Hungary, and going down the side thereof, which was very rough and tedious, by which ragged way her coach could not pass, she was constrained, during a great shower, to go on foot and down tha. side with her children and ladies, and that not without great labor.

Isabella of Poland, widow of John, king of Hungary, queen-mother, and regent of that kingdom, had been compelled to abdicate her power by the treason of George, "Walking in this sort, she greatly coma bold and intriguing Croatian of a noble plained herself of her adverse fortune, who, but decayed family, who had risen, from a not contenting to be contra ie and opposite servile office in the Monastery of St. Paul, to her, in great weightie things, would yet by Buda, to be Archbishop of Strigonium afflict her in small and mean matters. and a Cardinal; but a twofold traitor to his then took a knife and, with the point therequeen and her infant son, who had been of, to ease a little her intolerable grief, bequeathed to his tutelage, by the too con-writ in the bark of a great tree, fiding John in his last moments.

Sie Fata volunt!'

The regalia of Hungary, (consisting of and underneath

Isabella Regina.'

She

a crown made of plates of gold, mounting on high in form of a high-crowned hat, en- It may be some satisfaction to the reader, riched with stones and pearls, and having to learn that the infamous Friar George of a cross of gold on the top; a sceptre of Croatia, was subsequently assassinated in ivory garnished with gold; and a mantle his strongly fortified castle of Binse, on the of cloth of gold ;) having been demanded steep banks of the Sebesse; by which at her hands, and by her surrendered, at event the queen-mother was enabled to rethe Diet of Colosvar, in an adjacent monas-conquer all her towns and castles, and retery, Queen Isabella with her son, the sume the government of Hungary in the young dethroned monarch, was compelled name of her son. to depart for Cassovia; and taking the most The tempest and uproar, that distinunfrequented and perilous roads, in order guished the night in which the traitor Carto avoid the Turkish territory, travelled in dinal suffered the retribution of his enor the meanest attire and with every token of mous crimes, is thus told in the same chronextreme grief. icle.

"Insomuch," saith the curious old chronicle from which I made this extract. "In somuch that, one day, passing a mountain, which separateth Transylvania from

"Now the night was come, which was very cloudy and dark; during which the elements would demonstrate some sign of the friar's death.

"For, in that night the winds were so Observing one of the persons who had horrible and the tempest and raines so been admitted to the scaffold, accidentally strange, that in man's memory the like was touching the edge of the axe with his never seen. Nothing was heard but un-cloak, the king requested him to be careaccustomed sounds in the air, and clapping ful. Then again inquir.ng of the execuof doors and windows through all the cas tle, and that so terrifying as though the world would presently have ended. "In short, as well in the air, as in the vallies, this supernatural tempest made such rude havoc, as though all the furies

tioner, "is my hair well?" he took off his cloak and doublet, and delivering the latter to the bishop, exclaimed significantly, remember." To the executioner, he said, I shall say but short prayers, and when I thrust out my hands-." Looking at the block, he said, "you must set it fast."

in hell had been there unchained." EXECUTION OF CHARLES I. OF The executioner replied it was fast. The king remarked it might have been higher.

ENGLAND.

In Jesse's memoirs of the Court of Being told it could not have been higher, England during the reign of the Stuarts, he said, "when I put out my hands this we find the following description of the way, then-" execution of that unfortunate monarch, In the meantime, having divested himCharles I:-self of his cloak and doublet, and being "To return to the last moments of in his waistcoat, he again put on his Charles. The scaffold had been covered cloak, and lifting up his hands and eyes with black cloth, and a coffin, lined with to heaven, and repeating a few words to black velvet, was in readiness to receive himself, which were inaudible to the byhis remains. In the platform itself had standers, he knelt down and laid his neck been fixed iron rings and staples, to on the block. The executioner stopping which ropes had also been attached, by to put his hair under his cap, the king which it was intended to force the king thinking him about to strike, bid him wait to the block should he make the least at- for the sign. After a short pause he tempt at resistance The persons who stretched out his hands, and the execuattended him to the scaffold, besides tioner at one blow severed his head from Bishop Juxon, were two of the gentle- his body. The head was immediately liftmen of his bedchunber, Harrington and ed up by the other headsman,and exhibited Herbert. The former afterwards suffer to the people. "Behold," he exclaimed,

ed so much from the shock, that an ill-the head of a traitor."
ness ensued which nearly cost him his
life. The king himself appeared cheer-
ful, resigned and happy. Having put on
his satin cap, he inquired of one of the
two executioners, both of whom were

