"

fport and gaiety." Her heart, replete with this love of literature and ferious ftudies, and with tendernefs towards her husband, who was deferving of her affection, had never opened itfelf to the flattering allurements of ambition; and the information of her advancement to the throne was She even refufed by no means agreeable to her. to accept of the crown; pleaded the preferable right of the two princeffes; expreffed her dread of the confequences attending an enterprife fo dangerous, not to fay fo criminal; and defired to remain in that private ftation in which fhe was born. Overcome at laft with the entreaties, rather than reafons, of her father and father-in-law, and, above all, of her husband, fhe fubmitted to their will, and was prevailed on to relinquifh her own judgment. But this honour was of fhort very continuance. The nation declared for Queen Mary; and the Lady Jane, after wearing the vain pageantry of a crown during ten days, returned to a private life, with much more fatisfaction than fhe felt when the royalty was tendered to her.

Queen Mary, who appears to have been incapable of generofity or clemency, determined to remove every perfon, from whom the leaft danger could be apprehended. Warning was, therefore, given the Lady Jane to prepare for death; a doom which the had expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which the had been expofed, rendered no unwelcome news to her. The Queen's bigotted zeal, under colour of tender mercy to the prifoner's foul, induced her to fend priests, who molefted her with perpetual difputation; and even a reprieve of three days was

granted her, in hopes that fhe would be perfuaded, during that time, to pay, by a timely converfion to Popery, fome regard to her eternal welfare. The Lady Jane had prefence of mind, in those melancholy circumstances, not only to defend her religion by folid arguments, but alfo to write a letter to her fifter in the Greek language; in which, befides fending her a copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, fhe exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, a like steady perfeverance. On the day of her execution, her husband, Lord Guilford, defired permiffion to fee her; but fhe refufed her confent, and fent him word, that the tenderness of their parting would overcome the fortitude of both; and would too much unbend their minds from that conftancy, which their approaching end required of them.-Their feparation, fhe faid, would be only for a moment; and they would foon rejoin each other in a scene, where their affections would be for ever united; and where death, disappointment, and misfortunes, could no longer have accefs to them, or difturl their eternal felicity.

It had been intended to execute the Lady Janc and Lord Guilford together on the fame fcaffold, at Tower-hill; but the council, dreading the compaffion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and noble birth, changed their orders, and gave directions that the fhould be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. She faw her hufband led to execution; and having given him from the window fome token of her remembrance, fhe waited with tranquillity till her own appointed hour fhould bring her to a like fate. She even G

faw his headlefs body carried back in a cart; and found herself more confirmed by the reports, which the heard of the conftancy of his end, than fhaken by fo tender and melancholy a fpectacle. Sir John Gage, conftable of the Tower, when he led her to execution, defired her to bestow on him fome finall prefent, which he might keep as a perpetual memorial of her. She gave him her tablebook, in which fhe had juft written three fentences, on feeing her husband's dead body; one in Greek, another in Latin, a third in English. The purport of them was, "that human juftice was against his body, but the Divine Mercy would be favourable to his foul: and that if her fault deferved punishment, her youth, at leaft, and her imprudence, were worthy of excufe; and that God and pofterity, fhe trufted, would fhow her favour." On the Scaffold, fhe made a fpeech to the bye-standers, in which the mildness of her difpofition led her to take the blame entirely on herself, without uttering one complaint against the feverity with which fhe had been treated. She faid, that her offence was, not having laid her hand upon the crown, but not rejecting it with fufficient conftancy that he had lefs erred. through ambition than through reverence to her parents, whom he had been taught to respect and obey that he willingly received death, as the only fatisfaction which she could now make to the injured ftate; and though her infringement of the laws had been constrained, fhe would show, by her voluntary fubmiflion to their fentence, that fhe was defirous to atone for that difobedience, into which too much filial piety had betrayed her that the

had juftly deserved this punishment for being made the inftrument, though the unwilling inftrument, of the ambition of others: and that the ftory of her life, fhe hoped, might at least be useful, by proving that innocence excufes not great mifdeeds, if they tend any way to the deftruction of the commonwealth. After uttering thefe words, the caufed herself to be difrobed by her women, and with a fteady, ferene countenance fubmitted herself to the executioner.

SECTION VI.

The Hill of Science.

HUME.

IN that feafon of the year, when the ferenity of the sky, the various fruits which cover the ground, the difcoloured foliage of the trees, and all the fweet, but fading graces of infpiring autumn, open the mind to benevolence, and difpofe it for contemplation, I was wandering in a beautiful and romantic country, till curiofity began to give way to weariness; and I fat down on the fragment of a rock overgrown with mofs; where the ruftling of the falling leaves, the dafhing of waters, and the hum of the distant city, foothed my mind into the moft perfect tranquillity; and fleep infenfibly stole upon me, as I was indulging the agreeable reveries, which the objects around me naturally inspired.✨

I immediately found myself in a vast extended plain, in the middle of which arofe a mountain higher than I had before any conception of. It was covered with a multitude of people, chiefly youth; many of whom preffed forwards with the

livelieft expreffion of ardour in their countenance, though the way was in many places fteep and difficult. I obferved, that thofe who had but juft begun to climb the hill, thought themselves not far from the top; but as they proceeded, new hills were continually rifing to their view; and the fummit of the higheft they could before difcern feemed but the foot of another, till the mountain at length appeared to lofe itself in the clouds. As I was gazing on thefe things with aftonishment, a friendly inftructer fuddenly appeared: "The mountain before thee," faid he, "is the Hill of Science. On the top is the temple of Truth, whofe head is above the clouds, and a veil of pure light covers her face. Obferve the progrefs of her votaries; be filent and attentive." *

After I had noticed a variety of objects, I turn

ed my eye towards the multitudes who were climbing the steep afcent; and observed amongst them a youth of a lively look, a piercing eye, and fomething fiery and irregular in all his motions. His name was Genius. He darted like an eagle up the mountain; and left his companions gazing after him with envy and admiration: but his progrefs was unequal, and interrupted by a thousand caprices. When Pleasure warbled in the valley, he mingled in her train. When Pride beckoned towards the precipice, he ventured to the tottering edge. He delighted in devious and untried paths; and made fo many excurfions from the road, that his feebler companions often outstripped him. I obferved that the Mufes beheld him with partiality; but Truth often frowned, and turned afide her face. While Genius was thus wafting his