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He composed some tunes, which are still sung; and it was a great treat to hear his manly voice pealing forth from the pulpit in concert with his matchless band.

We may now specify some of the pleasures and powers of music. These we have all more or less felt, especially when melodious sounds were, in the words of Milton, married to immortal verse.' At one time we have thrilled with patriotic emotions as we heard 'Scots wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled;' and, in the mood excited by these spirit-stirring words and tune, have been ready to rush upon the invading foe. At another time we have been melted into tears as we listened to 'The Wounded Hussar,' or to Burns' 'Mary in Heaven.' We have been now shaken with laughter at some ludicrous ditty, which made us, for the time, forget our poverty and remember our misery no more; and again we have been elevated, soothed, softened into devotion, as some psalm-tune of more than ordinary sweetness was being sung amid the deepening shadows of a Sabbath evening, or at the solemn close of a communion day. We have been now transported by the voice of one beloved singing to us alone; and now by the many mingling notes and harmonies of a great concert of performers. And we felt these pleasures to be intellectual in their nature. They bore no relation or resemblance to the base delights of the flesh; they touched all that was high, and all that was pure, and all that was spiritual, and all that was immortal, in our natures. Such pleasures we felt were simple and cheap; they were at once exquisite and economical. Such pleasures, too, were pure and holy; they stung us not as we passed; and we could look their memory in the face on the next day. For we are not of those who look upon all music except devotional as little else than a positive sin, who shudder and turn up their eyes at the mention of a song, and who are even suspicious of religious music if it aspire at all to rise above the old standard, and to keep up, in compass, and taste, and variety, with the advancing spirit of the age. Such people we look upon as being as much out of place in the nineteenth century as owls and bats are amid the blue and the blaze of day. What business have they to be gibbering, and hooting, and croaking, while the grove around them is resounding with melody, and the sun above them is calling upon all nature to concert in praise? Yes, music has in it wondrous, mysterious, we had almost said divine, powers. It cannot, indeed, as was fabled of old, subdue the minds of beasts by the power of its melody, nor make stones to move and leap at its bidding; but it can work wonders far superior in moral grandeur. Music can soothe sorrows which nothing else can assuage-it can open fountains of tears which had been fast locked up in the frost of misery, and thereby relieve the burdened heart. How often has a tune dispelled the spirit of anger! How does music bless and cheer the blind, whose ears, in fulfilment of the fine compensations of the universe, are the more exquisitely open and alive in proportion as their eyes are shut to all the beauties of the external world! We know that when Milton lost his eyes in the service of his country, he was wont to refresh himself by music; and the great structure of the 'Paradise Lost' rose, like the ancient Temple, to the sound of the organ. See how those sightless eyeballs of his, which had rolled in vain to find the day, seem to dilate and kindle, as the solemn instrument pours out its soothing and inspiring strains; and the old man, though 'fallen on evil days and evil tongues, with darkness and with dangers encompassed round,' is happier in his little room than Clarendon on the woolsack, or Charles on the throne! How does music awaken the swell of patriotic emotion! See how tears stream down the rugged cheeks of Caledonia's emigrants leaving their native land, while the bagpipe is playing 'We return, we return no more.' All have heard of the effects produced on the Swiss soldiery when they hear, in a strange country, the 'Ranz des vaches,' or cow song, which they had been wont to hear from the milkmaids of their own romantic land. They weep, they tremble,

