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One private man, who defpifed his greatnefs, and dif dained fubmiffion, while a whole kingdom trembled before him; one spirit, which the utmost stretch of his power could neither fubdue nor humble, blafted his triumphs His whole soul was fhaken with a ftorm of paffion. Wrath, pride, and defire of revenge, rofe into fury. With difficulty he reftrained himself in public; but as soon as he came to his own house, he was forced to disclose the agony of his mind. He gathered together his friends and family, with Zerefh his wife. "He told them of the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and of all the things wherein the king had promoted him; and how he had advanced him above the princes and fervants of the king." He said, moreover, "Yea, Efther the queen fuffered no man to come in with the king, to the banquet that he had prepared, but myself; and to-morrow alfo am I invited to her with the king." After all this preamble, what is the conclusion? "Yet all this availeth me nothing, fo long as I see Mordecai the Jew fitting at the king's gate."

The fequel of Haman's hiftory I fhall not now pursue. It might afford matter for much inftruction, by the confpicuous juftice of God in his fall and punishment. But contemplating only the fingular fituation, in which the expreffions juft quoted prefent him, and the violent agitation of his mind which they difplay, the following reflections naturally arife: How miferable is vice, when one guilty paffion creates fo much torment! how unavailing is profperity, when, in the height of it, a single disappointment can deftroy the relifh of all its pleasures; how weak is human nature, which, in the abfence of real, is thus prone to form to itself imaginary woes!

SECTION IV.

Lady Jane Grey.

BLAIR.

THIS excellent perfonage was descended from the royal line of England by both her parents.

She was carefully educated in the principles of the reformation; and her wifdom and virtue rendered her a fhining example to her fex. But it was her lot to continue only a fhort period on this ftage of being; for, in early life, fhe fell a facrifice to the wild ambition of the duke of Northumberland; who promoted a marriage between her and his fon, lord Guilford Dudley; and raifed her to the

throne of England, in oppofition to the rights of Mary and Elizabeth At the time of their marriage, fhe was only about eighteen years of age, and her husband was alfo very young a feafon of life very unequal to oppose the interested views of artful and aspiring men; who, instead of expofing them to danger, fhould have been the protec tors of their innocence and youth.

This extraordinary young perfon, besides the folid endowments of piety and virtue, poffeffed the most engaging difpofition, the most accomplished parts; and being of an equal age with king Edward VI. fhe had received all her education with him, and feemed even to poffefs a greater facility in acquiring every part of manly and claffical literature. She had attained a knowledge of the Roman and Greek languages, as well as of feveral modern tongues; had paffed most of her time in an application to learning; and expressed a great indifference for other occupations and amufements ufual with her fex and ftation. Roger Afcham, tutor to the lady Elizabeth, having at one time paid her a vifit, found her employed in reading Plato, while the rest of the family were engaged in a party of hunting in the park; and upon his admiring the fingularity of her choice, fhe told him, that fhe "received more pleasure from that author, than others could reap from all their sport and gaiety." Her heart, replete with this love of literature and ferious ftudies, and with tenderness towards her husband, who was deferving of her affection, had never opened itself to the flattering allurements of ambition; and the information of her advancement to the throne was by no means agreeable to her. She even refused to accept the crown; pleaded the preferable right of the two princesses; expreffed her dread of the confequences attending an enterprise fo dangerous, not to fay fo criminal; and desired to remain in that private station in which she was born. Overcome at last with the entreaties, rather than reafons, of her father and father-inlaw, and, above all, of her husband, fhe fubmitted to their will, and was prevailed on to relinquifh her own judgment. But her elevation was of very fhort continuance. The nation declared for queen Mary; and the lady Jane, after wearing the vain pageantry of a crown during ten days, returned to a private life, with much more fatisfaction than the felt when royalty was tendered to her.

Queen Mary, who appears to have been incapable of generofity or clemency, determined to remove every per-fon, from whom the leaft danger could be apprehended. Warning was, therefore, given to lady Jane to prepare for death; a doom which fhe had expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which fhe had been expofed, rendered no unwelcome news to her. The queen's bigoted zeal, under colour of tender mercy to the prisoner's foul, induced her to fend priests, who molested her with perpetual difputation; and even a reprieve of three days was granted her, in hopes that she would be perfuaded, during that time, to pay, by a timely converfion to popery, fome regard to her eternal welfare. Lady Jane had presence of mind, in thofe melancholy circumstances, not only to defend her religion by folid arguments, but also to write a letter to her fister, in the Greek language; in which, besides fending her a copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, fhe exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, a like fteady perfeverance. On the day of ber execution, her husband, lord Guilford, defired permiffion to fee her; but he refufed her confent, and fent him word, that the tenderness of their parting would overcome the fortitude of both; and would too much unbend their minds from that conftancy, which their approaching end required of them. Their feparation, she said, would be only for a moment; and they would foon rejoin each other in a fcene, where their affections would be forever united; and where death, difappointment, and misfortune, could no longer have accefs to them, or difturb their eternal felicity.

