hing ruin, he continued exulting in his prosperity. In7 Ahasuerus to a royal banquet, which Esther the ad prepared," he went forth that day joyful, and with eart." But behold how slight an incident was sufficient his joy! As he went forth, he saw Mordecai in the te; and observed that he still refused to do him homHe stood not up, nor was moved by him;" although he w the formidable designs which Haman was preparing te One private man, who despised his greatness, and submission, while a whole kingdom trembled before e spirit, which the utmost stretch of his power could ubdue nor humble, blasted his triumphs. His whole shaken with a storm of passion. Wrath, pride, and revenge, rose into fury. With difficulty he restrained n public; but as soon as he came to his own house, he ed to disclose the agony of his mind. He gathered tois friends and family, with Zeresh, his wife. "He

of the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his and of all the things wherein the king had promoted how he had advanced him above the princes and serthe king. He said, moreover, yea, Esther the queen, no man to come in with the king, to the banquet that prepared, but myself; and to-morrow also am I invited th the king." After all this preamble, wirat is the con"Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I sce i the Jew sitting at the king's gate."

It.

quel of Haman's history I shall not now pursue. ford matter for much instruction, by the conspicuous God in his fall and punishment. But contemplating singular situation, in which the expressions just quoted im, and the violent agitation of his mind which they the following reflections naturally arise: How misera ce, when one guilty passion creates so much torment ! vailing is prosperity, when, in the height of it, a single iment can destroy the relish of all its pleasures! how human nature, which, in the absence of real, is thus form to itself imaginary woes.!

SECTION IV.

LADY JANE GREY.

BLAIR.

excellent personage was descended from the roval lin

She was carefully educated in the principles of the refor mation; and her wisdom and virtue rendered her a shining example to her sex. But it was her lot to continue only a short period on this stage of being; for, in early life, she fell a sacrifice to the wild ambition of the duke of Northumberland, who promoted a marriage between her and his son, lord Guilford Dudley; and raised her to the throne of England, in opposition to the rights of Mary and Elizabeth. At the time of their marriage she was only about eighteen years of age, and her husband was also very young: a season of life very unequal to oppose the interested views of artful and aspiring men; who, instead of opposing them to danger, should have been the protectors of their innocence and youth.

This extraordinary young person, besides the solid endow ments of piety and virtue, possessed the most engaging dispo sition, the most accomplished parts; and being of an equa age with king Edward VI. she had received all her education with him, and seemed even to possess a greater facility in ac quiring every part of manly and classical literature. She had attained a knowledge of the Roman and Greek languages, a well as of several modern tongues; had passed most of her time in an application to learning; and expressed a great indifference for other occupations and amusements usual with her sex asd station. Roger Ascham, tutor to the lady Elizabeth, having at one time paid her a visit, found her employed, in reading Plato, while the rest of the family were engaged in a party of hunting in the park; and upon his admiring the singularity of her choice, she told him that she "received more pleasure from that author, than others could reap from all their sport and gaiety." Her heart, replete with this love of literature and serious studies, and with tenderness towards her husband, who was deserving of her affection, had never opened itself to the flattering allurements of ambition; and the information of her advancement to the throne was by no means agreeable to her. She even refused to accept the crown pleaded the preferable right of the two princesses; expressed her dread of the consequences attending an enterprize so dangerous, not to say so criminal; and desired to remain in that private station in which she was born. Overcome at last with The intreaties, rather than the reasons, of her father and father-inław, and, above all, of her husband, she submitted to their will, and was prevailed on to relinquish her own judgment. But her elevation was of very short continuance. The nation de. clared for queen Mary; and the lady Jane, after wearing the

geantry of a crown during ten days, returned to a pri, with much more satisfaction than she felt when roytendered to her.

n Mary, who appears to have been incapable of geneclemency, determined to remove every person, from he least danger could be apprehended. Warning was, e, given to lady Jane to prepare for death; a doom he had expected, and which the innocence of her life, as the misfortunes to which she had been exposed, renno unwelcome news to her. The queen's bigotted der colour of tender mercy to the prisoner's soul, iner to send priests, who molested her with perpetual dis; and even a reprieve of three days was granted her, that she would be persuaded, during that time, to pay, nely conversion to popery, some regard to her eternal

