TERRIFIC REGISTER.

year,

event, Sometimes hope suggested that a mistake might have been made in the horoscope, or, that the astrologer might have overlooked some sign which made it conditional; and in unison with the latter idea he determined to erect a strong building, where, during this year in which his doom was to be consummated. Walter might remain in solitude.-He accordingly gave directions. for raising a single tower, peculiarly formed to prevent ingress, except by permission of its inhabitants. The purpose of the strange building, however, he kept secret; and his neighbours, after various strange conjectures, gave it the name of Cooke's Folly." Walter himself was kept entirely ignorant At length, the on the subject, and all his inquiries were answered with tears. Sir tower was completed, and furnished with all things necessary for convenience and comfort; and on the eve of Walter's completing his twentieth Maurice shewed him the gipsy's scroll, and intreated him to make use of the retreat prepared for him till the year expired. Walter at first treated the matter lightly, laughed at the prophecy, and declared he would not lose a year's liberty if all the astrologers in the world were to croak their ridiculous prophecies against him. Seeing, however, his father so earnestly bent on the matter, his resolution began to give way, and at length he consented to the arrangement. At six the following morning, therefore, Walter entered the tower, which he fastened within as strongly as iron bars would admit, and which was secured outside in a manner equally firm. He took possession of his voluntary prison with melancholy feelings, rather occasioned by the loss of present pleasure than the fear of future pain. He sighed as he looked upon the wide domain before him, and thought how sad it would be to hear the joyous horn summoning his companions to the chase, and find himself prevented from attending it; to hear the winter wind howling round his tower, and rushing between the rocks beneath him, and miss the cheerful song and merry jest, which were wont to make even the blast a merry sound. Certainly his time passed as pleasantly as circumstances permitted. He drew up in a basket, at his meal-hours, every luxury which the season produced. His father and sisters daily conversed with him from below, for a considerable time; and the morris-dancers often raised his laughter by their grotesque Weeks and months passed, and Walter still was well and cheerful. His own and his sisters' hopes grew more lively, but Sir Maurice's anxiety increased. The day drew near which was to restore his son to his arms in confident security, or to fulfil the prediction which left him without an heir to his name and honours. On the preceding afternoon Walter continually endeavoured to cheer his parent, by speaking of what he would do on the morrow, desired his sisters to send round to all their friends, that he might stretch his limbs once more in the merry dance, and continued to talk of the future with such confidence, that even Sir Maurice caught a spark of hope from the fiery spirit of the youth. As the night drew on, and the sisters were about to leave him, promising to wake him at six by a song, in answer Nothing," said to the usual inquiry if he wanted any thing more that night, he;" and yet the night feels chilly, and I have little fuel left,-send me one more faggot." This was sent him, and, as he drew it up, "This," said he, "is the last time I shall have to dip for my wants, like old women for their water thank God! for it is wearisome work for the arm." Sir Maurice still lingered under the window in conversation with his son, who at length "Mark" said he as he closed the complained of being cold and drowsy. window, "mark, father, Mars, the star which rules my fate, looks smilingly to-night-all will be well." Sir Maurice looked up a dark cloud-spot suddenly covered the planet, and he shuddered at the omen.

movements.

The anxious father could not leave the place. Sleep, he knew, it was in vain to court; and he therefore determined to remain on the spot. The reflections that occupied his mind were continually varied :-at one time he painted to himself the proud career of his high-spirited boy, known and admired among the mighty of his time; a moment after he saw the prediction verified, and the child of his love lying in the tomb. Who can conceive his feelings as hour dragged after hour, while he walked to and fro, watching the blaze of the fire in the tower as it blazed and sunk again-now pacing the court with hasty steps, and now praying fervently for the preservation of his son!-The hour came. The cathedral-bell struck heavy on the father's heart, which was not to be lightened by the cheerful voices of his daughters, who came running full of hope to the foot of the tower. They looked up, but Walter was not there ;-they called his name-but he answered not. "Nay," said the youngest, "this is only a jest; he thinks to frighten us, but I know he is safe." A servant had brought a ladder, which he ascended, and looked in at the window. Sir Maurice stood immoveable and silent-he looked up, and the man answered the anxious expression of his eyes. "He is asleep, said he. "He is dead!" murmured the father.

