the palm of her right hand. Caroline, who was, at that moment, thinking about her lover, was not disinclined to gratify her curiosity by consulting this oracle. She sat down on a bank, near the edge of the wood, and committed her fair hand to the scrutiny of the expounder of destinies; who, after poring a little while over the mysterious lines, with some emotion, exclaimed, “Ah, Miss! you will be a great lady, though you are averse to him who desires to make you so. A man of great fortune and distinction courts you, and you will have him. Ah, Miss! I must tell you, the wide ocean rolls over the other gentleman whom you are so often thinking about, and you will never see him more. As a proof of this, I tell you that on this very day three weeks you will be in London, there you will be visited by a tall gentleman, a very tall gentleman, Miss, who will bring you the sad tidings of the death of your lover; and afterwards you will be married to the one with a title and a large fortune, and you will be very happy with him, Miss, and have a large and handsome family. Ah, Miss this one loves you very much indeed, and he will never leave you till he obtains you. Remember what I say."

Caroline was greatly surprised and affected by what she had heard. She made the old woman a present, and hurried home in extreme agitation. Here the first person she met was her maid servant, in whom she placed great confidence, and to her she told the extraordinary adventure she had had with the gipsy. Well, Miss," said Betty, "Folks may say what they please, that these kind of people is all cheats and impostors; but I will never believe but what they have some dealings with the bad spirit, or they never could tell so How else could this woman know that a rich baronet wants to court

true.

66

you? or that you love Mr. Anderson ? or that he is at sea? or that he is dead? And there you see she knows more than we know. And look Miss, if the tall gentleman should come at the time the old witch has fixed for him, and should tell you poor Mr. Charles is dead! Oh! I hope I shall not see him I am sure I should swound away."

Such conversation did not at all contribute to quiet the anxiety of the credulous Caroline. Credulous people are not suspicious; and it never once entered her thoughts that there was any plot or contrivance of the baronet in this affair. She took care to be in London before the end of the three weeks, and thus did all in her power to bring about the fulfilment of that part of the prediction. On the day appointed by the fortune-teller, both the maid and mistress, who had kept this prophecy to themselves, were in the utmost agitation, expecting the arrival of the tall gentleman.

At length, in the dusk of the evening, a person in black knocked at the door, and asked to see either Mr. or Miss Trimnell. The stranger was indeed tall, more than six feet high; but, in the eyes of the alarmed Betty, he was at least eight feet, and something like a demon. She ran directly upstairs to her mistress-"Oh, Miss !" said she, "the tall strange man is come! I never saw anybody so tall in my life, no, never, Miss! He inquires for you, but if I was you I would not see him; we know already what he has come to tell us." Caroline, though in a state of great anxiety and tremor, could not forbear smiling at the fears and extravagant fancies of her maid. She was not so destitute of resolution in this extremity as to decline seeing the tall gentleman, but immediately ordered him to be shown up. He entered with a grave and solemn air. His countenance had in it something very peculiar, from a harsh conformation of the features, and an extreme swarthiness of complexion. Addressing himself to Caroline,-"you are," said he, "I presume, Miss Trimnell. I have just arrived from the West Indies, where I was intimate

with a brave young officer of the name of Anderson, with whom I believe you were acquainted. He commissioned me to bear to you his last good wishes, for, alas! he is no more. He died in a French prison-ship, in which I was confined with him. I saw his body committed to the deep. since had the good fortune to make my escape."

I have

All the fortitude of Caroline now forsook her, and she fainted-overpowered at once by the intelligence of the death of her lover, of which she now no longer entertained a doubt, and the mysterious circumstances (as she conceived them) of the prophecy and its fulfilment. The stranger, after she had somewhat recovered, offered an apology for the abrupt manner in which he had communicated his information, expressed his sympathy, and withdrew.

Caroline was immediately taken seriously ill, and it was some time before any hopes were given of her recovery. At last there was a decided change for the better and she gradually appeared to gain strength. Even the baronet, when he saw the feeble condition to which she had been reduced by his contrivance (for it seems scarcely necessary to inform the reader that the tall stranger was sent by him, and made part of his plot,)—was half-inclined to reveal to her the truth, but he was restrained by the shame of confessing that he had been guilty of an artifice so mean, and by the hope, which he had not yet given up, of at length succeeding (now that she believed her former lover to be dead), in obtaining her and her fortune for himself. But the true remedy which was to hasten her convalescence soon arrived, in the shape of Charles Anderson. When she began to waver and hesitate whether she should accept the hand of the baronet, or not, as caring little what became of her, her former lover returned to England, clasped her in his arms, and claimed her as his own. Her surprise and joy are not easy to be described; the shock was violent, but the effect was salutary. Mr. Anderson had been a long time a prisoner, in the hands of the French, but, in concert with several other brave men, he had contrived to seize the vessel in which they were to be conveyed to a prison in one of the islands. This brave action procured him the command of a ship, with which, on his return home, he had the good fortune to capture a rich Spanish prize, and his share was about thirty thousand pounds.

