the old gentleman's death, in which interval the young squire, whose attentions had diminished of late, went up to London, where he married a widow with a large fortune. They are now living separately."

"You were faithful to your first loves," I observed.

"But I," said Anna, "have a different story to tell. I had four offers before I was nineteen years of age; and I thought that I was exercising great judgment and discrimination in endeavouring to ascertain which was most worthy of my choice; so I walked, and talked, and sang, and played, and criticised with all in their turn; and before I could make up my mind which to choose, I lost them all, and gained the character of a flirt. It seems very unfortunate that we are placed under the necessity of making that decision which must influence our whole destiny for life, at that very period when we least know what life is."

"It is inexpedient," said I, "to entertain several lovers at once."

"I found it inexpedient," said Elizabeth, "to entertain several lovers in succession. My first lover won my heart by flute-playing. He was a lieutenant in the navy, visiting in the neighbourhood. My father disapproved the connexion, but I said that I could not live without him, and so a consent was extorted; but, alas! my flute-player's ship was ordered to the West Indies, and I heard of him no more. My next lover, who succeeded to the first rather too soon in the opinion of some people, was a medical man, and for a marriage with him a reluctant consent was obtained from my father; but before matters could be arranged, it was found that his busines did not answer, and he departed. Another succeeded to the business, and also to my affections, and a third reluctant consent was extorted; but when the young gentleman found that the report of my father's wealth had been exaggerated, he departed also; and in time I grew accustomed to these disappointments, and bore them better than I expected. I might perhaps have had a husband, if I could have lived without a lover."

So ended their sad stories; and after tea we walked into the garden-it was a small garden, with four sides and a circular centre, so small, that as we walked round we were like the names in a round robin, it was difficult to say which

was first. I shook hands with them at parting, gently, for fear of hurting them, for their fingers were long, cold and fleshless. The next time I travelled that way they were all in their graves, and not much colder than when I saw them at the cottage.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

BY J D. NEWMAN.

Merrily smiles my lady love,
Brightly beams her eye;
And oh, as pure as heaven above,
Is her deep heaved sigh;
The cynic may sneer, the censor frown,
The aged rebuke awhile,

The only Eden I yet have known,
Is woman's smile.

Merrily smiles my lady fair,

Brightly beams her eye;

And oh, the lip that is pouting there,

To pass untasted by,

Would be to merit the frown and sneer,

And hoary rebuke, I wis,

For who can tell of a charm so dear,

As woman's kiss.

Merrily smiles my lady love,

Brightly beams her eye,

And oh, her chains are so truly wove

Sever; it were to die.

Wine, wealth, and wisdom, ah me, with them

How easy it is to part,

But who would render that richest gem,
A woman's heart?

CALAMITIES OF ROYALTY.

As the convulsions of nature are produced in mountainous regions, and the fury of the tempest sweeps over the heights, so are eminent stations in society exposed to perils and wrecks, which, to a reflecting mind, ought to render them objects of anxiety and apprehension rather than of desire and pursuit. It is well observed, that Fortune never appears in a more extravagant humour than when she reduces monarchs to mendicants. Half a century ago, or thereabouts, it was not imagined that our own times would have to record many such instances. After having contemplated kings raised into divinities, we see them now depressed as beggars. Our own times, in two opposite senses, may be emphatically distinguished as the age of kings.

In Voltaire's Candide, or the Optimist, there is an admirable satirical stroke. Eight travellers meet in an obscure inn, and some of them with not sufficient money to pay for a scurvy dinner. In the course of conversation, they are discovered to be eight monarchs in Europe, who had been deprived of their crowns! What added to this exquisite satire was, that there were eight living monarchs at that moment wanderers upon the earth!

Adelaide, the widow of Lothario, King of Italy, one of the most beautiful women of her age, was besieged in Pavia by Beranger, who resolved to constrain her to marry his son, after Pavia was taken; she escaped from her prison with her almoner. The Archbishop of Reggio had offered her an asylum; to reach which, she and her almoner travelled on foot through the country by night, concealing herself in the day-time among the corn, while the almoner begged for alms and food through the villages.

