privileges should remain inviolate, they declared that Massaniello was no longer their general: the council, fearing the most dreadful consequences from a madman at the head of a mob, sent a military detachment with orders to put him to death. The unfortunate fisherman had been haranguing the people from the pulpit of the great church, in an incoherent mixture of reproach, justification, and penitence, for he perceived he had lost the confidence of his followers; from the church he was conducted into an adjoining cloister, struggling in the agonies of disease, madness, and despair; hearing his name mentioned, he turned quickly round, saying, “Is it me you look for, my people; behold, I am here.", The soldiers at the instant discharged their muskets, and he dropped on the pavement, exclaiming with his last breath, "Ah! ungrateful

traitors."

A magnificent funeral followed his death; the reign of the fisherman is still handed down among the lowest classes of Naples, by popular tradition; and the modern Lazzaroni, alternately excited by superstition, hunger, and sedition, dwell with enthusiasm on the short but splendid triumphs of Massaniello. The obnoxious taxes in a short time again were levied, and again produced ineffectual resistance; so unavailing are attempts at amendment in governments radically defective in their forms; where the voice of the people is not concentrated by a representative body, organised, frequently meeting, tempered by precautionary formality, and cooled by deliberate delay; the guardians of the public purse, and, subject to an aristocratic as well as an executive check, endued with legislative power: such an assembly, secured from corrup→ tion, at some moment more auspicious to human integrity, seems to be the best protector of rational freedom against popular as well as regal despotism.

ANNIHILATION, far preferable to everlasting punishment; yet a late writer is of a different opinion. Describing the heroine of her tale as suffering under the agitations of love on its first accession, she thus proceeds: "The walks were melancholy, and the company insipid, everything seemed altered, but it was herself who was changed; yet, though she found herself less happy, she felt, that to enjoy the happiness she had lost, she would not again be reduced to the being she was before. Thus does the lover consider the extinction of his passion with the same horror as the libertine looks upon annihilation; the one would rather live hereafter, though in eternal punishment, than cease to exist.” Nothing can be more opposite to fact, feeling, and every day's experience; I never yet knew a wicked man, and I have had intercourse with a few in my time, who would not merely have preferred a state of nonexistence to everlasting punishment, or even the awful risk of it, but have earnestly and eagerly desired it.

It is precisely on this principle that ancient and modern freethinkers have persuaded, or have endeavoured to persuade themselves of the mortality of the human soul. A short illustration of this opinion, founded on the conduct of suicides, some of which have presented themselves to the eye, and have come home to the bosom of the editor of these pages, may be seen in the latter part of the article CORONER.

ANNIUS, JOHN, a Dominican friar of the fifteenth century, a learned man, and an impostor, who excited considerable attention by asserting that he had discovered the works of many ancient authors which have been generally considered as lost; he pretended to have recovered Berosus, Manethon, Archilochus, Cato, and Fabius Pictor. Literary men received his intelligence with doubt and suspicion: for the purpose of supporting what he had said, he published a book, the title of which is, Antiquitatum variarum volumina XVII, a venerando sacræ theologiæ, et prædicatorii ordinis professore Johanne Annio. Like persons of a similar description in modern times, he was not without patrons and believers; relying on their credit, or his own assurance, he did not condescend to give any particular account of the manner in which he became possessed of these remains of antiquity; in a short epistle, addressed to his brother, which is not prefixed to, but in the latter part of the copy before me, Annius contents himself, but not his readers, by saying that he brought them with him from Mantua. There is nothing in the work he published but what any dexterous well read man might easily have produced; in addition to this internal evidence, there were strong collateral circumstances which rendered his being a deceiver extremely probable. He had endeavoured to convince the inhabitants of Viterbo, the place of his birth, that it was originally an Egyptian colony, at least two thousand years older than Rome; to prove what he said, he brought forth several inscriptions, bearing every appearance of antiquity, and which had been dug up in the environs of that city; by the confession of an accomplice in the fraud, he had himself previously deposited them in the earth. Annius was master of the sacred palace during the pontificate of Roderigo Borgia Lenzoli, who exalted the authority, but disgraced the name of Pope, under the title of Alexander the Sixth; he was also patronised by Paulus de Campo Fulgoso, a Roman cardinal: the general answer, given by his abettors to those who ventured to doubt the authenticity of the pieces in question, was, that it was impossible for an individual so humbly endowed, to fabricate that which is equal to the most precious remains of the Augustan age. This argument has been made use of by the defenders of Chatterton and the encouragers of the Shakspeare forgery, but it will not bear examination; each impostor having exhibited considerable art, industry, and extensive reading. That the fabrications, in either instance, made any near approaches to Augustan literature, is easier said than proved.

