Chatterton, while he supplied a number of monthly ma gazines with their chief materials, found a periny tart a luxury?" and a luxury it was, to him who could not always get bread to his water.

In a book entitled, De Infortunio Literatorum, may be found many other examples of the miferies of literary

men.

Authentic Account of the late awful DEATH of Mr. MUNRO.. This unfortunate young gentleman, whose fate is particularly narrated in the following letter, was the fon of the gallan's Sir Hector Munro, K. B.-The letter is dated on bard the Shaw Ardafier country ship, off Saugur Island, Dec. 23, 1792, and addriffed to à gentleman iu Calcutta, and a copy of it was brought by a friend from India.

To defcribe the awful, horrid, and lamentable accident I have been an eye-witnefs of, is impoffible. Yefterday morning Mr. Downey, of the Company's troops, Lieuter nant Pyefinch, and poor Mr. Munro and me, went on fhore on Saugur Ifland, to shoot deer; we faw innumerable tracks of tygers and deer, but ftill we were induced to pursue our sport, and did the whole day; about half past three we fat down on the jungle to eat fome cold meat fent us from the fhip, and had juft commenced our meal when Mr. Pyefinch and a black fervant told us there was a fine deer within six yards of us; Mr. Downey and me immedi ately jumped up to take our guns-mine was the nearest, and I had but just laid hold of it when I heard a roar like thunder, and faw an immenfe royal tyger fpring on the unfortunate Munro, who was fitting down ; in a moment his head was in the beaft's mouth, and he rushed into the jungle with him with as much ease as I could lift a kitten, VOL. I. No. 4.

Y

tearing

tearing him through the thickest bushes and trees-every thing yielding to his monftrous ftrength. The agonies of horror, regret, and, I must say, fear (for there were two tygers, a male and female), rufhed on me at once; the only effort I could make was to fire at him, though the poor youth was still in his mouth. I relied partly on Providence, partly on my own aim, and fired a musket. I faw the tyger ftagger and agitated, and I cried out fo immediately. Mr. Downey then fired two fhots, and I ope more. We retired from the jungle, and a few minutes after Mr. Munro came up to us, all over blood, and fell; we took him on our backs to the boat, and got every medical affiftance for him from the Valentine Indiaman, which lay at anchor near the island, but in vain. He lived twenty-four hours in the extreme of torture; his head and scull were all torn and broke to pieces, and he was wounded by the beaft's claws all over his neck and thoulders; but it was better to take him away, though irrecoverable, than leave him to be devoured limb by limb. We have juft read the funeral service over the body, and committed it to the deep. He was an amiable and promifing youth.

"I muft obferve there was a large fire blazing clofe to us, composed of ten or a dozen whole trees: I made it myself on purpose to keep the tygers off, as I had always heard it would. There were eight or ten of the natives about us; many fhot had been fired at the place, and much noise and laughing at the time, but this ferocious animal difregarded it all.

"The human mind cannot form an idea of the fcene; it turned my very foul within me. The beaft was about four

feet and a half high, and nine long.

His head appeared as

large as an ox's, his eyes darting fire, and his roar when he first seized his prey will never be out of my recollection. We had scarcely pushed our boat from that curfed thore,

when

EXTRACT FROM PLINY.

163

when the tygrefs made her appearance, raging mad almost, and remained on the fand as long as the distance would allow me to see her."

of WONDERFUL, STRANGE, and MONSTROUS BIRTHS. It is certain there are many ways to convey us to our long homes, but there is but one to bring us into the world, and that one is often attended with such variety of accidents, that make exceptions to the general rule. Sometimes nature will pleafe herself by deviating from the common road, and yet her production fhall be agreeable; and at other times, by a defect, or redundancy of materials, fhe mifcarries in her main defign of perfection in its kind, and exhibits what is preternatural or monftrous, as will be found among the following inflances, all of which have been selected by a gentleman of extenfive reading, from undeniable authorities.