The emperor, Henry the Fourth, after having been deposed and imprisoned by his son, Henry the Fifth, escaped from prison. Poor, vagrant, and without aid, he entreated the Bishop of Spires to grant him a lay prebend in his church. I have studied," said he, "and learned to sing, and may, therefore, be of some service to you." The request was denied, and he died miserably and obscurely, at Liege, after having drawn the attention of Europe to his victories and his grandeur!

Mary de Medicis, the widow of Henry the Great, mother of Louis the Thirteenth, mother-in-law of three sovereigns, and Regent of France, frequently wanted the necessaries of life, and died at Cologne in the utmost misery. The intrigues of Richlieu compelled her to exile herself, and live an unhappy fugitive. Her petition exists, with this supplicatory opening:-"Supplie Marie Reine de France et de Navarre, disant, que depuis le 23 Fevrier elle aurait été arretée prisonniere au chateau de Compiegne, sans être ni accusée ni soupçonnée," &c.

Lilly, the astrologer, in his "Life and Death of King Charles the First," presents us with a melancholy picture of this unfortunate monarch. He has also described the person of the old queen-mother of France :—

"In the month of August, 1641, I beheld the old queenmother of France, departing from London, in the company of Thomas Earl of Arundel. A sad spectacle of mortality it was, and produced tears from mine eyes, and many other beholders, to see an aged, lean, decrepid, poor queen, ready for her grave, necessitated to depart hence, having no place of residence in this world left her but where the courtesy of her hard fortune assigned it. She had been the only stately and magnificent woman of Europe; wife to the greatest king that ever lived in France; mother unto one king, and unto two queens."

In the year 1595, died at Paris, Antonio, King of Portugal: his body is interred at the Cordeliers, and his heart deposited at the Ave Maria. Nothing on earth could compel this prince to renounce his crown. He passed over to England, and Elizabeth assisted him with troops; but, at length, he died in France, in great poverty. This dethroned monarch was happy in one thing, which is indeed rare; in all his miseries he had a servant, who proved a tender and faithful friend, and who only desired to participate in his misfortunes, and to soften his miseries; and, for the recompense of his services, all he wished was, to be buried at the feet of his dear master. This hero in loyalty, to whom the ancient Romans would have raised an altar, was Don Diego Bothei, one of the greatest lords of the court of Portugal, and who drew his origin from the kings of Bohemia.

Hume furnishes us with an anecdote of singular royal distress. He informs us that the Queen of England, with her son Charles, had "a moderate pension assigned her; but it was so ill paid, and her credit ran so low, that one morning, when the Cardinal de Retz waited on her, she informed him, that her daughter, the Princess Henrietta, was obliged to lie a-bed for the want of a fire to warm her. To such a condition was reduced, in the midst of Paris, a Queen of England, and a daughter of Henry IV. of France!" We find another proof of her excessive poverty. Salmasius, after publishing his celebrated political book, in favour of Charles II. the Defensio Regia, was much blamed by a friend, for not having sent a copy to the widowed queen of Charles, who, he writes, though poor, would yet have paid the bearer.

The daughter of James the First, who married the Elector Palatine, in her attempts to get her husband crowned, was reduced to the utmost distress, and wandered frequently in disguise as a mere vagrant.

A strange anecdote is related of Charles the Seventh of France: our Henry the Fifth had shrunk his kingdom into the town of Bourges. It is said, that having told a shoemaker, after he had just tried on a pair of boots, that he had no money to pay for them, Crispin had such callous feeling, that he refused his majesty the boots! "It is for this reason," says Comines, "I praise those princes who are on good terms with the lowest of their people; for they know not at what hour they may want them." Many monarchs, at this day, have probably experienced, more than once, the truth of the reflection of Comines.

It may be added here, that, in all conquered countries, some descendants of royalty have been found among the dregs of the populace. An Irish prince has been discovered in the person of a miserable peasant; and in Mexico, its faithful historian, Clavigero, notices, that he has known a locksmith, who was a descendant of its ancient kings; and a tailor, the representative of one of its noblest families.

Among other remarkable instances of royal infelicity, the following is deserving of record :-Lady Francis Brandon was the daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by