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TRUTH AND FICTION.

(Concluded from page 69.)

and swung himself from the scaffold, with his neck hung on the right side, and his feet flourishing in imitation of one executed.

The heart of Richard was sick within him at this brutal jest; but when the first pain of the shock was over, it left behind a kind and

It was the night previous to the day of execution, one of those calm autumnal nights when the leaf drops noiseless from the tree, as if it were a shadow. A thin clear white fog mantled the earth, gentle effect: the over-wrought through which the moon seemed mind sunk into a deep slumwalking like a spirit, so little had ber, and fortunately for him, the it dimmed her brightness; and, indolence, or the drowsiness of as the prisoner lay in his dungeon, the jailor, let him remain undishe could see the carpenters at turbed by the usual hourly visiwork on his scaffold. He even tations. His dreams too were heard the coarse jokes of the happier than his waking reality; workmen, their taunts against each to his sleeping fancy he was no other, and their calculations of the longer in a dungeon, but stood probable pain of hanging, mixed proudly at the helm of his little now and then with a word of self-brig, with every sail set to the congratulation that they were not, as they expressed it, in the shoes of the prisoner. Not a syllable escaped him. 'A few more screws in the up-rilous speed; Lucy was traversright,' said the master carpenter, or our work may chance to give way before the time,'

'If it does I'll give you leave to hang me,' said one of his assistants. 'But suppose we try it first on Sim here: if it bears his fat sides, it will bear any thing.'

You had better try it on your self,' replied the object of the taunt, 'Your neck was made for a hempen neckcloth,'

wind, and lying gunnel to amidst the dark-green waves that splashed half-way up her mast. There was reason, however, for this pe

ing the shore on her way to the church with a bridegroom, forced on her by old Ellis, who, whether sleeping or waking, seemed to be an everlasting torment to poor Richard, The first of the party had already crossed the style which defended the church-yard, while there was still a space of three miles at the least, lying between his vessel and the Minister. Reckless of the consequence, he shouted to his men; Out with every reef in her mainsheet, my lads; sink or swim, no matter for

With all my heart,' said the first speaker, and, dexterously flinging a rope over the top beam he sprung up so as to catch a the upshot!'-This was no sooner grasp of it as high as possible, said than done and the mast be

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gan to grown and quiver, while—and the organ too increasing in the water rose half over the lee-speed-till at last it seemed like ward side of the deck; but the the jubilee of madness. But the purpose was answered; the vessel vision soon melted away into anoflew with this fresh stimulus to ther shape, more pleasing and its speed; and, just as the priest less fantastic, than this dance of was challenging the bystanders to the living dead. The grey aisles produce any impediment to the of the church were succeeded by union, he was at the altar, and the humble mansion of his father, exclaimed: 'I do-I—the bride's even to the minutest article that husband mine! mine by an lived in his waking memory, and oath; mine by this token!' 20 years were struck off from the -and he lifted up their infant, account of time; he was a boy that now, by another flight of again, in holyday freedom from fancy, lay cradled in his arms. school, playing at the feet of his Mine! Mine!' replied Lucy; mother; and, by one of the Mine! Mine!' echoed a thou-strange incongruities so familiar sand voices from below, and the to dreams, that mother was Lucy! organ began to play, and the If a state of sleep can be deemed stones to heave up from the vaults, life, this was with him the hap→ and all those, who had been buri- piest moment of life; he hung on ed for centuries, arose from their her lips, like a young bee on the long sleep, not as shrouded skele-rose; and the very air, in which tons, but as things of life, each in he breathed, seemed a perfume; the costume of his own time. It it was a full and perfect consciwas in fact the masquerade of ousness of bliss that belongs only ages; the thin, tight-laced beau to the imagination, and can thereof modern days, gave his hand to fore be tasted by none but the the furbelowed antique, with hoop sleeper or the maniac; a glimpse of monstrous dimensions, and a of reason would destroy it; like turret of caps on her head; the the figures of the phantasmagoria, gauntletted warrior stretched out it is visible only in the dark. his arm of brass to the half clad fair one, who returned his formal courtesy with the slight nod of did not, last long, and with every a modern fashionable; lawyers, minute his slumber lost something priests, soldiers, statesmen, men, of its soundness. He began to be women, and children, in grotesque half conscious that he was only in assemblage, ranged along each a dream; and in this middle state, side of the chancel. And now between sleeping and waking, the waltz began at first, slow struggled hard to keep it, by then, quicker-quicker-quicker giving himself up, as much as

Such a position of mind and body, however, could not, and

possible, to the illusion. He had He was now within a few yards even partially succeeded, when a of the scaffold, that stood on the rude voice, in breaking up this cliff before the Light-house, when slumber, awoke him to a full sense a young woman made her way to of his misery. It was the jailor him in spite of all opposition, and with the blacksmith, who came to flung herself, sobbing, on his knock off his fetters previous to neck it, was Lucy. The shehis appearance on the scaffold. The riff's officers would fain have transition was anguish unuttera- forced her from him, but, at the ble. The inind, too, by this short earnest prayer of Richard, the respite from pain, had acquired clergyman interposed, notwithfresh capabilities of sufferance; standing the irregularity of the and, by the time he was led out from his prison, he was in a state of mental agony far more severe than the worst inflictions of the hangman. He had seen many suffer the same form of death, but now that he was called on to en

