Theatre Royal, LIVERPOOL.-Mrs. Ward took her final leave of the Liverpool audience on her benefit night, upon which occasion she delivered the following address.

My fiction ended here, and done my art,

From my first friends 'tis mine this year to part;
Seasons twice ten, and more, you've seen me play-
To-night 'tis real feeling makes its way.

If kindness merits thanks in every clime,

What then must yours, unhurt, increas'd, by time?
Within these walls, my well-intended toils
Have often shar'd your plaudits and your smiles;

And oft you've left the drama and its seat,

To cheer the matron in her lone retreat :

In my weak powers the cause I cannot trace-
But
your good nature has supplied the place:
To thank you as I ought, I want the skill-
Instead of that, accept my grateful will :
Not wealth alone, but bliss, may He bestow,
From whom all wealth and happiness must flow.
Farewell, my friends and patrons-fare ye well-
All my heart dictates tongue can never tell.
"While Memory holds her seat," within my breast
Too much will dwell, by words to be expressed.

DOMESTIC EVENTS.

The following instances of extraordinary old age are mentioned in the Paris papers-Jean Dumas, also named Solomon, an invalid soldier, aged 110 years and 6 months, went a few days ago to perform his devotions in the chapel belonging to the infirmary of the Hotel des Invalides. He rose from his bed and went to the chapel without any other assistance than that of his crutches. He is a native of Brive-la-Gaillarde. He looks fresh, his health is sound, and he is of a very lively disposition; he loves to speak of his dinner with the First Consul; repeats the same questions which Bonaparte put to him, and the answers which he made. Bertrand Dumas, his father, and N. Dumas, his uncle, died in the same hotel, the first at the age of 116, the second at 114. About thirty years ago they all three went to play at bowls; after drinking a few glasses of wine, the father said, "I shall never drink more," and expired. The other, struck with the sudden death of his brother, died two days afterwards. The circumstances of their death are recorded in the Register of the Hotel.

A bunch of grapes was lately cut by Mr. Parke, of Highfield House, near Liverpool, which weighed ten pounds two ounces. Its greatest breadth, across the shoulders, when hanging in its natural position, was one foot eight inches and three-quarters; circumference, three feet eleven inches. The vine is only four years old, and has six more bunches upon it of large dimensions.

The following singular occurrence is said to have recently taken place at Harrowate.-A servant had been riding a small stallion poney, the property of a physician at Mânchester, and on alighting, slackly retained the reign whilst he stood with his back towards him :-the poney directly seized the man, threw him on the ground, knelt on him, and in the most vengeful manner worried him to death the mangled corse was rescued with difficulty from the devouring

beast.

AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE.-The wife of a game-keeper, near Riegate, a girl of fifteen years old, being with child, and hourly in expectation of being brought to bed, was seized, on the Sunday morning, with convulsion fits, in which dreadful situation she remained till the Monday morning following, when she died; the fourth day after her decease, the child was born, perfect, but dead.

An application is intended to be made to Parliament in the next session, to remove Bethlem Hospital to another situation, and to make a square or buildings on the scite thereof. New streets are proposed to be made from the scite of Bethlem Hospital to Throgmorton-street and the Royal Exchange, and another new street from Moorgate to Mansion-house-street.

Application is also to be made for an act for taking down London - Bridge, and for rebuilding the same on the present scite, or for building a new Bridge, in some more convenient situation.

Besides those two original letters of Shakespeare addressed to Thos. Lord Buckhurst, which have been lately discovered among the Dorset papers, the correspondence of Dryden, Otway, Lee, Sedley and Prior, with Charles Earl of Dorset, is most valuable. The letters of Nell Gwinn to that nobleman throw light on some of the secret measures of Charles II.'s reign, and are extremely interesting from the anecdotes contained in them. It was at the express desire of the late Duke of Dorset that the Duchess is now giving these papers to the public.

In the department of Indre two very singular phenomena appeared :-A woman in the Commune of Neret was delivered of a female child without arms; the infant is living and doing well. In the Commune of La Chatre, a woman was likewise brought to bed of a female, having two well shaped heads, apart from each other, two necks, two legs, one trunk, one breast, two sternums, two spines, one of which was on the right side, and the other formed a kind of bifurcated figure. This lusus naturæ lived but a few minutes after its entrance into the world, at which period only one head appeared to be animated. Being opened, it was found to contain one heart, one pair of lungs, one intestinal canal, and a double liver.

