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'No, sir,' returned he most laconically.

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Then you might perhaps find something entertaining out of it,' added Ï.

Perhaps I might,' retorted he in a provoking accent, and surveying me from top to toe. The Frenchman laughed so did I-it is the only way when one has been more witty than wise. I returned presently, how'How charmingly might we fill a long evening,' resumed I, with, as I thought, a most ingratiating smile, "if each of the company would relate the most remarkable story he or she ever knew or heard of!'

ever, to the attack.

"Truly, we might make a long evening that way,' again retorted my torment, the Englishman.However, if you please, we will waive your plan, sir, till to-morrow; and then we shall have the additional resort of our dreams, if our memories fail us.'

DR JOHN MOORE.

DR JOHN MOORE, author of Zeluco and other works, was born at Stirling in 1729. His father was one of the clergymen of that town, but died in 1737, leaving seven children to the care of his excellent widow. Mrs Moore removed to Glasgow, where her relations resided, possessed of considerable property. After the usual education at the university of Glasgow, John began the study of medicine and surgery under Mr Gordon, a surgeon of extensive practice, with whom Smollett had been apprenticed a few years before. In his nineteenth year, Moore accompanied the Duke of Argyll's regiment abroad, and attended the military hospitals at Maestricht in the capacity of surgeon's mate. Thence he went to Flushing and Breda; and on the termination of hostilities, he accompanied General Braddock to England. Soon afterwards, he became household surgeon to the Earl of Albemarle, the British ambassador at the court of Versailles. His old master, Mr Gordon, now invited him to become a partner in his business in Glasgow, and, after two years' residence in Paris, Moore accepted the invitation. He practised for many years in Glasgow with great success. In 1772, he was induced to accompany the young Duke of Hamilton to the continent, where they resided five years, in France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. Returning in 1778, Moore removed his family to London, and commenced physician in the metropolis. In 1779, he published A View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, and Germany, in two volumes, which was received with general approbation. In 1781, appeared his View of Society and Manners in Italy; in 1785, Medical Sketches; and in 1786, his Zeluco: Various Views of Human Nature, taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic. The object of this novel was to prove that, in spite of the gayest and most prosperous appearances, inward misery always accompanies vice. The hero of the tale was the only son of a noble family in Sicily, spoiled by maternal indulgence, and at length rioting in every prodigality and vice. The idea of such a character was probably suggested by Smollett's Count Fathom, but Moore took a wider range of character and incident. He made his hero accomplished and fascinating, thus avoiding the feeling of contempt with which the abject villainy of Fathom is unavoidably regarded; and he traced, step by step, through a succession of scenes and adventures, the progress of depravity, and the effects of uncontrolled passion. The

incident of the favourite sparrow, which Zeluco squeezed to death when a boy, because it did not perform certain tricks which he had taught it, lets us at once into the pampered selfishness and passionate cruelty of his disposition. The scene of the novel is laid chiefly in Italy; and the author's familiarity with foreign manners enabled him to impart to his narrative numerous new and graphic sketches. Zeluco also serves in the Spanish army; and at another time is a slave-owner in the West Indies. The latter circumstance gives the author an opportunity of condemning the system of slavery with eloquence and humanity, and presenting some affecting pictures of suffering and attachment in the negro race. The death of Hanno, the humane and generous slave, is one of Moore's most masterly delineations. The various scenes and episodes in the novel relieve the disagreeable shades of a character constantly deepening in vice; for Zeluco has no redeeming trait to link him to our sympathy or forgiveness. Moore visited Scotland in the summer of 1786, and in the commencement of the following year, took a warm interest in the genius and fortunes of Burns. It is to him that we owe the precious Autobiography of the poet, one of the most interesting and powerful sketches that ever was written. In their correspondence we see the colossal strength and lofty mind of the peasant-bard, even when placed by the side of the accomplished and learned traveller and man of taste. In August 1792, Dr Moore accompanied the Earl of Lauderdale to Paris, and witnessed some of the early excesses of the French Revolution. Of this tour he published an account, entitled A Journal during a Residence in France, from the beginning of August to the middle of December 1792, &c. The first volume of this work was published in 1793, and a second in 1794. In 1795, Dr Moore, wishing to give a retrospective detail of the circumstances which tended to hasten the Revolution, drew up a carefully digested narrative, entitled A View of the Causes and Progress of the French Revolution, in two volumes. This is a valuable work, and it has been pretty closely followed by Sir Walter Scott in his animated and picturesque survey of the events preceding the career of Napoleon. In 1796, Dr Moore produced a second novel, Edward: Various Views of Human Nature, taken from Life and Manners, chiefly in England. As Zeluco was a model of villainy, Edward is a model of virtue. In the following year, Moore furnished a life of his friend Smollett for a collective edition of his works. In 1800 appeared his last production, Mordaunt: Sketches of Life, Character, and Manners in Various Countries, including the Memoirs of a French Lady of Quality. In this novel our author, following the example of Richardson, and Smollett's Humphry Clinker, threw his narrative into the form of letters, part being dated from the continent, and part from England. A tone of languor and insipidity pervades the story, and there is little of plot or incident to keep alive attention. Dr Moore died at Richmond on the 21st of January 1802. A complete edition of his works has been published in seven volumes, with Memoirs of his Life and Writings by Dr Robert Anderson. Of all the writings of Dr Moore, his novel of Zeluco is the most popular. Mr Dunlop has given the preference to Edward. The latter may boast of more variety of character, and is