Lady Jane had presence of mind in those melancholy stances, not only to defend her religion by solid argubut also to write a letter to her sister in the Greek lanin which, beside sending her a copy of the scriptures tongue, she exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, teady perseverance. On the day of her execution, her 1, lord Guilford, desired permission to see her; but she her consent, and sent him word, that the tenderness of arting would overcome the fortitude of both; and would ch unbend their minds from that constancy, which their ching end required of them. Their separation, she said, be only for a moment; and they would soon rejoin each na scene, where their affections would be for ever united; ere death, disappointment, and misfortunes, could no have access to them, or disturb their eternal felicity. ad been intended to execute the lady Jane and lord d together on the same scaffold, at Tower-hill; but uncil, dreading the compassion of the people, for their beauty, innocence and noble birth, changed their ornd gave directions that she should be beheaded withia rge of the Tower. She saw her husband led to execuand having given him from the window some token of emembrance, she waited with tranquility till her own ted hour should bring her to a like fate. She even saw adless body carried back in a cart: and found herself confirmed by the reports, which she heard of the conof his end, than shaken by so tender and melancholy a cle. Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, when he

desired her to bestow on him some

Small present, which he might keep as a perpetual memorial of her. She gave him her table-book, in which she had just written three sentences, on seeing her husband's dead body; one in Greek, another in Latin, a third in English. The purport of them was, "that human justice was against his body, but the divine Mercy would be favourable to his soul: and that if her fault deserved punishment, her youth, at least, and her imprudence, were worthy of excuse; and that God and posterity, she trusted would show her favour" On the scaffold, she made a speech to the by-standers, in which the mildness of her disposition led her to take the blame entirely on herself, without uttering one complaint against the severity with which she had been treated. She said that her offence was, not that she had laid her hand upon the crown, but that she had not rejected it with sufficient constancy: that she had less erred through ambition than through reverence to her parents, whom she had been taught to respect and obey; that she willingly received death, as the only satisfaction which she could now make to the injured state; and though her infringement of the laws had been constrained, she would show, by her voluntary submission to their sentence, that she was desirous to atone for that disobedience, into which too much filial piety had betrayed her: that she had justly deserved this punishment for being made the instrument, though the unwilling instrument, of the ambition of others: and that the story of her life, she hoped, might at least be useful, by proving that innocence excuses not great misdeeds, if they tend any way to the destruction of the commonwealth. After uttering these words, she caused herself to be disrobed by her women, and with a steady, serene countenance, submitted herself to the executioner,

SECTION V.

ORTOGRUL; OR, THE VANITY OF RICHES.

HUME.

As Ortogrul of Basra was one day wandering along fire streets of Bagdat, musing on the varieties of merchandise which the shops opened to his view; and observing the different occupations which busied the multitude on every side, he was awakened from the tranquility of meditation, by a crowd that obstructed his passage. He raised his eyes, and saw the chief vizier, who, having returned from the divan, was entering his palace.

Ortogrul mingled with the attendants; and being supposed to have some petition to the vizier, was permitted to enter.

He surveyed the spaciousness of the apartments, admired the walls hung with golden tapestry, and the floors covered with silken carpets; and despised the simple neatness of his own little habitation.

"Surely," said he to himself, "this place is the scat of happiness; where pleasure succeeds to pleasure, and discontent and sorrow can have no admission. Whatever nature has provided for the delight of sense, is here spread forth to be enjoyed.What can mortals hope or imagine, which the master of this palace hath not obtained? The dishes of luxury cover his table; the voice of harmony lulls him in his bowers; he breaths the fragrance of the groves of Java, and sleeps upon the down of the cygnets of Ganges. He speaks, and his mandate is obeyed; he wishes, and his wish is gratified: all whom he sees obey him, and all whom he hears flatter him. How different, Ó Ortogrul, is thy condition, who art doomed to the perpetual torments of unsatisfied desire; and who has no amusement in thy power that can withhold thee from thy own reflections ? They tell thee that thou art wise; but what does wisdom avail with poverty? None will flatter the poor; and the wise have . very little power of flattering themselves. That man is surely the most wretched of the sons of wretchedness, who lives with his own faults and follies always before him; and who has none to reconcile him to himself by praise and veneration. I have long sought content, and have not found it; I will from this moment endeavour to be rich."

Full of this new resolution, he shut himself up in his chamber for six months, to deliberate how he should grow rich. He sometimes proposed to offer himself as a counsellor to one of the kings in India: and sometimes resolved to dig for diamonds in the mines of Golconda. One day, after some hours passed in a violent fluctuation of opinion, sleep insensibly seized him in his chair. He dreamed that he was ranging a desert country, in search of some one that might teach him to grow rich; and as he stood on the top of a hill, shaded with cypress, in doubt whither to direct his steps, his father appeared on a sudden standing before him. "Ortogrul," said the old man, "I know thy perplexity; listen to thy father; turn thine eye on the opposite mountain." Ortogrul looked, and saw a torrent tumbling down the rocks, roaring with the noise of thunder, and scattering its foam on the impending woods. "Now," said his father, "behold the valley that lies between the hills." Ortogrul looked, and espied a little well, out of which issued a small rivulet. "Tell