RANELAGH DIVING MACHINE.-It had been for some time publicly announced that a Mr. Todd was to descend at Ranelagh Gardens, into a reservoir 25 feet deep, to remain at the bottom for an hour,-to be there surrounded with lights,-and to communicate with the surrounding spectators. This bold promise did not attract so many as one hundred persons, and if any of them, after witnessing the recent triumph of experimental philosophy in one element, hoped to enjoy a similar triumph over the dangers of another-we can only say, that those persons must have returned most miserably dissappointed. N N-VOL. XIV.

The apparatus used on the occasion was a tub of deal, encircled with iron hoops, about 18 feet in height, and not quite 5 in diameter; on a level with the top of which was a scaffolding. The operator was provided with a dress formed of leather, iron, and copper, in which he was inserted up to his neck. A wooden box, with a pane of glass in front, was then put on his head, and this being attached to his leathern neck-piece, the joining was afterwards smeared over with tar: he was then raised by pullies, and in this clumsy garb dangled for some time over the water. At this moment he appeared ready for the gibbet, and the exhibition had indeed all the disgust, without any of the interest which is excited on beholding a public execution! He was then ducked several times, but at no time was under the water so much as five minutes. To supply him with air, a flexible tube of cane, with copper joints, bound with cordage and tarred over, was screwed into what he called his "head-dress," and a second tube was connected in the same manner for the escape of the foul air. The dress was weighty and awkward, and when inclosed in it, the operator appeared the most helpless animal that can well be imagined. There was nothing like dexterity in the operation, nor was any part of the magnificent promises to the public fulfilled.— His helpless state he attributed to the misfitting of his taylor-coppersmith:—a part of the tube was broken off, and he therefore could not hold any communication with his visitors. He forgot to take down his lamp, and, therefore, nothing but "darkness visible" could be seen through the panes which were inserted about five feet from the bottom of this tub. He was repeatedly reminded of this omission, and the lamp was even shewn to him; but he roared out through his mouth-piece, with affected ignorance," that he did not want to drink.” We were inclined, with many others, to consider the man as a gross impostor, but, on conversing with him after his last emersion, we found him to be an ignorant enthusiast! The means which he has employed for resisting the pressure of the water at a certain depth, may answer that end, but they are such as to deprive the } wearer of all activity or exertion.-If the recesses of the deep are to be explored, the diving-bell, with its last improvements, by which the water can be expelled to within two inches of its inferior edge, is certainly preferable to any means yet discovered.

The Rev. Mr. Hart, the high priest of the Jews of England, who lately arrived from Holland, is a near relation of the respectable and well known English families of Hart and Franks, of the Jewish church. There has been no one officiating in that high capacity, in this country, for many years: and his salary exceeds £.4000 per annum.-The last was the Rev. Mr. Netto, a near relation of the Cappadocia family, and justly celebrated for his piety and integrity.

ACCOUNT OF AN EXECUTION IN PARIS.-I was informed that the order of Bonaparte had just been received for the execution of ten young men, who had been convicted as Brigands (robbers); four of them had committed murders, and the rest as associates under the pretence of robbing in the cause of the King. They were related to persons of great respectability in Normandy. The First Consul having magnanimously reserved to himself by the new Constitution the heavenly attribute of granting mercy, when the exercise of justice and true humanity will admit it, an appeal was made in favour of these unfortunates, and

!