It had been intended to execute the lady Jane and lord Guilford together on the fame fcaffold, at Tower hill; but the council, dreading the compaffion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and noble birth, changed their orders, and gave directions that she should be beleaded within the verge of the Tower. She faw her husband led to execution; and having given him from the window fome token of her remembrance, fhe waited with tranquillity till her own appointed hour should bring her to a like fate. She even faw his headlefs body carried back in a cart; and found herself more confirmed by the reports, which he heard of the conftancy of his end, than fhaken by fo tender and melancholy a fpectacle. Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower, when he led her to execution, defired her to bestow on him fome fmall present, which he

vour."

might keep as a perpetual memorial of her. She gave him her table book, in which she had juft written three fentences, on feeing her husband's dead body; one in Greek, another in Latin, a third in English. The purport of them was, "that human juftice was against his body, but the Divine Mercy would be favourable to his foul; and that if her fault deferved punishment, her youth, at leaft, and her imprudence, were worthy of excufe; and that God and pofterity, fhe trufted, would fhow her faOn the fcaffold, fhe made a fpeech to the by-ftanders, in which the mildness of her difpofition led her to take the blame entirely on herself, without uttering one complaint against the severity with which fhe had been treated. She faid, that her offence was, not that she had laid her hand upon the crown, but that she had not rejected it with fufficient conftancy; that fhe had lefs erred through ambition. than through reverence to her parents, whom he had been taught to refpect and obey: that he willingly received death, as the only fatisfaction which fhe could now make to the injured ftate; and though her infringement of the laws had been conftrained, fhe would fhow, by her voluntary fubmiffion to their fentence, that he was defirous to atone for that disobedience, into which too much filial piety had betrayed her: that she had juftly deserved this punishment for being made the inftrument, though the unwilling inftrument, of the ambition of others and that the ftory of her life, fhe hoped, might at leaft be useful, by proving that innocence excufes not great misdeeds, if they tend any way to the deftruction of the commonwealth.- After uttering thefe words, fhe caufed herfelf to be disrobed by her women, and with a steady, ferene countenance, submitted herself to the executioner.

SECTION V.

Ortogrul; or, the Vanity of Riches.

HUME.

As Ortogrul of Bafra was one day wandering along the streets of Bagdat, musing on the varieties of merchandife which the hops opened to his view; and obferving the different occupations which bufied the multitude on every fide, he was awakened from the tranquillity of meditation, by a crowd that obftructed his paffage. He raised his eyes, and faw the chief vizier, who, having returned from the divan, was entering his palace.

Ortrogrul mingled with the attendants; and being fuppofed to have fome petition for the vizier, was permitted to enter. He furveyed the fpacioufnefs of the apartments, admired the walls hung with golden tapestry, and the floors covered with filken carpets; and defpifed the fimple neatnefs of his own little habitation.

"Surely," faid he to himself, "this palace is the feat of happiness; where pleasure fucceeds to pleafure, and difcontent and forrow can have no admiffion. Whatever nature has provided for the Celight of fenfe, is here spread forth to be enjoyed. What can mortals hope or imagine, which the master of this palace has not obtained? The dishes of luxury cover his table! the voice of harmony lulls him in his bowers; he breathes the fragrance of the groves of Java, and fleeps upon the down of the cygnets of Ganges. He fpeaks, and his mandate is obeyed; he wishes, and his wifh is gratified; all, whom he fees, obey him, and all, whom he hears, flatter him. How different Oh Ortogrul, is thy condition, who art doomed to the perpetual torments of unfatisfied defire; and who has no amufement in thy power, that can withhold thee from thy own reflections! They tell thee that thou art wife; but what does wisdom avail with poverty? None will flatter the poor; and the wife have very little power of flattering themselves. That man is furely the moft wretched of the fons of wretchednefs, who lives with his own faults and follies always before him; and who has none to reconcile him to himself by praife and veneration. I have long fought content, and have not found it; I will from this moment endeavour to be rich."

Full of his new refolution, he fhut himfelf in his cham-* ber for fix months, to deliberate how he fhould grow rich. He fometimes proposed to offer himself as a counsellor to one of the kings in India; and sometimes refolved to dig for diamonds in the mines of Golconda. One day, after fome hours paffed in violent Auctuation of opinion, fleep infenfibly feized him in his chair. He dreamed that he was ranging a defert country, in fearch of fome one that might teach him to grow rich; and as he food on the top of a hill, fhaded with cypress, in doubt whither to direct his steps, his father appeared on a fudden standing before him. Ortogrul," faid the old man, "I know thy perplexity; liften to thy father; turn thine eye on the oppofite mountain." Ortogrul looked, and faw a torrent

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