distinguished by judicious observation and witty remark, but it is deficient in the strong interest and forcible painting of the first novel. Zeluco's murder of his child in a fit of frantic jealousy, and the discovery of the circumstance by means of the picture, is conceived with great originality, and has a striking effect. It is the poetry of romance. The attachment between Laura and Carlostein is also described with tenderness and delicacy, without degenerating into German sentimentalism or immorality. Of the lighter sketches, the scenes between the two Scotchmen, Targe and Buchanan, are perhaps the best; and their duel about Queen Mary is an inimitable piece of national caricature. There is no great aiming at moral effect in Moore's novels, unless it be in depicting the wretchedness of vice, and its tragic termination in the character of Zeluco. He was an observer rather than an inventor; he noted more than he felt. The same powers of observation displayed in his novels, and his extensive acquaintance with mankind, rendered him an admirable chronicler of the striking scenes of the French Revolution. Numerous as are the works since published on this great event, the journals and remarks of Dr Moore may still be read with pleasure and instruction. It may here be mentioned, that the distinguished Sir John Moore, who fell at Corunna, was the

eldest son of the novelist.

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Duncan Targe, a hot Highlander, who had been out in the Forty-five, and George Buchanan, born and educated among the Whigs of the west of Scotland, both serving-men in Italy, meet and dine together during the absence of their masters. After dinner, and the bottle having circulated freely, they disagree as to politics, Targe being a keen Jacobite, and the other a stanch Whig.

Buchanan filled a bumper, and gave for the toast, 'The Land of Cakes!'

This immediately dispersed the cloud which began to gather on the other's brow.

Targe drank the toast with enthusiasm, saying: 'May the Almighty pour his blessings on every hill and valley in it! That is the worst wish, Mr Buchanan, that I shall ever wish to that land.'

'It would delight your heart to behold the flourishing condition it is now in,' replied Buchanan; it was fast improving when I left it, and I have been credibly informed since that it is now a perfect garden.'

'I am very happy to hear it,' said Targe. 'Indeed,' added Buchanan, 'it has been in a state of rapid improvement ever since the Union.'

Confound the Union!' cried Targe; 'it would have improved much faster without it.'

I am not quite clear on that point, Mr Targe,' said Buchanan.

'Depend upon it,' replied Targe, 'the Union was the worst treaty that Scotland ever made.'

'I shall admit,' said Buchanan, 'that she might have made a better; but, bad as it is, our country reaps some advantage from it.'

'All the advantages are on the side of England.' 'What do you think, Mr Targe,' said Buchanan, 'of the increase of trade since the Union, and the riches which have flowed into the Lowlands of Scotland from that quarter?'

'Think!' cried Targe; why, I think they have done a great deal of mischief to the Lowlands of Scotland.' How so, my good friend?' said Buchanan.

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By spreading luxury among the inhabitants, the never-failing forerunner of effeminacy of manners. Why, I was assured,' continued Targe, by Sergeant Lewis Macneil, a Highland gentleman in the Prussian

service, that the Lowlanders, in some parts of Scotland, are now very little better than so many English.' 'O fie!' cried Buchanan; things are not come to that pass as yet, Mr Targe: your friend the sergeant assuredly exaggerates.'

