most every woman beholds the influence of her own beauty. Formed with the qualities which we love, not with the talents that we admire; she was an agreeable woman, rather than an illustrious queen. The vivacity of her spirit not sufficiently tempered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times under the restraint of discretion, betrayed her both into errors and into crimes.

9. None of her women were suffered to come near her dead body, which was carried into a room adjoining to the place of execution, where it lay for some days, covered with a coarse cloth torn from a billiard table. The block, the scaf fold, the aprons of the executioners, and every thing stained with her blood, were reduced to ashes. Not long after, Elizabeth appointed her body to be buried in the Cathedra. of Peterborough with royal magnificence. But this vulgar artifice was employed in vain; the pageantry of a pompous funeral did not efface the memory of those injuries which laid Mary in her grave. James, soon after his accession to the English throne, ordered her body to be removed to Westminster abbey, and to be deposited among the monarchs of England.

FALL OF JERICHO.

WHO is that chief, already taught to urge
The battle stream, and roll its darkest surge,
Whose army marches through retiring seas,
Whose gory banner, spreading on the breeze,
Unfolds o'er Jericho's devoted towers,*
And, like the storm o'er Sodom, redly lowers?
The moon can answer; for she heard his tongue,
And cold and pale o'er Ajalon she hung.†
The sun can tell-O'er Gibeon's vale of blood,
Curving their beamy necks, his coursers stood,
Held by that hero's arm, to light his wrath,

And roll their glorious eyes upon his crimson path.
What mine, exploding, rends that smoking ground?
What earthquake spreads those smouldering ruins round?.
T'he sons of Levi, round that city, bear

* Joshua vi. 20.

↑ Joshua x. 12, 13.

The ark of God, their consecrated care,
And, in rude concert, each returning morn,
Blow the long trump, and wind the curling horn.
No blackening thunder smok'd along the wall—
No earthquake shook it-MUSIC wrought its fall.

CHARLES I. OF ENGLAND.

1. FROM the sixth to the twentieth of January was spent in making preparations for his extraordinary trial. The court of justice consisted of a hundred and thirty-three persons named by the commons; but of these, never above seventy met upon the trial. The members were chiefly composed of the principal officers of the army, most of them of very mean birth, together with some of the lower house, and a few citizens of London. Bradshaw, a lawyer, was chosen president; Coke was appointed solicitor for the people of England; Dorislaus, Steele, and Aske, were named assistants. The court sat at Westminster hall.

2. The king was now conducted from Windsor to St. James's, and the next day was brought before the high court to take his trial. When he was brought forward, he was conducted by the mace-bearer to a chair placed within the bar. Though long detained a prisoner, and now produced as a criminal, he still sustained the dignity of a king; he surveyed the members of the court with a stern, haughty air, and without moving his hat sat down, while the members were also covered. His charge was then read by the solicitor, accusing him of having been the cause of all the bloodshed that followed. since the commencement of the war; at that part of the charge, he could not suppress a smile of contempt and indignation. After the charge was finished, Bradshaw directed his discourse to the king, and told him, that the court expected his answer.

3. The king, with great temper, entered upon his defence, by declining the authority of the court. He represented, that, having been engaged in treaty with his two houses of

How many persons constituted the court that tried king Charles ?— What description of persons chiefly composed this court?-Who was appointed president?-On what ground did the king decline making his defence?

parliament, and having finished almost every article, he expected a different treatment from that he now received. He perceived, he said, no appearance of an upper house, which was necessary to constitute a just tribunal. That he was himself the king and fountain of law; and consequently could not be tried by laws to which he had never given his assent; that having been intrusted with the liberties of the people, he would not now betray them, by recognising a power founded in usurpation; that he was willing, before a proper tribunal, to enter into the particulars of his defence; but that before them he must decline any apology for innocence, lest he should be considered the betrayer of, and not a martyr for, the constitution.

4. Bradshaw, in order to support the authority of that court, insisted that they had received their power from the people, the source of all right. He pressed the prisoner not to decline the authority of the court, which was delegated by the commons of England; and interrupted and over-ruled the king in his attempts to reply. In this manner was the king three times produced before the court; and as often persisted in declining its jurisdiction. The fourth and last time he was brought before the self-created tribunal, as he was proceeding thither, he was insulted by the soldiers and the mob, who exclaimed, "Justice! justice! execution! execution!" but he continued undaunted. His judges having now examined some witnesses, by whom it was proved that the king had appeared in arms against the forces commissioned by parliament, they pronounced sentence against him.