The work of Annius has often been printed; at Rome in 1498; at Venice, and at Antwerp, in 1552. The book I am now perusing has not any place mentioned in the title, but must have been published at Paris, from a short address, prefixed to it by the learned printer, Jodocus Badius, to Gulielmus Parvus, Petit, or Little, who, I believe, was afterwards Bishop of Troyes, and dated 1512. In this short but curious preliminary piece, Badius observes, that God thought two great lights sufficient for the heavens, but that he has scattered many bright luminaries on the face of the earth; of these the most refulgent is Thomas Aquinas; among the stars of a second magnitude, Annius of Viterbo ought not to be forgotten. This printer was rallied by one of his

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ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES.

countrymen, for making books and getting children, in the following epitaph, made during the life of the subject of it: "Here lies Jodocus Badius, father of many children, printer of many books, but the latter were more numerous than his offspring; he commenced author early, but married when he was an old man.'

ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. Nothing places in a stronger point of view the superiority of the present age, in domestic comfort and convivial enjoyment, than the accounts which have been occasionally handed down to us, of entertainments given in days of old; they decide, at once, in favour of those minute rules of propriety and decorum, observed by all who now keep good company. A curious narrative is extant of a marriage-feast, given by a wealthy young man of Athens, during the reign of Trajan. To this entertainment, the writer who tells the story, and a great number of both sexes were invited. But the new-married couple appear to have erred in selecting their company; a most material point, which the giver of a modern dinner, who is ambitious of the fame of elegant hospitality, studies with scrupulous nicety, as far more important than the choice of her dishes: "Give me a bill of your company," said Swift to the treasurer Harley, who had sent the Dean a card of invitation, and was talking of his bill of fare. In the present instance, persons of different sects, ages, and rank, friends and foes, had been invited; neither expense nor labour were spared to fill the rooms and cover the tables with the most dainty viands and the choicest wines. At the hour appointed, the guests assembled. I will not describe their disputes for precedency, which occasioned some delay, and their reclining; I need not enlarge on the present mode of sitting down to table, and the comforts of a chair, so preferable in every respect to their awkward fashion of lying sideways. Soon after they had taken their places, a noisy and impudent Cynic, throwing open the door, rudely marched in. The master of the house was considerably surprised and chagrined; but, aware of the restive nature of the beast, endeavoured to soothe his surliness by gentle language, made him welcome, and observing that it was friendly thus to drop in without the ceremony of an invitation, asked him to lie down at table. "Do you think I am so effeminate," replied the brute, "that I cannot satisfy my appetite as I stand? If I feel inclined to eat, I can take my dinner as I walk, or if I choose I can lie on the ground, which was thought soft enough by Hercules." He at last condescended to pick with his fingers out of the dishes, any dainty morsel that he liked, as he stalked up and down the room, exclaiming, between each mouthful, against the extravagance and gluttony of feasting. Under a mistaken idea of keeping him quiet, the servants were ordered to serve him plentifully with the strongest wine, which rendered him outrageous and troublesome; the majority of the company also began to be merry; songs, jokes, recitations, and droll stories, kept the table in a roar. Buffoons were also introduced, who, by the preposterous singularity of their dress, words, and actions, occasioned considerable laughter. The Cynic, provoked that any one but himself should engage the attention of the company, stripped himself, and insisted on their fighting with