nay, have been known to throw down their arms, and refuse to fight, under a sudden fit of home-sickness. But if music has sometimes paralysed it has more frequently nerved the soldier. Battles are won and lost to the sound of music; and the hardy veteran feels uplifted by the breath of music above the fear of death itself. We mention this, not in sympathy with the foul art of war, but from sympathy with the fine art of music. For music has nobler scenes of triumph than the field of blood. It has soothed the soul of the dying saint, whose spirit has burst its prison-tenement in song-song to be renewed straightway in sweeter and holier strains, under the altar, or before the throne. It has made the martyr forgetful of his fiery pangs; and, singing at the stake, or on the scaffold, his soul has soared away-the nearest road to the celestial gate.' It is now generally supposed that our blessed Lord chanted aloud the whole of the twentysecond psalm upon the cross, and thereby at once proved that he was the victim whose agonies had been there so minutely prefigured and described, and soothed his spirit under its burden of unutterable anguish. Or if we would see music in still another noble field of its triumphs, follow it to the receptacle for the insane; see there the poor maniac lady leaning over her piano; and as her fingers pass across the ivory keys, which she has touched in former and happier days, old and soothing recollections stream in upon her mind-her eyes roll less wildly, gentle tears appear within them, nay, smiles begin to dawn upon cheeks where they had long been absent, and where, but for the power of music, they would have reappeared no more. Music, indeed, from the powers it exerts, and the pleasures it gives, of all arts suggests, perhaps, most the idea of the Infinite-of some higher and holier state of being-and awakens strange sensations, which we may recognise in some more exalted stage of our existence. There occurs in Milton a fine passage, where, describing the march of the rebel angels, he says

'Anon they move,

In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood
Of flutes and soft recorders, such as raised
To height of noblest temper heroes old,
Arming to battle; and, instead of rage,
Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved,
Nor wanting power to mitigate and 'suage,

With solemn touches, troubled thoughts, and chase
Anguish, and doubt, and fear, and sorrow, and pain,
From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they,
Breathing united force with fixed thought,
Moved on in silence, to soft pipes that charmed
Their painful steps o'er the burnt soil.'

This, though of course only a fictitious description, beautifully represents Milton's high idea of the power of music.

Then there are the intellectual, moral, and spiritual advantages of music. Music nct only supplies pleasures of a high order; but, as a science-a science which, if taught properly, must be taught in a scientific methodit tends to open the mind, to cultivate the intellect, to expand the views. By connecting sound with beautiful words, it tends to improve the literary taste, to create a love for poetry, and, in general, a passion for all the fine arts. Its pursuits generate a fine enthusiasm. A man who throws his soul into the pursuit, loses himself in a delightful dream; his mind rises above the grovelling cares of earth, into a rarer, purer, more intellectual atmosphere, from which, if he must and does descend, he descends a wiser and a better man. The moral advantages of the science of music are undeniable. Whatever tends to enlighten the mind, to soften the heart, to supply a constant source of innocent and intellectual enjoyment, to withdraw the soul from the gross gratifications of the senses, must tend to improve the morals. Professed musicians are sometimes apt to fall into habits of dissipation; but the blame of this is their own, or arises from their exposure to company, and must not be laid to the charge of the fine and ethereal art of music; and it will generally be found, that those who possess a taste for music are milder, and, on the whole, better men than those who have none; and those artisans will not

be found the worst of the class who spend their evenings in the midst of their own families, practising, now and then, on some musical instrument, or tuning their own voices to secular or to sacred song.

