down in an inftant, as if firuck by lightning. A death-like paienefs was difufed over her face and arms; the had no apparent pulfe, her teaples were funk, and the thewed no figns of fenfation when fhaken, or pinched. A phyfician, who was called, and who believed her to be dead, in compliance with the repeated and preffing request of her parents, at tempted, though without any hopes, to recal her to life, and at length, after feveral vain efforts, he made the foals of her feet be fmartly rub bed with a bruth, dipped in ftrong pickle. At the end of three quarters of an hour, he was obferved to figh; he was then made to fwallow fome fpirituous liquor, and the was foon after reltored to life, much to the joy of her difconfolate parents. A certain man having undertaken a journey, in order to fee his brother, on his arrival at his houfe, found him dead. This news affected him fo much, that it brought on a moft dreadful fyncope, and he himself was fuppofed to be in the like fituation. After the ufual means had been employed to recal him to life, it was a greed that his body should be diffected, to discover the caufe of fo fudden a death; but the fuppofed dead perfon overhearing this propofal, opened his eyes, ftarted up, and immediately betook himself to his heels. Cardinal Efpinola, prime minifter to Philip II. was not fo fortunate, for we read in the memoirs of Amelot de la Houffai, that he put his hand to the knife with which he was opened, in order to be embalmed. In fhort, almost every one knows that Vefalius, the father of anatomy, having been fent for to open a woman fubject to hyfterics, who was fuppofed to be dead, he perceived, on making the first incifion, by her motions, and cries, that fhe was lill a live; that this circumftance rendered him fo odious, that he was obliged to fly, and that he was fo much af fected by it, that he died foon after. On this occafion, I cannot forbear to add an event more recent, but no lefs melancholy. The Abbé Prevolt, fo well known by his writings, and the lingularities of his life, was feized with a fit of the apoplexy, in the forcit of Chantilly, on the 23d of October, 1763. His body was carried to the neareft village, and the officers of juftice were proceeding to open it, when a cry which he fent forth affrightened all the affiftants, and convinced the furgeon that the Abbé was not dead; but it was too late to fave him, as he had already received the mortal wound. The difficulty of distinguishing a perfon apparently dead, from one who is really fo, has in all countries where bodies have been interred too precipitately, rendered it neceffary for the law to affilt humanity. OF feveral regulations made on this fubject, I fhall quote only a few of the most recent; fuch as thofe of Arras, in 1772; of Mantua, in 1774; of the Grand Duke of Tufcany, in 1775; of the Senechauffée of Sivrai, in Poitou, in 1777; and of the Parliament of Metz in the fame year. To give an idea of the reit, it will be funcient to relate only that of Tufcany. By this edict, the Grand Duke forbids the precipitate interment of perfons avho die fuddenly. He orders the Magiftrates of Health to be informed, that phyficians and furgeons may examine the body, that they may ufe every endeavour to recal it to lite, it poffible, or to difcover the caufe of its death; and that they thali make a report of their proce dure to a certain Tribunal. On this occafion, the Magiftrate of Health orders the dead not to be covered, until the moment they are about to be buried, except fo far as decency requires; obferving always that the body be not clotely confined, and that nothing may compress the jugular veins and the carotid arteries. He He forbids people to be interred according to the ancient method, and requires that the arms and the hands fhould be left extended, and that they should not be folded, or placed crofs-wife upon the breaft. He forbids above all, to press the jaws one against the other; or to fill the mouth and noftrils with cotton, or other tuffing. Laftly, he recommends not to cover the vilage with any kind of cloth, until the body is depofited in its coffin. After what I have faid in this Memoir, one may easily perceive, that precipitate interments may be attend Anecdates of Schroeter. IN a mufical age like the prefent, the biography of a musician becomes an object of more general curiofity than the life of a philofopher; and the death of an eminent profeffor is lamented as a national misfortune. To gratify our musical readers a correfpondent has favoured us with the following authentic particulars of the late celebrated Schroeter: ed with the most dreadful confequences, and that it would be of the greatest importance to profcribe thefe remains of Judaifm, or at leaft, not to permit people to be committed to the earth until a fufficient time had been left to afcertain their real fituation. One can hardly reflect without fhuddering, that this practice, which is adopted by a small number of people, being unknown to fome, and neglected by a great ma ny others, may make a man defcend to the grave before he has uttered his laft figh. John Samuel Schroeter was a native of Saxony. He came to London about fourteen years ago with his father, a musician of no great emince, but who bestowed much pains in giving his fon a compleat musical education. The difcipline of Germanyis almoft as fevere in musical as in military movements; and the elder Schroeter was a martinet of very terrific abilities. By virtue of hunger and