one;

TERRIFIC REGISTER.

master wished to see him. Upon this the general clamour against the old "Do not go," man was renewed, and even became louder than before. said "Take my advice," cried another; "for God's sake, do not trust yourself with that old fellow." The servant protested to Sir H. that he had nothing to fear, and begged that he would follow him to his master. At length he did so, and found his host seated at a table covered with dessert and "for," wine. The old gentleman rose on his entrance, and asked pardon for the apparent rudeness he was under the necessity of committing at dinner; you have probably heard ere this; I said he, "I am Dr. Willis, of whom confine my practice entirely to cases of insanity, and it is here that I board and lodge my patients. All those with whom you dined, are mad, a fact of which I was unwilling to apprize you before, lest it should make you uneasy, and spoil the pleasure of your repast; for though I know them to be perfectly harmless, you very naturally might have entertained apprehensions."

GIGANTIC SKELETONS.

At Lucern, in 1584, was found a skeleton nineteen feet in length. The At Hexham, Emperor Maximinius was eight feet six inches in height. Northumberland, a skeleton was found with thigh bones near two yards in length; the skull capable of containing three gallons, and the whole length computed to be twenty-one feet, or seven yards. In 1587, a Tartar was slain by a Polander, whose brow was twenty-four fingers broad, and the rest of his body of equal magnitude. In the Cretan war, a skeleton was found, thirty-three cubits long, which according to the common cubit is sixteen yards and a half.

DESTRUCTION OF ROBESPIERRE.

The celebrated Jean Lambert Tallien had formed a tender friendship with the beautiful Madame Cabarus, so celebrated in revolutionary history; but at the period in question, mutual jealousy had interrupted their attachment. She was thrown into a dungeon by order of Robespierre; and when it was conceived she had been sufficiently terrified by imprisonment, and the prospect of the guillotine, she was offered life and liberty if she would betray the councils of Tallien, and enable his enemies to ruin him. Although her lover had been faithless, and had deserted her, she refused the offer with indignation; and, with great difficulty, had the following letter conveyed to him:

"The Minister of Police has announced to me, that to-morrow I am to appear at the tribunal, that is to say, I am to ascend the scaffold. I dreamed last night that Robespierre was no more, and that my prison doors were opened. A brave man might have realized my dream; but, thanks to your notorious cowardice, no one remains who is capable of its accomplishment. Tallien answered merely, " Be prudent as I shall be brave; and, above all, be tranquil."

The next day he hurried to the tribunal, and regardless of danger, accused the miscreant Robespierre in his own presence. The eloquence of Tallien had always been commanding and impressive; but on this occasion, it was compared to the impetuous flowing of a river, whose courses had been prematurely stopped. He pourtrayed the vices of Robespierre and his companions; the cruelty and the other excesses of their government, which had

deprived France of her most illustrious citizens. Then, taking a dagger from his bosom, he rushed towards the statue of Brutus, his own immortal prototype, and swore, that he himself would stab the tyrant to the heart, if his countrymen did not deliver themselves from their disgraceful bondage. His language, his action, and his animated eye, were irresistible; for they recalled the Roman hero to the minds of all the auditors. Robespierre was astounded, and attempted to defend himself. The moment was critical; the life of Tallien hung upon a thread; but his eloquence prevailed, and the tribunal regained its lost character. The tyrant was sent to the scaffold; Madame Cabarus and other intended victims were saved, and the reign of terror was abolished.

ITEMS OF DISBURSEMENT FOR BURNING BISHOPS RIDLEY AND LATIMER.

For three loads of wood faggots to burn Ridley and Latimer

d.

12

O

ENORMOUS TIGRESS.

On the 17th May, 1815, the inhabitants of Chittagong, in the East Indies, were alarmed by an unwelcome visitor, whose movements we regret to state were accompanied with melancholy effects.

