prived of her fceptre; and even the boasted acquifitions of knowledge, which have been the labour of life to attain, have nothing left but a wreck of mind.

There can certainly then be no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life virtuously and usefully employed; to trace our own progress in existence by fuch tokens as excite neither fhame nor forrow. "It ought, "therefore, to be the care of those, who "wish to pass their last hours with com"fort, to lay up fuch a treasure of

pleafing ideas, as may support the "heart in the last forrowing stage of its "existence, when the voice of the "charmer can no longer please, and "we are verging towards the precincts "of the grave."

Thefe reflections have intruded on contemplating the fate of the accomplified EDWARD, "who was the greatest "prince

prince that ever swayed the fceptre "of England, whether we respect him "as a warrior, a lawgiver, a monarch, 66 or a man;" but "whofe exit was 66 piteous." And fince a period of mortal existence is allotted to every fon and daughter of Adam, most people are at least anxious that this folemn event may be as decent as fuch an aweful stroke will admit; and that fome friendly hand would ftretch the limbs, and close the eyes in death. "But the MIGHTY ED"WARD was left at that period without "one domeftick to close his eyes, and "do the laft offices to his breathlefs "corfe. In this deplorable condition, "bereft of comfort, he lay expiring, "when a prieft, not quite fo favage "as the rest of his domeftics, ap"proached his bed, and, finding him "ftill breathing, began to administer "fome fpiritual confolation. Edward

"had

"had not loft all his preception: what "then must have been his reflections, "when he found himself thus abandoned "in the last moments of his life!"

STERNE, in one of his flights, fpeaking of death, thus exclaims: "I wifh "the Difpofer of all things may so order "it, that it happen not in my own "house, but rather in fome decent inn. "At home I know it.-The concern of

66

my friends, and the last services of "wiping my brow, and smoothing my

66

pillow, which the quivering hand of "affliction fhall pay, will fo crucify my "foul, that I fhall die of a diftemper "my phyfician is not aware of."

This is the language of the times, and the fashionable practice too; for the refined feelings of modern fenfibility have almost extinguished the tender offices of friendship. Where Death's awful doom is announced by the phyfician upon his patient,

patient, in the mansion of pleasure, the family retire from the melancholy fcene, and the perfon is configned over to the mercy of menials, to languish on the bed of fickness through his last mo

ments:

With no fond heart to catch the parting figh, With no kind hand to close the glaffy eye.

But the refiners of modern manners, the voluptuaries of pleasure, who defpife the facred bond which the laws of their country and religion have fanctified, may learn an useful leffon from the fate of EDWARD. "The ungrate"ful Alice, waiting until the perceived "him in the agonies of death, was fo "inhuman as to ftrip him of his rings, "jewels, &c. &c."

The fhort inference we fhall draw from this melancholy fubject is, that a connection formed in iniquity generally terminates in forrow.

NOTES

NOTES

HISTORICAL.

Honefly rewarded. Generous conduct ex

emplified.

It is reported of this prince, that having once before the attack of a town promised the soldiers the plunder, one private man happened to fall upon a cheft full of money, which he immediately brought to the earl of Derby, as thinking it too great for himself to keep poffeffion of. But the earl told him, that his promife did not depend on the greatness or fmallness of the fum, and bid him keep it all for his own use.

A. D. 1339. King Edward III. affumes the title of King of France. The inscription of the great feal was altered from the Duke of Aquitain to King of France; and, instead of the former motto, he affumed that of Dieu et mon Droit (God and my right) alluding to the defign of fupport ing his pretenfions to the crown of that kingdom.

A SINGULAR INVENTION.

A. D. 1330. According to many authors, gunpowder and guns were invented this year by