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At his departure, which was a canonical benediction of the good company, he appointed a day and hour* to bring his young nephew to see his mistress; which was the very day that he made his daring attempt.'

"The good old gentleman had got up ready to receive his guest, and the daughter was in her best dress to enter tain her expected lover; when, behold, parson Blood, with three more, came to the jewel-house, all armed with rapier blades in their canes, and every one a dagger, and a brace of pocket pistols. Two of his companions entered in with him, on pretence of seeing the crown, and the third stayed at the door, as if to look after the young lady, a jewel of a more charming description, but in reality as a watch. The daughter, who thought it not modest to come down till she was called, sent the maid to take a view of the company, and bring a description of her gallant; and the servant conceiving that he was the intend ed bridegroom who stayed at the door, being the youngest of the party, returned to soothe the anxiety of her young mistress with the idea she had formed of his person.

"Blood told Mr. Edwards, that they would not go up stairs till his wife came, and desired him to shew his friends the crown to pass the time till then; and they had no sooner entered the room, and the door as usual shut, than a cloak was thrown over the old man's head, and a gag put in his mouth.

"Thus secured, they told him, that their resolution was to have the crown, globe, and sceptre; and, if he would quietly submit to it, they would spare his life, otherwise he was to expect no mercy. He thereupon endeavoured to make all the noise he possibly could, to be heard above: they then knocked him down with a wooden mallet, and told him that, if yet he would lie quietly they would spare his life, but if not, upon his next attempt to discover them

"The ninth of May, between seven and eight o'clock in the morning-The hour, not very seasonable for such an interview, was accounted for by the excuse that two friends, whom he wished to bring with him to see the regalia, were about to leave town early that morning."

VOL. VII.

they would kill him.' Mr. Edwards, however, according to his own account, was not intimidated by this threat, but strained himself to make the greater noise, and in consequence received se veral more blows on the head with the mallet, and was stabbed in the belly: this again brought the poor old man to the ground, where he lay for some time in so senseless a state, that one of the villains pronounced him dead. Edwards had come a little to himself, and hearing this, lay quietly, conceiving it best to be thought so. The booty was now to be disposed of, and one of them, named Parrot,* put the orb in his breeches: Blood held the crown under his cloak; and the third was about to file the sceptre in two, in order that it might be placed in a bag brought for that purpose; but fortunately, the son of Mr. Edwards, who had been in Flanders with Sir John Talbot, and on his landing in England had obtained leave to come away, post, to visit his father, happened to arrive whilst this scene was acting; and on coming to the door, the person that stood centinel asked, with whom he would speak? to which he answered, that he belonged to the house; and perceiving the person to be a stran ger, told him that if he had any business with his father, that he would acquaint him with it, and so hastened up stairs to salute his friends. This unexpected accident spread confusion amongst the party, and they instantly decamped with the crown and orb, leaving the sceptre yet unfiled.

"The aged keeper now raised himself upon his legs, forced the gag from his mouth, and cried, treason! murder! which being heard by his daughter, who was perhaps anxiously expecting far other sounds, ran out and reiterated the cry.

The alarm now became general, and young Edwards and his brother-inlaw, captain Beekman, ran after the conspirators; whom a warder put himself in a position to stop, but Blood discharged a pistol at him, and he fell, although unhurt, and the thieves proceeded safely to the next post, where one Sill, who

* "He was a silk-dyer in Southwark, and in the rebellion had been a lieutenant under mas jor-general Harrison." 4

had been a soldier under Cromwell, stood centinel; but he offered no opposition, and they accordingly passed the drawbridge. Horses were waiting for them at St. Catherine's gate, and as they ran that way, along the tower wharf, they themselves cried out, stop the rogues; by which they passed on unsuspected till captain Beekman overtook them. At his head Blood fired another pistol, but missed him, and was seized. Under the cloak of this daring villain was found the crown, and, although he saw himself a prisoner, he had yet the impudence to struggle for his prey; and when it was finally wrested from him, said, it was a gal lant attempt, however unsuccessful; it was for a crown!”