their fate suspended a few days until his decree could be obtained. The result proved that no interest could prevail to screen the guilty, or prevent the austere maxim of our late great luminary of criminal jurisprudence, whose doctrine was fiat justitia, ruat cælum. In the Grand Place the preparations were complete at noon; the machinery consisted of a square platform, about the height and dimensions of the erection for executions in London, with a high post in the centre of the outer frame, in which was drawn up in a groove the fatal instrument, fixed in a heavy block of wood not unlike a pile driver; the instrument, shaped like a ploughshare, falling perpendicularly upon the criminal's neck, which was placed face downwards through a circular hole like the pillory, his body being extended on a plank at full length. The principal executioner was employed with his underling and workmen in adjusting the apparatus, in depositing the wooden shells, or troughs, in which the bodies after death were to be placed, and in adjusting a large bag, pitched and tarred, which was fixed on the outer part of the frame work to receive the heads on decapitation. Saw dust and coarse cloths were prepared for the purpose of obliterating the effusion of blood. During the preparations the place of execution, which is the largest square in the city, was completely crowded, and every window filled with lookers-on :-at one a detachment of cavalry and a party of infantry attended to clear the ground near the scaffold, and all the agents of justice were in readiness to perform their respective offices; without noise or clamour this great assemblage were waiting, but, in common conversation, I heard some of the crowd observe, that the executioner trembled like an Englishman, which seemed to be considered as a good point. The procession commenced at one, and the culprits were conveyed in two open waggons, the upper part of their bodies naked, their hair cut short, and their arms pinioned, a crimson cloak, like a scarf, surrounding the shoulders of four of the prisoners as a distinction, pointing them out as murderers. Each of thein was attended by a Confessor, and, on arrival at the scaffold, they were instantly conducted up the steps to the platform, which they ascended with great steadiness, resignation, and marks of courage; in the same moment the executioner placed the first of them in his appointed situation; he then immediately gave the signal to his underling to pull up the weighty block, which contained the gullotine, and to let it drop, which was done accordingly, but horrible to behold! it failed in its effect; and the operation was repeated four times without complete decapitation; the head at last was severed from the body with a knife, by a third person, who attended on the scaffold. The first stroke had certainly occasioned instant death, as the body scarcely writhed; this defect caused general sensations of horror, by expressions of a bas! a bas! from the crowd. The rest of them met their fate with fortitude, and some of them with polite address, by bowing round to the crowd; and the executioner received some plaudits for the celerity of his performance afterwards, by exclamations of Well done!-The murderers were the last executed; and all the bodies were in their shells, with their respective heads in less than ten minutes after their arrival. It was said that forty persons had suffered there before, and the performance over in a quarter of an hour. The bodies were immediately conveyed away in the same waggons, lightly covered over with coarse cloths.

A German paper states that they inoculate with the cow pox on the Banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and that this practice is commen at Bagdat and Bassora.

A melancholy accident occurred lately at Wingmore, near Elham, in Kent. Mr. Whitehead, the owner of a lime-kiln, which had been burning a few days, inadvertently attempted to walk across the top of the pit, when the chalk giving way beneath, he sunk down, and in a very short space was literally burnt to a skeleton his wife, who had accompanied him, and who was the unfortunate spectator of the event, ran and alarmed a neighbouring congregation, but too late to afford him any assistance.

In addition to the melancholy catalogue of accidents occasioned by curricles, we have to state a catastrophe that has recently occurred, somewhat similar in its circumstances to the death of John Heathcote. On Monday the 11th Oct. as Lieutenant Frazer, of the 1st Regiment of Life Guards, having his groom with him in his landau, was driving into Canterbury, he unfortunately met a broadwheeled waggon, at which the horses took fright, and being high blood, continued plunging so violently, that they were both thrown out. The groom received no injury, but Lieutenant Fraser, independent of a fracture in the head, experienced many severe contusions. On being lifted up, the unhappy gentleman exclaimed to his groom, "I know I cannot live, but do not leave me !" and instantly fainted. He was immediately, with the utmost care, conveyed to the nearest inn, and after languishing four hours in a state of insensibility, he expired.--The deceased was the son of a gentleman of considerable property in Golden-square, and much esteemed not only by his brethren of his mess, but an extensive circle of friends, for suavity of manners, and many amiable qualifications.

Near Bromham, in Wiltshire, on Monday night, the 20th Sept. a little before ten o'clock, a star-like meteor was seen, resembling, in size and splendour, a star of the second magnitude; and, but for its uncommon course and duration, not unlike those called shooting or falling stars, which are so frequently seen darting in a right line, in the higher regions of our atmosphere. It described in its path five spiral circumvolutions, proceeding from the zenith, and gradually widening till it reached the horizon; the whole being performed in about fifteen seconds.

The Prince Ruspoli, who has been elected Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, was born at Rome in 1754. He went to Malta in 1780, and was appointed to the command of the galleys of the order in 1785. Since then he has been travelling through the principal states of Europe.

Dr. Jenner has received a valuable diamond ring, accompanied with a very gracious letter from her Majesty the Empress Dowager of all the Russias.

DREADFUL FIRE AT LIVERPOOL.--A tremendous fire broke out on Tuesday night 14th Sept. at this place, which consumed the whole of the beautiful and extensive warehouses fronting St. George's Dock, justly the pride of Liverpool's enterprising inhabitants, and the admiration of all strangers.-It is not known how this dreadful calamity originated; but about ten o'clock smoke was observed to issue from the centre of Francis's Buildings; the fire bell was instantly rung, the drums beat to arms, the whole of the military turned out, and