Mrs Love, the wife of a substantial farmer, one of his father's parishioners, and nursed away from home. There is no class in the community that can say, with truth, to any other class (nevertheless, it is sometimes virtually We have already traced the connexion which has sub- said), I have no need of thee;' and, certainly, the stout sisted from very early times between religion and music. warm-blooded peasant, suckling the child of wealth and Scarce had music sung her first song, or uttered her first rank, is one of the finest illustrations of the beauty of the lisping accents, than that song arose, as by a fine instinct, maxim. Young Astley, after his return from his fosterto heaven, and those accents began to speak in wonder mother, was educated under the eye of his mother, who and praise of the Great Creator of all; and music has was both amiable and accomplished. His father taught since, of all secondary causes of the continuance of reli- him Latin and Greek till he could master Horace and the gion in the midst of a hostile world, been one of the Greek New Testament. His only other preceptor, at this principal. It has promoted private, family, and congre- period of his life, was Mr Larke, the village schoolmaster, gational piety. A private Christian versed in music can who visited Brooke Hall to give the children private fan the flame of his devotion by singing, even in the soli- lessons. Astley was no great credit to the schoolmaster, tary chamber; or, as the pilgrims of old were wont to however. He was too fond of diversion, and Mr Larke lighten their long and lonely way, by spiritual songs. was deficient in self-respect and firmness. His pupil was Thus Henry Martyn, as he crossed the great deep, on a ringleader of sport and mischief, which consisted for the his way to receive the missionary's crown-and sel- most part in robbing orchards, plundering gardens, mountdom has there been a nobler aspirant to the honour- ing stray horses, and even the back of the bull sometimes. when a dark shadow, from the very greatness of the The following anecdote, related by an old Brooke comenterprise, fell sometimes upon his spirit, was wont panion, has something better about it than vulgar fun. to solace himself, to strengthen his faith, to renew 'One afternoon the bell was rung to summon the scholars his flagging hope, by singing all alone in his berth, or on to their duties, and I, together with the rest, was hastenthe evening deck, as the sun was setting in the direction ing to the schoolroom, when some boy snatched one of the of his beloved native land, which he was leaving for ever, scholars' hats from off his head, and threw it into one of the such hymns as that beginning with the words 'O'er the 'meres' or ponds of water which are situated in the village, gloomy hills of darkness;' and his fine spirit became and by which we were passing. The boy, lamenting the itself again. How advantageous music is to family devo- loss of his hat, and fearing he should be punished for his tion, we need not prove; nor need we dwell on the sweet absence from the school, was crying very bitterly, when solemnity of family worship, except to notice how large there came to the spot a young gentleman, dressed as was a share of the beauty of the service arises from its musical then the fashion of the day, in a scarlet coat, a threepart. Without the voice of psalms, the simple song of cocked hat, a glazed black collar or stock, nankeen small praise, it must be confessed that this religious duty is clothes, and white silk stockings, his hair hanging in ringcomparatively cold and uninviting. Let the fathers and lets down his back. He seeing the boy crying, and being mothers of families attend, therefore, more to the culti-informed of the cause of his sorrow, deliberately marched vation of music, as they would have sweeter services and into the water, obtained the hat, and returned it to the happier circles around their hearths, and offer up a more unlucky owner. You may imagine his appearance when acceptable morning and evening sacrifice to the God of he came from the pond, he having been immersed in mud the families of all the earth! How conducive, too, is and water much above his knees. This young gentleman music to congregational piety! What a delightful thing was no other than Master Astley Cooper, who had just is a well-sung church! How it beets the heavenward returned from a dancing-school, held at the King's Head flame' to use the words of the author of The Cottar's (an inn in the village), by some teacher from the neighSaturday Night!' How fine to hear a noble psalm or bouring city of Norwich.' But the most characteristic paraphrase set to a suitable tune, and, under the voice incident of his early life, indicating his future destiny, of a commanding leader, a thousand voices sending up, and giving a turn to it, happened when his foster-brother, like a steam of rich distilled perfumes,' their worship to the farmer's son, driving some coals to the vicar, fell in the Most High! front of the cart, a wheel of which passed over his thigh, and lacerated its principal artery. The boy was carried home, fast sinking under the loss of blood, which was attempted to be stopped by the pressure of handkerchiefs applied to the part. Young Astley seeing that further loss of blood would soon prove fatal, instantly wrapped his pocket-handkerchief tightly round the limb above the │ wounded part, by which means the bleeding was stayed. This surely was the genius for surgery, its courage, precision, and adaptation of means, showing itself in a youth, whose studies as yet had received no bent to any particular profession.

The art which we thus panegyrize is not, we have seen, of yesterday, and neither shall to-morrow see its end; for it is an eternal art: it is destined to survive the sun and the stars. To music shall the present system dissolve, for the trumpet shall sound.'

The trumpet, men, intoxicate with pride,
Arm at its blast for earthly wars:
To arch-angelic lips applied,

The grave shall open, quench the stars.''
Yes; the grave shall to music open its jaws; the books
of judgment shall to music expand their oracular pages;

the new heavens and the new earth shall descend amid shoutings-Grace, grace unto them!' again shall the morning stars sing together; the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Sion with songs;' and throughout eternity shall the blessed inhabitants, standing on the sea of glass, or sitting before the throne, amid the valleys of the heavenly Canaan, or on the summits of the everlasting hills, sing the song of Moses and of the

Lamb!