'I hope he does,' replied Targe. But you must land has lost her existence as an independent state; her acknowledge,' continued he, 'that, by the Union, Scotname is swallowed up in that of England. Only read the English newspapers; they mention England, as if it were the name of the whole island. They talk of the English army, the English fleet, the English everything. They never mention Scotland, except when one of our countrymen happens to get an office under government; we are then told, with some stale gibe, that the person is a Scotchman; or, which happens still more rarely, when any of them are condemned to die at Tyburn, particular care is taken to inform the public that the criminal is originally from Scotland! But if fifty Englishmen get places, or are hanged, in one year, no remarks are made.'

'No,' said Buchanan; 'in that case it is passed over as a thing of course.'

The conversation then taking another turn, Targe, who was a great genealogist, descanted on the antiquity of certain gentlemen's families in the Highlands; which, he asserted, were far more honourable than most of the noble families either in Scotland or England. 'Is it not shameful,' added he, 'that a parcel of mushroom lords, mere sprouts from the dunghills of law or commerce, the grandsons of grocers and attorneys, should take the pass of gentlemen of the oldest families in Europe?'

'Why, as for that matter,' replied Buchanan, 'provided the grandsons of grocers or attorneys are deserving citizens, I do not perceive why they should be excluded from the king's favour more than other men.'

6

'But some of them never drew a sword in defence of either their king or country,' rejoined Targe. Assuredly,' said Buchanan, 'men may deserve honour and pre-eminence by other means than by drawing their swords.'

He then instances his celebrated namesake, George Buchanan, whom he praises warmly as having been the best Latin scholar in Europe; while Targe upbraids him for want of honesty.

In what did he ever shew any want of honesty?' said Buchanan.

'In calumniating and endeavouring to blacken the reputation of his rightful sovereign, Mary, Queen of Scots,' replied Targe, 'the most beautiful and accomplished princess that ever sat on a throne.'

'I have nothing to say either against her beauty or her accomplishments,' resumed Buchanan; but surely, Mr Targe, you must acknowledge that she was a

'Have a care what you say, sir !' interrupted Targe; I'll permit no man that ever wore breeches to speak disrespectfully of that unfortunate queen!'

'No man that ever wore either breeches or a philabeg,' replied Buchanan, 'shall prevent me from speaking the truth when I see occasion!'

'Speak as much truth as you please, sir,' rejoined Targe; but I declare that no man shall calumniate the memory of that beautiful and unfortunate princess in my presence while I can wield a claymore.'

'If you should wield fifty claymores, you cannot deny that she was a Papist!' said Buchanan. 'Well, sir,' cried Targe, 'what then? She was, like other people, of the religion in which she was bred.'

'I do not know where you may have been bred, Mr Targe,' said Buchanan; for aught I know, you may be an adherent to the worship of the scarlet lady yourself. Unless that is the case, you ought not to interest yourself in the reputation of Mary, Queen of Scots.'

'I fear you are too nearly related to the false slanderer whose name you bear!' said Targe.

'I glory in the name; and should think myself greatly

obliged to any man who could prove my relation to the great George Buchanan!' cried the other.

He was nothing but a disloyal calumniator,' cried Targe, 'who attempted to support falsehoods by forgeries, which, I thank Heaven, are now fully detected!'

'You are thankful for a very small mercy,' resumed Buchanan; but since you provoke me to it, I will tell you, in plain English, that your bonny Queen Mary was the strumpet of Bothwell, and the murderer of her husband!'

No sooner had he uttered the last sentence, than Targe flew at him like a tiger, and they were separated with difficulty by Mr N- 's groom, who was in the adjoining chamber, and had heard the altercation.

I insist on your giving me satisfaction, or retracting what you have said against the beautiful Queen of Scotland!' cried Targe.

'As for retracting what I have said,' replied Buchanan, 'that is no habit of mine; but with regard to giving you satisfaction, I am ready for that to the best of my ability; for let me tell you, sir, though I am not a Highlandman, I am a Scotchman as well as yourself, and not entirely ignorant of the use of the claymore; so name your hour, and I will meet you to-morrow morning.'

'Why not directly?' cried Targe; 'there is nobody in the garden to interrupt us.'