hard blows he compelled his fon to practice for feve ral years without intermiflion eight hours a-day; and to this may be imputed the remarkable facility with which he executed the most difficult mufic at fight. But while he applied thus diligently to the practice, he did not neglect the theory of the fcience, the rudiments of which he acquired und the famous Emanuel Bach, which he afterwards cultivated and improved from studying the works of that great mafter in score. For fome time after his arrival in London, the fplendid talents of young Schroeter were either unknown or ne glected. He occafionally played the organ at a German chapel in the city, a fituation which by no means accorded with his genius, as he was not there permitted to indulge his fancy in any mufical flights beyond the formal rules of the cathedral school. It was at this time that he composed his firft fet of leffons for, the Piano Forte, which he offered to feveral of the mufic-fellers of London on their own terms, but in vain. His name was not then marketable, and few of the venders of mufic know any thing more of the art. He was at laft recommended by the late J. C. Bach to Napier, mufic-feller in the Strand, who foon diftinguithed his merit as a composer, and purchafed the copy-right of his work at a liberal price. Being now announced to the mufical world as a compofer, Schroeter began to acquire fome celebrity in the profeffion, profeffion, which procured him feveral fcience, can alone acquire. Though fcholars in the fashionable circles. he poffeffed the most compleat dominiUpon the publication of his first set of on of his inftrument, he seldom indulConcertos his reputation was fuch, ged in thofe capricious difficulties and that he took the lead as a performer in harlequin tricks, by which many of our all the musical entertainments of the modern performers cat ch the applaufe nobility at which he affifted. of the vulgar. His mode of fingering was fo peculiarly eafy and elegant, that it was even pleasant to fee him perform. In his cadences he often give rein to the luxuriance of his genius, and aftonished the profeffor as well as the amateur, with the novelty, the beauty, and the endless variety of his modulations. His manner of playing an adagio was unrivalled, except perhaps by the viola di gamba of Abel in his better days, when infpired by a flafk of generous burgundy. He fel dom could be prevailed on to touch a a harpsichord, but he was extremely fond of playing the violin, on which he was an elegant performer; his tone was thin, but his manner of touching it was malterly, and he delighted in attempting to furmount the difficulties of that inftrument, more than in his molt finished performances on the piano forte. Soon after this period he married a lady who was his pupil, by whom he was entitled to a very confiderable for tune; but her friends taking violent offence at the match, and threatening poor Schroeter with the terrors of the Court of Chancery, which he then conceived to be more dreadful than the inquifition, he gave up his claim to her fortune, in confideration of receiving an annuity of 500l. clogged with a very unreafonable condition, "that he was to relinquish his profeffion fo far as never to perform at any public Concert." This, which more ambitious men would have fpuraed at, Schroeter, who had much indolence of difpofition, as well as carelefinefs of fame, agreed to, and for fome years he Fetired from town, and refided chiefly in the country. But talents like his could not be Jong buried in oblivion. The Prince of Wales heard him play at a private Concert, and expreffed the highest admiration of his performance. His Royal Highnets's houfhold was then about to be established, and without any folicitation Schroeter was appointed one of his band of mufic, with a liberal falary. His last set of Sonatas, which have a very elegant accompanyment for a violin and violincello, were compofed at the defire of the Prince, to whom they were dedicated, and his Royal Highnefs frequently accompanied Schroeter in his favourite work. The grand piano forte was Schroeter's favourite inftrument. His ftile of playing was diftinguished by that peculiar elegance and delicacy, which a chaite and correct tafte, improved by As a compofer he certainly ranks very high; his melodies are in general exquifitely beautiful, and his harmonies are rich, and often display the originality of genius. He excelled more in the cantabile than in any other fpecies of movement, though fome of his allegros poflefs much (pirit and beauty. Had he applied to that department of the science, his ta lents were eminently formed for the compofition of vocal mufic, and fome time before his laft illness he had determined to fet one of Metaftafio's Operas, which it is to be regretted he did not live to accomplish. About three years ago he was feized with a fevere cold, which affected his lungs, and at laft terminated in his death, an event which the mufical world will long regret. Anecdotes 208 Anecdotes of the Pretender, Lady Mary Touchet, &c.