his true interests, to his character, and to reason.

have merited by my services the approbation of the government and of the nation; I have received repeated marks of its esteem. I have now no more to do but to mingle again with the crowd, to grasp once more the plough of Cincinnatus, and to set an example of respect for magistrates and aversion for military rule, which has destroyed so many republics and ruined several states.

At that moment he was probably meditating the seizure of the supreme authority. For some months previously he had regarded himself as the first person in the state, and must have had profound contempt for the government he expressed his intention of obeying.

As illustrating the most important and brilliant period of Napoleon's life, we regard these volumes as of the first importance. They exhibit his character in all its brilliancy of light, and depth of shadow. They show the general of unrivalled skill, decision, activity, and courage, and the adventurer of boundless ambition, treachery, and falsehood. With Napoleon no peace could ever have been lasting. The last policy pursued towards him was the bravest and wisest to declare war against him unto death, and to regard him as an enemy to the peace and security of mankind.

"The French government permits me still to listen to negotiations for peace; everything may be arranged. War, so cruel for the people, has MR. AMOS' TRIAL OF SOMERSET FOR THE terrible results for the vanquished; avert great calamities from the pope. You know how anxious I am to finish by peace a struggle that war would terminate for me without glory as without dan

ger."

To judge of the sincerity of this communication, we have only to turn to the letter he writes (three days later) to "citizen Cacault," the French minister at Rome :

MURDER OF OVERBURY.*

THE historical greatness of some of the persons implicated, and the mystery in which it was involved, have given an interest to everything connected with the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, that more remarkable trials in a merely criminal sense do not inspire. Something, too, must be added for the manner in which the case has been presented to us by eminent writers; something for the previous circumstances attendant upon the con"Verona, Oct. 24, 1796. "The Directory informs me that it has charged deal, perhaps, to the necessary haze in which the nexion of Somerset with lady Essex; and a good you to continue the negotiations with Rome. You will keep me regularly apprized of what you are cencies that would attend upon its full display. As story must be popularly presented, from the indedoing, that I may seize the favorable moment for executing the intentions of the Directory. You are crime in high places, we do not think that it proves an example of the probable prevalence of atrocious well aware that, after the peace with Naples and much, from the evident horror with which it was Genoa, the good harmony which prevails with the regarded by the public; though it may be readily king of Sardinia, the recapture of Corsica, and our decided superiority in the Mediterranean, I shall enough received as a specimen of the court of James not delay for a moment to rush upon Rome, and to most criminal in our annals. the First-the grossest and basest and perhaps the avenge the national honor; the great point just now is to gain time. My intention is, when I enter the papal territories, and it will not be long first, to do it in consequence of the armistice, in order to take possession of Ancona; thence, after setting my rear in order, I shall be better able to proceed further. In short, the great art at this moment is to keep up the ball between us to deceive the old fox."

At every period of his life Napoleon was equally faithless. It may safely be asserted that he never entered on a negotiation but with some treacherous purpose, and never concluded a treaty he did not intend to break, when a favorable moment for war presented itself.

Hypocrisy seems to have been natural to his character. In the last despatch of this collection, Oct. 10, 1797, he recounts to the Directory the articles of the treaty of peace he had concluded, and speaks of withdrawing into retirement :

"I think that I have done what every member of the Directory would have done in my place.

I

A full exhibition of the whole case-a complete very curious and interesting book; especially if filling up of the outlines of Hume-would form 8 recourse were had to our manuscript depositories, now so accessible for literary purposes. From the great mass of materials, either of subordinate interest, or so like in character as to be little more than repetitions, considerable art must be used in their management; so that while the reader should have all the original evidence which bears upon the proof or illustrates the manners of the age, mere formal matters or repetitions should be avoided. As far as regards industry and research upon points connected with his subject-matter," the trial of the Earl of Somerset for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury," Mr. Amos leaves little to desire. Whether the subject has not been too much limited to the simple

*The Great Oyer of Poisoning: the trial of the Earl of Somerset for the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, in with, from contemporary MSS. By Andrew Amos, Esq. the tower of London, and various matters connected there late member of the supreme council of India.-Bentley.

MR. AMOS' TRial of somerSET FOR THE MURDER OF OVERBURY.