This was a tigress, discovered first amongst some cattle which were grazing at the mouth of the river. As soon as she was observed, the natives in the vicinity assembled with all speed, and advanced against her in defence of their cattle. Irritated by the attempt to deprive her of her prey, she sprung furiously on the person nearest to her and wounded him severely. The immediate attack, however, of the crowd was successful in rescuing the man from her grasp, although not until he had been lacerated so dreadfully that little hopes were entertained of his recovery.

On this the tigress finding herself hemmed in on all sides, and without any way of avoiding the multitude except by the river, immediately took to the water, and swam with the flood tide about five miles, closely pursued by the natives in their boats, until she landed under a tree in Mr. Rae's dock yard. Here she laid herself down, apparently much fatigued, but, before the people in the yard could get their fire arms ready, she had considerably recovered her strength. Several shots were fired at her, and two of them penetrated her body, one of which lamed her. Rendered desperate by this, she advanced against her new opponents, and singling out a Mr. Earle, an

European gentleman, in the yard, who was provided with a cutlass, she sprung upon him before he could make use of his weapon, knocked him down with her fore-paw, seized his head in her mouth, bit off a considerable part of the skin of his forehead, and wounded him in several places.

After this she sprung upon a native, fractured his skull, and otherwise lacerated him so dreadfully, that the poor fellow died the next day. She then entered a thicket or jungle, where she was suffered to remain unmolested.

On the morning of the following day, the 18th, she had got about a mile farther from the water side, and near to the Sepoy's village. Here she was again surrounded by about a thousand natives, when a fortunate shot laid her prostrate, and prevented farther injury. She was found to measure eight feet from the nose to the tip of the tail, and to have stood about four feet high.

EXTRAORDINARY EXPERIMENT.

About 1776, there appeared an account from Port St. Louis, in Brittany, in France, of a galley-slave who had been condemned to death for murder, but who was promised life and liberty, and a considerable reward, upon condition of suffering himself to be dressed in a certain apparatus, and pushed off the top of a building seventy feet high, for the purpose of ascertaining the power of the air in supporting a superincumbent weight. A farther experiment with some improvements, was made in the presence of many persons of distinction. A gentleman who is extremely curious in every branch of mechanics and natural philosophy, having written to a friend at Nantes, relative to the affair, received the following account. "The slave in question, whose name is Dominic Dufour, aged about twenty-four years, on the morning of the 29th of September, ascended to the leads of the Arsenal, one hundred and forty-five feet, from the terrace of the Esplanade, dressed in a suit of feathered tissue, accompanied by the Duke D'Aiguilon, Governor of Brittany, the Abbé de Henry, and the King's Professor of Mathematics in the Academy of Rennes. A strong cephalic cordial being given him, he was pushed very gently off the parapet of the building, in sight of more than ten thousand spectators; and after fluttering a little in a brisk wind, began to descend in a steady uniform manner, at the distance of about ten feet from the wall of the tower, amidst the acclamations of the people, whose joy for his success would have been immoderate, if not checked by some anxiety for the event; which soon relieved them, for the successful convict alighted upon his feet in perfect safety, being exactly two minutes and thirteen seconds in his descent. He was immediately let blood, and conducted through the principal streets, with drums and trumpets, to the Town Hall, where the magistrates gave a splendid entertainment to many nobility and others, who came from all parts of the country to behold the extraordinary sight. A handsome collection was made by the company, and the prisoner relieved, with a certificate of his performance, to entitle him to the king's bounty and most gracious pardon, with which he set off the next day to Paris. M. Defontagne, who is the author of this invention, has applied for an exclusive patent for his natural life, as such an apparatus may be of invaluable consequence in cases of sudden accident, particularly fire, for which purpose it was chiefly

intended."

THE WATER DRINKERS.

The following astonishing instances of extreme thirst are extracted from the "Morning Chronicle" of July, 1814.