'I should have chosen to have settled some things first; but since you are in such a hurry, I will not balk you. I will step home for my sword and be with you directly,' said Buchanan.

The groom interposed, and endeavoured to reconcile the two enraged Scots, but without success. Buchanan soon arrived with his sword, and they retired to a private spot in the garden. The groom next tried to persuade them to decide their difference by fair boxing. This was rejected by both the champions as a mode of fighting unbecoming gentlemen. The groom asserted that the best gentlemen in England sometimes fought in that manner, and gave as an instance a boxing-match, of which he himself had been a witness, between Lord G.'s gentleman and a gentleman-farmer at York races about the price of a mare.

'But our quarrel,' said Targe, 'is about the reputation of a queen.'

'That, for certain,' replied the groom, makes a difference.'

Buchanan unsheathed his sword

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Are you ready, sir?' cried Targe.

That I am. Come on, sir,' said Buchanan; 'and the Lord be with the righteous.'

'Amen!' cried Targe; and the conflict began. Both the combatants understood the weapon they fought with; and each parried his adversary's blows with such dexterity, that no blood was shed for some time. At length Targe, making a feint at Buchanan's head, gave him suddenly a severe wound in the thigh. 'I hope you are now sensible of your error?' said Targe, dropping his point.

'I am of the same opinion I was!' cried Buchanan; so keep your guard.' So saying, he advanced more briskly than ever upon Targe, who, after warding off several strokes, wounded his antagonist a second time. Buchanan, however, shewed no disposition to relinquish the combat. But this second wound being in the forehead, and the blood flowing with profusion into his eyes, he could no longer see distinctly, but was obliged to flourish his sword at random, without being able to perceive the movements of his adversary, who, closing with him, became master of his sword, and with the same effort threw him to the ground; and, standing over him, he said: 'This may convince you, Mr Buchanan, that yours is not the righteous cause! You are in my power; but I will act as the queen whose character I defend would order were she alive. I hope you will live to repent of the injustice you have done to that amiable and unfortunate princess.' He then assisted

Buchanan to rise. Buchanan made no immediate answer but when he saw Targe assisting the groom to stop the blood which flowed from his wounds, he said: 'I must acknowledge, Mr Targe, that you behave like a gentleman.'

After the bleeding was in some degree diminished by the dry lint which the groom, who was an excellent farrier, applied to the wounds, they assisted him to his chamber, and then the groom rode away to inform Mr Nof what had happened. But the wound becoming more painful, Targe proposed sending for a surgeon. Buchanan then said that the surgeon's mate belonging to one of the ships of the British squadron then in the bay, was, he believed, on shore, and as he was a Scotchman, he would like to employ him rather than a foreigner. Having mentioned where he lodged, one of Mr N's footmen went immediately for him. He returned soon after, saying that the surgeon's mate was not at his lodging, nor expected for some hours. 'But I will go and bring the French surgeon,' continued the footman.

'I thank you, Mr Thomas,' said Buchanan; 'but I will have patience till my own countryman returns.'

'He may not return for a long time,' said Thomas. 'You had best let me run for the French surgeon, who, they say, has a great deal of skill.'

"I am obliged to you, Mr Thomas,' added Buchanan; but neither Frenchman nor Spanishman shall dress my wounds when a Scottishman is to be found for love or money.'

"They are to be found, for the one or the other, as I am credibly informed, in most parts of the world,' said Thomas.

'As my countrymen,' replied Buchanan, are distinguished for letting slip no means of improvement, it would be very strange if many of them did not use that of travelling, Mr Thomas.'

'It would be very strange indeed, I own it,' said the footman.

'But are you certain of this young man's skill in his business when he does come?' said Targe.

'I confess I have had no opportunity to know anything of his skill,' answered Buchanan; but I know for certain that he is sprung from very respectable people. His father is a minister of the gospel, and it is not likely that his father's son will be deficient in the profession to which he was bred.'

'It would be still less likely had the son been bred to preaching!' said Targe.

That is true,' replied Buchanan; 'but I have no doubt of the young man's skill: he seems to be a very douce [discreet] lad. It will be an encouragement to him to see that I prefer him to another, and also a comfort to me to be attended by my countryman.'

'Countryman or not countryman,' said Thomas, 'he will expect to be paid for his trouble as well as

another.'