The servant broke a pane of the window, and opening the casement, entered the room. The father, changing his gloomy stedfastness for frenzied anxiety, rushed up the ladder. The servant had thrown aside the curtains and the clothes, and displayed to the eyes of Sir Maurice his son lying dead-a serpent twined round his arm-and his throat covered with blood.-The reptile had crept from the faggot last sent him, and fulfilled the prophecy.

COUNTESS OF DERBY.

This heroine was the daughter of Claude de la Tremoutille, duke and peer of France, by his duchess, daughter of William Prince of Orange, founder of the Dutch republic. She proved herself worthy of her illustrious parents by a series of gallant actions. Her defence of Latham-house, in 1644, from February 28th to May 27th, may be reckoned among the bravest actions of those unhappy times. She formed a garrison, appointed her officers, and herself commanded in chief during the whole siege, till it was raised by her loyal lord, by the defeat of the enemy at Bolton. A bomb fell into the room where she and her children were at dinner, and burst without doing any injury. She immediately ordered a sally, beat the foes from their trenches, and took the mortar that was so nearly working her destruction. In the course of the siege she received a summons to surrender. She caught the spirit of her husband: "Tell, fellow," said she, "the insolent rebel that sent you, that if he presume to send another summons within these walls, I will cause the messenger to be hanged up at the gates." This is commemorated by a picture on the staircase, representing her ladyship sitting with a letter in her hand, delivering to a fanatical drummer the gallant answer: the last is blindfolded, and dressed in red. An officer of the garrison, in blue, stands by, admiring the heroism of his brave mistress. Her ladyship retired afterwards to the earl in the Isle of Man, and continued there till after his unfortunate end, when she was betrayed and imprisoned, and reduced to such distress, as to live on the alms of the impoverished Royalists, till the Restoration, which she survived four years.

THE following adventure, which happened at Langres in France in 1809, would make no bad figure in a melo-drama.

M. Dumesnil, passing through the forest near the above place towards nightfall, was stopped by a man, who, presenting a pistol, demanded his money or his life; M. Dumesnil gave him twelve francs, declaring it was all the money he had about him. The robber took the money that was offered, and the traveller made off as fast as his legs could carry him, half dead with fright, yet happy at having got away so cheaply. He soon reached a farm house, where, believing himself to be in safety, he requested hospitality, after having related his unlucky adventure, imprudently adding, that he had contrived to save a considerable sum from the rapacity of the robber. The mistress of the house, who was at this time alone, offered him an asylum, but said he would be obliged to sleep in the hay-loft; this offer was accepted with gratitude, M. Dumesnil preferring an uncomfortable bed to a dangerous rencontre; and, it being late, he had no wish to travel further that night.

He had scarcely laid himself down in the hay-loft, when he heard the master of the house come in; the latter related to his wife, that fortune had not been very favourable to him this time, that he had met with but one traFrom the circumstances of veller, from whom he had got but twelve francs. this narrative his wife was persuaded that the person, whom she had taken in, was the very same whom her husband had stopped; she informed him of it; and they agreed, that during the night the man should go into the hay-loft, and push the traveller down, while he slept, and that the wife, armed with an axe, should immediately dispatch him. Very luckily the traveller had not lost a word of this conversation: he kept himself upon his guard, and at the moment when the assassin mounted the ladder into the hay-loft to execute his murderous design, he struck him a violent blow on the head with a large knob

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of wood which he found in the hay-loft, so that he fell quite stunned to the floor below, where his wife immediately cleft his head in twain with her axe. The traveller fled to the neighbouring village, and gave information of the circumstance; the officers of the police repaired to the spot, and the woman was arrested, and soon afterwards suffered death.

UNNATURAL CUSTOM.

In an account of the island of Formosa, (situated in the twenty-second degree of nothern latitude) written by George Candidus, a missionary to that place, published in 1752, a cruel religious ceremony is described regarding females; who, he says, perform all the offices of husbandry, and possess their own plantations, independant of their husbands, never residing in the same house. According to their religious tenets, females are not allowed to bring forth live children till they have attained their thirty-seventh year; at a certain period of pregnancy they are obliged to give notice to their priestess, who attends them, and by some noxious drug and violent pressure, produces abortion. He continues, by saying, that a certain woman told him that she had been subjected to this horrid custom sixteen times. During pregnancy they are seldom at home, but live for the most part abroad in the fields, where they have little huts built on purpose to sleep in. He adds, all other nations, as far as I know, make use of men for their priests to sacrifice and attend the rites belonging to divine worship; these people alone have women for their priestesses, whom they call Inibs.