Catherine Beausergent, has been distinguished from the most tender age, by a thirst, which nothing could quench. In her infancy, she drank two pailsfull of water every day. When her parents endeavoured to prevent her drinking water so abundantly, she procured it clandestinely; in summer, from the river, from fountains, and from the houses of the neighbours, even in the streets; and in winter, from pieces of ice, or from snow, which she melted privately, night and day. The harsh manner in which her family treated her on account of this propensity, induced her at length, to quit her paternal mansion. She went to Paris, and entered into the service of some friends more indulgent than her parents, and who left her at liberty to drink as much water as she chose. Her conduct in this service, was irreproachable. At twenty-two years of age, she was married to a man named Ferry, a cordwainer, from whom she concealed her ardent thirst, through fear that he would not espouse her. She had nine children in 1789. During the months she was in the family way, her thirst increased: she refused constantly to quench it with any other drink than fresh water, of which she drank three or four pints at one time. In the winter of 1788, being then near her time of delivery, she drank nearly two pailsfull of water in twenty-four hours; water at that time cost six sous per pail. Her husband went and collected snow and ice, and thawed it. Extraordinary, she could never drink a glass of wine without pain and shivering.

The Journal Etranger, 1753, mentions a young woman, aged twenty years, felt for fourteen years great desire for thirst. She drank usually in twentyfour hours, eighteen to twenty pints of water; from six to twenty years, she had drank 95,000 pints of water.

DEATH OF GENERAL MELISSINO.

The immediate cause of the death of Genreal Melissino, who was mastergeneral of the ordinance, and held several other distinguished posts under Catharine and Paul I. is thus related in the Secret Memoirs of the Court of Petersburgh:

"Paul, walking in the city, perceived an officer who, instead of waiting for him at the corner of the street, to prostrate himself before his majasty, according to the etiquette then in force, struck into a narrow street and stole away, in order to save himself this feudal homage. The emperor had him pursued to no purpose; it was impossible to overtake him: all that was reported to him proved only that he was an officer of artillery. Paul, irritated, sent instantly for Melissino. He was ill in bed; the weather was extremely cold, but the old man, accustomed to obey and to command, rose and repaired to his master, ignorant of what important order he was going to receive. Paul, after having made him some sharp reproaches on the insolence and want of discipline of an artillery officer that had failed in his duty towards him, enjoined him to discover who it was, and to make an example of him on the spot. Melissino, confounded, could scarcely get into his carriage again to return home, where he replaced himself in bed, and expired two days after."

THERE is no principle more destructive to human happiness than REVENGE; let it be taken in whatever light it may, it answers no purpose, but tends to aggravate men to scenes of bloodshed and crimes, various in themselves, but terrible in their consequences. When it is had, what better can man feel? It makes him none the richer; happiness it brings not, as the following dreadful tale can testify; peace comes not within the boundary of revenge, but it leaves him conscious of his guilt and a prey to his passions.

In the year 1676, there lived at Naples a lady of the name of Corsina, born at Capovana, and wife of a noble cavalier named Ramondo de Balzo. It happened after some years that Heaven was pleased to deprive this lady of her husband, and she was left a widow with an only son. This youth possessed all the excellent qualities and endow.nents of his father, and became his mother's idol and only care. At length she considered that it would be greatly to his advantage to send him to Bologna, to pursue his studies; she consequently found him a tutor, provided him with books and every other necessary article, so that his studies might not be interrupted, and sent him away with a tender mother's blessing. He remained at Bologna for a considerable period of time, during which she furnished him with every comfort he could wish or require. The youth having every advantage, improved greatly, became an excellent scholar, and by his gentlemanly manners, correct conduct, and brilliant talents, gained the affection of all his fellow collegians. After a considerable time spent at college, he became a doctor of law, and was on the eve of his return to Naples, when he was taken seriously ill. The best physicians were summoned to his aid, but none of them gave any hopes of success. De Balzo perceiving he was a lost man, thought of nothing but his mother, and the distress of mind which his loss would occasion her. Contrary, however, to the expectations of every one that saw him, he recovered from his bodily indisposition-but it had left him so nerveless, low

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