the sea-shore. Ely's subsequent course in his profession was prosperous, until this rash (to say the least of it) and fatal duel brought ruin and death upon him.

While under condemnation, Ely frequently spoke of the friendship that had been betwixt himself and Lieutenant Bignell before their unfortunate quarrel. He said that he had used the lieutenant like a brother; that he lent him ten guineas, and his best linen, when he went to London, to make his application to the Lord High Admiral for preferment; and that, though they quarreled about two guineas, yet he never took a note of Mr. Bignell's for what he lent him. They were, he said, hardly ever separate, but kept the same company, and when on shore were almost continually shooting or hunting together, their first acquaintance having been occasioned by mutual taste for such kind of sports.

Ely's behaviour was fully in accordance with the melancholy circumstances he lay under. He showed great remorse for his crime. He complained much of the brutal habits and manners of a seafaring life. He attended public prayers, and sometimes desired the Ordinary of Newgate, the Rev. Mr. Purney, to pray with him in private. A few days before his execution, he said he was

out of love with the world, and well satisfied to die, in expectation of eternal life.

He was executed at Tyburn, on the 8th February, 1720, in the thirty-second year of his age.

THE SPECTRAL TREASURE.

HONORÉ MIRABEL, a peasant of the district of Pertuis, in Provence, was a servant in the farm of a Demoiselle Gay, who lived in the neighbourhood of Marseilles. Mirabel, it seems, did not like the peasant's life; he was tired of its pains and labours, which subjected him to pass day after day in the heat of a burning sun. He pondered on some expedient to free him from his condition, and he came to a strange conclusion: he thought of no better means for his purpose, than to give himself out for a wealthy man, on the strength of an imaginary treasure. His plot was this. He . promulgated a marvellous narrative. He asserted that in the month of May, at eleven o'clock at night, he was sleeping under an almond-tree, in the grounds of his mistress, when, by the light of

the moon, he saw a man at the window of a neighbouring farm, which was situate not above five or six paces from where he was, and belonged to a woman named Placasse. As the farm-house was uninhabited, the sight of the man surprised Mirabel, and he called out to know what he was doing there; but questioned in vain. The stranger played the same mute part as the statue does in Don Juan, when his health is drunk by the Don. Such obstinate silence piqued the querist; the door of the farm-house was without bolt, and open; the fancy seized him to enter and accost the stranger. Accordingly, he went up the steps into the house; but, after having minutely searched, he could find no one. He then imagined that the appearance must be a ghost. Struck with this notion, he, in sudden fear, rushed down the steps, taking four at a time. Parched with the fright, he went to a well close by; and while drinking, heard a stifled voice from behind address him, using his native district name, thus :-" Pertuisan, a treasure is buried here; you have only to dig, and it will be yours: have masses said for me." He then saw a small stone fall upon a certain spot, marking, as he understood, the place where he was to dig. This good news overpowered him; he could not act alone, and he went to unburthen his mind to one Bernard, a servant,

like himself, to a woman keeping a farm. This man and Mirabel went at once to dig, and Bernard's mistress joined the party. This occurred before five in the morning. On penetrating into the marked piece of ground, they found a small bundle, wrapped in dirty linen. On being struck with a pickaxe, the bundle returned, to the great joy of its discoverers, a tinkling sound. Yet no one dared to touch the parcel, Mirabel expressing a fear lest it should be infectious-a dread likely to terrify people in a place so plague-subject as Marseilles and its neighbourhood. Mirabel made a hook with a branch of the almond-tree, to lay hold of the packet. Having got it thus, he carried it to his chamber, still keeping it suspended at the end of the bough. He then dipped the packet in a vessel full of wine, in default of vinegar; opened it, and found, he declared, upwards of a thousand pieces of gold, in Portuguese coin. Bernard and his mistress (be it observed) had no sight of the treaWhen Mirabel told them of it, they asked him what he had done with it, but he evaded their anxiety, by informing them his main object was to secure his treasure from thieves, by putting it in a secret and secure receptacle. He applied for and had some masses said for the soul of the deceased, whose spirit he saw; and he had himself bled four times, letting every one know it

sure.