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On the day before that appointed for this wedding, the Chevalier received orders to prepare for his departure from France, with the corps under his command, in order to assist the allies of his country in the operations against the Turks, with whom they had for some time carried on a bloody, but very doubtful war.

Upon the receipt of his orders the Chevalier, as a soldier, felt all the hero rising in his breast; as a lover, on the point of being united to a woman most dear to him, he felt the tenderest sensations springing up in his bosom; but the former, after he had endured a few struggles with regard to love and glory, gained a complete victory over the latter. Summoned to the field of honour, to that animating field he directed all his views, and took leave of his dearest Louisa with as much fortitude as he could possibly muster up on the trying occasion: but his feelings were so acute that he could hardly articulate the final word -the seperating adieu.

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In this distressful state Louisa could only draw consolation from that part of the last scene between her and her lover, from the strong assurances which he repeatedly gave her-assurances of which she could not question the sincerity-that he would make her his wife with the highest satisfaction when the campaign was over, if his designs were not frustrated by captivity or death. With this consolation poor Louisa remained for a while tolerably satisfied; and endeavoured, by procuring as many innocent amusements as she could in a private way of life, (having given up all public exebitihions) to make the abscence of her amiable: lover more supportable.-For a while she supported his departure from her with patience, and reasoned herself into something like contentment, but at last; weary of waiting for letters which never arrived, though he had promised to write by every opportunity, and giving encouragement to the most disheartening reflections, she felt herself utterly unable to remain in her little retreat, while he, on whom she doated, was so far removed from her, she procured a passage on board a ship, bound to a Turkish port, and, as she sailed with a fair wind, received some satisfaction, in the midst of all her anxiety, from being carried nearer and nearer, every day, to the man whom of all men living she most wished to behold.

While Louisa was on her voyage in this ineligible state of mind, the Chevalier was closely confined in one of the Turkish dungeons, having been taken prisoner in the very first action, in which he was furiously engaged, soon after his arrival from Europe. In this dungeon, while he lamented his situation as a soldier, he could not help feeling as a man, as a lover; and, in consequence of those feelings, the remembrance of the delightful

hours which he had spent with his Louisa, threw him into a train of the most painful reflections.

While such reflections were rolling in his mind, one day, he was rouzed from them by the account which he received of a female captive just arrived from France, of whose beauty the Sultan had received so flattering a description, that he had taken .her into his seraglio.-By making more minute enquiries, he found that this captive was his Louisa; and from that moment formed plans not only to get at the sight of her, but to make himself known to her, and to procure her deliverance..

By making a friend of the man to whose care he had been committed, he soon removed himself to Constantinople, and, in a short time, he was thoroughly convinced that his conjectures were well grounded. By a train of well concerted manoeuvres, he procured a meeting with his Louisa, unknown to the Sultan, in which an escape was projected. In consequence of this unexpected interview, it was agreed that Louisa should secrete herself in a particular part of the gardens reserved for the Sultan's private amusement, of which he had gained a key, and to wait there till he came to take her under his protection.

Louisa punctually obeyed her lover, and waited with the utmost impatience and trepidation for his arrival, fearing that the Sultan himself might take her by surprize, and force discoveries from her which would prove fatal to them both. Her impatience encreased when the appeinted hour was passed, and she, at length, abandoned herself to despair; concluding that her lover had been detected, and that the execution of his design had been effectually prevented: her fears, indeed, carried her still farther; she fancied, during the tortures of imagination, that he was suffering in the severest manner, for the part he had been acting for her releasement.

In this harrowing situation she remained for some time; but, at last, her patience was exhausted. Drawing a poniard from her pocket, which she always carried about her, determined never to be forced to the violation of her virtue, she was just going to plunge it into her heart, when she heard the turning of a key, and immediately turned her eyes towards the garden-door, fondly imagining that her lover was come at last to her relief: but, on seeing, by the faint light of the moon, at that moment, a man enter the garden in a Turkish habit, with a lanthern in his hand, she, at one stroke, put an end to her existence.

In this deplorable condition, driven to it by despair, the Chevalier, who was prevented from keeping his appointment by an unforseen interruption, and who deemed it proper, in consequence of some intelligence he received, to dress himself like the

Sultan, that he might not be interrupted in his progress to the garden. In this deplorable condition he found his Louisa, lifeless at his feet, her own executioner.-To find her, whom he expected to receive him with raptures, in such a condition, was a shock, the severest he had ever felt,-but the sight of the poniard almost drove him to distraction.

ANECDOTE OF M. BOISSI.

M. BOISSI, the author of several approved dramatic pièces, had not found himself exempt from the usual fate of those who cultivate the muses. Even that spot, said to be the least barren one of Parnassus, the theatre, had produced to him little more than a scanty maintenance for himself, his wife, and one child. In short, misfortunes, want of economy perhaps, or whatever else might be the cause, I cannot well say; but he was reduced to the most deplorable extremities of want.

