death becomes a calamity of nations. It seems, and it is, a direct interposition of Omnipotence, hastening the doom of millions, and clothing it with peculiar dread; that all the world may start in its slumber, and feel itself dying.

10

THE universal necessity of death has made every scene a witness, and every object an instrument of its accomplishment. Man cannot live and move without subjection to the possibility of many accidents, of which any one may be fatal. The more he multiplies his weapons and aids, for self-defence, for labour, or for pleasure, the more he varies the armoury of death.

A fall from a tree or a precipice breaks the bones of the strong barbarian, for whom there is no remedy. Afterwards, when lofty edifices have been erected, workmen fall from scaffolds and ladders, heedless visitors from battlements, venturous persons from towers and steeples; men in their own houses, like Bruce the traveller, from the staircase; or like King Ahaziah, from a lattice or window. Seamen are tossed from the yard or mast upon the deck. Perhaps the whole frame is crushed; perhaps the neck is dislocated, and death is instant; perhaps the brain receives a mortal shock; perhaps the bruised sufferer lingers hopelessly under manifold injuries.

The wild beasts of the forest and the desert are often the foes of man, or at least sacrifice him to their hunger. Lions tear the poor Hottentot; wolves devour the Scythian shepherd; the tiger springs from the Indian

jungle on his prey; the hyena steals to the unguarded tent, and seizes the sleeping infant; the crocodile fixes its teeth in the bathing Egyptian; the shark cuts off the limbs of the seaman; the envenomed snake plants its fang in the heel of the passer. Those animals whom man has subjected become sometimes the causes of his end the dog, through his bite in the frenzy of disease; the horse, through his kick; the bull and elephant, by direct assault in moments of fury. Even bees and hornets in swarms; spiders and scorpions of a poisonous nature; and the loathsome and ferocious rat, have inflicted death.

When any of the quadrupeds have become beasts of burden, and men mount upon them, or upon the vehicles which they transport, the caprice of the animal, or any of a thousand accidental obstructions, may be the occasion of a destructive overthrow. The heir of the dynasty of Orleans was one of the many who have been fatally stunned by leaping from a carriage in a moment of danger. Theodosius the Second was killed by a fall from his horse; so perished Louis d'Outremer; so Isabella, wife of Philip the Hardy, of France; so Alexander the Third, of Scotland; so Casimir the Third, of Poland; so the laborious writer, Birch; so the ingenious Day, kicked by the animal that had thrown him; so Unwin, the friend of Cowper; while William the Conqueror received from his horse a blow which resulted in a fatal rupture; Louis the Third, a mortal injury from striking against the top of a doorway through which he was dashing in hot pursuit; and Bembo, from bruising his leg against a wall as he rode. The overturn of a stage* coach put an end to the life of Bishop Kemp, of Maryland. When steam became the agent of speed in travelling, the agent and the increased speed were alike

perilous; and Huskisson, crushed under the tremendous wheels, was one of the first of a numerous company of sufferers. Scalded by the exploding boilers, or torn in the violent concussion, or hurled down the precipitous embankment; by water and by land alike, men have purchased greater triumphs over distance by exposure to deaths more sudden and shocking.

Fire is an enemy that can commonly be avoided, but never resisted. It sometimes seizes the sleeper, the infirm, the heedless, the child; breaks out beneath the chamber, darts from street to street, envelopes the vessel, and shuts up every avenue of escape. The wounded Emperor Valens was consumed in a cottage by his enemies; and Alcibiades perished between the flames and the darts of the pursuers. A sick prince, in the dark ages, wrapped up by empirics in clothes all covered with combustible ointments, was accidentally touched by the candle of a servant, and perished by flames which reached his very bones. Of six masquers, quaintly dressed, of whom Charles the Sixth of France was one, four were burned to death by a like accident. The Viscountess Molesworth and her two daughters; the Marchioness of Salisbury; Lord and Lady Walsingham; the brother of Archbishop Cranmer, were all burned in the accidental conflagration of splendid mansions. Three thousand were supposed to have died, between the water and the fire, when, about the beginning of the thirteenth century, London Bridge was in flames. In the midst. of a bright festival, held in the palace and gardens of Prince Schwartzenberg, on the marriage of Napoleon, a fire broke out, and the sister of the Prince, with several other persons, perished. When the theatre at Richmond was burned, the Governor of Virginia, with many persons of eminence in society, was buried in its smok

ing ruins. With equally fatal rage, fire in the forests or on the prairies has surprised travellers, or enwrapped scattered habitations.

The weapons designed for labour or for war prove often the accidental instruments of destruction. With a careless stroke, the mower inflicts a fatal wound; the husbandman falls from the hay-loft on the points of his own pitchfork; the woodman gashes his foot with an axe; and death ensues, after mortification, lockjaw, or excessive bleeding. The shaft of a hunter slew William Rufus; Archbishop Abbot was so unhappy as to slay a man while he awkwardly aimed the crossbow at a deer; and many a time has the gun, held in a heedless hand, lodged its load in the bosom. Like Henry the Second of France, Geoffrey, son of Henry the Second of England, was accidentally killed at a tournament. Rocks, exploded by gunpowder; mills, for its manufac ture, and magazines, flashing at a spark; heavy pieces of ordnance, bursting with terrific violence, have shattered and hurled afar off the frames of men: so, in an hour of gayety, several of the highest officers of the United States were destroyed before the face of the President, Tyler. In 1824, an explosion at Cairo was fatal to 4000 persons.

Machinery is an intensity of mechanical power; and such power cannot be closely approached without possible hazard to the human system and its feeble integuments. The immense wheel hurries round; and if the arm be caught by a band, drawn under a roller, or torn by sharp points, it is often the instantaneous assurance of a dreadful end, if it be not that end itself.

By the slightest and the strangest casualties; by the descent of a window upon the neck; by the entrance of a piece of glass, from a bottle held between the