over with melted tallow, to keep out infection and sorcery; they were then wreathed with various kinds of flowers. Virgil alludes to this custom in his Eneid : speaking of Dido, he says,

"A marble temple stood within the grove,
Sacred to death and to her murder'd love;
That honour'd chapel she had hung around
With snowy fleeces, and with garlands crown'd."

Nothing was considered more ominous than for a bride to touch the threshold with her feet when she entered the house; therefore, upon arriving there, her attendants were careful to lift her over. Upon her entrance, the keys of the house were delivered to her, and her husband presented her with two vessels, one containing fire, and the other water, emblematical of the purity of the marriage state. The wedding feast was generally splendid and accompanied with music.. Nuts were thrown to the younger part of the family by the bridegroom, indicating, according to Catullus, that he had done with childish sports, and was about to enter upon a more important pursuit than that of mere pleasure. "Give nuts to the boys; you have played long enough with them yourself; prepare now for the nuptial song; give nuts to the boys.' Virgil, in one of his eclogues, alludes to the same custom :

"Prepare the lights

O Mopsus, and perform the bridal rites:
Scatter thy nuts among the scrambling boys."

The genial bed was then prepared by women who had never been married but to one man they placed the bride in it with great ceremony. It was then lawful for the husband to enter and unloose the cestus or marriage girdle. This custom was of great antiquity, and is often referred to in the old Greek poets, more particularly by Homer, Moschus, and Museus. It was usual for the bridegroom, on the following day, to invite all his old friends and acquaintance, and have another splendid banquet, which was called repotia.

There were two kinds of divorce among the Romans : -the one consisted in breaking off the contract or espousals, and the other was the separation after the marriage itself; the former was entitled repudium, and the latter divortium. Romulus allowed this privilege only to the men. Kennet, in his Roman Antiquities, states the common mode of divorce, which was by sending a bill to the woman, containing reasons of the separation, and the tender of all her goods which she brought with her. Or else it was performed in her presence before sufficient witnesses, with the formalities of tearing the writings, refunding the portion, taking away the keys, and turning the woman out of doors. In process of time, it was legal for the woman, upon showing sufficient cause, to sue for a divorce. In the Lex Poppæa amongst the Romans, it was ordered that no woman under fifty should marry a man of sixty, and no man under sixty a woman of fifty; but Justinian repealed this law.

ANECDOTES OF GARRICK.

DURING the run of the Shakspeare Jubilee, at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the year 1768, a lady of distinction, who was on the spot, wrote to a friend of hers, in London, a particular account of each day's entertainment; in which, of course, the manager's name was frequently mentioned, but under the plain appellation of Garrick. When the manager came to town, the lady showed him this letter; at which he was weak enough to be offended for being treated so familiarly. This coming round to the lady's ears, she took her revenge by writing him a letter of apology, at the same time full of irony for the omission of the word "Mr.," telling him amongst other things, that "nothing could be farther from her intention than the most distant idea of impropriety or neglect of ceremony; that she only

wrote while her heart was full of the great poet and his ablest commentator; and under that impression she could no more bring herself to say Mr. Garrick than Mr. Shakspeare."

It was amongst the familiar habits of Garrick, who was generally an early riser, to stroll about the purlieus of Covent-garden, to see that the bill-stickers did their duty at the proper hours. In one of those morning rambles he dropped into a poulterer's shop near King-street, and pretended to cheapen some rabbits. The man (who knew Garrick very well) showed him several, but none would do-some were too fat, and others too lean, and others at which he turned up his nose as if they stunk. This irritated the poulterer so much, that he suddenly put them all by, and said he would sell him nothing; for that, thank God! he was bred to business, and not brought up to acting farces. On this Garrick took the hint, and was retreating towards the door; when the poulterer, following him, bawled out as loud as his lungs would let him, "My horse! my horse! My kingdom for a horse!" on which several people came up to him to know what was the matter. "I really can't tell the whole of the story," said the man; "but there's a mummer just passed who can tell you all about it."

MEMOIR OF THE PRINCESS WOLFENBUTTEL OF RUSSIA,

During her exile at the Isle of Bourbon.

THE virtuous and beautiful Charlotte Christina Sophia de Wolfenbuttel was born in the year 1694, and at an early age became the wife of czarovitz Alexis, son of Peter the First, czar of Muscovy; a man of the most brutal and ferocious character, who had conceived such an unaccountable aversion to her, *that his personal ill-treatment of her, during a state of

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pregnancy, was such as was thought likely to endanger her life; and the monster having reason to believe she would not recover, left her, and retreated to his country house.

The unfortunate princess was shortly after delivered of a still-born child, when the countess of Konismark, who attended her, naturally concluding that she would one day perish from the brutal disposition of the czarovitz, formed a scheme to induce the women about the princess to give out that she was dead; and a bundle of sticks was interred in her stead with funeral solemnity.

The orders which the tyrant had given to bury the princess without delay or ceremony favoured the deception; and she was removed to a retired spot, in order to recover her health and spirits; which object was no sooner accomplished than she set off for Paris, accompanied by an old German domestic, in the character of her father; the countess of Konismark having secured for her all her jewels and a considerable sum of money, and clothed her in the habiliments of common life.

Here she made but a short stay; and having hired a female servant, proceeded to a sea-port, and embarked on board a vessel bound for Louisiana. Here her figure and manners attracted the notice of the inhabitants of the colony, and an officer, named D'Auband, who had formerly been in Russia, immediately recollected the royal fugitive; and though he could at first hardly persuade himself of the reality of what he saw, in order to ascertain the truth, he contrived to ingratiate himself into the good graces of the pretended father, and soon formed so intimate a friendship with him, that they agreed to live under one roof.

This charming society had not long subsisted before news reached the colony announcing the death of the czarovitz Alexis. D'Auband then took the opportunity to declare to the princess his knowledge of her; at the same time offering to sacrifice every thing to her service, in order to conduct her back to Russia: but she

had experienced the insufficiency of royalty to confer happiness, and chose rather to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of retirement than to return again into the scenes of splendid ambition.

"O knew they but their happiness! of men
The happiest they, who, far from public rage,
Deep in the vale, with a choice few retired,
Drink the pure pleasures of the rural life."

All she required of D'Auband was a promise of inviolable secresy, and he solemnly pledged himself to obey her commands; but though she had refused his kind services, she was not herself insensible to the tender passion with which her virtues and her beauties had inspired his bosom.

Their reciprocal attachment daily increased; and the death of her old and faithful domestic, together with motives of the purest delicacy, induced her to give D'Auband her hand in marriage. This circumstance added a new veil to her real condition; and thus she, who had been destined to wear the diadem of Russia, became the humble but happy wife of a lieutenant of infantry!

In the succeeding year she had a daughter, whom she nursed herself, and educated with a truly parental solicitude in the French and German languages, and in various other branches of polite literature.

Ten happy years had elapsed when D'Auband was seized with a disorder which required an operation to be performed; and it became necessary for them to embark in the first vessel for France for that purpose.

The most skilful surgeons in Paris were engaged on this occasion, and his wife waited upon him with the most tender and patient attention and affection till the time of his recovery. In a short time after, the lieutenant had the good fortune to obtain from the French East India Company a major's commission for the Isle

of Bourbon.

While the above business was in agitation, the princess,