A few stones fell out in the struggle, but nothing considerable was eventually missing. Blood, who was the son of a blacksmith in Ireland, and who had already distinguished himself by several atrocious crimes, among which one was a nearly successful attempt to hang the Duke of Ormond at Tyburn, saved his life on this occasion by a bold answer. Charles II. examined him in person, and to a question relative to the persons concerned in the attack on the Duke of Ormond, Blood replied, that he never would betray a friend's life, nor deny a guilt in defence of his own.' This frankness, added to the confession of a design once entertained against the king himself, in which he had been checked at the very moment of projected assassination by an awe of majesty,' captivated the good nature of the easy Charles. Blood was pardoned, and had a pension of 500l. a year bestowed upon him in Ireland. Lord Arlington was commissioned by the king to state his pleasure, that the Duke of Ormond should drop the prosecution which he had commenced against this desperate ruffian. Lord Arlington was about to assign Charles's reasons, when the duke stopped him by a memorable reply :If his majesty can forgive Blood's stealing the crown, he may easily pardon his attempt upon my life; and if such be his majesty's pleasure, that is a sufficient reason for me- -Your lordship may spare the rest.’

6

Mussulmen Devotion.

(From Richardson's Travels along the
Mediterranean.)

NEXT morning, the 27th, we started again at an early hour, as soon as the reisses had got through their prayers. With one of them, this was a very long and a very serious concern; he generally spent an hour in this exercise every morning, and as much in the evening, besides being very punctual in the performance of this duty at the intervening periods of stated prayer. Certainly he did not pray in secret, communing with his heart, but called aloud, with all his might, and repeated the words as fast as his tongue could give them utterance. The form and words of his prayer were the same with those of the others, but this good man had made a vow to repeat certain words of the prayer a given number of times, both night and morning. The word "Rabboni," for example, answering to our word "Lord," he would bind himself to repeat a hundred or two hundred times, twice a day; and accordingly, went on in the hearing of all the party, and on his knees, sometimes with his face directed steadily to heaven, at other times bowing down to the ground, and calling out "Rabboni! Rabboni! Rabboni! Rabboni! Rabboni!" &c. as fast as he could articulate the words after each other, like a school-boy going through his task; not like a man, who, praying with the heart, and the understanding also, continues longer on his knees, in the rapture of devotion; whose soul is a flame of fire, enkindled by his Maker, and feeding upon his God, like Jacob, will not let him go until he bless him. Having settled his accounts with the word Rabboni, which the telling of his beads enabled him to know when he had done, he proceeded to dispose of his other vows in a similar manner. "Allah houakbar!" perhaps, came next, "God most great ;" and he would go on as with the other, "Allah houakbar! Allah houakbar! Allah houakbar! Allah houakbar!" &c. repeating them as fast as he could frame his organs to pronounce them. When he had done with it, he took up the chorus of another word, "Allah careem, God assist

ing; Allah hedaim, eternal God; Al ham de lelai, glory to God:" or some other word or phrase, or attribute of Jehovah, and repeated it over as many times as he had vowed to do. The usual number of repeating certain words, is thirty-three times each; and the Mussulman's beads are strung accordingly three times thirty-three, with a large dividing bead between each division. The usual phrases so repeated, are, “Allah houakbar, God most great; Al ham de lelai, glory to God; Allah careem, assisting God," &c. To hear this man repeat his prayers, his variety of unconnected tones, running through all the notes of the gamut, produced quite a ludicrous effect; you would say that this man was caricaturing, or making a farce of devotion; but, to look at him engaged, nothing could be more serious or devout, or more abstracted from the world, than his appearance. All his countrymen thought well of his devotions, and never manifested the slightest disposition to smile at, or to twit him for his oddities; on the contrary, they said that he was a rich man, and would be a great shiekh. So great is their respect for prayer, that raillery on that subject would not be tolerated among Mussulmans.

Modern Jerusalem.

(From the same.)