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

SIR ASTLEY COOPER. SIR ASTLEY COOPER, one of the brightest ornaments of the medical profession, was born at Brooke Hall, in the county of Norfolk, on the 23d of August, 1768. His father was, at the time of his birth, Vicar of Brooke. Not from choice, but necessity, he was placed under the care of a

Such, as we have described him, was Astley Cooper at Brooke Hall. In 1781 his father was presented to the vicarage of Great Yarmouth, to which town the family soon repaired. Astley was between twelve and thirteen years of age at this time. His love of freak and fun still continued, or rather increased, from the larger scope he had to evince it in Yarmouth. Riding, boating, fishing, intermingled with breaking lamps and windows, ringing the church bells at all hours, disturbing the people by frequent alterations of the town clock; these and similar frolics were to our young hero a source of great delight. Our readers may think them all silly enough and inexcusable, and so no doubt they were. He was but entering on his teens, however, and there is one general remark to be made respecting them, in his case, that you will scarcely find one trait of cruelty among his follies. Young people had better be anything than cruel in their sports; cruelty indulged in youth, never fails to extinguish all the kind

sex.

Her sympathies of our nature. Like all youths of a similar stamp, young Astley was a favourite of the softer His handsome person and open countenance, his daring frolics, his courage, combined with gentleness, qualified him to interest those who instinctively feel that their happiness, in the closer connections of life, much depends on qualities which partly contrast with their own. He formed an attachment to a young lady of his own age, the daughter of a clergyman in the village of Howe. That attachment was ardent. He once rode a distance of forty-eight miles, from Yarmouth to Howe and back again, to see her, having got the horse from his father on some other pretence. There is a proverb, we do not defend it, 'At lovers' perjuries Jove laughs;' and young Astley, on this occasion, did not scruple to equivocate in order to gain his point. He was now on the borders of manhood, and naturally grew dissatisfied with his boyish pleasures. A life of mere playrifeness is the most injurious of all to one who has once passed the proper season for it. Astley thirsted for employment and independence. He had an uncle, Mr William Cooper, who was senior surgeon of Guy's Hospital, and who sometimes paid a visit to his father's parsonage, a lively, talented, and accomplished man, well versed in his profession, and altogether likely to win the sympathies of the lad who had saved his foster-brother's life by so cleverly making a bandage of his napkin upon the wounded limb. The result of this uncle's visits was that Astley, with the approbation of his parents, was sent to the metropolis, and articled a pupil to his uncle.

It being inconvenient to receive him into his own house, his uncle procured a residence for his nephew in the house of the eminent Mr Cline, one of the surgeons of St Thomas' Hospital, a most successful operator, and an interesting and instructive companion. One of the best features of this connexion with Mr Cline was the admiration which he entertained for John Hunter, and his professional doctrines. Hunter was then the Bacon of anatomical philosophy-relying on himself, rather than studying the works of other surgical or medical writers. At the commencement of the session, young Astley was proposed and elected a member of the Physical Society, where papers on scientific subjects, written by the members, were read in turn and discussed. This was adding self-education, the best of all, to his professional instructions and studies. The subject which he chose for his first essay was cancer in the breast, a subject which especially engaged his attention throughout his life, and on which he was occupied when death put an end to his labours. From this time he appears to have thrown away his idleness, and most of those frolics which had seduced him from his studies; his play-ground now was the dissecting-room and the hospital. One day Mr Cline brought home an arm, and laying it on a table in his private dissecting-room, desired Astley to dissect it; and having devoted all his powers to the task, he succeeded in performing it both to Mr Cline's satisfaction and his own.

