delivering herself to the enemy, probably in the night, and uncertain into what hands she might fall, appeared an effort above human nature. The assistance I was enabled to give was small indeed; I had not even a cup of wine to offer her; but I was told, she had found from some kind and fortunate hand, a little rum and dirty water. All I could furnish to her was an open boat, and a few lines to General Gates, recommending her to his attention. "Mr Brudenell, the chaplain to the artillery, readily undertook to accompany her; and with one female servant, and the Major's valetde-chambre, (who had a ball, which he had received in the late action, then in his shoulder,) she was rowed down the river to meet the enemy. But her distresses were not yet to end. The night was advanced before the boat reached the enemy's out-posts; and the sentinel would not allow them even to come on shore. In vain Mr. Brudenell offered the flag of truce, and represented to him the circumstances of his extraordinary fellow-passenger. The guard, apprehensive of treachery, and punctilious to their orders, threatened to fire into the boat if they stirred before daylight. Her anxiety and sufferings were thus protracted through seven or eight dark and cold hours; and her reflections upon that first reception, could not give her very encouraging ideas of the treatment she was afterwards to expect. But it is due to justice, at the close of this adventure, to say, that she was received and accommodated by General Gates, with all the humanity and respect that her rank, her merits, and her fortunes deserved. "Let such as are affected by these circumstances of alarm, hardship, and danger, recollect, that the subject of them was A WOMAN of the most tender and delicate frame, of the gentlest manners, habituated to all the soft elegancies and refined enjoyments that attend high birth and fortune; and far advanced in a state in which the tender cares always due to the sex, become indispensably necessary. But her mind was formed for such trials!" M. THE FOLLY OF A BELIEF IN FORTUNE-TELLING, OR ASTROLOGY. THE belief in Judicial Astrology, which appears to be adapted only to the darkest ages, continued, notwithstanding the vast progress made in literature and science, to be cherished pretty generally among the uneducated, and even, in too many instances, amongst the learned, until late in the seventeenth century, if indeed it did not even survive that date. To show the total folly of all pretensions to the art of predicting future events from the positions of the stars, and the equal folly of believing in such predictions, the following anecdote is offered to the attention of our readers. Towards the middle and latter end of the seventeenth century, there lived a celebrated mathematician and astronomer, named James Ozanam, whose learned works are well known in every part of Europe. As an astronomer is continually gazing on the stars, and an astrologer professes to draw his predictions from them, the two were frequently confounded with each other. It happened that a nobleman of great rank, desirous of discovering the events of his future life, applied to Ozanam to draw his horoscope, and at the same time employed a neighbouring Physician, who was also a professed and enthusiastic astrologer, to execute the same task. The physician complied; drew the ho reward. As for Ozanam, he in vain represented to the nobleman, that he was no astrologer,—that he did not believe in the existence of such an art; the nobleman persisted, and as he was a man whose positive commands were not to be refused, Ozanam, at length, threw together, at random, a parcel of predictions, all promising riches, power, happiness, and every other worldly blessing that a man could desire. rescope, and of course pocketed his One day, when he was plunged in a profound revery, a carriage stopped at his door. A stranger was announced, who requested to speak with him. A person, handsomely dressed, and of dignified and impressive manners, was introduced. “I have been commissioned, sir, by a man of considerable importance, to wait upon you." "Who is he?" interrupted Mozart. "He does not wish to be known." "Well, what does he require?" "He has just lost a friend whom he tenderly loved, and whose memory will be ever dear to him. He is desirous of annually commemorating this event by a solemn service, for which he requests you to compose a Requiem." Mozart was forcibly struck by this discourse, by the grave manner in which it was uttered, and by the air of mystery in which the whole was involved. He engaged to write the Requiem. The stranger continued; "Employ all your genius on this work; it is for a judge." "So much the better." "What time do you ask?” "A month." ""Tis well; in a month I will return. What compensation will you require?" "A hundred ducats." The stranger laid the money on the table, and disappeared. About twenty years afterwards, the same nobleman called again on Ozanam, loading him with compliments, and assuring him that every one of his predictions had been verified, while those of the Physician turned out totally false. The event confirmed both parties in their previous opinions. The nobleman, to whom Ozanam did not dare confess the trick, departed more firmly persuaded than ever, that astrology, in the hands of a really learned and ude professor, was a science as true the mathematics; while Ozanam, with much better reason, was confirmed in his opinion, that astrology had no existence whatever, except in the heated imaginations of a few enthusiasts, the cunning of knaves, and the gullibility of fools. MOZART, THE GREAT GERMAN COMPOSER. THE bodily frame of Mozart was tender, and exquisitely sensible: ill-health overtook him in early life, and brought with it a melancholy approaching to despondency. A short time previously to his death, which happened when he was only thirty-six years old, he composed that famous Requiem* which, by an extraordinary presentiment, he considered as