was in your debt on that score; but his overbearing disposition, and his love tyrannized over him; he was not master of himself, and your last refusal to see him certainly hastened his end. When his servant returned with the message, exactly at half an hour past ten o'clock, (for he counted every minute as it passed after he had sent him to your house,) and told him that you were positively determined never to see him more, he remained silent for a minute or two, then, taking me by the hand, he pressed it in an agony which alarmed me, pronouncing these words at the same time, Oh the cruel woman! She shall suffer for this refusal-1 will haunt her as long after death as I have followed her whilst living! I endeavoured to soothe him, but he was no more."

I believe, my dear friend, I need not tell you what I felt when the old gentlewoman pronounced these last words; the correspondence betwixt them and the noises I had so repeatedly been tormented with, instantly rushed upon my mind, and filled me with terror and astonish ment. I at first imagined that all the powers of Heaven and Hell had com bined to render my life wretched; but the quiet I afterwards experienced, and time, with the aid of reason and reflection, restored calmness to my breast. I thought within myself, that, as the course of things continued to be always the same in the universe, so was it not possible that a dead body should be restored to life; that, as the existence of a God was discoverable in every thing around us, he must be just and merciful; and, that when He, in his appointed time, thought proper to summon any living soul to quit

17

this earth, there could be no return to it. And, I said to myself, who am I that I should suppose I am become an object of Almighty vengeance? Though He might judge proper in his wisdom to discover, by some alteration of the usual progress of nature, either his wrath or his beneficence, and thereby shew that the race of man is the object of his care; yet that any individual of mankind, who, compared to the whole of the human race, is but as a grain of sand to this globe of earth which we inhabit, should become the marked victim of his chas tisement, seems neither probable nor con sistent. Let us praise him, let us merit his divine protection, and let us not be presumptuous.

Reasoning in this manner, scrutinizing into my own conscience, and finding nothing in whatever had happened that could tend either to my edification or correction, I have been inclined to think the whole of what I have related to be the effects of chance. I know not the nature of chance; but this I can venture to believe, that what is so termed, bas the greatest influence over all that is passing in this world.

You are now released. This is the whole of my history, and of my observations on it. Make what use of them you please. If it be your intentions to communicate this letter to any one, I beg of you only, in that case, to use the initial of the name; I have sent it to you at length, that you may judge by such confidence, as well as by the labour which this letter has cost me in penning, under my present weakness of body and mind, the perfect attachment and very high esteem, with which I am, &c.

DON QUIXOTE'S DINNER,

N the first page of the History of Don Quixote, it is said, that on Saturdays the Don's dinner consisted of 'duelos y quebrantos.' Shelton (the first English translator) calls it collops and eggs: all the other translators say, griefs and groans; gripes and grumblings.' Pel ficer has thus explained the meaning, in

a rote:

It was customary in some parts of La Mancha, for the shepherds to convey to their masters' houses, the carcases of the sheep or cattle which have died during the week, After taking out the

bones, the flesh was salted and preserved for culinary use; and broth was made of the broken bones. In allusion to the painful recollection of the loss of part of their flocks, the sorrow it occasioned, and the breaking of the bones, such food was called--duelos y quebrantos; sorrows and breakings.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.

Among the authors buried in London occurs the name of Emanuel Swedenborg, the pious visionary. His early life had nothing of insanity. He was born at Stockholm, the 29th of January, 1688, and was the second son of Jaspar Swed

berg

berg, the bishop of Scara. He studied at Upsal, read eagerly the Latin poets, applied much to mathematics, and, on leaving college, travelled in Germany, Holland, and France. After his return home he applied to literature, and published in 1716 his Dædalus hyperboreus, which treats of weights, measures, hydrostatics, and mining. This occasioned his introduction to Count Pelbem, the minister of Charles XII. for the commercial department, from whom the young author obtained the appointment of assessor to the board of trade. In 1718 be was employed as engineer in the siege of Friedericshall, and with great skill accomplished the removal, on cylinders, over land, of five ships, and three smaller vessels, which were transported from the haven of Stromstadt into the fresh water at Ida-fial; and for this service he was ennobled in 1719, his name being then first changed from Swedberg into Swedenborg. A professorship at Upsal was offered to him in 1724, when he became a member of the philosophical society there; but he preferred contemplative to active life. In 1743 he collected his Opera Philosophica, and also his Mineralia. Already at this period his attention was principally absorbed by those internal apparitions, which are so circumstantially described in his various religious reveries. Some of them are said to have related to distant and to future events, and to have been marvellously realised-such as the prophecy of a fire at Copenhagen. A story is current, that, while passing through Holland, on his way to London, he retired by himself into the state-room of a Dutch trekschuit, spread big bible, and bolted the door. The other passen gers had preferred the deck, which is indeed a place at half price. A shower came on. The outside passengers now requested a temporary admission into the cabin. The room is full, answered Swedenborg. The captain of the vessel expostulated. We are thirteen here, I tell you, shid Swedenborg solemnly, Christ and I, and the eleven faithful apostles. The passengers laughed, and took shelter as they could. On landing, Swedenborg inquired what was to pay? Thirteen florins, said the captain. I thought the fare had been but one florin, replied Swedenborg. But there's you and Christ, said the captain, and the eleven faithful apostles. Swedenborg paid the thirteen pieces of money with devout composure, and seemed as happy as St. Peter when bidden to discharge the tribute for his

master. Swedenborg died in London on the 24th of September, 1771: there are spirits, said he on his death-bed, I can see them, and I have seen them.