-From Memoirs and Anecdotes of Philip Thickneffe. * 'L ADY MARY TOUCHET, a beautiful English woman, and sister to my late wife, made her first public appearance. at a ball at Paris, given by the Pretender just before his expedition into Scotland, in the year 1745. The Prince, not only attracted by her perfonal charms, but being the fifter to an English Catholic Peer, took her out as his partner; and before they parted, he communicated to her whither he was going, and the importance of his expedition. I cannot tell, but I can eafily conceive to what a pitch of enthufiafm a beautiful young Eng lifh woman, of the fame religious principles, and fo particularly honoured at that time, might be led to fay upon fo trying an occafion; but, whatever it were, he inftantly took his penknife from his pocket, ript the ftar from his breaft, and gave it to her as a token of his particular regard; and I doubt not that the concluded fuch an external mark of his partiality, had he fucceeded, was given as a prelude to the offer of a more precious jewel, which had lain under the ftar within his bofom. As that beautiful woman died at the age of 20, the ftar fell into the lap of her fifter, and, as the foon atter fell into mine, I became poffelled of that ineftimable badge of distinction, toge ther with a fine portrait of the Prince by Huffey. Being a whig, and a military man, I did not think it right to keep either of them in my poffeffion; and a fimple old Jacobite lady offered me a confiderable fum of money for them; but having three nieces, whofe father had lived in intimacy with the late Sir John Dolben, I prefented both to them, and I believe that valuable relick of the departed Prince Charles is now in the poffeflion of Mrs Lloyd, my eldeft niece, and wife to the prefent Dean of Norwich.-Lady Mary Toucaet was the firit woman who appeared in England in a French drefs, about the year 1748, which was then to particular, that the never went out at Bath, the place of her contant refidence, without being foliowed by a crowd: for at that time the general dreis of France was deemed fo outré in this country, that in most eyes it diminished the charms of both her face and perion, which the otherwife had the utmolt claim to. - She danced on the Friday night ball, and died the Sunday following. A iady, who afted in laying her out, told me the could fcarcely believe the was dead, for that the never faw fo much beauty in life, and that the exceeded in fyminetry even Titian's Venus. That this unfortunate man was in London about the year 1754, I can pofitively allert. He came hither contrary to the opinion of all his friends abroad; but he was determined, he faid, to fee the capital of that king.. dom over which he thought himself born to reign. After being a few days at a lady's houfe in Effex Street in the Strand, he was met by one who knew his perion in Hyde Park, and who made an attempt to kneel to him. This circumftance fo alarmed the lady at whofe houfe he refided, that a boat was procured the fame night, and he returned inftantly to France. Monfieur Maffac, late fecretary to the Duke de Noailles, told me he was fent to treat with the Prince relative to a fubfequent attempt to invade England. Mr Maffac dined with him, and had much converfation upon that subject; but obferved that he was rather a weak man, bigoted to his religion, and unable able to refrain from the bottle, the only benefit he said he had acquired by his expedition among his countrymen into Scotland. 'Mr Segrave, an Irish officer with only one arm, formerly well known at the Caffée de Conti at Paris, affured me that he had been with the Prince in England between the years fortyfive and fifty-fix, and that they had laid a plan of feizing the perfon of the King (George the Second) as he returned from the play, by a body of Irish chairmen, who were to knock the fervants from behind his coach, extinguish the lights, and create confufion; while a party carried the King to the water-fide, and hurried him away to France. It is certain that the late King often returned from the theatre in fo private a manner that fuch an attempt was not impracticable; for what could not a hundred or two defperate villains effect, at eleven o'clock at night, in any of the public streets of London? Ten minutes ftart would do it; and they could not have failed of a much greater length of time. He alfo told me that they had more than fifteen hundred Irish chairmen, or that class of people, that were to affemble oppofite the Duke of Newcastle's boule in Lincoln's Inn Fields the inftant they heard any particular news relative to the Pretender. I cannot vouch for the truth of this ftory; but it may be right to relate it, to prevent fach an attempt, fhould any other pretender ftart up, for I have the best authority to fay fuch a thing is practicable, and that a person was taken off in broad day-light, and in the middle of a large city, though under the protection of an Englah major and feven old French women, and that too by an individual. There are many people now living at Southampton who remember that tranfaction. It was not a king, its true, who was taken off, nor it was not a man; but before the farprise of the major and his female party were over, the lady was far out of their reach.' The Generofity of an Indian Conqueror; a Tale.By the Abbé Dupin. to a cultivated mind, united all the vir HA Mi Melvill had but one brother, for whom the entertained the fincereft affec tion, which he returned with a love tru ly fraternal. The first years of their life were spent together in that mutual attachment which is the pureft of all, as it is leaft influenced byfelf-intereft. Her brother was her friend, her companion, and her guide in all her rural walks; the, in her turn, was the confident of all his little fe crets,his adviferinall his little occupations, and his refuge in all his little diftreffes. One must have a brother like him, or a fifter |