Our medical hero continued to attend his sessions at the hospital, devoting himself to the study of anatomy, without a thorough knowledge of which the practice of medicine is little better than quackery. His knowledge of the structure of the human frame, the form and situation of its various parts, and the varieties in position to which they are occasionally liable, paved the way for those numerous discoveries made by him in pathological anatomy. He was enabled thus to assist the other students at the hospital, and to gain their favour, which had an important influence upon his prospects and worldly happiness. His summer vacations he spent mostly at Yarmouth with his parents, not in rust and idleness, but as medical students ought to do, bringing his skill to bear upon every proper subject that caught his notice, even though it had not a fee in its hand. His first winters he spent in London in the manner described; he was industrious, helpful to his fellow-students, and he kept a prudent eye upon future openings. One of them, that of the year 1787, he spent in Edinburgh, where he enjoyed the ac

quaintance of some of its most eminent men, among others Adam Smith, Dr Gregory, Mackenzie the Man of Feeling, Maconochie afterwards Lord Meadowbank, Charles Hope, and Dr Black. Some of the stories he tells of the Edinburgh professors and literati are highly characteristic and amusing. Of Dr Gregory he relates, that being engaged one day, at his own house, receiving the fees from the new pupils, he had occasion to go into an adjoining apartment for a blank ticket for a student whom he left in his consulting-room. The accumulated money which he had received was lying on the table, and from this sum, as he was re-entering the room, he saw the young man with one hand sweep a portion into the other, and then deposit it in his pocket. Dr Gregory took his seat at the table, and, as if nothing had occurred, filled up the ticket and gave it to the delinquent. He then accompanied him to the door, and when at the threshold, with much emotion said to him, 'I saw what you did just now; keep the money, I know what must be your distress; but for God's sake never do it again, it can never succeed.' The pupil in vain offered him back the money; and the doctor had the satisfaction of knowing that this lesson produced the desired effect on his mind, and rooted out from it that tendency to iniquity, which but for this timely and christian-like conduct on his part, might have proved the young man's ruin. At another time, Dr Gregory having seen a poor pupil and fellowcountryman, who was sinking in the last stage of typhus fever, he said to him, among other things, 'You must have generous diet-jellies, good soup, and wine; your life depends upon it.' The young man, turning his glazed eye upon him, faintly replied, 'Sir, I have not five shillings a-week to spend on food; how do you think I am to get such things? The doctor's eyes were instantly suffused with tears, and shaking the young man's hand, without making further remark, he left the room. From that time the patient was fully supplied with all he needed. He ultimately recovered, and became a highly successful practitioner.

Astley was constant in his attendance at the debates of the Royal Medical Society, where his previous studies under Cline and John Hunter proved of great advantage. He describes Adam Smith as 'good-natured, simpleminded, unaffected, and fond of young people; Lord Meadowbank as a sharp man something like Wollaston; Charles Hope as a man of reading, a gentleman, dignified, and very eloquent.'

At the close of his Edinburgh session, Cooper purchased a couple of horses, hired a servant, and took a tour through the Highlands, before returning to Brooke Hall and London. When his studies were completed so far, he was appointed demonstrator at St Thomas' Hospital, and in 1791 made co-lecturer with Mr Cline. He established a distinct course of lectures on surgery. He afterwards married a Miss Cock of Tottenham, the daughter of a wealthy Hamburg merchant, whose gout he had been the means of alleviating, and did not neglect the ailments of the daughter whilst attending to her parent. Mr and Mrs Cooper visited Paris in 1792, about the time of the French Revolution. He attended the meetings of the National Assembly at Paris, for his bias then was democratical. He studied also under Desault and Chopart, two eminent anatomists and surgeons. Of Desault, he says that he was a good anatomist, and an excellent manipulating surgeon, but not possessing the higher scientific principles necessary to constitute a surgeon of the first order.' He once saw him dissect out a diseased absorbent gland from the neck of a boy, and having succeeded in its removal, he began to extirpate another; but his assistant suddenly looked up in the face of M. Desault, and said Monsieur, the boy is dead.' 'This,' he says, 'was a most unscientific operation, for to remove important structures, subjected only to a disease which in itself is really but a sign of a peculiar deranged state of the constitution, cannot effect any useful result.' But Desault was quick sighted. 'A boy once came before him, and said to him, 'Sir, my right arm is paralytic,'

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cast of his features, that he was some lowly suitor, who had a petition to present, touching misfortunes which he could not of himself overcome, or grievances to complain of, which only the sovereign could redress. To judge by his appearance, one would have taken him for not more than twenty-five years old, but the deep gloom that overshadowed his countenance, threw, like a twilight cloud, but an indistinct light over the dial of his years, and led the inquirer astray as to the precise extent of his age. There was, withal, a delicacy in his figure-a slimness in the outline, looking at him cursorily-which was strikingly in contrast with the firmness of his tread, and the air of determined resolution that seemed to pervade his whole character.

