of Courland. His offer being accepted, he succeeded in securing the person of the regent, and arresting him on the 18th of December, only twenty days after he had been appointed to the regency. Lieutenant-colonel Manstein, who was employed by Munich on that memorable occasion, and who has related the transaction in his authentic memoirs, penetrated, at the head of only twenty men, into the palace inhabited by the duke of Courland, though guarded by forty soldiers, who were placed under the window of the regent's bedchamber, and by numerous centinels posted in the several apartments through which he was to pass. Being personally known to the centinels, they permitted him to pass, thinking he had an affair of consequence to communicate to the regent, having burst open the door of his bed-chamber, he approached the bed, in which the duke and dutchess were so fast asleep, that the noise did not awaken them. On drawing the curtains both started up in surprise, and the duke instantly got out of bed with an intention to escape, but was prevented by Manstein, who threw himself upon him, and held him fast till the soldiers came to his assistance. In this interval the duke disengaged himself from Manstein, and endeavouring to burst from the soldiers who had laid hold of his arm, received several blows from the butt ends of their muskets. Being at length thrown down on the floor, his mouth gagged with a handkerchief, and his hands, tied behind him with an officer's sash, he was led to the guard-room, where being covered with a soldier's cloak, he was conveyed in a carriage to the winter palace, in which the princess Anne resided. While he was leading away, the dutchess sprang out of bed, and though only in her shift, ran after him, screaming, in an agony of despair, into the street, till being forced away by the soldiers, she dropped down upon the snow, and would have perished with cold, if the captain of the guard had not sent for some clothes to cover her, and reconducted her to her apartment.

The next day the duke and his family were conveyed to the fortress of Schlusselburgh; and in June were removed to Pelim, a small town in Siberia, where he was imprisoned in a wooden house under the strictest confinement. Fortunately he did not long occupy this dreary prison. The empress Elizabeth had no sooner ascended the throne, by the deposition of Ivan, than she recalled Biron from his imprisonment; and if his misfortunes had not softened his vindictive spirit, he enjoyed the pleasure of seeing his enemy, marshal Munich, occupy that prison which he had just quitted.

Biron was transferred to Yaroslaf, where he had a comfortable mansion assigned to him and his family, five roubles a day, and the permission of huntting within twenty or thirty miles of Yaroslaf. In this situation, wretched when contrasted with his former dignified station as the omnipotent favourite of Anne, or as regent of Russia, but a paradise when compared with his prison at Pelim, he passed his days during the whole reign of Elizabeth.

On the demise of Elizabeth, Peter the third recalled Biron to Petersburgh, but did not reinstate him in the dutchy of Courland. Biron had refused, during his confinement, to resign his right to that dutchy, although he was offered his liberty, and a pension of 100, 000 roubles per annum; nor could he be prevailed upon by Peter the third to abdicate in favour of the duke of Holstein; nobly adding, that nothing should induce him to do such an injury to his family; but that he would prefer even a second imprisonment.

Catharine, soon after the revolution which placed her on the throne of Peter the Great, took compassion on his misfortunes, and restored him to his former dignity.

Biron repaired to Mittau in 1763, twenty-eight years after he had been elected duke of Courland, and for the first time since he had been raised to that dignity, Prince Charles of Saxony, although supported by a large party in Courland, yet receiving assistance from his father Augustus the third, was compelled to retire before the Russian forces; and Biron received the oaths of allegiance and fidelity from the whole nation.

In 1764, he obtained from the king and republic of Poland the investiture of Courland for his eldest son Peter, the present duke; in 1769, abdicated in his favour; and, in 1772, closed at Mittau, in the eighty-third year of his age, a life of almost unparelleled vicissitude.