APHORISMS OF CLAUDIUS.

To do nothing bad is good; to wish nothing bad is better.

Be what you wish to be thought. A boaster is, like a painted sword, unfit for use.

Happy who begets mortal children; happier who begets immortal children, the children of the brain.

Promise little, perform much. Leave nothing half done.

The nobility of horses consists in the perfections of the body; the nobility of men in those of the mind.

COSMOGONY.

Theories of cosmogony are probable in the inverse ratio of their antiquity. The more observations are progressively made on the migration of the sea, on the structure of continents, and on the revelations of vulcanoes, the more practicable it must become to draw trustworthy inferences, relative to the history and nature of those changes, which the earth underwent, previous to the records of its human inhabitants. Universal history should begin, not with the oldest, but with the newest, cosmogony approved in the philosophic schools.

St. Patrick, first bishop of Ireland 122 Margaret Patten, of Scotland 136 1737 Mr. Robertson, of Hopetoun Hall, near Edinburgh Jane Scrimshaw, died in a workhouse near Tower-hill George Stanley, Salisbury 151 Mr. Tice, Hagley, Worcestershire 125 William Wakeley, of Shropshire 121 Mrs. Yates, of ditto 126 1776 Of these thirty persons, Scotland produces four; Ireland, four; Wales, two; and England nineteen.

SHOEMAKER'S PASTE.

1714

Having paid ten shillings for a pair of new shoes,, lined with yellow moroeco, I was eager to hansel my purchase, and put them on the next day. Unluckily, the weather was wet, and the street sloppy. Either through the nail-holes, or the creases of the seams, the wet got underneath the inner yellow heel-piece, softened the paste with which it was attached, and then the motion of walking soon occasioned it to slip from its place, to ruck, and to cockle. My walk was not a short one: the wales of the leather hurt my heel, and I was soon obliged to take off my shoes, to strip out the morocco heel-pieces, and to throw these away. Now the pegs, and other roughnesses of the sole became sensible, and so effectually chafed and filed my stockings to lint, that it required some management of the foot, not to exhibit in

"

moving any of its nakedness through the various recent holes.

Might not some paste be employed, which wet would not soften? I questioned my shoemaker; but he said, that pastes, whose basis is pitch, have been tried; and that these become soft and slippy in hot weather, and are besides odorous, and apt to spot the stocking, My inference is, that science has yet to invent a good shoemaker's paste. Peter Camper wrote eighty pages on shoes, and omitted this topic.

NEWTON'S MILTON.

"What an edition of Milton, says, sneeringly, Mr. Maty, in his Review, (vol. ii. p. 168,) is that of Bishop Newby a man really conversant in Italian ton; and what an edition might be made and Greek literature!"

In fact, the merit of Bishop Newton's typography. The best editions of the publication chiefly consists in the stately poets are those made by contribution, with variorum notes, as they are called. One reader detects this imitation or allusion, another that; and, by clubbing their observations, the stock of an author's cellar can best be traced and defined.

A project of the late Mr. George Burnett, who has given so excellent an epitome of Milton's prose works, was to open in some periodic publication, a head of Illustrations of Milton's poetry. It will take nine readers, he jocosely ob. served, to analyze one such writer; but the analysis of excellence teaches the synthesis.

A TALE OF WONDER.

NOW that I've got my beads and cross, My candle, book, and bell; Up the long aisle my steps attend, In order walk, together bend,

You ringers, slack the knell.

The church, methinks, is wond'rous dim,
The tapers strangely blue;

I scarce shall see to do my task,
For our lost sister mercy ask,
And read the service thro'.

"Carry the torches on before

To guide our black parade;
Beside St. Patrick's statue halt,
You'll see the sexton at the vault;

'Tis there the grave is made.
Now, bearers, lift the corse again;
Slow be your noiseless way;
If all the mourners are come in,
The clerk his dirges may begin;
The body to the clay."

"I know

I know that here a witch's corse

Awaits her burial still;

I heard her latest dying shrift,
I took her sin-atoning gift,

And wrote her pious will.

"She hath endow'd Saint Patrick's church
With all her worldly store;
Three chains with holy water wet,
With aves blest, with reliquas set,

Confine her from thy power."
"Know the Redeemer's blood was shed
For holy folks alone;

Your unctions are no salve for vice,
Who sell their souls must pay the price,

Their guilt he can't atone.
"This parchment made of baby skin,
Drown'd by the mother's hand,
Contains a contract writ in Blood,
For everlasting ages good:

My purchase I demand.

"No baptism on the tiny skull By holy hands was shed;

'Twas lost for better or for worse, In limbo pent it pules a curse

Against its mother's head.

