dows, clouds, and darkness' rested upon it. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Saviour's, Southwark; and it does not appear from the strictest search that a stone, or inscription of any kind, marked the place where his dust was deposited: even the memorial of his mortality is given with a pathetic brevity, which accords but too well with the obscure and humble passages of his life: March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a stranger!' The best edition of his Plays is by Mr. Gifford; a selection has also been formed, entitled 'The Beauties of Massinger.'

18.-EDWARD KING OF THE WEST SAXONS.

He was stabbed in the back by order of his mother-in-law, Elfrida, at Corfe-castle, in Dorsetshire. Elfrida built monasteries, and performed many penances, in order to atone for her guilt; but could never, by all her hypocrisy or remorse, recover the good opinion of the public, though so easily deluded in those ignorant ages.

*18. 1813.-A WOMAN BURIED ALIVE.

The following circumstance took place at Gondul para, about 20 miles north of Calcutta, and is attested by the Rev. W. Ward'. A Hindoo workman having died, his wife, only sixteen years of age, formed the desperate resolution of being buried alive with her husband. A circular grave was prepared, of about fifteen feet in circumference, and five or six feet deep. The corpse being placed at the bottom of the grave in a sitting posture, with the face to the north, the nearest relation applied a lighted wisp of straw to the top of the head. The young widow now came forward, and having circumambulated the grave seven times, calling out Huree Bul! Huree Bul! in which she was joined by the surrounding crowd, decended into it: she exhibited no signs of reluctance or sorrow, and her relations appeared to exult at this human

1 View of the History, Literature, and Religion of the Hindoos, vol. i, p. lxxi-lxxiii, note.

sacrifice. She placed herself in a sitting posture, with her face to the back of her husband, embracing the corpse with her left arm, and reclining her head on his shoulders; the other hand she placed over her own head, with her forefinger erect, which she moved in a circular direction. The earth was then deliberately put round them, two men being in the grave for the purpose of stamping it round the living and the dead, which they did as a gardener does around a plant newly transplanted, till the earth rose to a level with the surface, or two or three feet above the heads of the entombed. The head was covered sometime before the finger of her right hand :—no regret was manifested-the finger was seen to move round in the same manner as at first, till the earth closed the scene. Not a parting tear was shed by any of her relations, till the crowd began to disperse, when the usual lamentations and howling commenced. 21. SAINT BENEDICT.

Benedict, or Bennet, founded the monastery of Cassino, in 529: it was built on the brow of a very high mountain, on the top of which there was an old temple of Apollo, surrounded with a grove. The Benedictine order of monks, first instituted by our saint, was, in the ninth century, at its height of glory. The rule that Benedict laid down for his converts was that of labour, humility, and patience. To this he conformed so exactly himself, that St. Gregory said of him, 'Do you wish to see an abridgment of the rule of St. Benedict, observe his life; and when you want to see an abridgment of his life, read the one as the counterpart of the other.'

#23. 1819. AUGUSTUS VON KOTZEBUE

ASSASSINATED.

M. Kotzebue was the son of a Counsellor of Legation of the Duchy of Weimar. Having become, at the age of 20, Private Secretary to General Baur, one of the best informed military men in Russia, he gained the good will of the Empress Catherine, for

