cerned in your birth. What's here ?-Vulcan in opposition to you? You are a player upon the guitar, I see."

"I am," said Jocelyn. "Ay," continued the Astrologer—" and this is not the sole point in which you resemble Orpheus, for like him you have snatched your Eurydice from the region of fire, only to lose her again. Ha! do you start? have I touched you? You love her, then; and yet you were kissed by another, last night; ay, and in the presence of the King and the whole Court-Proh pudor!"

"I confess that you amaze me,” said Jocelyn, "and if your art, or rather your information, which appears to be most quick and accurate, can resolve me where I may find

"Dixi abi!" exclaimed the Astrologer

"I have said:-you may depart!" with which words he pulled down a wooden partition, that rendered him no longer visible; a new applicant was admitted; and Jocelyn had no alternative but to walk down stairs, and quit the

house, which he did in profound astonishment, not only at his being thus recognized by a stranger, but at the inexplicable celerity with which the last night's occurrences at Whitehall had been conveyed to an obscure astrologer, in the neighbourhood of the Tower. The only wonderful feature of the whole transaction was the Protean power of metamorphosis, that enabled Lord Rochester, (for such was the astrologer,) to assume whatever disguise and character he pleased, and deceive his most intimate friends with the same facility as he had now deluded Jocelyn. For some weeks past, his Lordship had been in the habit of posting from Whitehall to the Merlin's Head in the City, where he had succeeded in establishing a prodigious reputation as a cunning man; sometimes availing himself of his celebrity for his own mere amusement; and sometimes abusing the confidence he had inspired by rendering it subservient to the most licentious purposes. His male applicants were generally dismissed with some such swaggering

mandate as that which Jocelyn had received; but by telling the credulous females who consulted him, that, if they betook themselves to a certain spot, they would encounter a man in a particular dress, who was destined to be their husband, and whose advances they ought not to reject, he was often enabled, by personating the character he had described, to gratify his propensity for intrigue and low amour, not less at the expense of his own honour than that of

others.

Making various attempts to solve, by all sorts of conjecture, the apparent mystery that involved this astrologer, and still reflecting most painfully upon Julia's degradation, Jocelyn walked to the Tower-wharf, where he took boat again, and was re-conveyed to Westminster. As he passed one of the courts of law in this quarter, he observed a crowd around the door, and various detached parties whispering together at a little distance; and, upon inquiring the cause of the assemblage, was informed that one of the regi

cides was at that moment upon his trial. Though in general averse from all scenes of such solemn and painful interest, a feeling of mingled curiosity and commiseration induced him to join the throng of those who were pressing through the door-way, and to enter the hall. It was completely full; and though the greater part of the crowd consisted of the lower orders, they stood uncovered, observing a profound silence, or only conversing together in anxious whispers, all eyes being directed towards the upper end of the hall, and every countenance wearing an expression of deep awe. Gradually making his way up to the bar, Jocelyn was at length enabled to look over the circular enclosure; and, directing his eyes to the spot set apart for the criminal, a thrill of horror shot to his very heart at beholding his friend, the unfortunate Mr. Strickland.

Recoiling instinctively back from the dread of being recognized by a criminal on trial for his life, and overcome at the same time by a gush of sympathizing anguish, he would have

shrunk away; but as the proceedings were now about to commence, the crowd behind pressed up to the bar with a vehemence which he had not the power to resist, and he thus remained fixed to the spot he occupied, a compulsory witness of the trial. Finding, however, that although he could observe every thing that passed, he was so placed as not to be distinguishable from within the bar, he became more reconciled to his imprisonment, and ventured to cast another glance at the wretched man, who now stood arraigned by his real name of Valentine Walton, as a murderer, traitor, and regicide. His appearance was little altered since Jocelyn had parted from him at Haelbeck. There was the same wild neglected beard, the same wan and haggard countenance; but the distrust and terror, that had formerly kept his eyes glancing from one object to another, in perpetual suspicion, were now succeeded by a fixed look of firm desperation. Like some wild animal which, after having used every effort to