At length a flourish of trumpets announced that Elizabeth had left the palace, and in a few minutes the Queen herself appeared coming down the avenue. On occasions like this, when she walked abroad surrounded by her court, she was apparelled most magnificently, her attire being of the richest description, 'set off,' as one writer remarks, with much gold and jewels of inestimable value.' Elizabeth, it is well known, much affected a stately demeanour and an air of dignity and grandeur, and she even descended to the artifice of wearing high shoes, that she might seem taller than she really was. As usual, crowds of obsequious attendants waited upon her steps, and busy flatterers surrounded her, pouring in 'the lep'rous distilment' of their honied words upon her ever open ears, greedy of adulation. Time had already made a deep impression upon her masculine features, much to her chagrin, for she could not bear to be considered old; but the cares of her tumultuous reign, and the passions of rage, envy, and jealousy, suspicion, pride, and anger, which ever agitated her bosom, had left ravages behind them of a more marked and enduring character. There was nothing that caused deeper mortification and annoyance to this imperious sovereign than the falling away of her good looks. Miss Lucy Aikin, in her interesting memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, relates that the decay of her beauty was an unwelcome truth, which all the artifices of adulation were unable to disguise from her secret consciousness. She could never behold her image in a mirror, during the latter years of her life, without transports of impotent anger; and this circumstance contributed not a little to sour her temper, while it rendered the young and lovely the chosen objects of her malignity.'

As the Queen advanced, her attendants, except a few near her person, gradually spread themselves over the grounds, so that there was nothing to prevent a close approach to her majesty by any one who wished it. Watching his opportunity, the stranger stepped forward hastily, and his right hand, which, ever since he had first caught sight of the Queen, he had held in his bosom, was now quickly withdrawn with a pistol in it. This alarmed those who were nearest her majesty, and who had caught a glance of the deadly weapon in the hand of a stranger. They crowded round her august person, with the view of protecting one who was deemed so dear to Englishmen, and the very pillar and bulwark of the Protestant religion, not only in 'Britain's Isle,' but throughout Europe. The youth, seeing that his design was detected, faltered in his purpose, which was evidently to shoot the Queen, and, in the agitation of the moment, rushing forward impetuously, he stumbled and fell, when the pistol flew out of his hand, and was picked up by one of the bystanders. He was immediately seized, and, upon being searched, another pistol, also loaded, was found concealed in his bosom, together with a long Spanish dagger, sharpened to a point. The Queen, losing nothing of her characteristic fortitude, by the great danger which she had just escaped, commanded the prisoner to be brought before her. She was not unused to these attacks upon her life, which, at the instigation of the popish faction, had become rather frequent, although they were always frustrated. Some two years before this a similar attempt was made upon her in the very same place, which was only pre

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vented by the presence of mind of the Queen herself. It is recorded that, during the time of Babington's conspiracy, she was shown a picture containing the portraits of the six conspirators engaged in that famous plot, with a motto underneath intimating their common design, and that their dreadful countenances remained so vividly impressed upon her memory, that she immediately recognised one of them, who had approached very near her person, as she was one day walking in her garden. 'She had the intrepidity,' says Miss Aikin, to fix a look upon him which daunted him, and afterwards turning to her captain of the guards, she remarked that she was indeed well guarded, not having a single armed man about her at the time.' The courage which she exhibited on such occasions of personal peril to herself was truly remarkable. Bacon relates, that the council once represented to her the danger in which she stood, by the continual conspiracies against her life, and acquainted her that a man was lately taken, who stood ready in a very dangerous and suspicious manner to do the deed; and they showed her the weapon wherewith he thought to have acted it. And, therefore, they advised her that she should go less abroad to take the air, weakly attended, as she used. But the Queen answered that she had rather be dead than put in custody.'

