Servia. The entire produce of his hunting was publickly sold for his own profit. He also sought to augmenthis patrimony by confiscations. At the treaty of peace in 1812, Russia provided for the interests of Servia. That province was acknowledged to be a vassal, and tributary to the porte. Czerny-Georges retired to Russia, and lived at Kissonoff in Bessarabia.

His return to Servia in disguise, his discovery and execution, have recently been stated.

ANECDOTES OF PETER THE GREAT.

HISTORY, in recording the great and shining qualities of the Czar Peter I. has not concealed his imperfections, nor those peculiar faults which he committed, either when wine had drowned his reason, or those he was guilty of it in his cooler moments.

Once, in a dispute with Catharine, his wife, he broke a beautiful Venice glass, and cruelly glancing on the former obscure condition of the Czarina, he said, "You see, how, with one stroke of my hand, I can reduce this glass to the dust it came from." Yes, Sir," said Catharine, turning on him her eyes bathed with tears, "you can destroy the most beautiful ornament of your palace; you have done it, do you find your palace more splendid ?" This remark appeased the anger of Peter, which had been kindled at Catharine's energetick pleading in behalf of her lady-in waiting, who had been sentenced to receive the punishment of the knout. The Czar let her off with six lashes, which he thought was a great proof of his clemency.

A Boyard, with whom he was once crossing a river, in a boat, ventured to contradict him in conversation. The Czar seized him by the collar, and was about to throw him overboard: "You may

drown me," said the Boyard, "but if will not embellish your history." The Czar was struck with the truth of this remark, shook hands with the Boyard, and ever after gave him marks of friendship and esteem. Often ashamed, himself, of his excesses, he frequently said to his favourite, Lefort, "I have improved and reformed my nation, would to heaven I could reform myself."

MADAME DORE,

FEMALE presence of mind it was that once saved the town of Lymington from the destructive visits of the French. A party of maráuders from that country landed for the purpose of plunder. But the leader, yielding to the calls of extreme hunger, resolved to satisfy his appetite before he completed the purpose of his visit. He was directed, by seeming chance, to the habitation of Mrs. Dore, a person of consequence, and who was then seated at the head of a plentiful table. The abrupt entrance of her foreign guest discovered to her in a moment the danger which threatened the town and its inhabitants. An intuitive quickness of thought, and an uncommon degree of fortitude, instantly pointed out to her the proper line of behaviour she had to observe. She received the Frenchman and his boisterous followers with the greatest affability; set before them all the delicacies her house afforded, and enlivened the repast with many sallies of wit, and the most unrestrained pleasantry of manners. The commander, who possessed much of his nation's gallantry, was completely fascinated by the winning manners and profuse bounty of his amiable hostess he sacrificed his interest to his gratitude, and left the town without perpetrating one act of de

vastation.

From the Edinburgh Magazine, for April 1818.
CONSTANTINOPLE.

The following passage from Neale's Travels, gives us a livelieridea than we have any where pre viously attained, of the general effect, if it may be so called, of this vast and barbarous metropolis of the East.

"IT would be difficult for any imagination, even the most romantick or distempered, to associate in close array all the incongruous and discordant objects which may be contemplated, even within a few hours' perambulation, in and around the Turkish capital. The barbarous extremes of magnificence and wretchedness; of power and weakness; of turpitude and magnanimity; of profligacy and sanctity; of cruelty and humanity, are all to be seen jumbled together in the most sublime or offensive combinations. The majesty and magnificence of nature, crowned with all the grandeur of human art, contrasted with the atrocious effects of unrestrained sensuality, and brutalising inherent degeneracy, fill up the vacant spaces of this varied picture.

"The howlings of ten thousand dogs re-echoing through the deserted streets all the live-long night, chase you betimes from your pillow; approaching your window you are greeted by the rays of the rising sun gilding the snowy summits of Mount Olymphus, and the beautiful shores of the sea of Marmora, the point of Chalcedon, and the town of Scutari; midway your eye ranges with delight over the marble domes of St. Sophia, the gilded pinnacles of the Seraglio glittering amidst groves of perpetual verdure, the long arcades of ancient aqueducts, and spiry minarets of a thousand mosques. While you contemplate this superb scenery, the thunders of artillery burst upon your ear, and, directing your eye to the quarter whence the sound proceeds, you may behold, proudly sailing around the point of the Seraglio, the splendid navy of the Ottomans, returning with the annual tributes of Egypt. The curling volumes of smoke ascending from the port-holes play around the bellying sails, and hide at times, the ensigns of crimson silk, besprinkled with the silvery crescents of Mahomet! The hoarse guttural sounds of a Turk selling kaimac at your door, recall your attention towards the miserable lanes of Pera, wet, splashy, dark,