Thus, on the 30th of January, 1649, at the age of forty-nine, died king Charles. The dismal groan which rose at the moment of his decapitation, from the dense masked, if his hair was in the way. The populace around, was never forgotten by those who heard it. Certainly, by the. man requested him to push it under his cap. As he was doing so, with the as- the execution of Charles was regarded as vast inajority of the people of England, sistance of the bishop and the executionan atrocious and barbarous murder. Philer, he turned to the former: "I have a ip Henry, the famous divire, was a witgood cause," he said, "and a gracious ness of the memorable scene. "He used God on my side." to mention," writes his son, "that at the The Bishop.-There is but one stage instant when the blow was given, there more; this stage is turbulent and troub-was such a dismal, universal groan among lesome; it is a short one; but you may the thousands of people that were within consider it will soon carry you a great sight, as it were with one consent, as he way; it will carry you from earth to never heard before, and desired he might heaven; and there you will find a great never hear the like again." This fact is deal of cordial joy and comfort. corroborated by the testimony of an aged

The King.-I go from a corruptible to person, one Margaret Coe, who died in an incorruptible crown, where no dis-1730, at the age of one hundred and three. turbance can be, no disturbance in the She saw the executioner hold up the world. head, and well remembered the dismal The Bishop.-You are exchanged from groan which was made by the vast mula temporal to an eternal crown; a good titude of spectators when the fatal blow exchange. was given." Inmediately after the axe

feli, a party of horse rode rapidly from cave of Trophonius, the oracle was inferCharing Cross to King street, and anoth-red from what the suppliant said before er from King street to Charing Cross, he recovered his senses. The study of with the object of dispersing the people, the meaning of oracles was a vain enor more probably, with the object of dis-deavor, as they were never understood persing their thoughts." until after their accomplishment. There was always either some ambiguity in HISTORY OF ORACLES. their expressions, or something which One of the earliest superstitions that at-might be used as a qualification of what tracts our attention is the institution of seemed to be plainly asserted. oracles. There is no superstition which When Alexander fell sick at Babylon, had so great reverence and popularity in some of his courtiers, who happened to ancient times. They were generally de-be in Egypt, passed the night in the temlivered in temples or some other sacred ple of Serapis, to inquire if it would not places. The ancients believed them to be proper to bring Alex'r to be cured by be enunciations, by the mouths of men, him. The god answered that it was better of the will of the gods. They were con- that Alex'r. should remain where he was. sulted on a variety of occasions, relating This at all events was a very safe and pruto public and private affairs and enter- dent answer. If the king recovered his prises. When the Pagans made peace health, what glory must Serapis have gainor war, enacted laws, reformed states, or ed by saving him the fatigue of the jourchanged the constitution, they had in all ney! If he died, it was but saying that he these cases, recourse to the oracle by died in a favorable juncture, after so many public authority. Also in private life, if conquests, which, had he lived, he could a man wished to marry, to take a jour- neither have enlarged or preserved.ney, or to engage in any business of im- This was actually the construction they portance, he repaired to the oracle for put upon the response, whereas, had Alcounsel. These oracles, not only grati-exander undertaken the journey, and dified the prevalent curiosity of mankind, ed in the temple, or by the way, nothing but proved a source of inmense wealth, could have been said in favor of Serapis. as well as authority and influence to When Trajan had formed the design those who had the command of them.- of his expedition against the Parthians, Accordingly every nation in which idol- he was advised to consult the oracle of atry has subsisted, had its orac.es, by Heliopolis, for which he had no more to means of which one part of the commu- do but send a note under a seal. That nity fattened at the expense of the other. prince, who had no great faith in oracles, I shall not attempt to describe or enu- sent thither a blank note; and they remerate all the oracles of antiquity. I turned him another of the same. By this, shall confine myself chiefly, after giving it is said, Trajan was convinced of the a general account of them, to the most divinity of the oracle. He sends back a celebrated-the Delphian and Pythian. second note to the god, wherein he inThe responses of oracles were deliver-quired, whether he should return to Rome, ed in a variety of ways. At Delphi they after finishing the war he had in view.— interpreted and put into verse, what the The god ordered a vine, which was priestess pronounced in the time of her among the offerings of his temple, to be inspiration. These answers fell at length divided into pieces and brought to Trainto prose, when the people began to jan. The event justified the oracle; for laugh at the poorness of the versification. the emperor died in that war, and his The Epicureans made this the subject of bones were carried to Rome, which had their jests, and said in raillery, it was sur-been represented by that broken vine.prising enough, that Apollo, the god of As the priests of that oracle knew Trapoetry should be a much worse poet than jan's design, which was no secret, they Homer, who is said to have been inspired happily devised that response, which, at by him. By the railleries of these phi- all events, was capable of a favorable inlosophers, and particularly those of the terpretation, whether he routed and cut Cynics and Peripatetics, the priests were the Parthians in pieces, or if his army or at length obliged to desist from the prac-himself met with the same fate. Sometice of versifying the responses of the times the responses of the oracle were Pythia. At Dodona, the response was mere banter; a man, for instance, wished issued from the hollow of an oak. At the to know by what means he might become