591

That

fact of trial and guilt, may be a question; there is the countess to Overbury-the quarrel between
no doubt but that the materials are inartistically pre- Overbury and Somerset-the imprisonment of the
sented. The Great Oyer of Poisoning is neither a former at the instance of the latter-the removal of
story of the whole proceedings, such as we find in one lieutenant of the tower, the appointment of
some foreign narratives of criminal cases, nor a another, and the only known agents in the busines
simple report of the trial, nor a collection of origi- being traced to Somerset, or at least to his wife
nal documents relating to it, but to some extent are strong moral and indeed legal presumptions
partakes of the nature of all three, without the unity against him. The motives of James are hazy, and
and character of either. Mr. Amos opens his work are not known; they have to be conjectured.
with a review of the previous circumstances which Overbury was in possession of some mysterious
led to the murder of Overbury. In this he is brief, secret, either relating to the murder of prince
and somewhat jejune; for which it may be said, Henry-a fact, by the by, never established-or to
that fulness was very difficult, consistently with the king's addiction to an infamous vice, is mere
modern delicacy, in all that concerned the intrigues guess. Whatever Overbury knew we may be sure
and divorce of Lady Essex; but there was no occa- that Somerset knew; so that the king had as much
sion to dwell, as Mr. Amos does at length and in a inducement to poison his favorite as his favorite's
kind of annual-writer style, upon the mere exter- friend. That there was something between" the
nals of the subjects-as masques and court parties. king and Somerset, was known by the anxiety of
The trial of Somerset from the State Trials, its com- James to get him to plead guilty, and by his prede
parison with another report in the State Paper Office, termined pardon if he behaved inoffensively. Som-
and the publication in full of many examinations erset (and additional proofs under Coke's own hand
that were garbled or suppressed at the trial, have are given in this volume) displayed the coolness of
the interest attending upon original documents, in conscious innocence or conscious safety; whilst the
an age when more dramatic character was pos- cautious manner in which he conducted his own
sessed by individuals and more dramatic spirit defence, yet firmly protesting his innocence, led
infused into life. The remarks on the conduct of some of his contemporaries to infer his ignorance
king James, and an endeavor to penetrate the of the murder. On a trial under the modern sys
motives of its mystery-the elaborate exhibitions tem, (as put by Mr. Amos-though, as such a
of the behavior of Coke and Bacon in reference crime is impossible in our times, the supposition
to the getting-up and public management of the must pass for nothing,) Somerset would probably
case, with some observations on the general nature have been acquitted; but rather under a verdict of
of the charge against Somerset-have a relation
not proven "than "not guilty." We should,
to the main business, but are rather of the nature however, feel more inclined to adopt the hypothesis
of antiquarian criticism than popular disquisi- of Mr. Amos as to the guilt of James than the inno-
tion. But the true fault of all these chapters, cence of Somerset.
and indeed of the book, is diffuseness and overdo-
ing. Mr. Amos cannot let a position speak for
itself, or be content after proving without over-
whelming it. If he wishes to impress the caution
with which the confessions of condemned criminals
should be received, he quotes from Jonathan Wild
and The Beggar's Opera; and he continually wan-
ders as far if not so wide for illustrations of plain
positions. Hence, a heavy and lumbering character
is imparted to the matter of the book, and the style
frequently approaches the twaddling.

The examination of the professional conduct of Coke and Bacon in relation to this murder, and the detection of the murderers, is rather collateral than principal to the subject of the book. It therefore wants the attraction of closeness and coherence. Read as separate disquisitions on Coke and Bacon, they possess considerable interest, from the light they throw on the character of their respective minds. We see Coke untiring in labor, patient over the slightest facts, and wonderfully painstaking in conning the details till he had thoroughly masNotwithstanding the number of new documents tered them and was ready to work up the whole from the State Paper Office, we do not know that into a conclusive case. The legal character of his the general conclusion formed by contemporaries mind is visible throughout. He is submissive to and continued to the present day is much affected. the king, ready to do his business, and without bogThat Overbury was poisoned, we think is clear gling at scruples; but he must do it in a businessenough; that Somerset's wife, the divorced lady like way. He will not mind straining the law, or Essex, instigated the plot, seems equally clear; as terrifying the witnesses; but he must work by well as that Franklin the apothecary and Mrs. Turner means of evidence, no matter what its moral value, concocted and conveyed the poisons; whilst Weston, or how he gets at it; it seems pretty clear that he the jailer of Overbury, administered them, with the pursued evidence which the king might rather have cognizance and sanction of Elwes or Helwysse, the held in; and he appears to have had that high progovernor of the Tower, appointed by Somerset and fessional feeling which renders some eminent men his friends-pro hac vice, as it is inferred. That inclined to give despotic_advice to their patients or the earlier poisons were not administered through clients. The mind of Bacon on the other hand, fear and struggles of conscience, as declared in the was more various and elastic. He studied to anticconfessions of Weston and Elwes, is likely; be-ipate the wishes, he soothed the conscience, (or cause it seems impossible for Overbury to have sur- what might pass for conscience,) and he considered vived so long had he taken some of the doses. It is the honor of the king, as well as regarded public even possible that their unskilled and bungling efforts appearances. The treatment of Bacon was more might not destroy him after all, but that, as Mr. of the scholar, the courtier, the politician, and Amos infers, he was really done to death by a orator. Coke was only the lawyer; but, as law clyster prescribed by the French physician of James and administered by the French apothecary Lobell; Somerset himself being innocent of the plots both of the monarch and his wife. The only evidence of this view, however, is a series of refined and rather far-fetched inferences. The hatred of

was the matter in hand, we suspect he shows to most advantage in the business. Mr. Amos is quite right in holding that the prosecutions for the Overbury murders cannot properly be passed over in the lives of either Coke or Bacon. The inquiry will not reflect much credit upon Coke, and, we

grieve to say, will only further confirm the truth of Pope's characteristic of Bacon, "meanest of mankind."

