rest, but while that meeting was being held, broke into the Tower of London, and slew the Archbishop and the Treasurer, for whose heads the people had cried out loudly the day before. He and his men even thrust their swords into the bed of the Princess of Wales, while the princess-was in it, to make certain that none of their enemies were concealed there.

So Wat and his men still continued armed, and rode about the City. Next morning, the King, with a small train of some sixty gentlemen, among whom was Walworth the Mayor, rode into Smithfield, and saw Wat and his people at a little distance. Wat said to his men, "There is the King. I will go speak with him, and tell him what we want." * Straightway Wat rode up to him, and began to talk. "King," said Wat, "dost thou see all my men there?" "Ah!" said the King, "why?" "Because," said Wat, "they are all at my command, and have sworn to do whatever I bid them." Some declared afterwards that as Wat said this, he laid his hand on the King's bridle. Others declared that he was seen to play with his own dagger. I think myself, that he just spoke to the King like a rough angry man as he was, and did nothing more. At any rate, he was expecting no attack, and prepared for no resistance, when Walworth, the Mayor, did the not very valiant deed of drawing a short sword, and stabbing him in the throat; he dropped from his horse, and one of the King's people speedily finished him. So fell Wat Tyler. Fawners and flatterers made a mighty triumph of it, and set up a cry which will occasionally find an echo, to this day. But Wat was a hard-working man, who had suffered much, and had been foully outraged; and it is probable that he was a man of a much higher nature, and a much braver spirit than any of those who exulted then, and have exulted since, over his defeat.

Seeing Wat down, his men immediately bent their bows to avenge his fall. If the young King had not had presence of mind at that dangerous moment, both he and the Mayor might have followed Tyler pretty

fast. But the King riding up to the crowd, cried out that Tyler was a traitor, and that he would be their leader. They were so taken by surprise that they set up a great shouting, and followed the king until he was met at Islington by a large body of soldiers.

As

The end of this rising was the then usual end. soon as the King found himself safe, he unsaid all he had said, and undid all he had done. Some fifteen hundred of the rioters were tried, mostly in Essex, with great rigor, and executed with great cruelty. Many of them were hanged on gibbets as a terror to the country people; and because their miserable friends took some of the bodies down to bury, the King ordered the rest to be chained up, which was the beginning of the barbarous custom of hanging in chains. The King's falsehood in this business makes such a pitiful figure, that I think Wat Tyler appears in history as beyond comparison the truer and more respectable of the two.

Dickens.

*

DEATH OF TWO LOVERS BY LIGHTNING.

September 1, 1717.

To Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

* * I have a mind to fill the rest of this paper with an accident that happened just under my eyes, and has made a great impression upon me. I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic seat of my Lord Harcourt's, which he lent me. It overlooks a common field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two lovers, as constant as ever were found in romance, beneath a spreading beech. The name of the one-let it sound as it will-was John Hewet; of the other, Sarah Drew. John was a well-set man, about five-and-twenty; Sarah, a brown woman of eighteen. John had for several months borne the labour of the day in the same field with Sarah; when she milked, it was his morning and evening charge to bring the cows to her pail.

Their love was the talk, but not the

scandal, of the whole neighbourhood; for all they aimed at was the blameless possession of each other in marriage. It was but this very morning that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it was but till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Perhaps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were talking of their wedding-clothes; and John was now matching several kinds of poppies and field-flowers to her complexion, to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were thus employed-it was on the last of July—a terrible storm of thunder and lightning arose, that drove the labourers to what shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and out of breath, sank on a haycock, and John—who never separated from her-sat by her side, having raked two or three heaps together to secure her. Immediately there was heard so loud a crack as if heaven had burst asunder. The labourers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one another: those that were nearest our lovers hearing no answer, stepped to the place, where they lay: they first saw a little smoke, and after, this faithful pair-John with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or discolouring on their bodies, only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed. They were buried the next day in one grave, where my Lord Harcourt, at my request has erected a monument over them.

Upon the whole, I cannot think these people unhappy. The greatest happiness, next to living as they would have done, was to die as they did. The greatest honour people of this low degree could have, was to be remembered on a little monument; unless you will give them another-that of being honoured with a tear from the finest eyes in the world. I know you have tenderness; you must have it; it is the very emanation of good sense and virtue: the finest minds, like the finest metals, dissolve the easiest. Pope.

LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, KING OF SWEDEN.

Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, born A. D. 1594, had princely education both for arts and arms. In Italy he learnt the mathematics; and in the other places. abroad, the French, Italian, and German tongues; and after he was king, he travelled under the name of Mr. Gars, being the four initial letters of his name and title. He was but seventeen years old at his father's death, being left not only a young king, but also in a young kingdom; for his title to the crown of Sweden was but five years old, to wit, since the beginning of his father's reign. All his bordering princes (on the north, nothing but the north bordered on him) were his enemies. Yet was he too great for them in his minority, both defending his own, and gaining on them. "Woe be to the kingdom whose king is a child;" yet blessed is that kingdom whose king, though a child in age, is a man in worth. These his first actions had much of glory, and yet somewhat of possibility and credit in them. But chronicle and belief must strain hard to make his German conquest probable with posterity; coming in with eleven thousand men, having no certain confederates, but some of his alliance whom the emperor had outed of all their estates; and yet, in two years and four months, he left the emperor in as bad a case almost as he found those princes in.

He was a strict observer of martial discipline, the life of war, without which an army is but a crowd (not to say herd) of people. He would march all day in complete armour, which was by custom no more burden to him than his arms; and to carry his helmet no more trouble than his head; whilst his example made the same easy to his soldiers. He was very merciful to any that would submit; and as the iron gate miraculously opened to St Peter of its own accord, so his mercy wrought miracles, making many city-gates open to him of themselves, before he ever knocked at them to demand entrance, the inhabitants desiring to shroud themselves under his protection. Yea, he was merciful to those

places which he took by assault; the very Jesuits themselves tasted of his courtesy, though merrily he laid it to their charge, that they would neither preach faith to, nor keep faith with others.

He had the true art (almost lost) of encamping, where he would lie in his trenches in despite of all enemies, keeping the clock of his own time, and would fight for no man's pleasure but his own. No seeming flight or disorder of his enemies should cozen him into a battle, nor their daring bravadoes anger him into it; nor any violence force him to fight till he thought fitting himself; counting it good manners in war, to take all, but give no advantages.

It was said of his armies that they used to rise when the swallows went to bed, when winter began, his forces most consisting of northern nations; and a Swede fights best when he can see his own breath. He always kept a long vacation in the dog-days, being only a saver in the summer, and a gainer all the year besides. His best harvest was in the snow; and his soldiers had most life in the dead of winter.

He made but a short cut in taking of cities, many of whose fortifications were a wonder to behold; but what were they then to assault and conquer? At scaling of walls he was excellent for contriving as his soldiers in executing; it seeming a wonder that their bodies should be made of air so light to climb, whose arms were of iron so heavy to strike. Such cities as would not presently open unto him, he shut them up; and having business of more importance than to imprison himself about one strength, he would consign the besieging thereof to some other captain. And, indeed, he wanted not his Joabs, who, when they had reduced cities to terms of yielding, knew, with as much wisdom as loyalty, to entitle their David to the whole honour of the action.

He was highly beloved of his soldiers, of whose deserts he kept a faithful chronicle in his heart, and advanced them accordingly.

To come to his death, wherein his reputation suffers,