5. The conduct of the king under all these instances of low bred malice, was great, firm and equal; in going through the hall from this execrable tribunal, the soldiers and rabble were again instigated to cry out justice and execution. They eviled him with the most bitter reproaches. Amongst other insults, one miscreant presumed to spit in the face of his sovereign. He patiently bore their insults. "Poor souls," cried he, "they would treat their generals in the same manner for six-pence." Those of the populace who still retain

On what ground did Bradshaw maintain the legal jurisdiction of the court?What was the treatment which he received from the soldiers? What was proved against the king in his trial? What was the conduct of the king under this treatment?

ed the feelings of humanity, expressed their sorrow in sighs and tears. A soldier, more compassionate than the rest, could not help imploring a blessing upon his royal head. An officer, overhearing him, struck the honest sentinel to the ground before the king, who could not help saying, that the punishment exceeded the offence.

6. At his return to Whitehall, he desired the permission of the house to see his children, and to be attended in his private devotions by doctor Juxon, late bishop of London. These requests were granted, and also three days to prepare for the execution of the sentence. All that remained of his family, now in England, were the princess Elizabeth, and the duke of Gloucester, a child of about three years of age. After many seasonable and sensible exhortations to his daughter, he took his little son into his arms, and embracing him, My child," said he, " they will cut off thy father's head— yes, they will cut off my head, and make thee a king. But mark what I say, thou must not be a king as long as thy brothers, Charles and James, are alive. They will cut off their heads when they can take them, and thy head too, at last; and therefore, I charge thee, do not be made a king by them." The child, bursting into tears, replied, "I will be torn in pieces first."

7. Every night, during the interval between his sentence and execution, the king slept sound as usual; though the noise of the workmen employed in framing the scaffold continually resounded in his ears. The fatal morning being at last arrived, he rose early, and calling one of his attendants, he bade him employ more than usual care in dressing him, and preparing him for so great and joyful a solemnity. The street before Whitehall was the place destined for his execution; for it was supposed that this would increase the severity of his punishment. He was led through the banqueting house to the scaffold, adjoining that edifice, attended by his friend and servant, bishop Juxon, a man endowed with the same mild and steady virtues with his master. The scaffold, which was covered with black, was guarded by a regiment of soldiers, under the command of colonel Tomlinson; and

By whom was the king attended in his devotions, after being condemned?-Who commanded the regiment that guarded the scaffold on which he was executed?

on it were to be seen the block and axe, and two executioners in masks. The people, in great crowds, stood at a great distance, in dreadful expectation of the event.

8. The king, however, remained calm amidst all these awful preparations; and, as he could not expect to be heard by the people at a distance, he addressed himself to the few who stood round him. He there justified his innocence in the late fatal war; and observed that he had not taken arms till after the parliament had shown him the example. That he had no other object in his warlike preparations, than to preserve that authority entire, which had been transmitted to him by his ancestors; but, though innocent towards his people, he acknowledged the equity of his execution in the eyes of his Maker. He owned that he was justly punished for having consented to the execution of an unjust sentence upon the earl of Strafford. He forgave all his enemies; exhorted the people to return to their obedience, and acknowledged his son as his successor; and signified his attachment to the protestant religion, as professed in the church of Engiand. So strong was the impression his dying words made upon the few who could hear him, that colonel Tomlinson himself, into whose care he had been committed, acknowledged himself a convert.

9. While he was thus preparing himself for the block, bishop Juxon called out to him, "There is, sir, but one stage more; which, though turbulent and troublesome, is yet a very short one. It will soon carry you a great way. It will soon carry you from earth to heaven; and there you shall find, to your great joy, the prize to which you hasten; a crown of glory." "I go," replied the king, "from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can have place." "You exchange," the bishop added, poral for an eternal crown; a good exchange.' Charles having taken off his cloak, he delivered his George to the prelate, pronouncing the word "remember." Then he laid his neck upon the block, and stretching out his hands as a signal, one of the executioners severed his head from his body at a blow; while the other, holding it up, exclaimed, “This is the head of a traitor." The spectators testified their hor.

66 a tem

Was the king apparently resigned to his fate?-Dia ne acknowledg the justice of the sentence which condemned him to death?