SOLACE OF READING.

Among the sufferers from the capricious despotism of Henry VIII., was Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who would most probably have perished on the scaffold, had not the timely death of the tyrant reserved him for better times. One of the articles brought against the duke was, that he had complained that he was not of the privy council; and that his majesty loved him not, because he was too much loved in the country.

In his petition to the Lords, from the Tower of London, he requests to have some of the books that are at Lambeth; " for," adds he, "unless I have books to read ere I fall asleep, and after I am awake again, cannot sleep, nor have done these dozen years. That I may hear mass, and be bound upon my life, not to speak to him who says mass. which he may do in the other chamber, whilst I remain within. That I may be allowed sheets to lie on; to have license in the day time to walk in the chamber without, and in the night be locked in as I am now. would gladly have license to send to London, to buy one book of St. Austin, de Civitate Dei; and one of Josephus, de Antiquitatibus; and another of Sabellius, who doth declare most of any book that I have read, how the Bishop of Rome, from time to time, hath usurped his power against all princes, by their unwise sufferance."

THE BASTILE OF SAXONY.

"This vast rock," says Trenck, "is not a fortress that an enemy must subdue before he can conquer Saxony. It contains but a small garrison, incapable of making a sally; and serves only to secure the records of the country, and prisoners of state. Konigstein is the Bastile of Saxony, in which many a brave man has pined out his life in durance. When I was there, part of the rock was blown up to form casements. In doing this, there was found a dungeon bored in the solid stone, to the depth of sixty fathoms. At the bottom of this dungeon appeared a bedstead, on which a skeleton reposed, and by its side the remains of a dead dog. Mournful sight for a heart possessed of the feelings of a man! How savage the tyrant that can invent such tortures for his fellowcreatures, and can lie down on his pillow, conscious that in a hole like this, a man is slowly consuming the lamp of life, feebly supported by vain hopes of compassion. Even now," adds Trenck," the walls of this prison confine three persons not unworthy of notice. One of these was private secretary to the Court of Saxony, and in the year 1756, betrayed the secrets of the Dresden archives to the King of Prussia. He was taken in Poland; and has now been four and thirty years in a dungeon; he still lives-but his appearance is more that of a wild beast than of a

man.

"Another is Colonel Acton. He who is acquainted with the secret history of Dresden, will remember the horrid poison scheme which was detected, but was

thought proper to be kept secret. Acton was chief in this conspiracy.

"The third is a fine young Swede. Six years ago he was arrested at Leipsic, at the private request of the King of Sweden, and brought to Konigstein in a mask. When he was taken he defended himself like a lion, claiming his right to be protected by the law of nations. This man is excluded from the light of day. No one sees him; no one speaks to him; and on pain of death, no one must know what is his name, who he is, or even that he is there. From what I could learn, he is no criminal; he has had no trial; but some state or love intrigue at the Swedish court, has brought on him his fate. Pity him, reader! he has no deliverance to hope for, but in death; for the Elector has promised the King of Sweden, that he shall never behold the beams of the sun. He is now under thirty years of age, and the worthy governor cannot speak of him without the tear of compassion in his eyes: he shrugs up his shoulders, looks up to Heaven, and says, 'It is the Elector's order, and I must obey. God help him!'"

MILTIADES.

The hero of Marathon was in his latter days fined fifty talents for failing in an enterprise of indifferent consequence; and being without the means of paying it, was committed to prison for the default, though suffering severely at the time from a wound in the thigh. To be grateful or generous is not among the virtues of republics; otherwise a draft on the ample glory of former years might have sufficed for payment

of the fine for one miscarriage. For this paltry consideration of fifty talents, the wounded Miltiades languished in prison, till his son, Cimon, found the means of paying the money; but still suffering from his wounds, and suffering probably more from justly wounded feeling, he did not long survive his enlargement.

FRIENDLY IMPRISONMENT.

Duncan Creach M'Gregor, alias Campbell, like the celebrated Rob Roy, was a sort of gentleman dealer in cattle, and much esteemed by the late Duke of Argyle, on account of his inviolable sincerity. His Grace had not attained the title, when in the commencement of those intrigues that produced the rebellion in 1745, the heir of Mamore understood Duncan Creach was on the point of involving himself in the Stuart cause. He sent for the drover, and told him he had grounds to doubt his loyalty. Duncan was silent; and the duke taking his silence as a tacit acknowledgement, asked how a true protestant, a man whose independant spirit would be tenacious of liberty, religious and civil, could reconcile with a due regard to his own rights, and the rights of his countrymen, an enterprise in favour of a race whose Romish superstition and arbitrary government were notorious?" Sir," replied Duncan," the heart and head of men far wiser than I am, are often at variance. The head has eyes; the heart has feeling. My head tells me that the question you asked were calculated to prove me a traitor, and the arguments you have used prove me a fool. Yet, sir, if it were needfu' I

would count my life cheap for your service; and though I can spy in my chief some things not quite to my mind, I am bound to follow, not to question where he would lead me. Can less fealty be due to my hereditary king?" The heir of Mamore saw Duncan was above denying his intention, yet shunned an explanation, lest he might implicate others. He managed to get an order for confining Duncan Creach M‘Gregor, alias Campbell, as a suspected person; and by a short imprisonment saved him from execution, or exile. Shortly after Duncan was furnished with free quarters in the jail of Inverary, the heir of Mamore passed by the windows; and Duncan, to intimate that he knew to whom he owed his detention, called out through the bars, "When the heart is too strong for the head, fools are laid by the heels.'

So highly was Duncan Creach esteemed for his sincerity and uprightness, that when through the vicissitudes of his precarious occupation he became insolvent, several gentlemen subscribed a sum of money to enable him to resume business. He was in a few years enabled to repay those generous friends; and soon after called a meeting of his former creditors, to whom he also paid twenty shillings in the pound.

BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA.

Perhaps history has never furnished a tale so full of horror, as that of the British subjects who were confined, and most of them suffocated to death, in the Black Hole of Calcutta, on the capture of that city in 1756. The genius of tyranny could