rich, and received for answer from the ests of king Philip," an enemy to that god, that he had only to make himself city. The philosophers, likewise, mostly master of all that lay between Sicyon and disavowed the authority of all oracles, Corinth. Another asking a cure for the and Eusebius declares, "that six hundred gout, was answered by the oracle, that he authors among the heathens themselves, was to drink nothing but cold water. had written against the reality of them." Here it So it seems the ancient world, like the be remarked, by the may way, that these oracles were nothing more nor present age, was divided into two classes, less than the fortune-telling shops of the the believers and the disbelievers in supresent day, erected on a grand scale, perstitions of all kinds, of which the maand finding a wider patronage; and there jority are the believers.

is no doubt, if the truth was known, that Delphi was the capital of Phocis in Moll Pitcher herself was as learned and Greece, and was celebrated for its temas ingenious in her answers as the priests ple of Apollo, in which was contained the and priestesses of the ancient oracles, oracle. The temple of Apollo occupied and that the multitude who consulted her a large space, and many streets met there. were no wiser than the dupes of the ora- The first discovery of the oracle, which cles of Delphi and Pythia. Most of the laid the foundation of the fame and richancient fathers of the church actually be-es of this place, was as follows. Certain lieved in the fulfilment of the prophetic goats were feeding on Mount Parnassus, nature of these oracles, and supposed that near a deep and large cavern, with a narthey were issued by the devil; and look-row entrance. These goats having been ed on it as a pleasure he took to give du-observed by the goatherd to frisk and bious and equivocal answers, in order to leap in a very strange manner, and to utgive a handle to laugh at them. Some ter unusual sounds immediately upon thought, however, that the obscurity of their approach to the mouth of the cavthe answers was owing to the devil's ig-ern, he had the curiosity to view it, and norance as to the precise circumstances found himself seized with the like fit of of events. That artful and studied ob-madness, skipping, dancing and foretelscurity, in which the answers were ling things to come. If these accounts couched, was thought to prove the em- be true, the wind that emanated from this barrassment the devil was under; as cave must have been a species of exhilathose double meanings they usually bore rating gas. At the news of this discoveprovided for their accomplishment.-ry, multitudes flocked thither, many of Where the thing foretold did not happen whom were possessed of such mad enaccordingly, the oracle was said to be thusiasm, that they threw themselves misunderstood. They thought that ora- headlong into the opening of the cavern ; cles would not have lasted so long and so that it was necessary to issue an edict supported themselves with so much splen- forbidding all persons to approach the dor and reputation, if the devil had not cavern. This surprising place was treatsome intervention in the predictions, ored with singular veneration, and soon if they had been merely owing to the for-covered with a kind of chapel, made of gery of the priests. Bishop Sherlock, in laurel boughs, that resembled a large hut. his "Discourses concerning the Use and At length the temple was founded, and Jutent of Prophecy," expresses his opin- the oracle became established and perion, that it is impious to disbelieve the manent; and such were the multitudes heathen oracles, and to deny them to from all parts that came to consult it, have been given out by the devil. Dr that the riches that were thus brought inMid lleton, however, declares that the to the temple and city were said to rival best and wisest of the heathen themselves, the wealth of the Persian kings. When had no faith in them. He allges that this oracle was first established, the whole Cicero, speaking of the Delphic oracle. mystery requisite for obtaining the prothe most revered of any of the heathen phetic gift, was to approach the cavern world, declares, "that nothing was be-and inhale the vapor that issued from it; come more contemptible, not only in his and then the god inspired all persons indays, but long before him." And he says differently. Finally it was appropriated that Demosthenes, about three hundred to certain individuals, who placed over years earlier, affirmed of the same ora-the mouth of the cave a "tripod," and cle, in a public speech to the people of commissioned a woman to seat herself in Athens, "that it was gained to the inter-this chair, where she might imbibe the