A FALSE ALARM.

Lewis Berton de Grillon, a gentleman of Avignon, was as remarkable for the peculiarities of his temper, as his intrepidity, which had procured him the name of Dreadnought. The duke of Guise, to whom he had been sent after the reduction of Marseilles, having a mind to try his courage, agreed with some gentlemen to give a sudden alarm before Grillon's quarters, as if the enemy had been masters of the town. At the same time he ordered two horses to the door; and, going up to Grillon's room, told him, all was lost, that the enemy were masters of the port and town; that they had forced the guards, and broken and put to flight all that opposed them; that, finding it impossible to resist them any longer, he thought it was better for them to retreat, than by suffering themselves to be taken, to add to the enemy's victory; that he had therefore ordered two horses to be brought, which were ready at the door, and desired he would make haste, for fear they should give the enemy time to surprise them. Grillon was asleep when the alarm was given, and was hardly awake whilst the duke of Guise was saying this to him. However, without being at all disconcerted by so hot an alarm, he called for his clothes and his arms, saying they ought not, on too light grounds, to give credit to all that was said of the enemy; and, even if the account should prove true, it was more becoming men of honour to die with their arms in their hands, than to survive the loss of the place. The duke, not being able to prevail on him to change his resolution, followed him out of the room; but, when they had got half-way down stairs, not being able to contain himself any longer, he burst out a laughing, by which Grillon discovered the trick that had been played him.

He thereupon assumed a look much sterner than when he thought only of going to fight, and, squeezing the duke's hand, said to him, swearing at the same time, (for he always begun his discourse by the most horrible oaths,) Young man, never make it a jest to try the courage of a man of honour; for, by God, hadst thou made me betray any weakness, I would have plunged my dagger in thy heart;" and then left him without saying a word more.

A MIND DISEASED.

About forty years ago, two young gentlemen, students at the University of Glasgow, after a winter of hard study, proposed to themselves to set out on a journey of six weeks among the mountains and isles of the Highlands. They had been intimately acquainted for years before they came together to the college, and a predilection for the same studies, a strong bias for general literature, and more especially for those courses of inquiry which are the amusement, rather than the task of minds given to the pursuit of knowledge, had, in the course of four swift years, bound them together in one of those friendships which young men are apt to persuade themselves can never possibly be dissolved; while no sooner are they separated for a time, than every event they meet with in the course of common life, tends insensibly to obliterate this youthful union, as the summer showers imperceptibly melt the wreath of snow upon the mountain. We shall speak of them by the names of Campbell and Graham; it can interest but few to say, that these are not their true names. One morning in the course of their tour, they descended towards what is called the Sound of Jura, through many a dell and bosky wood; sometimes loitering as they stopped, to examine the botanical treasures which came in their way; sometimes gaily walking over the barren muir.

"As the ebbing tide," says Mr. Graham, whom we shall now leave to tell in his own words the melancholy sequel of his own adventures," began to discover to us the black sides of the rocky islets, we procured a boat at a small hamlet that overhung a little bay, and went on a mimic voyage of discovery. While we returned again to the main land, the warmth of the day tempted Campbell to propose that we should amuse ourselves with swimming. Owing to a horror I had acquired when a boy, from an exaggerated description of the danger of the convulsive grasp of a person drowning, or dead grip, as it is called, I always felt an involuntary repugnance to practise the exercise in company with others. However, we now indulged in it so long, that I began to grow tired, and was swimming towards the rocky shore, which was at no great distance. Campbell who had now forgot his philosophical reveries in the pleasures of a varied and refreshing amusement, was sporting in all the gaiety of exuberant spirits, when I heard a sudden cry of fear. I turned, and saw him struggling violently as if in the act of sinking. I immediately swam towards him. He had been seized with the cramp, which suspends all power of regular exertion, while at the same time it commonly deprives its victim of presence of mind; and as poor Campbell alternately sunk and rose, his wild looks as I approached him, and convulsed cries for assistance, struck me with a sudden and involuntary panic, and I hesitated to grasp the extended hand of my drowning friend. After a moment's struggle he sunk, exclaiming, My work!' with a look at me of such an expression, that it has ten thousand times driven me to wish my memory was