Suspicions against his uncle were now fast rising in his breast, and he took the earliest opportunity, after the church service, to desire Austria's presence in his own apartments. Here the evasive answers of the false friend disclosed at once to the harassed mind of Carlos the abyss on the brink of which he was placed. Mad with rage at the treachery of such a near relative, he drew his sword against Austria, who, unwilling to use the same weapon against the heir of the crown, retreated in haste towards the door, and called the servants to his assistance.

Carlos, aware of his danger, and the impossibility of avoiding it, lay on his couch the rest of the day, without tasting any food till about eight in the evening. He then retired to bed, fastening, as he supposed, the door when his attendants retired. It was, however, a useless precaution. Foix, the contriver of the night-bolt, had been employed by the King's secret orders to alter it so ingeniously that it might allow the door to be opened, while it seemed to secure it inside.*

The clock had struck eleven, when the King, wearing a cuirass over his usual dress, and a casque on his head, was observed by the Prince's porter coming down the principal stairs of the palace. He was attended by six of his favourite grandees, and twelve privates of the guards. Arrived at the outward door of the apartments, Philip ordered the porter to lock it up, and to prevent the intrusion of any person whatever, as he valued his own life.

Carlos lay in a profound sleep, when the Duke of Lerma, to whom he professed great attachment, approached the bed, and seized the arms which the Prince constantly kept by his side. Roused by the noise, the unfortunate young man leaped from the bed, and searching for his pistols, appeared ready to make a desperate effort in his own defence, but, seeing the King, who had cautiously stayed behind the group of attendants, he gave himself up for lost, and surrendered. Philip left him in charge to the Duke of Feria, who was invested with the command in chief of the other five grandees, and the guards that were constantly to be stationed at the entrance of the apartment.

A commission was issued the next day for the secret trial of the Prince, by the Cardinal Espinosa, Ruy Gomez de Silva, Prince of Evoli, and two members of the Royal Council. The papers which had been seized in the Prince's apartments, were laid before them, and some witnesses were examined. As a precedent to be followed in the trial, the process, for treason, against the Prince of Viana, son and heir of John of Arragon, Philip's great grandfather, was translated from the Catalonian dialect, and laid, by the King's orders, before the judges.

Instructions on the treatment of the Prince in his confinement were soon after issued by the King, who displayed in them all the ingenuity of a practised despot, with natural timidity for his counsellor and unbounded power for his means. The watch prescribed was so strict that it obliged one of the six noblemen, by turns, to stand day and night near the prisoner. To allow any message to, or communication with, the Prince, was made treason. The subjects of conversation between Carlos and his jailors had been limited and defined. All observations on his present situation, all allusions to his circumstances, were strictly forbidden. During the six months which preceded his death,

*Thuanus, ubi supra.

no one but the King's own physician was allowed to see the Prince; and even that confidential personage, whom it would be difficult to clear from the imputation of having lent his art for the destruction of his patient, was never permitted to see him but in the presence of Carlos's bitterest enemy, Ruy Gomez de Silva.

While the secret trial was proceeding through all the tedious forms of Spanish judicature, the wretched prisoner, now driven to despair, had formed the determination of causing his own death by the only means which had been left in his power. He once threw himself into the fire which, during the early part of his confinement, was used to warm the room. As the summer advanced, he had his bed daily covered with ice, on which he lay till the cold had penetrated his whole frame. Anxious to increase the violence of a fever which had seized upon him, he alternately exhausted the remaining strength of his stomach by a fast of two or three days, and a subsequent repletion of the most indigestible food.

His father was soon aware that little or no violence would be necessary for the attainment of his wishes. Nothing can be more evident, from all the circumstances of the case, than that the cold-blooded, calculating tyrant depended on the desperate efforts of the prisoner, and that mixed system of liberty and restraint under which he was kept, for a speedy dissolution, without the least appearance of violence.

Philip had not long to await the result of his deep-laid plans. The investigation, or summary, was brought to a close in July; and the report being laid before the King, it was found to declare the hereditary Prince guilty to death. The judges, however, recommended the prisoner to mercy. Philip, with tears, declared to them that the love of justice and his own subjects was, in his heart, paramount to all the tenderest feelings of nature. But as the Prince's health was fast declining, it was to be hoped he should be spared the necessity of using violence in the execution of the law; that his only anxiety, at present, was concerning his son's eternal welfare; and provided the young man could he persuaded to apply for absolution to a priest, a step which he had hitherto refused with invincible obstinacy, he should be easy as to the rest.