Ir is a tantalizing circumstance, how ever, for the traveller who wishes to recognize in his walks the site of particular buildings, or the scenes of memorable events, that the greater part of the objects mentioned in the description, both of the inspired and Jewish historian, are entirely removed, and razed from their foundation, without leaving a single trace or name behind to point out where they stood. Not an ancient tower, or gate, or wall, or hardly even a stone remains. The foundations are not only broken up, but every fragment of which they were composed is swept away, and the spectator looks upon the bare rock with hardly a sprinkling of earth to point out her gardens of pleasure, or groves of idolatrous devotion. And when we consider the palaces, and

towers, and walls about Jerusalem, and that the stones of which some of them were constructed were 30 feet long, 15 feet broad, seven and a half feet thick, we are not more astonished at the strength, and skill, and perseverance by which they were constructed, than shocked by the relentless and brutal hostility by which they were shattered and overthrown, and utterly removed from our sight. A few gardens still remain on the sloping base of Mount Zion, watered from the pool of Siloam; the gardens of Gethsemane are still in a sort of ruined cultivation; the fences are broken down, and the olive trees decaying, as if the hand that dressed and fed them were withdrawn; the Mount of Olives still retains a languishing verdure, and nourishes a few of those trees from which it derives its name; but, all round about Jerusalem, the general aspect is blighted, and barren; the grass is withered; the bare rock looks through the scanty sward, and the grain itself, like the staring progeny of famine, seems in doubt whether to come to maturity, or die in the ear. The vine that was brought from Egypt is cut off from the midst of the land; the vineyards are wasted; the hedges are taken away; and the graves of the ancient dead are open and tenantless. How is the gold become dim; and every thing that was pleasant to the eye withdrawn. Jerusalem has heard the voice of David and Solomon, of prophets and apostles, and he who spake as man never spake has taught in her synagogues and in her streets. Before her legislators, her poets, and her aposties, those of all other countries became dumb, and cast down their crowns, as unworthy to stand in their presence. Once she was rich in every blessing; victorious over all her enemies; and resting in peace, with every man sitting under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree, with none to disturb, or to make him afraid.

But we must turn to consider the Jerusalem that now is. In Egypt and Syria it is universally called Gouts or Koudes, which means holy, and is still a respectable good looking town ; it is of an irregular shape, approaching nearest to that of a square; it is sur

rounded by a high embattled wall, which, generally speaking, is built of the common stone of the country, which is a compact lime-stone. It has six gates, one of which looks to the west, and is called the gate of Yaffa, or Bethlehem, because the road to these places passes through it; two look to the north, one is called the gate of Sham, or Damascus, the other the gate of Herod; the fourth gate looks to the east, or the valley of Jehoshaphat, and is called St. Stephen's gate, because here the protomartyr was stoned to death; it is close by the temple, or mosque of Omar, and leads to the gardens of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives, Bethany, Jericho, and all the east of Jerusalem; the fourth gate leads into the temple, or haram schereeff, which was formerly called the church of the presentation, because the Virgin Mary is supposed to have entered by this gate to present her Son, oùr blessed Saviour, in the temple. On account of a turn in the wall, this gate, though in the east wall of the city, looks to the south, towards Mount Zion; near to this there is another gate, which is small, not admitting either horses or carriages, of which last, however, there is none in Jerusalem, and from the wall resuming its former direction looks to the east, it is called Dung-gate. The last is called Zion-gate, or the gate of the prophet David; it looks to the south, and is in that part of the wall which passes over Mount Zion, and runs between the brook Kedron, or valley of Jehosha phat, on the east, and the deep ravine called the valley of the Son of Hinnom; on the west, leaving about two thirds of Mount Zion on the south, or outside of the walls, it is nearly opposite to the mosque which is built over the sepulchre of David. The longest wall is that which faces this, and is on the north side of the city; it runs between the valley of Gihon on the west, and the valley of Jehoshaphat on the east. I walked round the city, on the outside of the wall, in an hour and twenty minutes, and Lady Belmore rode round it, on her ass, in an hour and a quarter, and the whole circumference as measured by Maundrell, a most accurate traveller, is two miles and a half.

Scoresby's Discovery.

Captain Scoresby, in a recent voyage in the ship Baffin, has made some interesting discoveries on the long-lost eastern coast of Greenland, in sight of which he remained three months. He has surveyed the coast from lat.69 to 75, comprising an extent of coast, with its indentations, of about 800 miles. He has discovered several very extensive inlets, which were ascertained to penetrate upwards of 60 miles beyond the outer line of the coast, and were without any visible termination. From various circumstances, he is of opinion, that this country, hitherto deemed a continent, consists of a vast assemblage of islands, and that some of the inlets communicate directly with Baffin's Bay. He landed on various parts of the coast, and explored several of the bays, where he found frequent traces of inhabitants, with evident marks of their huts having been recently occupied. He also discovered a considerable hamlet of deserted huts, among which were many graves. He has brought home with him a considerable collection of animal,vegetable, and mineral productions from this remote region, and has constructed a chart, from actual observations, of an immense tract of this coast, which he states to have been hitherto so erroneously laid down, that only three points could be recognized, and that the error in the longitude in these instances was no less than 15 degrees. An extensive portion of this coast has been denominated Liverpool; and some of its bays and promontories have been named in honour of several inhabitants of that town.-Christ. Observer, Oct. 1822.

