surrendered. But before he did so, 20,000 innocent persons, old and young, women and children, had died by the most horrible of deaths which humanity can endure!

Arnold.

PERSONAL TRAITS OF GEORGE II. AND QUEEN CAROLINE.

Many ingredients concurred to form this reluctance in his majesty to bestowing. One was that, taking all his notions from a German measure, he thought every man who served him in England overpaid; another was, that while employments were vacant he saved the salary; but the most prevalent of all was his never having the least inclination to oblige. I do not believe there ever lived a man to whose temper benevolence was so absolutely a stranger. It was a sensation that, I dare say, never accompanied any one act of his power; so that whatever good he did was either extorted from him, or was the adventitious effect of some self-interested act of policy: consequently, if any seeming favour he conferred ever obliged the receiver, it must have been because the man on whom it fell was ignorant of the motives from which the giver bestowed. I remember Sir Robert Walpole saying once, in speaking to me of the king, that to talk with him of compassion, consideration of past services, charity, and bounty, was making use of words that with him had no meaning. I once heard him say he would much sooner forgive anybody that had murdered a man, than anybody that cut down one of his oaks; because an oak was so much longer growing to a useful size than a man, and consequently, one loss would be sooner supplied than the other: and one evening, after a horse had run away, and killed himself against an iron spike, poor Lady Suffolk saying it was very lucky the man who was upon him had received no hurt, his majesty snapped her very short, and said: 'Yes I am very lucky, truly: pray where is the luck? I have lost a good horse, and I have got

a booby of a groom still to keep.' The queen by long studying and long experience of his temper knew how to instil her own sentiments-whilst she affected to receive his majesty's; she could appear convinced whilst she was controverting, and obedient whilst she was ruling; and by this means her dexterity and address made it impossible for anybody to persuade him what was truly his case-that whilst she was seemingly on every occasion giving up her opiniou and her will to his, she was always in reality turning his opinion and bending his will to hers. She managed this deified image as the heathen priests used to do the oracles of old, when, kneeling and prostrate before the altars of a pageant god, they received with the greatest devotion and reverence those directions in public which they had before instilled and regulated in private. And as idols consequently were only propitious to the favourites of the augurers, so nobody who had not tampered with our chief priestess ever received a favourable answer from our god: storms and thunder greeted every votary that entered the temple without her protection-calms and sunshine those who obtained it. The king himself was so little sensible of this being his case, that one day enumerating the people who had governed this country in other reigns, he said Charles I. was governed by his wife, Charles II. by his mistresses, King James by his priests, King William by his men, and Queen Anne by her womenfavourites. His father, he added, had been governed by anybody that could get at him.. And at the end of this compendious history of our great and wise monarchs, with a significant, satisfied, triumphant air, he turned about, smiling, to one of his auditors, and asked him: 'And who do they say governs now?' Whether this is a true or a false story of the king, I know not, but it was currently reported and generally believed. She was at least seven or eight hours têteà-tête with the king every day, during which time she was generally saying what she did not think, assenting to what she did not believe, and praising

what she did not approve; for they were seldom of the same opinion, and he too fond of his own for her ever at first to dare to controvert it. She used to give him her opinion as jugglers do a card, by changing it imperceptibly, and making him believe he held the same with that he first pitched upon. But that which made these tête-à-têtes seem heaviest was that he neither liked reading nor being read to-unless it was to sleep she was forced, like a spider, to spin out of her own bowels all the conversation with which the fly was taken. However, to all this she submitted for the sake of power, and for the reputation of having it; for the vanity of being thought to possess what she desired was equal to the pleasure of the possession itself. But, either for the appearance or the reality, she knew it was absolutely necessary to have interest in her husband, as she was sensible that interest was the measure by which people would always judge of her power. Her every thought, word, and act therefore tended and was calculated to preserve her influence there; to him she sacrificed her time, for him she mortified her inclination; she looked, spake, and breathed but for him, like a weathercock to every capricious blast of his uncertain temper, and governed him-if such influence so gained can bear the name of government-by being as great a slave to him thus ruled as any other wife could be to a man who ruled her. For all the tedious hours she spent then in watching him whilst he slept, or the heavier task of entertaining him whilst he was awake, her single consolation was in reflecting she had power, and that people in coffee-houses and ruelles were saying she governed this country, without knowing how dear the government of it cost her.

Hervey.

AN AFRICAN CHIEF.

Sebituané was about forty-five years of age; of a tall and wiry form; of an olive, or coffee-and-milk, colour,

and slightly bald; in manner though cool and collected, more frank in his answers than any chief I ever met.

He was the greatest warrior ever heard of beyond the colony, and he always led his men into battle himself. When he saw the enemy, he felt the edge of his battle-axe, and said: "Aha! it is sharp, and whoever turns his back on the enemy will feel its edge."

So fleet of foot was he, that all his people knew there was no escape for the coward, as any such would be cut down without mercy. In some instances of skulking, he allowed the individual to return home; then calling him, he would say: "Ah, you prefer dying at home to dying in the field, do you? You shall have your desire." This was the signal for his immediate

execution.

He had not only conquered all the black tribes over an immense tract of country, but had made himself dreaded by the most powerful neighbouring chiefs.

Sebituané knew everything that happened in the country; for he had the art of gaining the affections both of his own people and of strangers. When a party of poor men came to his town to sell their wares, no matter how ungainly they might be, he soon knew them all.

A company of these strangers would be surprised to see him come alone to them, and sitting down, inquire if they were hungry. He would order a servant to bring meal, milk, and honey, and make them feast, perhaps for the first time in their lives, on a lordly dish.

Delighted beyond measure with his kindness and liberality, they felt their hearts warm towards him, and gave him all the information in their power; and as he never allowed a party of strangers to go away without giving every one of them, servants and all, a present, his praises were sounded far and wide. "He has a heart! he is wise!" were the usual expressions we heard before we saw him.

He was much pleased with the proof of confidence

we had shown in bringing our children with us, and promised to take us over his country, so that we might choose a part in which to settle. Poor Sebituané, however, just after obtaining what he had so long ardently desired, fell sick of inflammation of the lungs, which arose from an old wound. I saw his danger, but, being a stranger, I feared to treat him medically, lest, in the event of his death, I should be blamed by his people. I mentioned this to one of his doctors, who said: "Your fear is prudent and wise; this people would blame you."

On the Sunday afternoon on which he died, when our usual religious service was over, I visited him with my little boy Robert. "Come near," said Sebituané, "and see if I am any longer a man; I am done."

He was thus sensible of the dangerous nature of his disease; so I ventured to agree with him as to his danger, and added a single sentence regarding hope after death. "Why do you speak of death?" said one of the doctors; "Sebituané will never die." If I had persisted, the impression would have been produced, that, by speaking about it, I wished him to die.

After sitting with him some time, and commending him to the mercy of God, I rose to leave when the dying chieftain raising himself up a little from his reclining position, called a servant, and said, "Take Robert to Mannku (one of his wives), and tell her to give him some milk." These were the last words of Sebituané.

Livingstone.

CHARACTER AND APPEARANCE OF MR. PECKSNIFF.

It has been remarked that Mr. Pecksniff was a moral man. So he was. Perhaps there never was a more moral man than Mr. Pecksniff, especially in his conversation and correspondence. It was once said of him by a homely admirer, that he had a Fortunatus's purse of good sentiments in his inside. In this particular he was like the girl in the fairy tale, except that if