Increasing weakness of body and mind, together with a letter of bis confessor, threatening the dying young man with the interference of the Inquisition, induced him to ask for sacramental confession. Before he received absolution, Carlos charged the priest with a message entreating his father's pardon. It was readily granted. Nevertheless, the spiritual concerns of the Prince being now thus happily settled, the King's physician administered a powerful medicine, which produced the most alarming symptoms. Carlos survived till the next day, though almost deprived of his faculties.

A character like Philip's will lose no opportunity of procuring ease to the conscience by means of those religious forms which so effectually silence doubt and remorse in the real bigot. To make the sign of the cross with the right hand is, in Spain, called blessing. This ceremony, performed by a parent upon a dying child, is believed essential to the repose of his soul. Philip, who had so cruelly blasted his son's happiness in this life, was most anxious to procure him every advantage in the next. Hearing, therefore, in the night

of the 24th of July, that the Prince was on the point of breathing his last, he stole near the bed, concealed behind the Prince of Evoli, Ruy Gomez de Silva, and the Grand Prior of Jerusalem, brother of the Duke of Alva; and stretching his hand between their shoulders made the mysterious sign and retired. Carlos expired soon after.

Philip had tears at command, which he did not withhold on this occasion. Nor did he spare pomp and splendour in the funeral. His divines, moreover, declared to the public that the Prince had died with the most ardent and orthodox feelings of Catholic piety.

One circumstance, among the obscure events of this melancholy history, strikes us as perfectly singular,-that of no person having suffered in consequence of the Prince's conspiracy; whilst many concerned in these transactions were promoted to places of honour and emolument.* Considering Philip's tyrannical and unrelenting temper, this fact cannot be accounted for but by the supposition of a horrible plot against Carlos. Indeed, whatever may be the truth of the accusations which have been made against the odious tyrant-whether he sacrificed an innocent son to his own lust and ambition, or led him into criminal views by the treacherous officiousness of the emissaries whom he placed about his person, it would certainly require the pen of Dante to assign him an adequate punishment in the place of final retribution. History can do no more than class him with the most execrable monsters that have alike oppressed and disgraced humanity.

STANZAS.

I MAY not think-I must not moralize !

For it is only in the lucid pause

Of sense and consciousness that feeling sleeps

And woos her to her own forgetfulness.

Onward I must! But how, or where, or wherefore,

Is more than mystery. No hope shall hallow

The bitter hardships of a dreary day;

No dream of lightness shall divert the sleep
Of midnight misery; and when I wake
To wander in the wild cold blast of morn,
Glory will bend no look of brightness on me,
To chase the shadow from my darken'd soul.
But I must wander still without a wish
To win me happiness; my goal ungain'd
Because unknown: the sorrow yet to come
Unseen; and all my future fate clear'd up
Like infancy unchristen'd in the grave.

P.

Among the last was the Duke of Lerma, of whose behaviour, on the Prince's death, Cabrera speaks in these quaint and mysterious words :-"Sintio mucho el Conde de Lerma la muerte del Principe, porque le amaba y por ser tan temprana; mas con prudencia que no le mostró parcial, conveniente demostracion. Su Magestad la dio de agradecido al Conde, haciendole gentilhombre de su camara, y dandole una encomienda de Calatrava."-"The Count of Lerma was much grieved by the Prince's death, both from love to the deceased and on account of his premature fate; but he acted with prudence, avoiding any marks of partiality. A wise proceeding, indeed. The King shewed also his gratitude to the Count, by making him a lord of his bedchamber, and bestowing on him a commandery of Calatrava."

THE NEW MARRIAGE ACT.

Cases for the Opinion of Doctor Lushington.

DEAR Doctor, in vain, by September set free,

Have I, a poor Proctor, eloped toward the sea.

This new Marriage Act, which my Lord Ellenborough
Has whisk'd through the House like a colt o'er the Curragh,
Has set the pent fears of my clients at large,-

I'm boarded by dunces, like Pope in his barge.
My bag won't contain half the Cases they draw,
The Church can't absolve, so they fly to the Law.
The Magistrates' clerks know not how to behave, it's
So puzzling to draw up the right affidavits :
Then how shall I pick Cupid's bone of contention,
Remote as I am from the scene of dissension?