Firm and unmoved stood the stranger in presence of the incensed Queen, who, whether actuated by feelings of curiosity, or what is more likely, struck by the handsome appearance of the prisoner, resolved to question him herself. Accordingly, she thus proceeded with her interrogatories:

Whence come you, young sir, and what is your name and quality ?'

Those who know me in this realm,' replied the youth, and they are but few, call me Anthony Sparke. Those who do not know me have no need to inquire farther."

But I have good need to know both your name and your motive for such an unnatural and disloyal act as the attempted assassination of your sovereign.'

'You are no sovereign of mine, proud princess,' said the prisoner, with an unflinching steadiness. My sovereign died by your bloody order in the Castle of Fotheringay, and is now with the blessed angels and martyrs in heaven.'

Even the imperious Elizabeth, haughty as she was, quailed beneath this bold and unexpected reply. But, recovering herself, she exclaimed,

'Insolent varlet, answerest thou me so! Know that it is in my power to doom thee to a similar fate. Be guarded in thy words, and answer discreetly to the matter concerning which we have thee now in hand.'

"Thou canst not,' said the prisoner, with a smile that had in it more of melancholy than pride; thou canst not, with all thy power and all thy willingness, inflict a greater punishment than that thou hast caused me already suffer, even wert thou to doom me to the fate of my unhappy mistress. Nineteen long years of sad captivity, with much foul calumny and accusation heaped upon her name, and, at the last, an ignominious and most cruel death-such was her fate, and dost thou boast of it? Know that though I appear before thee habited like a man, I am a woman like thyself, and, like thyself too, have been driven by despair to bold and ruthless purposes. My name is Margaret Lambrun-Anthony Sparke but my assumed one, with the habit which I wear. several years I was the attached and trusted handmaid of the lamented Mary, Queen of Scots, by thee unjustly slain. And her sad fate shall yet trouble thy own departing hours, which, come when they do, will fall upon thee with terrible remembrance of all the blood thou hast unjustly shed. The sufferings and death of my dear and murdered mistress are not all I have to mourn; my husband-and a better and a kinder never breathed-unable to survive his Queen, whom he had accompanied from France, and followed till the closing scene of all, gave way to pining sorrow, and died, alas! oh! double wo to me—of grief incurable for her loss.'

For

She paused for a moment, overcome by her feelings, but soon recovering her self-possession, she resumed'Deprived thus, through thee, of the two persons whom I loved most dearly in the world, my queen and my husband, I formed a resolution, at the peril of my life, to avenge their death on thee, the sole cause of their being so untimely cut from life. And here I came to execute my intent, in which I have been, by inopportune accident, prevented.'

The Queen had listened, with some degree of interest, to this narrative, but when she found that it was a woman who had attempted her life, and that, too, from feelings of love and duty to others rather than of hatred to herself, she relented, and addressed the prisoner in more gracious terms than any she had yet used towards her.

'In this guilty attempt, which, fortunately for yourself as well as for me, you have been providentially withheld from accomplishing, are you persuaded that you were only doing what you conceived your duty to your mistress, and your love for your husband, imperatively required of

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'Nothing but my fealty to them both,' said Margaret, 'would have led me to dare such a deed, which, in other circumstances, my soul would have abhorred.'

'But what think you,' rejoined the Queen, 'it is now my duty to do to you?'

Does your Majesty put the question,' asked Lambrun in her turn, in the character of a queen, willing to forgive, or in that of a judge, anxious to condemn P

'In that of a queen, undoubtedly,' replied Elizabeth. 'Then,' said Margaret, 'your Majesty ought immediately to grant me a pardon.'

But what security have I,' said the Queen, that you will not again attempt my life.'