"Her infant's skin I show to thee; She took its life away.

For muttering backwards the whole creed,
Her from the noose of death I freed,

And noos'd her soul for aye."
"And dost thou think that holy church
The bonds of hell will mind?
No sign of cross is set thereon;
No hallelujah do I con;

No gospel name I find."

"Smash! see my hand has broke thy chain With blessed water wet.

This magic bond shall stand me good;
Down to the melted brimstone flood
I'll take her spirit yet.

"I brought her on the Sabbath eve,

So dear to witch and fiend,
Thy church with dancings lewd to slame,
And do the deed without a name;

Smash! there's but one behind."
"Have at thee, devil, to thy cost,
With the dread cross I wield!
By Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
By Patrick and the heavenly host,
I charge thee, devil, yield!"
"Although thy cross have sear'd me sore,
I shall not slink away,
Read all thy spells, and I will hear,
And fuld my claws, and sham a tear:

The body to the clay."

Then springing from his lare he droop'd
His leathern pennons low;
With cloven foot, and trailing tail,
Demure and slower than a snail,

He pac'd before the show.

While sang the clerk, and pray'd the priest,
And sigh'd the swarthy train,

And hollow voices cried, "amen,"
And the bell toll'd-toll'd now and then,
The devil yawn'd amain.

By peeps they mark his thighs of goat,
And horns and eyes so grim,
And in his hand a snaky thong,
He looks, and looks, at all the throng;
They blink, and blink, at him.
The creaking coffin to the grave

At length the black crew bring,
But one is there more black than they:
Their cheek-blood turns as white as whe
To see him in the ring.

He helps them with a hand of might,
The coffin to bestow;

It croaks adown the whirring ropes,
The sexton for the pavement gropes,
But feels no floor below.

"Hold both my legs while I look downs
Christ! what a noise of woe!

A gush of flames, a moan of souls,
And climbing howls, and yells, and growls,
From far, far, far, below!

"Sexton, this grave must have been sunk
Beyond the holy ground.

Hold firm the cords; for heaven's sake stop j
Don't let the poor old woman drop,
'Till we the gulph can sound."
"No rosary will fathom there,
No bell-rope blest aright;
There is no bottom to the pit,
Where in wild gambol down must flit,
That witch and I to-night>"
He stretcht his hoof into the grave,

And kicked with hellish force,
The coffin melts in flame and smoke;
The third, the only, chain is broke,
Uprose the shuddering corse.
Then might be seen a woman's shape,
Her skin of ashy hue,

With writhing limbs, and bristling hair,
And eyes of chalk in haggard stare,
And lips and nipples blue.
Wringing her hands in wild affright,

She clung about the priest:
"For this thy chalice have I quaff'd?"
Dumb was the priest; the devil laugh'd;
All hope of safety ceas'd.
'Stripes from the fiend attain her heart,
And the whelk'd bosom scar;
Gaunt hell-hounds bolting from the chasm
Drag her along in ghastly spasm,

While twangs his lash afar. "This is the worm that never dies, Wherewith I urge thy flight, Down to the fires that never quench, Where fiends their friends with torment drench,

In pits of endless night."

When lo! Saint Patrick's shape of stone

Jump'd frowning from its nich;
Its step was thunder: the church shook:
The devil by the horns it took:

Glad was the priest and witch. "This woman in my parish born,

And christen'd with my name,
Must to my purgatory go:
There bleach her for an æon or so,
In purifying flame.

• Bet

THE

BLISHMENT.

HE following satisfactory Report to the Secretary of State, was lately made by Drs. Millner and Hervey, relative to the progress and success of the Vaccine Inoculation.

The Board of the National Vaccine Establishment have the honor of reporting that, during the year 1811, the surgeons appointed by their authority to the nine stations in London, have vac cinated 3,148 persons, and have distributed 23,794 charges of vaccine lymph to the public. The number vaccinated this year rather exceeds that of the year 1810, and the demand for lymph has been often so great that it could not be immediately supplied.

They have great satisfaction in stating, that, since the commencement of this establishment, not a single instance of the accession of small-pox, after vaccination, has occurred to any of the vaccinating surgeons of the nine stations.

The Board report, that they have been Jately furnished with many satisfactory official documents from the naval and military departments of government, re

specting the progress of vaccination, and have likewise obtained some other authentic papers on the subject, containing much important information. think it expedient to lay before you a summary of their contents.

They

It appears, that, in consequence of an order from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, vaccination has been practised in the navy to a great extent; and, although it has not been universally adopted, the mortality from the small pox, among seamen, is already greatly diminished.

In the army, the practice of vaccina. tion has been long established, by an order from the Commander in Chief, and its effects have been decidedly beneficial; for almost the only persons among the troops who have lately been affected with small-pox, have been either recruits, who had received the infection previous to their enlistment, or soldiers who had not been vaccinated, on the supposition of their having had the variolous disease. Thus, with a few exceptions, a disorder formerly so fatal to the troops, is now considered as nearly extinguished in the army.

By