army sent up a shout of joy, the aged Abderama sunk into his arms, covered with blood, and expiring with his wounds; life just served him to exclaim— My son! my son! and then forsook him; his attendants bore him off to his litter in the rear, whilst Abdullah turned the faces of his soldiers on the foe, and pressed into the action where it was hottest.

The conflict became terrible, every inch of ground was obstinately disputed, and the combatants, on either side, fell by whole ranks, as if resolved upon maintaining the contest to the last man. Night at length put an end to the undecided fight, and Abdullah led off his surviving followers into the city, without any attempt on the part of Mamood to pursue him his wound in the side, which was not yet healed, burst open by the violence of his exertions in the action, and he had received others, under which he found himself sinking, and which he had reason to believe were mortal: in this extremity he lost not a moment's time in betaking himself to his beloved Zarima; his strength just served him to present himself before her, and to fall exhausted with his wounds at her feet.

Terrible interview! Zarima was expiring; she had taken poison.

The supplications of an aged father, the deliverance of a suffering city, the salvation of an ancient empire, and, above all, the example, as she believed, of her betrothed Abdullah, had prevailed with this heroic princess to sacrifice herself to the detested arms of Kamhi; the contract had been fulfilled upon her father's part, but to survive it was more than she had engaged for, and an indignity which her nature could not submit to: as soon as the battle joined, she put her resolution into act, and swallowed the mortal draught. Life just sufficed to relate this dismal tale to the dying Abdullah, and to re

ceive the account from his lips of the deception which Abderama had put upon him. The body of her dead father was now brought into the palace; she cast a look upon it, but was speechless; fainting, and in the article of death, she dropped into the arms of Abdullah, her head fell upon his breast, just as it was heaving with the last long-drawn sigh, that stopt his heart for ever.

NUMBER XV.

AMONGST the variety of human events, which come under the observation of every man of common experience in life, many instances must occur to his memory of the false opinions he had formed of good and evil fortune. Things, which we lament as the most unhappy occurrences and the severest dispensations of Providence, frequently turn out to have been vouchsafements of a contrary sort; whilst our prosperity and success, which for a time delight and dazzle us with gleams of pleasure, and visions of ambition, turn against us in the end of life, and sow the bed of death with thorns, that goad us in those awful moments, when the vanities of this world lose their value, and the mind of man being on its last departure, takes a melancholy review of time mispent and blessings misapplied.

Though it is part of every good man's religion to resign himself to God's will, yet a few reflections upon the worldly wisdom of that duty will be of use to every one who falls under the immediate pressure of what is termed misfortune in life. By calling to mind the false estimates we have frequently made of

worldly good and evil, we shall get hope on our side, which, though all friends else should fail us, will be a cheerful companion by the way: by a patient acquiescence under painful events for the present, we shal be sure to contract a tranquillity of temper, that will stand us in future stead; and by keeping a fair facel to the world, we shall, by degrees, make an easy heart, and find innumerable resources of consolation, which a fretful spirit never can discover.

I wonder why I was so uneasy under my late loss of fortune,' said a very worthy gentleman to me one day, seeing it was not occasioned by my own misconduct; for the health and content I now enjoy in the humble station I have retired to, are the greatest blessings of my life, and I am devoutly thankful for the event, which I deplored.' How often do we hear young unmarried people exclaim

- What an escape have I had from such a man, or such a woman.' And yet, perhaps, they had not wisdom enough to suppose this might turn out to be the case at the time it happened, but complained, lamented, and reviled, as if they were suffering persecution from a cruel and tyrannic Being, who takes pleasure in tormenting his unoffending creatures.

An extraordinary example occurs to me of this criminal excess of sensibility in the person of a Frenchman named Chaubert, who happily lived long enough to repent of the extravagance of his misanthropy. Chaubert was born at Bourdeaux, and died there not many years ago in the Franciscan convent; I was in that city soon after this event, and my curiosity led me to collect several particulars relative to this extraordinary humorist. He inherits a good fortune from his parents, and in his youth was of a benevolent disposition, subject however to sudden caprices and extremes of love and hatred. Various causes are assigned for his misanthropy, but the

principal disgust, which turned him furious against mankind, seems to have arisen from the treachery of a friend, who ran away with his mistress, just when Chaubert was on the point of marrying her; the ingratitude of this man was certainly of a very black nature, and the provocation heinous; for Chaubert, whose passions were always in extremes, had given a thousand instances of romantic generosity to this unworthy friend, and reposed an entire confidence in him in the matter of his mistress: he had even saved him from drowning one day at the imminent risk of his life, by leaping out of his own boat into the Garonne, and swimming to the assistance of his, when it was sinking in the middle of the stream. His passion for his mistress was no less vehement; so that his disappointment had every aggravation possible, and, operating upon a nature more than commonly susceptible, reversed every principle of humanity in the heart of Chaubert, and made him for the greatest part of his life the declared enemy of hu

man nature.

After many years passed in foreign parts, he was accidentally brought to his better senses, by discovering that through these events, which he had so deeply resented, he had providentially escaped from miseries of the most fatal nature: thereupon he returned to his own country, and, entering into the order of Franciscans, employed the remainder of his life in atoning for his past errors after the most exemplary manner. On all occasions of distress Father Chaubert's zeal presented itself to the relief and comfort of the unfortunate, and sometimes he would enforce his admonitions of resignation by the lively picture he would draw of his own extravagances; in extraordinary cases he has been known to give his communicants a transcript, or diary, in his own hand-writing, of certain passages of his life, in which he had

minuted his thoughts at the time they occurred, and which he kept by him for such extraordinary purposes. This paper was put into my hands by a gentleman who had received much benefit from this good father's conversation and instruction; I had his leave for transcribing it, or publishing, if I thought fit; this I shall now avail myself of, as I think it is a very curious journal.

'My son, whoever thou art, profit by the word of experience, and let the example of Chaubert, who was a beast without reason, and is become a man by repentance, teach thee wisdom in adversity, and inspire thy heart with sentiments of resignation to the will of the Almighty !

'When the treachery of people, which I ought to have despised, had turned my heart to marble, and my blood to gall, I was determined upon leaving France, and seeking some of those countries from whose famished inhabitants nature withholds her bounty, and where men groan in slavery and sorrow. As I passed through the villages towards the frontiers of Spain, and saw the peasants dancing in a ring to the pipe, or carousing at their vintages, indignation smote my heart, and I wished that heaven would dash their cups with poison, or blast the sunshine of their joys with hail and tempest.

I traversed the delightful province of Biscay, without rest to the soles of my feet, or sleep to the temples of my head. Nature was before my eyes dressed in her gayest attire:- "Thou mother of fools," I exclaimed, "why dost thou trick thyself out so daintily for knaves and harlots to make a property of thee? The children of thy womb are vipers in thy bosom, and will sting thee mortally, when thou hast given them their fill at thy improvident breasts." The birds chaunted in the groves, the fruit-trees glistened on the mountain sides, the