'Assuredly,' said Buchanan; 'but it was always a maxim with me, and shall be to my dying day, that we should give our own fish-guts to our own sea-mews.'

'Since you are so fond of your own sea-mews,' said Thomas, I am surprised you were so eager to destroy Mr Targe there.'

"That proceeded from a difference in politics, Mr Thomas,' replied Buchanan, 'in which the best of friends are apt to have a misunderstanding; but though I am a Whig, and he is a Tory, I hope we are both honest men; and as he behaved generously when my life was in his power, I have no scruple in saying that I am sorry for having spoken disrespectfully of any person, dead or alive, for whom he has an esteem.'

'Mary, Queen of Scots, acquired the esteem of her very enemies,' resumed Targe. 'The elegance and engaging sweetness of her manners were irresistible to every heart that was not steeled by prejudice or jealousy.'

'She is now in the hands of a Judge,' said Buchanan,

who can neither be seduced by fair appearances, nor imposed on by forgeries and fraud.'

She is so, Mr Buchanan,' replied Targe; and her rival and accusers are in the hands of the same Judge.' 'We had best leave them all to His justice and mercy, then, and say no more on the subject,' added Buchanan; for if Queen Mary's conduct on earth was what you believe it was, she will receive her reward in heaven, where her actions and sufferings are recorded.' 'One thing more I will say,' rejoined Targe, and that is only to ask of you whether it is probable that a woman whose conscience was loaded with crimes imputed to her could have closed the varied scene of her life, and have met death with such serene and dignified courage, as Mary did?'

I always admired that last awful scene,' replied Buchanan, who was melted by the recollection of Mary's behaviour on the scaffold; and I will freely acknowledge that the most innocent person that ever lived, or the greatest hero recorded in history, could not face death with greater composure than the queen of Scotland: she supported the dignity of a queen while she displayed the meekness of a Christian.'

'I am exceedingly sorry, my dear friend, for the misunderstanding that happened between us!' said Targe affectionately, and holding forth his hand in token of reconciliation: 'and I am now willing to believe that your friend, Mr George Buchanan, was a very great poet, and understood Latin as well as any man alive!' Here the two friends shook hands with the utmost cordiality.

MRS INCHBALD.

though not quite so much exposed to damp and noxious vapours. In one of these under ground, hidden from the cheerful light of the sun, poor Agnes was doomed to toil from morning till night, subjected to the command of a dissatisfied mistress, who, not estimating as she ought the misery incurred by serving her, constantly threatened her servants with a dismission, at which the unthinking wretches would tremble merely from the sound of the words; for to have reflected-to have considered what their purport was-to be released from dungeon, relieved from continual upbraidings and vile drudgery, must have been a subject of rejoicing; and yet, because these good tidings were delivered as a menace, custom had made the hearer fearful of the consequence. So, death being described to children as a disaster, even poverty and shame will start from it with affright; whereas, had it been pictured with its benign aspect, it would have been feared but by few, and many, many would welcome it with gladness.

Mr Rogers, in the notes to his poem of Human Life, quotes, as from 'an excellent writer,' the following sentence from Mrs Inchbald's Nature and Art:

Estimates of Happiness.

Some persons, I know, estimate happiness by fine houses, gardens, and parks-others by pictures, horses, money, and various things wholly remote from their own species; but when I wish to ascertain the real felicity of any rational man, I always inquire whom he has to love. If I find he has nobody, or does not love those he has-even in the midst of all his profusion of finery and grandeur, I pronounce him a being deep in adversity.

The Judge and the Victim.-From Nature and Art? The day at length is come on which Agnes shall have a sight of her beloved William! She who has watched for hours near his door, to procure a glimpse of him going out or returning home; who has walked miles to see his chariot pass; she now will behold him, and he will see her, by command of the laws of his country. Those laws, which will deal with rigour towards her, are in this one instance still indulgent.

