traced to the spot by a militia-man, who was eager for the destruction of his sovereign, and on her return was seized and confined by this ruthless traitor,

In the meanwhile, Mortimer, fearful a discovery might take place from these midnight interviews, in a neighbourhood where he was so well known, and anxious for the further safety of his royal master, whose danger was increased by delay, ventured to descend from their secret cave to the residence of a peasant, who was under the greatest obligations to him and informed him that a friend of his, a cavalier, who had escaped from the battle of Worcester, was anxious to get out of the country. The old man was sworn to secresy, and the king was immediately confided to his care. Mortimer then retired to his hiding place, with the intention of passing there the remainder of the night, but his pursuers with their hot-bloodhounds were then hunting about the spot; he saw the light of their torches glaring among the dark and rugged caverns, and heard the cliffs re-echo the howling of the wolfdogs, as they forded the river, and climbed the precipices, in the eager pursuit of their prey. He attempted to retreat but in vain, the monsters of death were already fast approaching, and after a short but desperate struggle, he sunk down, bleeding and exhausted, under their greedy fangs. The pursuers called off their dogs in order to save his life, that they might extort from him a confession of the king's retreat they succeeded in muzzling the ferocious animals; but when they lifted their victim from the blood-stained sward where he had fallen, they found him stiff and cold in the arms of death; they passed their torches before his face, but his eyes were for ever closed. Even the barbarians themselves, when they looked upon his well-proportioned limbs, and saw his fine and manly countenance, beautiful in death, cursed the cause that had betrayed them to the commission of a crime, at which even their depraved hearts now shuddered.

As they had gained nothing by their cruelty, and he, from whom they might have endeavoured, by threats and torture, to have extracted a full developement of the king's intention, and his present hiding-place, was now dead, they released their unhappy captive the next morning, without making her acquainted with the bitterness of her destiny. She hastened towards the spot of her lover's, retreat, anxious for his safety

and yet scarce daring to proceed. It was in the month of October; the morning was chill and cold, and although the red sun was glimmering on the distant waters of the Severn, it spake no comfort to her soul; the dew drops were laying thick upon the lank blades of grass, and a grey mist was rising from the earth, which partly obscured the distant objects. She ventured onward, trembling with the most intense anxiety, and invoking heaven for the safety of her lover, for then she thought not of the king--when, suddenly turning her eyes to the ground, she witnessed the object of all her solicitude, lying on a cold bed of turf before her. He who had so often hailed the sound of her footsteps, was now heedless of her approach; his cheek, which had once glowed with her pure kisses, felt not now her pale and delicate lips as they fed greedily upon the death-damps of his face. She passed her white fingers over his brow, and when she saw them smeared with the unnatural stain of living gore, she laughed in the delirium of her despair till the sound of the mountain echoes, mocking her tone of misery, awoke her to the burning realis ing sense of her soul's agony. Now, unrestrained, she called upon his name in language the most affecting. She whispered in his deaf, unheeding ear, the voice of love and truthshe pressed his lifeless hand and placed it in her bosom, and when she felt its icy chilliness freezing at her heart, she wept that he was cold.

A fisherman who had witnessed the scene, and hurried from his boat to assist her, was, at this moment, approaching the spot; she looked wildly round and beckoned him away, but when she saw him still advancing towards her, she uttered a piercing shriek, and in a few minutes was on the lofty summit of the adjoining precipice. She waved her white arm for a few minutes, as in triumph, and then sinking upon her knees at the utmost verge of the o'erhanging brow, she crossed her hands over her face, and, instantly bending forward, sunk gently into the dell below. Such was the ærial delicacy of her form, that not a limb was bruised, and nothing but the absence of breathing indicated the calm triumph of death. The unfortunate lovers were buried in one grave, and nothing is left us of their memory but the imperishable cliff; which rises, like the genius of history, over the spot to consecrate their eternal fame.

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MADAME VESTRIS.

This celebrated actress is a daughter of the well-known engraver Bartolozzi, and was born in Marylebone, in January, 1797. She received an excellent education, and at the age of fourteen was proficient in the French and Italian languages, as well as in music and singing. Her parents introduced her into all the follies and gaieties of life, in the course of which she became unfortunately acquainted with the "God of Dance," (as the French termed him) M. Armand Vestris; to whom she was married on the 28th of January, 1813. On the 20th of July, 1815, she made her first appearance at the King's Theatre, for her husband's benefit; as Proserpine in the Opera of Il Ratto di Proserpina, in which she acquitted herself with wonderful applause for a debutante in so difficult a part. She repeated the character on the following Saturday, before the Princess Charlotte of Wales, and, from this period, determined on making the stage her profession. We need not follow Madame Vestris through her theatrical career: that she is a wonderful woman must be admitted, when it is recollected that whether the character is English, Italian, or French, she is equally correct in all, and elicits equal applause in either country. Her character has been thus drawn and her name handed down to posterity by Lord Byron, in the following lines:

"Then there was Madame Vestris, whom to call Pretty, were but to give a feeble notion

Of many charms, in her as natural

As sweetness to the flower."

A RUSSIAN COMPLIMENT.

A Russian gentleman, who had been some time at Paris, seeing so many ladies at the different balls dressed in black, bowed very politely to one of them, and said, it reminded him of being on the banks of the Volga during Spring, when the crows and magpies were all hopping about.