Pitcairn's Island.

Ir appears from the public papers, that, on the 8th of March, 1819, capt. Arthur, of the American whale ship (Russel) touched at the above island, where he found about 50 inhabitants,, descended from the mutineers who seized capt. Bligh's ship, the Bounty, when at the distance of three or four. miles from the shore; they were boarded by the crew of a boat from the island, who were remarkably interesting young men. Bread and butter were set before them, but they refused to eat, alleging

that it was their fast-day, but being much importuned to eat, they partook, though slightly, but not till after they had implored a blessing. And after their repast was finished, a hymn and prayer was preferred with great devo tional propriety. Their boat needing repair, was taken on deck, and completed before the next morning to their great satisfaction.

After landing on the island, capt. Arthur, and others, ascended a high hill, assisted by a young man named Robert Young. They then met with the venerable governor, John Adams, who was attended by most of the women and children of the island, and were welcomed to their shores in the most artless yet dignified manner. They were then invited to the village, and a dinner was prepared for them, consisting of pigs, fowls, yams, and plantains. A blessing was asked, and thanks returned in an impressive manner.

At night they were provided with beds, and, in the morning at seven, a plentiful breakfast was provided for them. At dinner also they were equally well provided for. In the afternoon, about three, they took an affectionate leave of their friends, and returned to the ship, well pleased with their entertainment.

Before we leave Pitcairn's Island, it will not be improper to make a few observations. The time and manner of its colonization are to most general readers well known. John Adams, and six Otaheitan women, are all that is left of the Bounty. Forty-nine have been born on the island, two of whom are dead, which leaves 53 persons on the island, now all in good health without a single exception. There are about 11 active young men, who are ready and willing at all times to assist a ship's crew in procuring wood and water, or any thing else the island affords. John Adams assures us, and, from what we ourselves saw, we have no reason to disbelieve him, that the island was inhabited before themselves, but at what period it is difficult to conjecture. They found, after their arrival, many places where houses had stood,burying-places, and images representing a human figure, with other indubitable marks,

that they were not the first possessors of Pitcairn's Island. It is, however, certain, that the aborigines left it at no recent period, as the trees growing on the house spots could not have arrived to their present size in less than 100 years, perhaps 500. The land is high, and may be seen 12 or 15 leagues—its coast free of dangers-winds variable, which makes it easy to lie off and on; the town is situate on the north side of the island, rather nearest the west end the houses may be seen three or four leagues off by a ship coming from the north.

The different names of the islanders are Adams, Christian, sen. Christian, jun. Young, Quintrall, and M'Kay.

Pitcairn's Island, lat. 25. 3. S. by account, 26.41.; long. 130. 22.W. by account, 128. 52.-Henderson's Island lies E. N. E. from Pitcairn's, 100 miles. Lat. 34. 26. long. 138. 30.W.—Evang. Mag. Nov. 1822.

Destruction of Churches.

A church was burnt in the month of June last, in the parish of Grue, in the district of Hedemark, in Norway, by which many persons have come to a melancholy end. The church was of wood, and smeared over with tar, so that the whole edifice was in flames in a few minutes. Several hundred persons who were in it at the time, rushed to the door, whence a press was caused which stopped the way: the people then ran to the windows, and though they were high, leaped through them out of the burning building. The clergyman, who was in the pulpit, chose this shorter way, and saved his life by a hazardous leap: but above 100 persons, who could not make their escape, perished in the flames. The fire was occasioned by the carelessness of the sexton, an old man, who had not used due caution with the fire kept for lighting the tapers on the altar.

On the 17th of October the superb church of St. Peter, at Venice, was struck by lightning. In one moment the cupola was in flames, and fell in with a dreadful crash. The whole edifice was reduced to a heap of ruins. This church, next to the celebrated one of St. Mark was the finest at Venice.

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