The time of the assizes at the county town in which she is imprisoned is arrived the prisoners are demanded at the shire-hall-the jail-doors are opened-they go arrival of the judge, and that judge is William. in sad procession. The trumpet sounds-it speaks the

MRS INCHBALD, the dramatist, attained deserved celebrity by her novels, A Simple Story, in four volumes, published in 1791, and Nature and Art, two volumes, 1796. As this lady affected plainness and precision in style, and aimed at drawing sketches from nature, she probably designated her first novel simple, without duly considering that the plot is intricate and involved, and that some of her characters-as Lord and Lady Elmwood-belong to the ranks of the aristocracy. There are many striking and passionate scenes in the novel, and notwithstanding the disadvantage attending a double plot, the interest is well sustained. The authoress's knowledge of dramatic rules and effect may be seen in the skilful grouping of her personages, The day previous to her trial, Agnes had read, in the and in the liveliness of the dialogue. Her second printed calendar of the prisoners, his name as the learned work is much simpler and coarser in texture. Its judge before whom she was to appear. For a moment object may be gathered from the concluding she forgot her perilous state in the excess of joy which maxim: 'Let the poor no more be their own the still unconquerable love she bore to him permitted persecutors, no longer pay homage to wealth-her to taste, even on the brink of the grave! Afterinstantaneously the whole idolatrous worship will cease, the idol will be broken.' Mrs Inchbald illustrated this by her own practice; yet few of her readers can feel aught but mortification and disappointment at the dénouement of the tale, wherein the pure and noble-minded Henry, after the rich promise of his youth and his intellectual culture, finally settles down with his father to 'cheerful labour in fishing, or the tending of a garden, the produce of which they carry to the next market-town.' The following is a brief but striking allusion to the miseries of low London service:

Service in London.

In romances, and in some plays, there are scenes of dark and unwholesome mines, wherein the labourer works during the brightest day by the aid of artificial light. There are, in London, kitchens equally dismal,

reflection made her check those worldly transports, as unfit for the present solemn occasion. But, alas! to her, earth and William were so closely united, that till she forsook the one, she could never cease to think, without the contending passions of hope, of fear, of love, of shame, and of despair, on the other.

Now fear took the place of her first immoderate joy; she feared that, although much changed in person since he had seen her, and her real name now added to many an alias-yet she feared that some well-known glance of the eye, turn of the action, or accent of speech, might recall her to his remembrance; and at that idea, shame overcame all her other sensations-for still she retained pride, in respect to his opinion, to wish him not to know Agnes was that wretch she felt she was! Once a ray of hope beamed on her, that if he knew her-if he recognised her he might possibly befriend her cause; and life bestowed through William's friendship seemed a precious object! But, again, that rigorous honour she had often heard him boast, that firmness to his word, of

which she had fatal experience, taught her to know he would not, for any improper compassion, any unmanly weakness, forfeit his oath of impartial justice.

In meditations such as these she passed the sleepless night.

When, in the morning, she was brought to the bar, and her guilty hand held up before the righteous judgment-seat of William, imagination could not form two figures, or two situations more incompatible with the existence of former familiarity than the judge and the culprit; and yet, these very persons had passed together the most blissful moments that either ever tasted! Those hours of tender dalliance were now present to her mind his thoughts were more nobly employed in his high office; nor could the haggard face, hollow eye, desponding countenance, and meagre person of the poor prisoner, once call to his memory, though her name was uttered among a list of others which she had assumed, his former youthful, lovely Agnes!

She heard herself arraigned, with trembling limbs and downcast looks, and many witnesses had appeared against her, before she ventured to lift her eyes up to her awful judge; she then gave one fearful glance, and discovered William, unpitying but beloved William, in every feature! It was a face she had been used to look on with delight, and a kind of absent smile of gladness now beamed on her poor wan visage.

uttered, William delivered the final speech ending with Dead, dead, dead.' She fainted as he closed the period, and was carried back to prison in a swoon; while he adjourned the court to go to dinner.

If, unaffected by the scene he had witnessed, William sat down to dinner with an appetite, let not the reader conceive that the most distant suspicion had struck his mind of his ever having seen, much less familiarly known, the poor offender whom he had just condemned. Still, this forgetfulness did not proceed from the want of memory for Agnes. In every peevish or heavy hour passed with his wife, he was sure to think of her; yet it was self-love, rather than love of her, that gave rise to these thoughts. He felt the lack of female sympathy and tenderness to soften the fatigue of studious labour, to soothe a sullen, a morose disposition-he felt he wanted comfort for himself, but never once considered what were the wants of Agnes.