Mr. Trimnell had no longer any objection to the union of his daughter with a man who had found means to turn his bravery and gallant qualities to so good an account.

Charles and Caroline were soon afterwards married; and thus the designing baronet obtained nothing by all his crafty and mean plots, but disappointment and disgrace.

NOTES OF OLD TIMES-1760.

Feb. 29th. The body of Nathaniel Revell, of Gainsborough, in the county of Lincoln, gentleman, was found dead, and floating in the cold bath near the town of Gainsborough, with two large wounds upon his head; and his pockets rifled of his gold watch and money: and the coroner's inquest having brought in their verdict wilful murder, by persons unknown, his majesty, for bringing to justice the persons concerned in the murder, has been pleased to promise his most gracious pardon; Mr. Revell, of Gainsborough, a reward of £100 and the inhabitants of Gainsborough a reward of £50 to any who shall discover an accomplice in it.

Mar. 21st. Cambridge. On Wednesday, the two gold medals, given annually by his grace the Duke of Newcastle, Chancellor of this university, for the best classical learning, were adjudged to Mr. Tye, of St. John's College, and Mr. Drake, of Caius College, Bachelors of Arts.

June 28th. The greatest storm of hail, attended with thunder and lightning, that has been known in the memory of man, lately fell at Littleport, in the Isle of Ely; some of the hailstones measured three inches about, and the ground was covered more than six inches deep on the level; the storm entirely destroyed a large field of hemp, except one corner, so that it has been ploughed and sowed again; the fruit trees appear as in the fall of the leaf, the ground being covered with leaves, &c. Some of the stones that lay in a north aspect were measured the Thursday after, and were then two inches and a half.

Aug. 25th. At a congregation of the university of Cambridge, it was proposed, that a sum should be voted from the public chest, towards the completing of the botanic garden, which was given to them by the Reverend Dr. Walker, Vice-Master of Trinity College; and it was unanimously agreed that £500 be applied for this purpose.

Oct. 27th. From a single horse-bean, in a garden at Exton, in Rutlandshire, belonging to Daniel Armstrong, Esq., casually dropped in 1739, were produced, with common hoeing, 378 beans, and their produce, in four years, was 16 bushels.

Dec. 21st. A raven's nest, with young ones quite fledged, was taken from a tree in a ground belonging to Mr. Johnson, of Gedney, in Lincolnshire.

Long lines of bosh taken have left a spasm;
And from that spasm flow foam and yellow bile.

Behold red bricks all round a narrow house
In clusters; near, a signal-bell, whose wire
A long youth climbs to pull-tall, tow'ring BILL;
And high in heaven, behind, in getting down,
He tears his breeches; then, with hazel-stick
From some old nut-tree wrenched, polishes
GREEN on the capless apex of his crown.

Here in this house some fifteen years ago,
Three children and their parents came to dwell:
The prettiest little damsel now of these

Is PHŒBE GRAY, her mother's youngest girl,
Whom bold BILL JONES, tho' a rough sailor's lad,
Makes love to, since from winter shipwreck sav'd.
Arm round her waist he lumbers near her door,
Anchors his dusty boots, and sees with scorn
GREEN building castles as to PHŒBE's hand!
His passion overflows, and, following up
GREEN flying with wild caper, gaily left
On him his footprints as he dash'd away.

A narrow lane ran West between the cliffs:
In this the rivals fought-no keeping time;
JACK got the best one day, and BILL the next,
No seconds there to witness: and at times

They stopp'd, and curb'd their passion for a week:
"Keep from that house, for she shall be my wife."
"Mine, mine," said BILL, "you eome, I'll turn you out,"
Again they quarrell'd-BILL his fists display'd—
Was master: then did JACK, with two black eyes,
The blood upon his hapless face and ears,

Cry out and rate him" BILL you break my peace!"
Poor PHŒBE, too, would hear BILL thumping him,
Would treat them from the barrel; or with cake
And wine, to stop the wicked strife of both.

