stroy the relish of all its pleasures! how weak is human nature, which in the absence of real, is thus prone to form to itself imaginary woes! BLAIR For ti-tude, för-14-thde, courage, bravery Fe-lic-i-ty, fè l'-e-tè, happiness, Scaf-fold, skåf'-föld, a slight frame tion Offence, of-fense', erime, Injury- 7 Con-strain, kon-stråne', to compe s Fil-ial, fil-yál, pertaining to a son Tond, tênd, to watch, to movo towards Lady Jane Gray. 1. TH13 excellent personage was descended from the royal line of England by both her parents. She was carefully educated in the principles of the reformation; 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 à 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. 2. 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 exposing them to danger, should have been the protectors of their innocence and youth. 3. This extraordinary young person, besides the solid endowments of piety and virtue, possessed the most en gaging disposition, the most accomplished parts; and being of an equat age with king Edward VI. she had received all her education with him, and seemed even to possess a greater facility in acquiring every part of manly and classical literature. 4. She had attained a knowledge of the Roman and Greek languages, as 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 a usements usual with her sex and station. 5. Roger Ascham, tutor to the lady Elizabeth, having at on time paid her a visit, found her employed in reading Pito, 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." 6. 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 enterprizes so dangerous, not to say so criminal; and desired to remain in that private station in which she was born. 7. Overcome at last with the entreaties, rather than reasons, of her father, and father-in-law, 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 declared for queen Mary; and the lady Jane, after wearing the vain pageantry of a crown during ten days, returned to a private life, with much more satisfaction than she felt when royalty was tendered to her. 3. Queen Mary, who appears to have been incapable of generosity or clemency, determined to remove every per son, from whom the least danger could be apprehended. Warning was, therefore given to lady Jane to prepare for death; a doom which she had expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which she had been exposed, rendered no unwelcoine news to her. 9. The queen's bigoted zeal, under colour of tender mercy to the prisoner's soul, induced her to send priests, who molested her with perpetual disputation; and even a reprieve of three days was granted her, in hopes that she would be persuaded, during that time, to pay, by a timely conversion to popery, some regard to her eternal welfare. 10. Lady Jane had presence of mind, in those melancholy circumstances, not only to defend her religion by solid argument, but also to write a letter to her sister, in the Greek language; in which, besides sending her a copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, she exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, a like steady perseverance. 11. On the day of her execution, her husband, lord Guilford, desired permission to see her; but she refused her consent, and sent him word, that the tenderness of their parting would overcome the fortitude of both; and would too much unbend their minds from that constancy, which their approaching end required of them. Their separation, she said, would be only for a moment; and they would soon rejoin each other in a scene, where their affections would be forever united; and where death, disappointment, and misfortune, could no longer have access to them, or disturb their eternal felicity. 12. It had been intended to execute the lady Jane and lord Guilford together on the same scaffold," at Tower hill; but their council, dreading the compassion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and noble birth, changed their orders, and gave directions that she should be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. 13. She saw her husband led to execution; and having given him from the window some token of her remembrance, she waited with tranquillity till her own appointed hour should bring her to a like fate. She even saw his headless body carried back in a cart; and found herself more confirmed by the reports which she heard of the constancy" of his end, than shaken by so tender and melancholy a spectacle. 14. Sir John Gage, constable of the tower, when he led her to execution, desired her to bestow on him some small present, which he might keep as a 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, and a third in English. 15. 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 staffold, she made a speech to the bystanders, 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. 16. 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 atoner 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 instru ment, 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. 17. After uttering these words, she caused herself to be disrobed by her women, and with a steady serene countenance, submitted herself to the exccutioner. Ortogrul; or, the vanity of riches. 1. As Ortogrul of Basra was one day wandering along the 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 tranquillity of meditation, by a crowd that obstructed his pas sage. Ile raised his eyes, and saw the chief vizier who, having returned from the divan, was entering his palace. 2. Ortogrul mingled with the attendants; and being supposed to have some petition for the vizier, was per mitted 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. 3, Surely," said he to himself, "this palace is the seat 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 has not obtained? The dishes of luxury cover his table! the voice of harmony lulls him in his bowers; he breathes the fragrance of the groves of Java, and sleeps upen the down of the cyguets of Ganges. 4. .. 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, Oh Ortogrul, is thy condition, who art doomed to the perpetual torments of unsatisfied desire; and who hast 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 Hong sought content, and have not found it; I will from this moment endeavour to be rich." 6. Full of his new resolution, he shut himself in his chamber for six month to deliberates how he should grow rich. He sometimes purposed to offer himself as a counsellor to one of the kings of India; and sometimes resolved to dig for diamonds in the mines of Golconda. 7. One day, after some hours passed in violent fluctuations 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." 8. Ortogrul looked, and saw a torrent tumbling down |