vapor, without danger of falling in. This ja lingering look of deep anxiety upon his priestess was named Pythia. At first gay beautiful form, now reposing in all the virgins were employed, but at length loveliness of innocence and infancy. there was a law enacted that no one should be a priestess who had not passed Quick as thought her mind penetrated the her fiftieth year. At first there was only vista of coming years and gazed to the time one, but finally three. The priestess fast-when youth and manhood should succeed ed three days, and before she ascended childhood; when he should begin to mix the tripod she bathed herself in the Foun with the world, and live amid its vices;— tain of Castalia. She drunk water from that fountain, and chewed laurel leaves when temptations should assail, and the gathered near it. She was then led into pleasures and charms of the world should the sanctuary by the priests, who placed present allurements before his youthful her upon the tripod. As soon as she be-mind, to draw it from the path of virtue gan to be agitated by the divine exhalaand uprightness. tion, her hair stood on end, her aspect be"Ah!' thought she, 'can it be, that when came wild and ghastly, and her whole body was seized with violent tremblings he loses the counsels of pious parentsShe then raved and tried to escape; but when he leaves the parental fireside, and the priests held her down, while her launches forth upon the ocean of life-that shrieks and howlings made the whole he will make shipwreck of virtue and temple resound, and filled the bystand-character? Can it be, that those pure ers with a sacred horror. The unconnected words which she used in her rahands will learn to practice vice? Can vings were put together by the priests, those innocent lips ever impiously take ranged in order, put in the form of verse, the name of God in vain ?'

and given out as the oracle. The oracle The idea of its bare possibility, filled being pronounced, she was taken out of her mind with deep distress and sorrow, the tripod, and conducted back to her

and she returned to commend him anew cell, where she continued several days, to recover herself from the conflict. The to God, and supplicate the mercy seat for oracles pronounced by the priestess were grace, to guard him from temptations and generally delivered to the poets who at sin; for wisdom to guide his wandering tended on the occasion, who put them in-feet through the mazy paths of life, to the to that wretched verse, which gave occasion to the raillery, that Apollo, the god of the Muses, was the worst of poets. Boston Weekly Magazine.

bright portals of endless peace on high. Long and ardently did she wrestle before throne of heaven, and seemed almost like Moses, to hold converse with Deity, face to face; until at length a voice seemed to whisper in her ear, with heavenly accents, Daughter, go in peace, thy petition is heard, and thy request granted.'

It was evening! The golden tinge of Yet, with this assurance of his pasport the sun's last rays had just taken leave of through the world uncontaminated by sin, the mountain top; the grey mists of twi-she was not satisfied. He yet might have light were spreading themselves in the to pass through scenes of trial and suffervalleys; the songsters of the grove having ing-anxiety and sorrow might cloud his ended their carols, were retiring to their brow; the cold and blighting winds of addowny nests, and all animate nature was versity might howl around his dwelling; preparing to participate in the blessing his heart might be lacerated by the perfidy held out to them by "Tired Nature's sweet of false friends, or his character blasted by restorer;' when a mother, having lulled the withering voice of slander; the tree of her child to rest, knelt by his side to com friendship that should wave its thick folimend him to the care of God, his Makerage over his head, might be eaten at the She prayed; then arose and was about root by envy or jealousy, and wither, leavto leave the room; pausing, she cast backing him exposed to the rage of bitter per