him. Tempted by the odds of two to one, observing the intoxicated condition of the sans-culottes philosopher, and encouraged by the company, they accepted his challenge, closed in with, and gave him a severe drubbing; in the agonies of drunkenness, pain, and disappointment, the intruder sunk on the floor, and remained for a short time quiet. A young man, unannounced, now rushed into the room, and read, or delivered, in a loud and angry tone, a most insulting and offensive message, addressed to the company present, from a person who lived in an adjoining street, whom the bridegroom had not thought proper to invite: "He pitied the master of the house for his want of taste and discernment, in preferring so many trifling and worthless characters, to him, who had passed his life in the bosom of temperance and philosophy: it was not the disappointment of a dainty palate that had induced him to send the present messenger, nor did he wish to interrupt the harmony of a wedding dinner, but he could not help thinking that, after he had paid so much attention to him, and for so many years, it was rather hard that men, in every respect his inferiors, should be selected before him." The stranger concluded with accusing the majority of the persons present of various crimes, and told the bridegroom that if, by way of making his peace with the offended man, he should feel inclined to send him a ham, a plate of venison, or a basket of sweet cakes, he had instructed the lad not to accept of them. Such a proceeding would not have been quietly submitted to, under any circumstances; the effect of it, on men inflamed with wine, may be easily imagined; by accident or by design, the messenger of the hungry philosopher had placed himself near the door, or he probably would have been demolished; a massive goblet, which narrowly missed his head, as he hurried out, was the signal for war. Disappointed by the object of their vengeance escaping, the company quarrelled with each other, proceeded from reproaches and abuse to blows; the women screamed, and the room became a scene of uproar, outrage, and confusion; the combatants, with some difficulty, at length were separated, but not till they had disfigured the faces and torn the clothes of each other.

No well-bred and polite circle, in the present times, is exposed to such indecorous intrusions; materials so dissonant, and incompatible with convivial harmony, are never brought together by Mrs. ******, or Lady ****; such a messenger would have the door shut in his face by a dexterous porter; and the Cynic, if such a character could now exist, would be horsewhipped and kicked down stairs.

ANXIETIES OF DELAYED EXPECTATION. He who has been half his life an attendant at levees, on the faith of an election promise, a watering-place squeeze of the hand, or a race-ground oath ; or he, who vegetating on a fellowship, with vows long plighted to some much-loved fair, is waiting, watching, or wishing for the death of a hale rector, at fifty-four; persons of such a description, may perhaps be interested or amused by the following relation, which really took place, and probably in the memory of some of my readers.

The incumbent of a valuable living in a western county had, for some

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ANXIETIES OF DELAYED EXPECTATION.

years, awakened the hopes and fears of the members of a certain college, in whom the next presentation was vested; the old gentleman having already outlived two of his proposed successors. The tranquil pleasures of the common room had very lately been animated or interrupted by a well authenticated account of the worthy clergyman's being seized with a violent and dangerous disease; the senior fellow, who, on the strength of this contingency had, only the day before, declined an advantageous offer, was congratulated on the fairness of his prospects. The pears, the port wine, and the chestnuts, being quickly despatched, Avidio hurried to his apartments; he ascended the stairs, passed the gallery, and stirred his almost-extinguished fire with unusual alacrity; then drawing from his port-folio an unfinished letter to his mistress, which, for want of knowing exactly what to say, had lain there for several weeks, he filled the unoccupied space with renewed protestations of undiminished love; spoke with raptures of the near approach of that time, when a competent independence would put it in his power to taste that first of earthly blessings, nuptial love, without the alloy of uncertain support. The letter was sent to the post, and after a third rubber at the warden's (who observed that he never saw Mr. ***** so facetious), a poached egg, and a rummer of hot punch, the happy man retired to bed. He waited several posts, without receiving further intelligence, and passed an interval, which, the moment doubt interposed, became irritating and unpleasant, in settling his accounts as bursar, getting in the few bills he owed, and revising his books; which, as the distance was considerable, and the carriage heavy, he resolved to weed: considering himself as a married man, he thought it a necessary attention to his wife, to supply the place of the volumes he disposed of, by some of the miscellaneous productions of modern literature. At the end of three weeks, a space of time as long as a man of common feelings could be expected to abstain from inquiry; after being repeatedly assured by his associates that the incumbent must be dead, but that the letter announcing it had miscarried, and being positively certain of it himself, he took pen in hand; but not being acquainted with any neighbour of the deceased, he could not easily determine to whom he should address his letter. Stimulated by love, by money, and the feverish restlessness of delayed hope, he wrote, without knowing his name, to the clerk of the parish in question, informed him "that the college had received no information of the rector's death, which they imputed to the miscarriage of a letter; but they desired to know, by return of post, the day and hour on which he departed.

If, contrary to all reason and probability, the old gentleman was still alive," Avidio, in that case, earnestly desired "that a particular and minute account might be sent of the present state of his health, the nature of his late disorder, and its apparent effects on his constitution, with any other circumstance at all connected with the life of the incumbent."

The ecclesiastic subaltern immediately carried the letter to his principal, who, to the great satisfaction of his parishioners, had recovered from a most alarming attack, and, was at the moment, entertaining a