was exhibited among a people pretending to the smallest degree of civilization. And that nothing against her morals were exhibited on her trial, except the incredible story respecting her infant son, a child scarcely eight years of age, and which no human being ever believed, is a most powerful argument in favour of the queen's actual virtue.

After suffering a long and cruel imprisonment; having seen a beloved husband led to the scaffold; being deprived of the sole remaining consolation, by a brutal separation from her children, and insulted by the solemn mockery of a public trial, she was beheaded at Paris, on Wednesday, the 16th of October, 1793, being in her thirty-eighth year. The corpse of the ill-fated queen was immediately buried in a grave filled with quick-lime, in the church-yard, called De La Madelainewhere her unfortunate consort, Louis XVI. had been before deposited, and consumed in the same

manner.

Mr. Burke's animated description of the late Queen of France.

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in-glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion, that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusias

tic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace, concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should live to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men; in a nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look, that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex; that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprize, is gone! It is gone-that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage, while it mitigated ferocity; which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which, vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

MISS ELIZABETH SMITH.

THE "Fragments in Prose and Verse," of this extraordinary, ingenious and most excellent young lady, have been lately published, with some account of her life and character; and from them we extract the leading particulars, illustrative of the life and mind of Miss Smith.

She was born at Burnhall, in the county of Durham, in December, 1776.

At a very early age she discovered that love of reading, and that close application to whatever she engaged in, which marked her character through life. She was accustomed, when only three years old, to leave an elder brother and younger sister to play and amuse themselves, while she eagerly seized on such books as a nursery library commonly affords, and made herself mistress of their contents. At four years of age she read extremely well. What in others is usually the effect of education and habit, seemed born with her. From a very babe, the utmost regularity was observable in all her actions. Whatever she did was well done, and with an apparent reflection far beyond her years,

"In the beginning of 1782," says Mrs. Smith, "we removed into a distant county, at the earnest entreaty of a blind relation, and in the following year my attendance on him became so necessary, as daily to engage several hours; at his request I

was influenced to take a young lady, whom he wished to serve in consequence of her family having experienced some severe misfortunes. This

lady was then scarcely sixteen; and I expected merely to have found a companion for my children during my absence; but her abilities exceeded her years, and she became the governess, during our stay in Suffolk, which was about eighteen months. On the death of my relation, in 1784, we returned to Burnhall, and remained there till June, in the following year, when we removed to Piercefield. In the course of the preceding winter, Elizabeth had made an uncommon progress in music. From the time of our quitting Suffolk till the spring of 1786, my children had no instruction except from myself; but their former governess then returned to me, and continued in the family three years longer. By her the children were instructed in the French, and a little in the Italian, which she herself then understood. I mentioned these particulars to prove how very little instruction in languages my daughter received, and that the knowledge she afterwards acquired of them, was the effect of her own unassisted study.

"It frequently happens that circumstances, apparently trifling, determine our character, and, sometimes, even our fate in life. I always thought that Elizabeth was first induced to apply herself to the study of the learned languages, by accidentally hearing that the late Mrs. Bowdler acquired some knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, purposely to read the Holy Scriptures in the original languages. In the summer of 1789, this most excellent woman, with her youngest daughter, spent a month at Piercefield, and I have reason to hail it as one of the happiest months of my

life.

From the above mentioned visit I date the turn of study, which Elizabeth ever after pursued, and which, I firmly believe, the amiable conduct of our guests first led her to delight in.

"At the age of thirteen Elizabeth became a sort of governess to her younger sisters; for I then parted with the only one I ever had, and from that time the progress she made in acquiring languages, both ancient and modern, was most rapid. This degree of information, so unusual in a woman, occasioned no confusion in her well regulated mind. She was a living library; but locked up, except to a chosen few. Her talents were like bales unopened to the sun;' and from a want of communication, were not as beneficial to others as they might have been; for her dread of being called a learned lady, caused such an excess of modest reserve, as perhaps formed the greatest defect in her character.

“When a reverse of fortune drove us from Piercefield, my daughter had just entered her seventeenth year, an age at which she might have been supposed to have lamented deeply many consequent privations. Of the firmness of her mind on that occasion, no one can judge better than yourself, for you had an opportunity to observe it, when immediately after the blow was struck, you offered, from motives of generous friendship, to undertake a charge which no pecuniary considerations could induce you to accept a few months before. I do not recollect a single instance of a murmur having escaped her, or the least expression of regret at what she had lost. On the contrary, she always appeared contented; and particularly after our fixing at Coniston, it seemed as if the place and mode of life were