My client, Jack Junk, with a heart hot as Ætna,
Has cut through the knot by post horses and Gretna.
One says the church notice must not be a scrawl;
One says there is no need of notice at all;

A third swears it must be in black and in white;
A fourth hints that, where neither party can write,
A cross is sufficient: forgetting, of course,
That a cross before marriage is cart before horse.
My female complainants are equally busy,

And ply me with plaints till I'm really dizzy.
Miss Struggle, aged fifty, still baiting Love's trap,
Asks who keeps the children should Hymen's chain snap.
Miss Blue, equi-wrinkled, has dipp'd me in ink,
With doubts on divorces à mens and è vinc.

Aunt Jane understands it: her niece Mary Anne
Says she cannot conceive-others say that she can ;
And gladly would hie to St. George's, full trot,
To clench Cupid's nail while the iron is hot.
To flourish my flail, feather mounted, and draw
A handful of wheat from a barn full of straw,
Five Cases I've hit on, in Cupid's dominion,
On which I request your advice and Opinion.

Case one.-Kitty Crocodile married Ned Bray,
And swore she would honour, and love, and obey.
The honeymoon over, thorns mingle with roses,
And Ned's upper head is the picture of Moses.
Love, honour, obey, toll a funeral knell,
Up start, in their place, hate, disdain, and rebel.
You'll please to look over the Statute, and say,
In case, at the next Lent Assizes, Ned Bray
Indict Mistress Kate for false swearing, can her jury
Bring the delinquent in guilty of perjury?

Case two. Captain Boyd, to his tailor in debt,
Adored, at the Op'ra, Ma'amselle Pirouette:

'Twas Psyche that slew him: he woo'd; she consented:
Both married in May, and in June both repented:
The steps that she took gain'd eight hundred a year,
The step that he took made that sum disappear.
Please look at the Act, and advise whether Boyd
By debt made the deed nudum pactum and void;
And say, if eight hundred per annum Miss Pirouette
May get back from Boyd, by a count Quantum meruit ?

Case three.-Martha Trist, of Saint Peter-le-Poor,
Had stuck up her notice upon her church door.
The Act (section eight) says, the wife must annex
Her proper description, age, station, and sex.
Her age, four-and-thirty, she fix'd to the door,
But somehow the wafer stuck over the four;
And Martha, if judged by some ill-temper'd men,
Would seem to have own'd to no more than thrice ten.
If Wildgoose, her spouse, should discover the flaw,
Please to say if the wedlock's avoided by law;
And if, 66 on the whole," you would not deem it safer
To interline "four" at the top of the wafer.

Case four.-Captain Sykes won the heart of Miss Dighton
While driving a dennet from Worthing to Brighton.
Her West-India fortune his hot bosom stirs,
His cap and mustachios are too much for hers.
They married: the Captain was counting his gain,
When sugar and rum grew a drug in Mark-lane.
In temper both fired: 'twas a word and a blow:
(See Dibdin's Reports, Captain Wattle and Roe,)
And both, while the stool is at either head flung,
Try to tear with their teeth what they tied with their tongue.
Please to study the Act for this couple, and tell 'em
If they can't be replaced "statu quo ante bellum."

Case fire.-Doctor Swapp'em, allied to a peer,
Has farm'd his great tithes for five thousand a-year.
He never is vex'd, but when pheasants are wild;
And got a rich helpmate who bore him no child.
The curate of Swapp'em is pious and thrifty,
His annual stipend in pounds mounts to fifty;
His helpmate in annual parturience is seen,
His children already amount to fifteen.
While keeping the dictum Ecclesiæ in view,
(God never sends mouths without sending bread too)
You'll please to advise, if the Act has a clause
To marshal the bread, or to average the jaws.

But see, while my pen your Opinion implores,
Fresh couples, love-stricken, besiege the church doors.
The porch of St. Anne's ninety couple disgorges,
Thrice ninety stand fix'd on the steps of St. George's;
The fresh and the jaded promiscuously mingle,
Some seek to get married, some seek to get single:
While those, sage Civilian, you 're fettering, please
To hit on a scheme to emancipate these.

Teach mortals, who find, like the man who slew Turnus,
A marvellous facile descent to Avernus,

Like him, back their Pluto-bound steps to recall,

And breathe the light æther of Bachelors' Hall:

Do this, through my medium, dear Doctor, and then
Ere Easter, my life on 't, we both are made men ;
My purse shall swell, laden by fee upon fee,
King's Proctor, in war-time, were nothing to me:
While you, happy man, down Pactolus's tide
Your silver-oar'd galley triumphant shall guide,
And whirl'd in no eddy, o'ertaken by no ill,
Reign Hymen's Arch-Chancellor, vice Lord Stowell.