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proceeding, and obtained for her a momentary respite, which she was not slow to employ. Why is this? she exclaimed; I will not have it so. The old man was'

forgive the deed, What was he to

my father, and I
you surely may.
any of you? By God's light, you
make much more ado about the
dead man than you ever did about
the living one.'

dure it in his own person, it seemed as a thing beyond all possible calculation as an event that had never happened till then. He gazed on the crowd that were collect- 'We can stay no longer,' said ed to witness his death, as he had the sheriff's officer who little exoften witnessed the death of others, pected such an address. • You and could hardly believe that he can't?' exclaimed Lucy; and himself was the victim of the pre- who are you?' Then addressing sent hour; or if his eye by acci- herself to the clergyman, she adddent glanced on a face of more ed, in a tone of peculiar bitterthan usual hardness, he turned a-ness, Turn over your book, my way instinctively in horror. It bonny man, and let them know was even a relief to his suffering that they shall do no murder; and to dwell on any countenance that what do they call hanging a man' expressed sympathy with his con- on yonder cross sticks till he's dition; there was a vague idea of black in the face? Isn't that mursafety connected with it—an indi- der think ye ?' finite feeling of support and friendship; and yet the same man who yielded to this weakness, would have faced a cannon without shrinking.

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For the first time since his boyhood a tear stood in Richard's eye, but he did not utter a syllable. Lucy stretched out her hand to

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the prisoner; and it was evident worthy a place in your Entertainthat the reply was an involuntary ing Miscellany, the insertion thereof will oblige,

one.

Then give us both your blessing, reverend sir,' exclaimed Lucy, casting herself on her knees before the clergyman.

The pale cheek of the venerable old man was suffused with a slight glow, and his hand trembled as he laid it on the supplicant's head, saying, in a voice scarcely intelligible from emotion, May God of his infinite mercy forgive the young man the wrong he has done to thee and thine, and take ye both unto himself in a world where there is neither sin nor suffering!'.

'Amen!' responded Lucy; and the Amen was solemnly echoed back by the whole assemblage.

Your's, &c.
Αλφα.

THE LAST OF THE ALCHYMISTS.

Mrs. Manly, the fair author of the "Atlantis" published in 1709, records a singular delusion of alchymy, which so late as that day was practised. It appears that a lady, an infatuated lover of this delusive science, met with a person who pretended to have the power of transmuting lead into gold. This hermetic philosopher required only the materials and time to perform his golden operations. He was taken to the residence of his patroness; a large laboratory was built. His door

She now rose from her knees, was contrived to turn round on a kissed her lover tenderly between spring, so that unseeing and unthe eyes, and exclaiming 'fare-seen, his meals were conveyed to well!' she dashed him suddenly him without distracting the subfrom the cliff. So unexpected was lime contemplations of the sage. the action that no hand was quick During a residence of two or three enough to stay it; and before the years his mistress was seldom perwaters had well closed over his mitted to enter into the laboratory,. body, she flung herself headlong she saw with pleasing astonish after him. One cry of the falling ment stills, immense cauldrons, victim-one plash of the waves and three or four Vulcanian fires below-and all was over. blazing at different corners of the magical mine; nor did she behold with less reverence the venerable

G. S.

figure of the Philosopher. Pale ter. Paleter. Once when he was on the and emaciated with daily operations point of completing the grand opeand nightly vigils, he revealed in ration, his work unhappily fell unintelligible jargon, his process-into the fire. This, says Mr. es, he sometimes condescended to D'Israeli, "is a misfortune which explain the mysteries of the arcana; I observe has happened to all Alwhen she beheld or seemed to be- chymists." hold streams of fluid, and heaps of solid ore scattered around the laboratory. Sometimes he required a new still, and sometimes vast quantities of lead. Already this unfortunate lady had expended

Travels.

balf of her fortune in supplying | An Abridgement of the Travels of a

the demands of the sage. She

Gentleman through France, Italy,
Turkey in Europe, the Holy Land,
Arabia, Egypt, &c.

(Continued from page 75.)

now began to lower her imagination to the standard of reason. She disclosed her sentiments to the philosopher, who confessed that he was himself surprized at "It is also adorned with cartridges his tardy progress; but that now and gildings, remarkable both he would exert himself to the for their richness and their eleutmost, and that he would venture gance. The chapel is perfectly to perform a laborious operation, answerable to the magnificence which he had hitherto hoped he of the rest of the palace, havshould not be under the necessity ing a ceiling enriched with of employing. His patroness re- most exquisite paintings, and tired, and the golden visions of supported by noble pillars of expectation resumed their lustre. a white stone as beautiful as mar

One day as they sat at dinner a ble. The gardens of Versailles terrible report followed by succes- may be reckoned among the mosive cracks assailed their ears. dern wonders; all the curious They hastened to the laboratory-models of Italy, or rather of two of the great stills were burst; Europe, having been considered, the laboratory was in flames and the in order to render them the most deluded Alchymist was schorched perfect of any thing of that kind. to death. The water-works are certainly inimitable, and cannot fail of delighting the spectator; the fountain of the Pyramid, the cascades, the water-parterre, the pavilionfountain, the triumphal arch, the

Fuller relates that one Thomas Charnock, in pursuance of the philosophers' stone, which so many do touch, few catch, and pone keep, met a very sad disas

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