In this condition, sinking under the indignities of his fate, he had, however, too much of that spirit which characterises genius, to debase himself by mean applications of mendicant letters. He had friends, whose kindness his need of them had not exhausted, and whom, for that very reason, he was the more averse from troubling. But his friends were but the more inexcusable, if they knew his distress, not to save him the pain of an application. However, Boissi, overcome with the irksomeness of his circumstances, embraced a resolution of taking the shortest way out of the world, that of death. And in the light in which he considered it, as a friendly relief from further misery, he not only persuaded his wife to keep him company, but not to leave behind them a boy, a child of five years old, to the mercy of a world in which they had found so little. Probably the example of Richard Smith, in much the same situation, an example to which Voltaire's recording it gave such notoriety, might have its share in the fatal determination.

This resolution now formed of dying together, there remained nothing but to fix the manner of it. The most torturous one was chosen, that of hunger, not only as the most natural consequence of their condition, of which it might pass for the involuntary effect, but as it saved a violence which neither Boissi nor his wife could find in their hearts to use to one another. In that solitude then of their apartment, in which the unfortunate need so little to apprehend their being disturbed, they resolved to wait with unshaken constancy the arrival of their deliverer, though under the meagre grim form of famine. They began then, and reso

lutely proceeded on their plan of starving themselves to death, with their child. If any called, by chance, at their apartment, finding it locked, and no answer given, it was only concluded that no body was at home. Thus they had all the time they could wish to cousummate their intention, "But what can conceive or damp a true friend? They had one, it seems, of a fortune not much superior to their own, and whom, for that reason, and for the dread of being an inconvenience to him, they had never acquainted with the extremities to which they were actually driven. (To be concluded in our next.)

LUDICROUS CIRCUMSTANCE.

THE following curious circumstance has been transmitted to us from a quarter on which we can rely :-Two eccentric youths, who, through motives of economy, partook of the same bed, at a coffin-maker's in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, where they lodged, returned home a few nights ago to repose, after sacrificing with a degree of uncommon devotion at the ruddy shrine of the Jolly God. The most gigantic of the youths took possession of the bed, which was but of small dimensions at the best, and fell into a profound sleep. The other, devout even in his cups, offered up his customary prayers, when he found himself so chilled, and the bed so completely occupied by his narcotic companion, that he knew not what to do; but as "necessity is the mother of invention," he staggered into an adjoining room, and brought into his own a coffin made for a corpse in an adjacent street; into this he tumbled, wrapped in a black cloak, and half covered with the lid. Soon he was in a deathlike sleep; but in the morning, when his companion was awake, and saw the coffin and its contents, he trembled with fright, leaped from the bed, and ran down stairs. The Undertaker's men were just come at the moment for the coffin. In his fright, he told them it was above stairs with the corpse. They went up accordingly, covered it over, and took it away with its sleepy contents. When deposited at the house of the real deceased, whose friends were assembled to take a last parting look, how much were they terrified to see the young man, who was aroused from his slumbers, awake, and sit erect, unconscious of where he was, or how he came there. The women screamed, the men were petrified, the affrighted youth himself was aghast with fear; but on his recollection returning, he took to his heels with his sombre robes, and ran to his lodgings, where his terrified companion has never since

been seen.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE ROMAN GLADIATORS.

(Continued from page 16.)

The Meridiani, who were thus named, because they ap peared only at noon: they fought with a kind of sword against those of the same class. The Bestiarii, gladiators either by condition, or bravadoes, who attacked wild animals, to shew their courage or address, like the Spanish Toreros, Toreadors of the present day. And lastly, the Fiscales, the Cæsareani, and the Postulatitii, who were maintained at the expence of the Emperors. They took the name of Cæsareans, because they were destined for those exhibitions, at which the Emperors assisted; and as they were the bravest and the most skilful of all the gladiators, they were called Postulatitii, because the people often called for them.

The Catervarii, were gladiators taken from the different classes, who fought in troops several against several.

The same industry which formed different classes of gla diators, rendered the institution lucrative for those who devised them. They were called Lanistæ, and to their care were committed prisoners, criminals, and slaves, who had been guilty of any crime.

To these they added other slaves, skilful and robust, whom they had purchased for the public games, and whom they encouraged to fight with hopes of liberty. They trained them to this inhuman diversion, taught them to handle their arms with address, and exercised them continually for different kinds of combats, in order to recommend them interesting to the spectators; and, in this respect, it must be allowed, that they had too much success.

Besides, gladiators of this kind, there were sometimes freed men, who hired themselves to fight, either on account of the depravity of the times, or of their own indigence, which induced them to follow this occupation for the sake of money. The masters who hired these voluntary gladiators, made them swear they would rather die than yield.

Those who were desirous of exhibiting gladiators, applied to those masters who furnished a certain number of pairs of the different classes at a price agreed on but in process of time, the chief men of the Republic maintained gladiators for this, or for other purposes; and among this number we may reckon Julius Cæsar.

VOL. II.

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