ZOROASTRES, King of the Bactrians, is the only instance we meet with in hiftory, that came laughing into the world; and, if he had forefeen his destiny, he would have cried like other infants. His head, or rather brains, did beat with such force, that they repelled the midwife's hand: a fign, fays-Pliny, that he would prove a very learned man; and indeed he excelled in all the abstruse parts of learning, viz. naural magic, aftronomy, mathematics, &c. for which he got no better name among the vulgar, than that of a conjurer, and was killed by Ninus.

Pliny's Natural Hift. Ch. 16, p. 167. Of Lovis II. King of Hungary and Bohemia, it is obferved, that he was too forward in four things. He grew very big in a short time, he had beard very early, he had white hairs before he was seventeen, and that he was too hafty in his birth, for he was born without that fkin which is called Y 2

epidermis,

epidermis, or the fcarf-fkin, which yet was not long in coming, by the affiftance which art gave to nature. Camerar. Hor. Subfifiv. p. 245When Spinola befieged Bergen-op-zoom, a woman near her time, fetching water, was cut off in the waift by a cannon-bullet, and her lower parts fell into the water. People ran immediately to her, and faw a child ftir in his mother's womb. It was drawn out, and carried to Don Cardova's tent, where it was carefully attended. Afterwards it was carried to Antwerp, and the Infanta Ifabella caufed it to be chriftened by the name of Albertus Ambrofius.

Barthol. Hift. Anat. cen. 2, Hift. 8, p. 159. Buchannan gives us a relation of a strange preternatural birth, which, below the navel, was one entire body, but in the superior parts was two. When any member below the navel was hurt, both bodies had their fhare in the pain. These bodies would fometimes difagree, and thwart one another in opinion to the raising mutual heats. The one dying before the other, the body that furvived fenfibly pined away till it followed the other's fteps to a single grave.

Roffe Arcan. Microcofm, Ch. 7, p. 89.

Batholinus, in his Anatomical History, tells us, he faw at Hafina, and afterwards at Bafil, in Switzerland, Lazarus Colredo, the Genoefe, then about the twenty-eighth year of his age; who had a little brother growing out of his • own breast, which came into the world with him. He had two arms, but only three fingers on each hand, which he fometimes moved, as alfo his ears and lips. The little brother voided excrements at his mouth, nofe, and ears; but no where elfe, and has its nourishment only by what the greater brother takes. The little one has diftinct vital and animal parts from the other, as is apparent, because he wakes and fleeps when the other does not. Their na

tural

EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF Á LADY.

165

fural bowels, viz. the liver, fpleen, &c. are the fame in both. The mouth of the little one is generally open, and wet with spittle, and his head is somewhat deformed, and bigger than that of Lazarus. The greater brother is well proportioned in his limbs, of an affable behaviour, and very modifh in his clothes. He covers the body of his little brother with his cloak, and none could fufpect he had à monfter about him. He always feemed a man of courage, but could not forbear being folicitous about his death; because he was apprehenfive if his brother fhould die before him, the putrefaction of that body must also occafion his death, and therefore took greater care of him than himself. Cent. 1. Hift. 66.

There was a feaman's wife in Holmiana, who was eight months gone with child; after which time the child was heard to cry in her womb three several times, viz. on Christmas-eve, the calends of January, and on the feast of Epiphany, and that fo very loud, that it was heard by the neighbourhood. The thing was fo uncommon, that the magiftrates gave orders the woman fhould be diligently watched, and every one spent their verdicts about what strange monfter the woman would bring forth; but, when her time was come, the woman was delivered of a fine girl, in due shape and proportion.

Bathol. Anat. Hift. Ch. 1, p. 4. A Cheshire lady, who was feven months gone with child, fitting with her husband and other company in the dining-room after dinner, felt an extraordinary motion in her belly, which heaved up her clothes vifibly to all that were prefent; and, on a fudden a voice was heard, but from whence none could imagine; it was heard a fecond time with the fame amazement to the audience; but, at the third, it was perfectly known to proceed from the womb. The account was given by the lady herfelf to Dr. Walter Needham, and that the child was at the fame time

in