'Madam,' replied Lambrun, an entire and unconditional pardon would claim my lasting gratitude; but a favour granted under restraint ceases to be a favour. And in exacting any such guarantee, your majesty would be acting the part of a stern and inexorable judge rather than that of a good and merciful queen. Alas! princes I are slow to learn that clemency is their truest and safest policy.'

The justice, as well as the boldness of these remarks, struck Elizabeth, and turning to those about her, among whom were some members of her council, she exclaimed, 'I have been thirty years a queen, but do not remember of ever having had such a lecture read to me before.' She then ordered the prisoner to be set at liberty, and granted her a safe conduct to wherever she wished to go. Margaret Lambrun, no longer Anthony Sparke, resumed, with her woman's clothes, all the better and purer feelings of a woman's nature; and soon after she retired to France, the native country of her husband.

MOZART'S REQUIEM. MOZART, the celebrated composer, was much addicted to melancholy, which at length became habitual. He fancied that his life was fast drawing to a close, and he beheld the prospect with horror. One day, being plunged in his melancholy reveries, he heard a carriage stop at his door: a stranger was announced, who desired to speak with him. He was requested to walk in. He was a inan of a certain age, and had all the appearance of a person of distinction.

'I am charged,' said the unknown, by a person of rank to come and see you.'

'Who is he?' interrupted Mozart.
'He does not wish that to be known.'
'Very well, what is his pleasure?'

'He has lost a lady who was extremely dear to him, and whose memory will be eternally so. He wishes to celebrate her loss every year by a solemn service, and he wishes you to compose a requiem for this service.'

Mozart felt deeply affected by this discourse: the grave

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The stranger counted the amount on the table and disappeared.

Mozart remained for a few moments absorbed in thought, then asked for pon, ink, and paper, and in spite of his wife's remonstrances began to write with an ardour that was insensible to pain and fatigue; he composed night and day with an enthusiasm which seemed to increase as he proceeded, till at length he fell motionless off his seat, owing to extreme fatigue and lassitude: this compelled him to suspend his labour for some days. His wife endeavouring to dispel the sombre ideas which occupied his brain, Mozart said to her hastily, 'Yes, it is certain it is for myself that I am composing this requiem— it will be for iny own funeral service. Nothing could eradicate this idea from his mind; he continued to labour at his requiem as Raphael did at the picture of the Transfiguration, equally struck with the idea of his death. Mozart felt his strength gradually decay; his requiem proceeded slowly; the period he had asked was elapsed. The stranger returned.

'I have found it impossible,' said Mozart, 'to keep my word.'

Don't let that trouble you,' replied the stranger; how much longer time do you wish ?'

'A month; the work has inspired me with more interest than I expected it would, and I have extended it much further than I intended.'"

'In that case it is necessary to augment your compliment; there are fifty ducats more.'

'Sir,' said Mozart, still more astonished, 'who are you then?'

'That has nothing to do with the business; I will return in a month.'

Mozart sent one of his servants after the stranger, to discover where he went to, but he returned only to inform him that he had lost sight of the stranger, and could not find him again. Poor Mozart took it into his head that this stranger was no ordinary being; that he certainly had some connexion with the other world, and that he was sent to advertise him of his approaching end. He now laboured with more ardour at his requiem, which he regarded as the most durable monument of his talent. He fainted away several times, and was with difficulty recovered. At length the work was finished before the end of the month. The stranger returned at the time agreed upon-Mozart was no more! All Germany account this requiem as the chef d'œuvre of the composer.

FIDELITY OF A DOG.

A shepherd had driven a part of his flock to a neighbouring fair, leaving his dog to watch the remainder during that day and the next night, expecting to revisit them the following morning. Unfortunately, however, when at the fair, the shepherd forgot both his dog and his sheep, and did not return home till the morning of the third day. His first inquiry was, whether his dog had been seen? The answer was, 'No.' Then he must be dead,' replied the shepherd, with a tone and gesture of anguish, for I know he was too faithful to desert his charge.' He instantly repaired to the heath. The dog had just sufficient strength remaining to crawl to his master's feet and express his joy at his return, and almost immediately after expired.

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