of his pocket, went from her, leaving this admonition aloud: If you will save your husband, you must give me an account of all you know without prevarication; for every body is satisfied he was too fond of you to be able to hide from you the names of the rest of the conspirators, or any other particulars whatsoever.' He went to his closet, and soon after the lady was sent for to an audience. The servant knew his distance when matters of state were to be debated; and the governor, laying aside the air with which he had appeared in public, began to be the supplicant, to rally an affiction, which it was in her power easily to remove, and relieve an innocent man from his imprisonment. She easily perceived his intention, and, bathed in tears, began to deprecate so wicked a design. Lust, like ambition, takes all the faculties of the mind and body into its service and subjection. Her becoming tears, her honest anguish, the wringing of her hands, and the many changes of her posture and figure in the vehemence of speaking, were but so many attitudes in which he beheld her beauty, and further incentives of his desire. All humanity was lost in that one appetite, and he signified to her in so many plain terms, that he was unhappy till he had possessed her, and nothing less should be the price of her husband's life; and she must, before the following noon, pronounce the death or enlargement of Danvelt. After this notification, when he saw Sapphira enough again distracted to make the subject of their discourse to common eyes appear different from what it was, he called servants to conduct her to the gate. Loaded with insupportable affliction, she immediately repairs to her husband; and having signified to his gaolers that she had a proposal to make to her husband from the governor, she

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was left alone with him, revealed to him all that had passed, and represented the endless conflict she was in between love to his person and fidelity to his bed. It is easy to imagine the sharp affliction this honest pair was in upon such an incident, in lives not used to any but ordinary occurrences. The man was bridled by shame from speaking what his fear prompted, upon so near an approach of death; but let fall words that signified to her, he should not think her polluted, though she had not yet confessed to him that the governor had violated her person, since he knew her will had no part in the action. She parted from him with this oblique permission to save a life he had not resolution enough to resign for the safety of his honour.

The next morning the unhappy Sapphira attended the governor, and, being led into a remote apartment, submitted to his desires. Rhynsault commended her charms, claimed a familiarity after what had passed between them, and with an air of gaiety, in the language of a gallant, bid her return, and take her husband out of prison: "But,' continued he, my fair one must not be offended that I have taken care he should not be an interruption to our future assignations.' These last words foreboded what she found when she came to the gaol,-her husband executed by the order of Rhynsault. It was remarkable that the woman, who was full of tears and lamentations during the whole course of her affliction, uttered neither sigh nor complaint, but stood fixed with grief at this consum→ mation of her misfortunes. She betook herself to her abode; and after having in solitude paid her devotions to him who is the avenger of innocence, she repaired privately to court. Her person, and a certain grandeur of sorrow, negligent of forms, gained her passage into

the presence of the duke her sovereign. As soon as she came into the presence, she broke forth into the following words: Behold, O mighty Charles, a wretch weary of life, though it has always been spent with innocence and virtue. It is not in your power to redress my injuries, but it is to avenge them. And if the protection of the distressed, and the punishment of oppressors, is a task worthy a prince, I bring the duke of Burgundy ample matter for doing honour to his own great name, and wiping infamy off from mine.'

When she had spoken this, she delivered the duke a paper reciting her story. He read it with all the emotions that indignation and pity could raise in a prince jealous of his honour in the behaviour of his officers, and prosperity of his subjects.

Upon an appointed day Rhynsault was sent for to court, and in the presence of a few of the council confronted by Sapphira: the prince asking, 'Do you know that lady?' Rhynsault, as soon as he could recover his surprise, told the duke he would marry her, if his highness would please to think that a reparation. The duke seemed contented with this answer, and stood by during the immediate solemnization of the ceremony. At the conclusion of it he told Rhynsault, Thus far you have done as constrained by my authority: I shall not be satisfied of your kind usage of her, without you sign a gift of your whole estate to her after your decease.' To the performance of this also the duke was a witness. When these two acts were executed, the duke turned to the lady, and told her, It now remains for me to put you in quiet possession of what your husband has so bountifully bestowed on you;' and ordered the immediate execution of Rhynsault.

STELLE.

EXAMINATION OF A STUDENT. No. 494.

ABOUT an age ago it was the fashion in England for every one that would be thought religious, to throw as much sanctity as possible into his face, and in particular to abstain from all appearances of mirth and pleasantry, which were looked upon as the marks of a carnal mind. The saint was of a sorrowful countenance, and generally eaten up with spleen and melancholy. A gentleman, who was lately a great ornament to the learned world, has diverted me more than once with an account of the reception which he met with from a very famous independent minister, who was head of a college in those times. This gentleman was then a young adventurer in the republic of letters, and just fitted out for the university with a good cargo of Latin and Greek. His friends were resolved that he should try his fortune at an election which was drawing near in the college, of which the independent minister whom I have before mentioned was governor *. The youth, according to custom, waited on him in order to be examined. He was received at the door by a servant, who was one of that gloomy generation that were then in fashion. He conducted him, with great silence and seriousness, to a long gallery which was

Dr. Thomas Goodwin, S. T. P. president of Magdalen college in Oxford, and one of the Assembly of Divines who sat at Westminster. Mr. Wood says, Dr. T. Goodwin and Dr. Owen were the two Atlases and patriarchs of independency.' Dr. Goodwin attended his friend and patron Oliver Cromwell on his death-bed. His portrait, said to be a strong likeness, with a double cap on his head, is prefixed to his works in 2 vols. folio.

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darkened at noon-day, and had only a single candle burning in it. After a short stay in this melancholy apartment, he was led into a chamber hung with black, where he entertained himself for some time by the glimmering of a taper, until at length the head of the college came out to him, from an inner room, with half a dozen night-caps upon his head, and religious horror in his countenance. The young man trembled but his fears increased, when, instead of being asked what progress he had made in learning, he was examined how he abounded in grace. His Latin and Greek stood him in little stead; he was to give an account only of the state of his soul; whether he was of the number of the elect; what was the occasion of his conversion; upon what day of the month, and hour of the day, it happened; how it was carried on, and when completed. The whole examination was summed up with one short question, namely, 'whether he was prepared for death?' The boy, who had been bred up by honest parents, was frighted out of his wits at the solemnity of the proceeding, and by the last dreadful interrogatory; so that, upon making his escape out of this house of mourning, he could never be brought a second time to the examination, as not being able to go through the terrors of it.

I have, in former papers, shown how great a tendency there is to cheerfulness in religion, and how such a frame of mind is not only the most lovely, but the most commendable in a virtuous person. In short, those who represent religion in so unamiable a light, are like the spies sent by Moses to make a discovery of the Land of Promise, when by their reports they discouraged the people from entering upon it. Those who show us the joy, the cheerfulness, the good hu

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mour,