after warmed his zeal for the distressed) preceptor to Cardinal de Retz, a country curate, general almoner of the galleys, chief of the missionaries, &c. He established in France the Lazarists, the nuns of charity, who devote themselves to the relief and consolation of the unhappy; he founded hospitals for foundlings, orphans, lunatics, galley slaves, and for old people. His generous pity extended itself to every species of misfortune incident to mankind, and monuments of his beneficence are to be met with in all the provinces of France. While kings in arms desolated the earth, already afflicted with other calamities, the son of a poor labourer in Gascony repaired these national afflictions to the utmost of his power, and diffused more than twenty millions of livres, in Champagne, Picardy, Lorraine, Artois, where whole villages of poor people were dying of famine, and their bodies left in the fields unburied, till Vincent de Paul charged himself with the. payment of the expence of their burial. For some time his zeal and charity were employed in preaching to, and comforting the galley slaves. Beholding one of these unhappy men, condemned to a three years' slavery for smuggling, who seemed inconsolable for having left his wife and children in the utmost wretchedness and want, Vincent de Paul offered to take his place; and, what will hardly be believed, his offer was accepted. This virtuous man was chained down among the galley slaves, and his feet continued for ever after swollen, from the weight of the honourable fetters which he had worn.

When Vincent de Paul came to Paris, foundlings were, in St. Landry's street, sold at the rate of twenty sols per head, or else given away, by way of charity, to rich women, who wanted these innocent creatures to draw off their corrupt milk. Almost all these children, thus abandoned by the government to the commiseration of the public, perished, and such of them as happened to escape so many dangers, were clandestinely introduced into wealthy families, and made to usurp the property of lawful heirs. Vincent de Paul at first provided for the support of twelve foundlings, and, soon after, his charity was enabled to provide for all such as were exposed at the gates of churches. But

the new fervour, always inspired by novel institutions, having cooled, their support entirely failed, and the former outrages to humanity were going to be again committed. Vincent de Paul was not discouraged. He called an extraordinary meeting, caused a very great number of these unfortunate foundlings to be placed in the church, instantly ascended the pulpit, and with eyes streaming with tears, thus addressed his audience: "My ladies, compassion and charity have induced you to adopt these little creatures for your children; by God's grace you have been their mothers, since their natural mothers have abandoned them: consider now, whether you will abandon them too. Cease now to be their mothers, and become their judges; their lives and deaths are in your hands. If you continue charitably to support them, they will live; if you abandon them, they all must die."

His appeal was answered with sobs from every quarter; and in that very spot and instant, the Foundling Hospital of Paris was founded, and endowed with forty thousand livres of annual rent.

But Vincent de Paul's whole life was a continual series of charitable actions, whose fruits France still enjoys. He lived to the age of eighty five years. On the day of his death he was very sleepy. His friends asked him the cause of that continual slumber. He answered, smiling," "Tis the brother (le sommeil, or sleep) come to announce his sister (la mort, or death.") This admirable man died on the twenty seventh of September, 1660.

A LUCKY REPLY.

THE Orientals, as is well known, have a veneration for idiots. During the reign of Khalif Arashid, in the eighth century, a real or pretended fool, had the presumption to call himself God Almighty. The khalif, thinking him an impostor, ordered him to be brought before him, and that he might discover the truth, he said to him: "A fellow, the other day, who assumed the manuers of an ideot, pretended to be a prophet of God. I had him immediately tried, when his imposture appearing evident, I commanded his head to be

struck off."

"You did right," replied the fool," and like a faithful servant of mine; for I never gave that fellow a commission to be my prophet." The ready coolness of the answer left the khalif at a loss to decide; he inclined therefore to the merciful side; and the fool was dismissed.

CAPTIVITY.

MAY he survive his relations and friends! was the imprecation of a Roman on the person who should destroy the monument of his ancestors. A more dreadful curse could scarcely be denounced. I remember to have seen it some where recorded, that an emperor of China, on his accession to the throne, commanded a general release from the prisons, of all who were confined for debt. Amongst the number was an old man, who had been an early victim to adversity; and whose days of imprisonment, reckoned by the notches which he had cut on the door of his gloomy cell, expressed the annual revolution of more than fifty suns. With faultering steps he departed from his mansion of sorrow; his eyes were dazzled with the splendour of light, and the face of nature presented to his view a perfect paradise. The gaol, in which he had been confined, was at some distance from Pekin, and he directed his course to that city, impatient to enjoy the gratulations of his wife, his children, and his friends.