In the chagrin of a barren bed, he sometimes thought, too, even on the child that Agnes bore him; but whether it were male or female, whether a beggar in the streets or dead, various and important public occupation forbade him to inquire. Yet the poor, the widow, and the orphan frequently shared William's ostentatious bounty. He was the president of many excellent charities, gave largely, and sometimes instituted benevolent societies for the unhappy; for he delighted to load the poor with obligation, and the rich with praise.

When every witness on the part of the prosecutor had been examined, the judge addressed himself to her : There are persons like him who love to do everything 'What defence have you to make?' It was William good but that which their immediate duty requires. spoke to Agnes! The sound was sweet; the voice was There are servants that will serve every one more cheermild, was soft, compassionate, encouraging. It almost fully than their masters, there are men who will discharmed her to a love of life! Not such a voice as tribute money liberally to all except their creditors; and when William last addressed her; when he left her there are wives who will love all mankind better than undone and pregnant, vowing never to see or speak to their own husbands. Duty is a familiar word which her more. She would have hung upon the present has little effect upon an ordinary mind; and as ordinary word for ever. She did not call to mind that this gentle-minds make a vast majority, we have acts of generosity, ness was the effect of practice, the art of his occupation; self-denial, and honesty, where smaller pains would which, at times, is but a copy, by the unfeeling, of the constitute greater virtues. Had William followed the benevolent brethren of the bench. In the present judge, common dictates of charity, had he adopted private pity tenderness was not designed for consolation of the instead of public munificence, had he cast an eye at culprit, but for the approbation of the auditors. home before he sought abroad for objects of compassion, Agnes had been preserved from an ignominious death, and he had been preserved from-remorse, the tortures of which he for the first time proved on reading a printed sheet of paper, accidentally thrown in his way a few days after he had left the town in which he had condemned her to die.

There were no spectators, Agnes, by your side when last he parted from you-if there had, the awful William would have been awed to marks of pity.

Stunned with the enchantment of that well-known tongue directed to her, she stood like one just petrified -all vital power seemed suspended. Again he put the question, and with these additional sentences, tenderly and emphatically delivered: 'Recollect yourself; have you no witnesses? no proof on your behalf?' A dead silence followed these questions. He then mildly but forcibly added: What have you to say?' Here a flood of tears burst from her eyes, which she fixed earnestly upon him, as if pleading for mercy, while she faintly articulated: 'Nothing, my lord.' After a short pause, he asked her, in the same forcible but benevolent tone: 'Have you no one to speak to your character?' The prisoner answered: 'No.' A second gush of tears followed this reply, for she called to mind by whom her character had first been blasted.

'March 10, 179-.

"The last dying Words, Speech, and Confession, birth, parentage, and education, life, character, and behaviour, of Agnes Primrose, who was executed this morning between the hours of ten and twelve, pursuant to the sentence passed upon her by the Honourable Justice Norwynne.

Agnes Primrose was born of honest parents, in the village of Anfield, in the county of [William started at the name of the village and county]; but being led astray by the arts and flattery of seducing man, she fell from the paths of virtue, and took to bad He summed up the evidence, and every time he was company, which instilled into her young heart all their obliged to press hard upon the proofs against her, she evil ways, and at length brought her to this untimely shrunk, and seemed to stagger with the deadly blow-end. So she hopes her death will be a warning to all writhed under the weight of his minute justice, more young persons of her own sex, how they listen to the than from the prospect of a shameful death. The jury praises and courtship of young men, especially of those consulted but a few minutes; the verdict was, 'Guilty.' who are their betters; for they only court to deceive. She heard it with composure. But when William placed But the said Agnes freely forgives all persons who have the fatal velvet on his head, and rose to pronounce the done her injury or given her sorrow, from the young fatal sentence, she started with a kind of convulsive man who first won her heart, to the jury who found motion, retreated a step or two back, and lifting up her her guilty, and the judge who condemned her to death. hands, with a scream exclaimed: 'Oh, not from you!' And she acknowledges the justice of her sentence, The piercing shriek which accompanied these words not only in respect of her crime for which she suffers, prevented their being heard by part of the audience; | but in regard to many other heinous sins of which she and those who heard them thought little of their mean- has been guilty, more especially that of once attempting ing, more than that they expressed her fear of dying. to commit a murder upon her own helpless child; for Serene and dignified, as if no such exclamation had been | which guilt she now considers the vengeance of God has

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