written for his own funeral. • A funeral piece of music. Mozart remained lost in thought for some time; he then suddenly called for his materials, and commenced the Requiem. In his rage for composition, he wrote day and night, with an ardour that appeared constitution, already in a state of continually to increase: but his great debility, was unable to support this enthusiasm. One morning, he fell senseless, and was obliged to suspend the work. Two sought to divert his mind from the or three days after, when his wife he said to her abruptly, "It is cergloomy presages which occupied it, tain that I am writing this Requiem for myself: it will serve for my funeral-service." This impression in such drawings many of the wild was never removed. As he proceeded, his strength diminished from day to day, but the score was slowly advancing, The month which he had fixed being expired, the stranger again made his appearance. "I have found it impossible to keep my word." "Do not give yourself any uneasiness: what further time do you require?" "Another month: the work has interested me more than I expected, and I have extended it much beyond the first design." "In that case," said the stranger, "it is just to increase the reward: here are fifty ducats more.' Sir," said Mozart, in increasing astonishment, who, then, are you?" "That is nothing to the purpose in a month's time, I will return." Mozart immediately called one of his servants, and ordered him to follow this extraordinary personage. The man returned, unable to trace him. 66 The great musician then persuaded himself that the stranger was no mortal being, but was sent to announce his approaching end. He applied himself with more ardour to his Requiem, which he regarded as the most durable monument of his genius. While thus employed, he was seized with the most alarming fainting-fits; but the work was completed. At the time appointed, the stranger returned; but Mozart was no more! ANECDOTE OF WEST, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY. WHEN Benjamin West was some eight years old, a party of roaming Indians paid their summer visit to Springfield, (Pennsylvania,) and were much pleased with the rude sketches which the boy had made of birds, and fruits, and flowers, for Americans have both taste and skill. They showed him some of their own workmanship, and taught him how to prepare the red and yellow colours with which they stained their weapons; to these his mother added indigo, and thus he was possessed of the three primary colours. The Indians, unwilling to leave such a boy in ignorance of their other acquirements, taught him archery, in which he became expert enough to shoot refractory birds, which refused to come on milder terms for their likenesses. The future President of the British Academy, taking lessons in painting and in archery, from a tribe of Cherokees, might be a subject worthy of the pencil. The wants of West increased with his knowledge. He could. draw, and he had obtained colours, but how to lay those colours skilfully on, he could not well con ceive. A neighbour informed him that this was done with brushes formed of camels' hair; there were no camels in America, and he had recourse to the cat, from whose back and tail he supplied his wants. The cat was a favourite, and the altered condition of her fur was imputed to disease, till the boy's confession explained the cause, much to the amusement of his father, who nevertheless rebuked him, but more in affection than in anger. Better help was at hand. One Pennington, a merchant, was so much pleased with the sketches of his cousin Benjamin, that he sent him a box of paints and pencils, with canvass prepared for the easel, and six engravings by Greoling. West placed the box on a chair at his bedside, and was unable to sleep. He rose with the dawn, carried his canvass and colours to the garret, hung up the engravings, prepared a palette, and commenced copying. So completely was he under the control of this species of enchantment, that he absented himself from school, laboured secretly and incessantly, and without interruption, for several days, when the anxious inquiries of the schoolmas-place after having risen into emiter introduced his mother into his nence, looked earnestly on the perstudio with no pleasure in her looks. formances of his youth, and said But her anger subsided as she look- sorrowfully, "I have been walking, ed upon his performance. He had but not climbing.”—Lives of Paintavoided copyism, and made a pic-ers. ture composed from two of the engravings, telling a new story, and coloured with a skill and effect which was in her sight surprising. "She kissed him," says Galt, who had the story from the artist, "with transports of affection, and assured him that she would not only intercede with his father to pardon him for having absented himself from school, but would go herself to the master and beg that he might not be punished. Sixty-seven years afterwards, the writer of these memoirs had the gratification to see this piece in the same room with the sublime painting of Christ Rejected, on which occasion the painter declared to him that there were inventive touches of art in his first and juvenile essay, which, with all his subsequent knowledge and experience, he had not been able to surpass." A similar story is related of Canova;-he visited his native A DUKE of Brunswick was once accosted in Venice, by a boy who solicited charity. The duke told him that he had no small change; on which the boy offered to get him change for a piece of gold. The duke thought this a ridiculous circumstance, and to rid himself of the applicant, he gave him a ducat, in the certainty that the young beggar would keep it. After a very short time, the lad returned, to his great surprise, with the full change for his ducat, in the small coin of Venice. The duke, struck with his honesty, not only gave him the gold, but undertook to provide for him, and afterwards promoted him to honourable employment. |