With difficulty he found his way to the street, in which formerly stood his decent habitatiou, and his heart became more and more elated at every step which he advanced. He proceeded, and looked with earnestness around; but saw few of those objects with which he was formerly conversant. A magnificent edifice was erected on the site of the house which he had inhabited. The dwellings of his neighbours had assumed new forms; and he beheld not a single face of which he had the least recollection. An aged pauper, who stood with trembling knees at the door of a portico, from which he had been thrust by the insolent menial who guarded it, struck his attention. He stopped to give him a pittance, out of the bounty with which he had been supplied by the emperor's liberality; and received, in re

turn, the sad tidings that his wife had fallen a lingering sacrifice to penury and sorrow; that his children were gone to seek their fortunes in unknown climes; and that the grave contained his nearest and most valuable friends. Overwhelmed with anguish, he hastened to the palace of his sovereign, into whose presence his hoary locks and mournful visage soon obtained admittance, and casting himself at the feet of the emperor, "Great prince," he cried, "remand me to the prison, from which mistaken mercy hath delivered me! I have survived my family and friends; and in the midst of this populous city, I find myself in dreary solitude. The cell of my dungeon protected me from the gazers on my wretchedness; and whilst secluded from society, I was less sensible of the loss of social enjoyments. I am now tortured with the view of pleasures in which I cannot participate; and die with thirst, though streams of delight surround me.

THE CORK LAD OF KENTMERE.

AT Troutbeck, in Westmoreland, says Mr. Clarke, the author of the Survey of the Lakes, there once lived a man of amazing strength, whose name was Gilpin, commonly called the Cork Lad of Kentmere. I cannot tell much more about him than what I have picked out of the church register, and some memoirs of William Birket, of Troutbeck. He lived in the time of Edward VI.; his mother was a poor woman (some say a nun;) and begged from house to house to support herself and son, and drew to a house upon an estate called Troutbeck park, which had been forfeited to the crown, and of so little value that no notice was taken of it for some time. At last, being granted, the grantee went to take possession, but was prevented by this Cork lad, who was then just come to man's estate, quite uncivilized, and knew no law but strength: he was thereupon sent for to London, and by fair speeches and wiles was got thither. During his stay, the king held a day, as he did many, for gymnastic amusements; this Cork fad observed the several combatants, but particularly the wrestlers; at last he mounted the stage (in his undyed dress, which his mother had spun him) and threw the champion with ease, and did other feats, so that the

king sent for him, asked him his name, and where he came from, &c. He told the king that himself could neither read nor write, therefore could not well tell his own name, "but folk commonly," says he, " call me the Cork lad at Kentmere," (which name he undoubtedly received from his corcousness or corpulency.) The king asked him what he lived upon?" He said thick pottage, and milk that a mouse might walk upon dry shod, to his breakfast; and the sunny side of a wedder to his dinner, when he could get it.

He requested only the cottage he lived in, the paddock behind it for peat, with liberty to cut wood in the park; and he died, unmarried, at the age of forty-two, from the violent exertion of pulling up trees by the root.

TRUE NOBILITY.

BERTRAND de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon (great uncle to the celebrated and amiable archbishop of Cambray, author of Telemachus,) had been ambassador in England, and distinguished with queen Elizabeth's particular favour and esteem. Some days after the slaughter on St. Bartholomew's night, Catherine of Medicis and Charles IX. wanted to engage him to write to queen Elizabeth their reasons for ordering that massacre. "Sir," answered he, " by attempting to palliate that horrid execution, I should become one of its accomplices. Your majesty may address yourself to those who advised it." And seeing Charles IX. incensed by this answer, he added, "A king may crush a gentleman by his power; but he never can take away his honour."

APT MOTTO FOR A CANNON-BALL.

IN the church of Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, is a monument of Robert Nicolls, of Ampthill Park, Governor of Long-island, who being in attendance on the Duke of York, was slain on board H. R. H.'s ship in 1672. A cannon ball, said to be that which caused his death, is fixed in the marble within the pediment; and on the moulding is this inscription :

"Instrumentum mortis et immortalitatis." The instrument of mortality and of immortality.