DESCRIPTION OF A TIGER-HUNT, UPON THE BANKS OF THE

GANGES, NEAR CHINSURA IN BENGAL, IN APRIL, 1784. At one o'clock this morning, thirty elephants, with the servants, and refreshments of all kinds, were dispatched; at two we all followed in flypalanquins; at a quarter after four we reached the encampment, and having rested near two hours, we mounted our elephants, and proceeded to the jungle. We had not proceeded five hundred yards beyond the jungle, when we heard a general cry on our left of Baug, Baug, Baug! On hearing this exclamation of Tiger! we wheeled, and, forming the line anew, entered the great jungle, when the spot where a single tiger lay having been pointed, on the discharge of the first gun, a scene presented itself confessed by all the experienced tiger hunters present, to be the finest they had ever seen. Four full grown royal tigers sprung together from the same spot, where they had sat in bloody congress. They ran diversely; but running heavily, they couched again in new covers within the same jungle, and all were marked. We followed, having formed the line into a crescent, so as to embrace either extremity of the jungle; in the centre were the bondar (or state) elephants, with the marksmen, and the ladies, to comfort and encourage them. In one Mr. Zoffani with Mrs. Ramus, in the other Mr. Ramus with Lady Day, led the attack; my brother and I supported them, and were followed by Major Bateman, Mr. Crispe, Mr. Longcraft, and Mr. Van Europe, a Dutch gentleman. These gentleman had each an elephant to himself. When we had slowly and warily approached the spot where the first tiger lay, he moved not until we were just upon him, when, with a roar that resembled thunder, he rushed upon us. The elephants wheeled at once, and (for it is not to be described by any quadruped-motion we know, I must therefore coin a term for the occasion) shuffled off. They returned, however, after a flight of about fifty yards, and again approaching the spot where the tiger had lodged himself, towards the skirts of the jungle, he once more rushed forth, and springing at the side of an elephant upon which three of the natives were mounted, at once tore a portion of the pad from under them; and one of the riders, panicstruck, fell off. The tiger however, seeing his enemies in force, returned, slow and indignant, into his shelter; where, the place he lay in being marked, a heavy and well directed fire was poured in by the principal marksmen, when, pushing in, we saw him in the agonies of death, and growling and foaming he expired.

We then proceeded to seek the others, having first distinguished the spot by pitching a tall spear, and tying to the end of it the muslin of a turban. We

Toused the other three, in close succession, and, with little variation of circumstances, killed them all; the oldest, and most ferocious of the family, had, however, early in the conflict, very sensibly quitted the scene of action, and escaped to another part of the country.

While the fate of the last and largest was depending, more shots were fired than in the three other attacks; he escaped four several assaults, and taking post in different parts of the jungle, rushed upon us at each wound he received with a kindled rage, and as often put the whole line to flight. In his last pursuit, he singled out the elephant upon which Lady Day was; and was at its tail, with jaws distended, and in the act of rising upon his hind paws to fasten on her, when fortunately she cleared the jungle, and a general discharge from the hunters having forced him to give up the chase, he returned to his shelter.

The chase being over, we returned in triumph to our encampment, and were followed by the spoils of the morning, and by an accumulating multitude of peasants from the circumjacent villages, who pressed round an open tent in which we sat at breakfast, with gratulations, blessings, and thanksgiving. The four tigers we laid in front; the natives viewed them with terror, and some with tears.

An old woman, looking earnestly at the largest tiger, and pointing at times to his tusks, and at times lifting his fore-paws, and viewing his talons, her furrows bathed in tears, in broken and moaning tones narrated something to a little circle composed of three Brahmins and a young woman with a child in her arms. No human misery could pierce the phlegm and apathy of the Brahmins, and with them there was not a feature softened; but horror and sorrow were alternately painted in the face of the female, and, from her clasping at times her child more closely to her breast, I guessed the subject of the old woman's story, and upon inquiry, I found that I was right in my conjecShe was widowed and childless, she owed both her misfortunes to the tigers of that jungle, and most probably to those which then lay dead before her, for they, it was believed, had recently carried off her husband and her two sons, grown up to manhood, and now she wanted food: in the phrensy of her grief she alternately described her loss to the crowd, and in a wild scream demanded her husband and her children from the tigers; indeed it was a piteous spectacle!

ture.

Here we had a luxurious cold dinner, with a variety of excellent wines, and other liquors, well cooled; and while we dined, the French horns and clarionets played marches, hunting pieces descriptive of the death of the game, and other slow movements; the tigers still lying in front, and the people still assembled, but retired to a greater distance, where they anxiously waited the signal for skinning and cutting up the slain, for with them the fat of a tiger is a panacea; the tongue dried and pulverized is a sovereign specific in nervous cases, and every part applicable to some use; even the whiskers they deem a deadly poison, and most anxiously, but secretly, seek them, as the means, in drink, of certain destruction to an enemy.

ANECDOTE OF COLONEL JOHNSON.