The

"Having returned to the city, you are appalled by a crowd of revellers pressing around the doors of a winehouse; the sounds of minstrelsy and riot are within. You have scarcely passed when you behold two or three grazers around the door of a baker's shop; the Kaimakan has been his rounds, the weights have been found deficient, and the unfortunate man, who swings in a halter at the door, has paid for his petty villany the forfeiture of his life populace around murmur at the price of bread, but the muezzins from the adjoining minarets are proclaiming the hour of prayer, and the followers of Mahomet are pouring in to count their beads and proclaim the efficacy of faith. In an opposite coffee-house a group of Turkish soldiers, drowsy with tobacco, are dreaming over the chequers of a chess-board, or listening to the licentious fairy tales of a dervish. The passing crowd seem to have no common sympathies, jostling each other in silence on the narrow foot-path; women veiled in long caftans, emirs with green turbans, janissaries, Bostadjis, Jews, and Arminians encounter Greeks, Albanians, Franks, and Tartars.-Fatigued with such pageantry, you observe the shades of evening descend, and again sigh for repose; but the passawend with their iron-bound staves striking the pavement,

excite your attention to the cries of yanga var from the top of the adjoining tower, and you are told that the flames are in the next street. There

you may behold the devouring element overwhelming in a common ruin the property of infidels and true believers, till the shouts of the multitude an

nounce the approach of the Arch despot, and the power of a golden shower of sequins is exemplified in awakening the callous feelings of even a Turkinsh multitude, to the sufferings of their fellowcreatures, and of rendering them sensible to the common ties of humanity The fire is extinguished-and darkness of a deeper hue has succeeded to the glare of the flames; the retiring crowd, guidedtby their paper lanthorns, flit by thousands, like ignes fatui, amidst the cypress of the Champ des Morts; and, like another Mirza, after your sublime vision, you are left, not, indeed, to contemplate the lowing of the oxen in the valley of Bagdad, but to encounter the gloom and cheerless solitude of your own apartment."

From the New Monthly Magazine, April, 1818.

SWEDISH APPARITION.

To Baron de Bourgoing's account of apparitions affirmed to have been seen in Sweden, as given in one of our preceding numbers, may be added the following:

When Queen Ulrica was dead, her corpse, as usual, was placed in an open coffin, in a room hung with black and lighted with numerous wax candles; and a company of the King's Guards did duty in the ante-room. One afternoon, the carriage of the Countess Steenbock, first lady of the palace, and a particular favourite of the queen, drove up from Stockholm. The officer commanding the guard of honour, went to meet the Countess, and conducted her from the carriage to the door of the room where the deceased princess lay, which she closed after her. The long stay of the lady was ascribed to the vehemence of her grief, and the officers on duty, fearful of disturbing the free effusion of it by their presence, left her alone with the corpse. At

length, finding that she did not return, they began to apprehend that some accident had befallen her, and the captain of the guard opened the door, but instantly started back in the utmost dismay. The other officers ran up, and plainly perceived, through the half opened door, the deceased queen standing upright in her coffin and ardently embracing the Countess Steenbock. The apparition seemed to move, and soon after became enveloped in a dense smoke or vapour. When this had cleared away, the body of the queen lay in the same position as before, but the Countess was no where to be found. In vain did they search that and the adjoining apartments, while some of the party hastened to the door, thinking that she must have passed unobserved in her carriage; but neither carriage, horses, driver, or footmen were to be seen. A messenger was quickly despatched with a statement of this extraordinary circumstance to Stockholm, and there he learned that the Countess Steenbock had never quitted the capital, and that she died at the very moment when she was seen in the arms of the deceased queen. A circumstantial report of this fact was drawn up and signed by all present; and with it is said to be preserved a particular deposition of the captain, respecting an important secret which the lady communicated to him on her first entering the room.

From the Literary Panorama, March 1818,

PROOFS OF AFFECTION.

IN Greenland virgin modesty requires that a girl be carried off by her suitor; nay, even dragged by the hair, and when she is really in his hut, she runs away from him several times, and at length perhaps compels him to give a proof of his affection, by cutting the soles of her feet in several places, that she may be obliged to sit still.

Those