T. G. S.

To be continued.

TRAVELLING IN 1782.

The following account of a ride by coach from Leicester to Northampton, and from thence to London, is written by a Prussian Clergyman.

"Being obliged," he says, "to bestir myself to get back to London, as the time grew near when the Hamburg captain with whom I intended to return had fixed his departure, I determined to take a place as far as Northampton on the outside. But this ride from Leicester to Northampton I shall remember as long as I live.

The

"The coach drove from the yard through a part of the house. The inside passengers got in from the yard, but we on the outside were obliged to clamber up in the street, because we should have had no room for our heads to pass under the gateway. My companions on the top of the coach were a farmer, a young man very decently dressed, and a black-a-moor. getting up alone was at the risk of one's life, and when I was up I was obliged to sit just at the corner of the coach, with nothing to hold by but a sort of little handle fastened on the side. I sat nearest the wheel, and the moment that we set off I fancied that I saw certain death before me. All I could do was to take still tighter hold of the handle, and to be strictly careful to preserve my balance. The machine rolled along with prodigious rapidity over the stones through the town, and every moment we seemed to fly into the air, so much so that it appeared to me a complete miracle that we stuck to the coach at all. But we were completely on the wing as often as we passed through a village or went down a hill.

"This continual fear of death at last became insupportable to me, and, therefore, no sooner were we crawling up a rather steep hill, and consequently proceeding slower than usual, than I carefully crept from the top of the coach, and was lucky enough to get myself snugly ensconced in the basket behind.

"O, Sir, you will be shaken to death!' said the black-a-moor; but I heeded him not, trusting that he was exaggerating the unpleasantness of my new situation. And truly, as long as we went on slowly up the hill it was easy

and pleasant enough; and I was just on the point of falling asleep among the surrounding trunks and packages, having had no rest the night before, when on a sudden the coach proceeded at a rapid rate down the hill. Then all the boxes, iron-nailed and copper-fastened, began, as it were, to dance around me; everything in the basket appeared to be alive, and every moment I received such violent blows that I thought my last hour had come. The black-amore had been right, I now saw clearly; but repentance was useless, and I was obliged to suffer horrible torture for nearly an hour, which seemed to me an eternity. At last we came to another hill, when, quite shaken to pieces, bleeding, and sore, I ruefully crept back to the top of the coach to my former seat. Ah, did I not tell you that you would be shaken to death?' inquired the black man, when I was creeping along on my stomach. But I gave him no reply. Indeed, I was ashamed; and I now write this as a warning to all strangers who are inclined to ride in English stage-coaches, and take an outside seat, or, worse still, horror of horrors, a seat in the basket.

"From Harborough to Northampton I had a most dreadful journey. It rained incessantly, and as before we had been covered with dust, we now were soaked with rain. My neighbour, the young man who sat next me in the middle, every now and then fell asleep; and when in this state he perpetually bolted and rolled against me, with the whole weight of his body, more than once nearly pushing me from my seat, to which I clung with the last strength of despair. My forces were nearly giving way, when at last, happily, we reached Northampton, on the evening of the 14th July, 1782, an evermemorable day to me.

"On the next morning I took an inside place for London. We started early in the morning. This journey from Northampton to the metropolis, however, I can scarcely call a ride, for it was a perpetual motion, or endless jolt from one place to another, in a close wooden box, over what appeared to be a heap of unhewn stones and trunks of trees scattered by a hurricane. To make my happiness complete, I had three travelling companions, all farmers, who slept so soundly that even the hearty knocks with which they hammered their heads against each other and against mine did not awake them. Their faces, bloated and discoloured by ale and brandy and the knocks aforesaid, looked, as they lay before me, like so many lumps of dead flesh.

"I looked, and certainly felt, like a madman when we arrived at London in the afternoon."

CROWLAND BRIDGE.

The first arched stone bridge erected in this country is that singular looking structure standing at the present time in the immediate neighbourhood of Crowland Abbey. As a bridge it is the greatest curiosity in Britain, if not in Europe. The monks in early times were the principal agriculturists, gardeners, and land-reclaimers, so likewise were they the principal church and bridge-builders. The triangular bridge of Crowland, however, could have been erected for no particularly useful purpose, for neither carriages nor horses can get over it, but usually pass underneath, which they can easily do as the arches are now quite dry. It was probably built to excite admiration and furnish a pretence for granting indulgences. It has been supposed that it was erected out of the offerings of pilgrims to the shrine of St.