Colonel Johnson, who served under the Duke of York in the Netherlands, was celebrated no less as a gentleman than as an officer: he was every inch a

soldier, and had reaped glory and scars in the battle's van. He was an excellent swordsman, and his extreme height of person, and length of arm, rendered him a dangerous antagonist, even to the most skilled opponents. Travelling on the continent, accompanied by a single groom, he, on one occasion, halted at a small inn, glad to seek any where rest and refreshment for himself, his servant, and the jaded steeds. The only decent apartment in the house was pre-occupied by a party of French officers; all the provisions the house afforded they had bespoken; and the Colonel was informed that not a ragout or an omelet was to be had for love or money. A soldier's education seldom deserts him on an emergency; it was but a minute's employment to dictate, and another to send a polite request to the party, that a British officer might be permitted to share in the rations of their mess-board. The envy of republican France overcame its politeness, and his messenger was sent back with rudeness and denial. Colonel Johnson possessed, under unmerited insult, the coolness and intrepidity of his country. He commanded that the joint, then being dished up, should be laid before him : he and his servant fared sumptuously; and, with fear and trembling, "mine host of the Garter" carried the mutilated remains to the impatient and vociferating guests of the parlour. Affrighted and astonished, their disappointment and chagrin were soon converted into impotent railing and the breathings of revenge. At that period, the transmission of a watch, a glove, a ring, or any other article of which the transmitter stood possessed, was considered the gage of defiance, and our Colonel soon found his table in the kitchen glittering with mementos of Gallic daring. He allowed the challengers to finish their abbreviated repast, calmly took his modicum of wine, and then, followed by his servant, strode into the apartment. Drawing his sword, and placing on its blade the first article of defiance, at the same moment raising his fine person to its utmost height, and darting an eye of indignation around, as if singling out his victim, he coolly desired its proprietor to redeem it. The effect was prodigious. There was a pause denoting hesitation-a buz, but nothing palpable; and after a full minute had elapsed, the watch was handed over to the bowing lacquey, and a ring dangled on the still extended weapon! that too became the undisputed property of the domestic; and so with the rest. "Men but in appearance-soldiers but in name!" exclaimed Colonel Johnson, as he drew his hand across the blade, ere he deposited it in its sheath-" learn from henceforward how to respect the rights of hospitality. I have been told that cowardice is ever the companion of audacity; and that those who know how to convey an insult have rarely the courage to redeem it; I regret that it should have been my fortune to witness, under the uniform of France, the combination of these degraded alliances."

HEROIC ENDURANCE.

When Alexander the Great was, on one occasion sacrificing to the gods, one of the noble youths who waited upon him, was so severely burnt by a piece of hot coal which fell upon his arm from the censer he carried, that the smell of the scorched flesh affected all who stood by. Yet the boy shrunk not; exhibited no symptom of pain; but kept his arm immoveable, lest by shaking the censer he should interrupt the sacrifice, or by his groaning should give Alexander any disturbance.

MURDER OF MATHEWS, THE DULWICH HERMIT.

THE eccentricities of the above unfortunate old man were for a number of years the subject of much curiosity to those who have visited Norwood and its vicinity. Many years ago he obtained leave of the governors of Dulwich Common to form himself a dwelling on their ground, in the neighbourhood of Sydenham Common and Dulwich Wood. This dwelling, which was the child of his own fancy, was far secluded from any other, and consisted of an excavation in the earth, thatched in with fern, underwood, &c. In this cave or hermitage, he lived for a series of years, his daily employment being to work in the gardens of the neighbouring gentry, by whom, from his simplicity of manners, he was much liked. He always returned to his cave to sleep, and on Sundays used to sell beer to such as curiosity might lead to visit his cell, of whom in the summer there were many. However, he had not resided there long, before some villains, instigated by the same motives that probably occasioned his death (an idea that he was possessed of money) broke into his cave, beat him in a most dreadful manner, and, agreeably to his own account, robbed him of twelve shillings. For upwards of a year and a half after this he deserted his abode, and usually slept in the stables or hay-lofts of those for whom he had been at work. Drawn, however, by some strange impulse, to his former mode of life, he returned to his cave, the construction of which he altered, by digging it with a mouth resembling an oven, into which he had just room to crawl, and when laid down he contrived to press his feet against a board which was placed at the entrance for a door. All these precautions did not, however, save him from the further attacks of his enemies, for shortly after he was found near the entrance of his cave dead with his jaw-bone broken in two places, and a severe wound in his cheek, the body was discovered by some boys, who at Christmas time had always made a practice of paying the old man a visit; he was covered with fern, &c. and under his arm was an oaken branch about six or seven feet long, which it is supposed the

VOL. II.