A useful feature in the book, though somewhat interfering with its march, are the remarks on former legal practices, which Mr. Amos introduces from time to time as the text gives occasion to it. Of these we quote a few.

CHARACTER OF THE OLDER STATE TRIALS.

"Ordered, that the writers be turned out of the court.

"And accordingly they were turned out, at the repeated instances, &c. However, thus far the short-hand writers had proceeded with great exactness; and they are ready, by their handwriting and notes, to justify all before mentioned in this trial, which by this time was very nearly ended.'

INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE.

"In a paper which one Haagen, executed for the abduction of an heiress in the first year of the reign "It is to be regretted that in Hargrave's and in of queen Anne, delivered to the sheriff on the scafHowell's State Trials the reader is seldom fur-fold, he complains-I expected my trial should be nished with any references to the authorities from published, that the world might see my treatment, which the reports of the different trials are taken. what I have done and what I have left undone in The reports of the more ancient trials in these col- my case; but I am informed it may not be lections were most probably copied from publica-printed." " tions prepared under the inspection of the chief officers of state and of the law, and sometimes revised by the sovereign himself. We should not attach much credit to a report published by the Austrian government of a trial of William Tell, or by the French republic of the trials of Louis XVI., and of queen Marie Antoinette; but, in our domestic history, we are too apt to surrender our belief to the only extant details of our ancient State Trials, without duly considering by whom and with what motives they were published.

"The Rack was a large wooden frame, of oak, raised three feet from the ground; the prisoner was laid under it on his back upon the floor; his wrists and ankles were attached by cords to two collars at the ends of the frame; these ends were moved by levers in opposite directions, till the body rose to the level of the frame; questions were then put; and if the answers did not prove satisfactory, the sufferer was stretched more and more, by the further elongation of the ends of the frame from each other, through means of the levers, until the bones started from their sockets.

"The course of proceeding in ancient times for crushing an individual who had excited fears or kindled hatred in the breast of a sovereign, was somewhat after the following manner. Written "The Scavenger's Daughter, another instrument examinations were taken in secret, and often wrung of torture used in the tower, was a broad hoop of from prisoners by the agonies of the rack. Such iron, consisting of two parts fastened to each other by parts of these documents, and such parts only as a hinge; it operated by pressure over the small of the were criminative, were read before a judge remov-back, and by force of the compression soon caused able at the will of the crown, and a jury packed for the blood to flow from the nostrils. the occasion, who gave their verdict under the terror of fine and imprisonment. Speedily the government published whatever account of the trials suited their purposes. Subservient divines were next appointed to press the consciences,' as it was called, of the condemned, in their cells and on the scaffold; and the transaction terminated with another government brochure, full of dying contrition and eulogy by the criminal on all who had been instrumental in bringing him to the gallows. In the mean while, the star chamber, with its pillories, its S. L.s branded on the cheeks with a hot iron, its mutilations of ears, and ruinous fines prohibited the unauthorized publication of trials, and all free discussions upon them, as amounting to an arraignment of the king's justice.

"The right of publishing State Trials, till a comparatively late period, appears to have been restricted to persons appointed for the purpose. Thus, in regard to the trial of Plunket, the titular Primate of Ireland, for high treason, in the thirtythird year of Charles II., we have the following imprimatur 'I do appoint Francis Tyton and Thomas Basset to print the trials of Edward Fitzharris and Oliver Planket; and that no others presume to print the same. F. Pemberton.'

"In the time of Queen Anne, long after the abolition of the Star Chamber and the emancipation of the press, we have, an instance of jealousy entertained in regard to the unrestricted publication of trials. It is the more remarkable as it occurred before Lord Halt, a strenuous champion for liberty. The transaction is thus related in Howell's State Trials, vol. xiv. p. 935.

"The Iron Gauntlet, another kind of torture, served to compress the wrists and suspend the prisoner in the air from two distant points of a beam. 'I felt,' said F. Gerard, one of the sufferers by this kind of torture, the chief pain in my breasts, belly, arms, and hands. I thought that all the blood in my body had run into my arms, and began to burst out at my finger-ends. This was a mistake; but my arms swelled till the gauntlets were buried within the flesh. After being thus suspended an hour, I fainted; and when I came to myself I found the executioners supporting me in their arms; they replaced the pieces of wood under my feet; but as soon as I recovered, removed them again. Thus I continued hanging for the space of five hours, during which I fainted eight or nine times.'

"A fourth kind of torture used in the tower was called Little Ease. It was of so small dimensions, and so constructed, that the prisoner could neither stand, walk, sit, nor lie in it at full length. He was compelled to draw himself up in a squatting posture, and so remain during several days."

THE LATER PLATONISTS.-" The later Platonists of Alexandria have perhaps hardly had justice done them by the moderns, either in regard to the improvement which they wrought in paganism, or the share which they have had in forming the present opinions of the world. Taking the doctrine of Plato as the foundation, borrowing something from the Jews and something sophical religion, which we may think of little worth from the other sects of pagans, they formed a philowhen offered as the rival of Christianity, but which we ought to admire as surpassing any other scct of Counsel-My Lord, we insist upon it, that paganism."-Sharpe's Egypt. these fellows should not go on writing.