whom he composed some pieces which were acted at the Theatre of the Hermitage. Induced by a romantic attachment, he married a noble Russian lady. He was quickly raised to the situation of President of the Civil Government at Revel, in Esthonia, and to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and, was decorated with the insignia of several orders. The independence of his principles caused him, in 1795, to send in his resignation. He accepted, in 1796, the office of Manager of the Theatre at Vienna, but was soon disgusted with a situation surrounded by embarrassments and unpleasantness. On his return to Russia, in the spring of 1809, he was arrested on the frontier of the empire, and conducted to Kurgau, a pretty little town in Siberia, where he enjoyed full liberty, and he caused his pieces to be acted by the inhabitants. His numerous friends soon removed all impressions against him from the mind of the Emperor, Paul I, and this Monarch recalled him to court, and heaped favours upon him. During the first years of Alexander's reign, he travelled through France, Italy, and Germany, and afterwards, apparently, fixed his residence at Berlin, where he undertook the management of a journal; but after some years, having given cause of displeasure to Buonaparte, he retired thence to a small estate which he possessed in Esthonia. Admiration and hatred did not fail to pursue him even to his rural retreat. While the thunders of the Moniteur were hurled against him, the Agricultural Society of London sent him some farming implements, and the English Admiral commanding in the Baltic permitted the present of peace to pass unmolested. M. Kotzebue took part in the Manifestoes and diplomatic Notes of the Russian Cabinet, published in 1811 and 1812. The Emperor Alexander recompensed him by naming him at first, in 1813, Consul General at Konigsberg; and afterwards, in 1816, by connecting him

with the department of Foreign Affairs, as Counsellor of State. In 1817 he received a commission to go to Germany, in order to send Reports directly to the Emperor Alexander on the state of literature and public opinion in Germany. He settled, for this purpose, at Weimar, where he published at the same time a Literary Journal, in which he constituted himself judge of all writings in every branch of literature which he thought worthy of notice, and at the same time delivered his opinions on politics and on the spirit of the times, in a manner which his opponents considered partial and illiberal in the extreme. His Cossack-like tactics, say they, with which he made war on all liberal ideas, especially the wishes of the people for representative constitutions, freedom of the press, &c. in the name of sound reason, of which he fancied himself the representative, gained him great applause with a certain class of readers. But it drew upon him the indignation of no inconsiderable part of the nation, particularly the ardent minds of the German youth; and in this tendency of his latest literary labours, we must doubtless look for the chief cause of his violent and tragical death. He was but fifty-eight years old, although the public supposed him much older, from the numerous writings which he published during the last forty years. He was twice married, and has left fourteen children, the eldest of whom is a Captain in the Austrian service; another son, M. Otto de Kotzebue, is a Lieutenant in the Russian navy, and has already rendered himself remarkable by his voyage round the world. A third son, Maurice, an officer in the Russian army, published some time ago an interesting account of the Russian Embassy in Persia, to which he was attached.Thus the talents of the children seem prepared to render the name as illustrious as it had been made by the father.

*24. 1819.-SOUTHWARK BRIDGE OPENED. The first stone of the south pier was laid on May 23, 1815. The centre arch is the largest that exists in the world (excepting certainly the fabled flying bridges of China); its span is four feet more than that of the celebrated Sunderland Bridge: it is 38 feet more in span than the Monument is in altitude, from its base to the lofty gallery on which the public walk. It exceeds that of any of the metropolitan bridges, being four feet higher from the centre arch. The following are some of its admeasurements; Length of the bridge with the abutments, 800 feet; span of the outside arches, 210 feet; span of the centre arch, 240 feet; length of road supported on 22 brick arches to the abutments on the Southwark side, 409 feet; total number of brick arches, 32; total length of arches including the bridge, 1400; Mr. John Rennie, Engineer.

*30. 1819.-SIR WALTER FARQUHAR DIɛd, Æt. 81. He was Physician to his present Majesty while Prince Regent, and for a long period distinguished by his consummate skill and ability in the medical practice. He was, if possible, still more distinguished for those domestic virtues which marked through a long life, in an eminent degree, his valuable character. As a son, he was a pattern of filial piety; a most affectionate brother, an exemplary and tender husband; a father almost adored by his children, for his wisdom and goodness; a warm and steady friend, scarcely to be equalled, in his exertions of kindness, or to bring forward merit wherever he found it. He was the patron of the friendless; and distress, even accompanied by error, was never disregarded by him. More free from frailty himself than most men, he was charitable and lenient in his judgment of others; and although always doing some good, declining the praise attached to it.

*31. 1820.-RELIGIOUS CHARITIES. The total amount of their Annual Receipts ending on the above day, is £337,482; to which the Bri