Neither gratitude, clemency, humanity, equity, nor generosity, have place in the fair part of Charles's character; of the virtues of temperance, fortitude, and personal bravery he was undeniably possessed. His manners partook of dissipation, and his conversation of the indecency of a court. His chastity has been called in question, by an author of the highest repute; and were it allowed, it was tainted by an excess of uxoriousness, which gave it the properties and the consequences of vice. The want of integrity is manifest in every part of his conduct; which, whether the corruption of his judgment or heart, lost him fair opportunities of reinstatement on the throne, and was the vice for which above all others he paid the tribute of his life. His intellectual powers were naturally good, and so improved by a continual exercise, that though in the beginning of his reign he spoke with difficulty and hesitation, towards the close of his life he discovered in his writings purity of language and dignity of style; in his debates, elocution, and quickness of perception. The high opinion he entertained of regal dignity occasioned him to observe a stateliness and imperiousness in his manner; which, to the rational and intelligent, was unamiable and offensive; by the weak and formal it was mistaken for dignity.

In the exercise of horsemanship he excelled; had a good taste, and even skill, in several of the polite arts; but though a proficient in some branches of literature, was no encourager of useful learning, and only patronized adepts in jargon of the divine right, and utility of kings and bishops. His understanding in this point was so depraved by the prejudices of his education, the flattery of priests, and the affections of his heart, that he would never endure conversation which tended to inculcate the principles of equal right in men; and notwithstanding that the particularity of his situation enforced his attention to doctrines of this kind, he went out of the world with the same fond prejudices with which he had been fostered in his nursery, and cajoled in the zenith of his power.

Charles was of a middle stature, his body strong, healthy, and justly proportioned; and his aspect melancholy, yet not unpleasing. His surviving issue were three sons and three daughters. He was executed in the 49th year of his-age, and buried, by the appointment of the parliament, at Windsor, decently, yet without pomp. Macaulay.

THE VULTURE AND HIS CHILDREN.

"My children," said an old vulture to his young ones, "you will the less want my instructions, because you have had my practice before your eyes: you have seen me snatch from the farm the household fowls, you have seen me seize the leveret in the bush, and the kid in the pasture; you know how to fix your talons, and how to balance your flight when you are laden with your prey. But you remember the taste of more delicious food. I have often regaled you with the flesh of man."-"Tell us," said the young vultures, "where man may be found, and how he may be known; his flesh is surely the natural food of a vulture. Why have you never brought a man in your talons to the nest?""He is too bulky," said the vulture; “when we find a man we can only tear away his flesh, and leave his bones upon the ground."-"Since man is so big," said the young ones, "how do you kill him? You are afraid of the wolf and of the bear; by what power are vultures superior to man? Is man more defenceless than a sheep?"-"We have not the strength of man," returned the vulture, "and I am sometimes in doubt whether we have the subtlety; and the vultures would seldom feast upon his flesh, had not nature, that devoted him to our uses, infused into him a strange ferocity, which I have never observed in any other being that feeds upon the earth. Two herds of men will often meet and .shake the earth with noise, and fill the air with fire. When you hear noise, and see fire, with flashes along the ground, hasten to the place with your swiftest wing, for men are surely destroying

one another; you will then find the ground smoking with blood, and covered with carcasses, of which many are dismembered and mangled for the convenience of the vulture."-"But when men have killed their prey," said the pupil, "why do they not eat it? When the wolf has killed a sheep, he suffers not the vulture to touch it till he has satisfied himself. Is not man another kind of wolf?"—"Man," said the old vulture, "is the only beast who kills that which he does not devour, and this quality makes him so much a benefactor to our species."-"If man kill our prey, and lay it in our way," said the young one, "what need shall we have of labouring for ourselves?"-"Because man will, sometimes, remain for a long time quiet in his den. The old vultures will tell you when you are to watch his motions. When you see men in great numbers moving close together, like a flight of storks, you will soon revel in human blood."-"But still," said the young one, "I would gladly know the reason of this mutual slaughter; I would never kill what I could not eat.". "My child," said the vulture, "this is a question which I cannot answer, though I am reckoned the most subtle bird of the mountain. When I was young, I used frequently to visit the eyry of an old vulture who dwelt upon the Carpathian rocks; he had made many observations; he knew the places that afforded prey round his habitation, as far in every direction as the strongest wing can fly between the rising and the setting of the summer sun; he had fed year after year on the entrails of men. His opinion was, that men had only the appearance of animal life, being really vegetables with a power of motion; and that, as the boughs of an oak are dashed together by the storm, that swine may fatten upon the fallen acorns, so men are by some unaccountable power driven one against another, till they lose their motion, that vultures may be fed. Others think they have observed something of contrivance and policy among these mischievous beings; and those that hover most closely round them pretend that there is, in every herd, one that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more

eminently delighted with a wide carnage. What it is that entitles him to such pre-eminence we know not; he is seldom the biggest or the swiftest, but he shows by his eagerness and diligence that he is, more than any of the others, a friend of the vultures."

CATHARINE I., EMPRESS OF RUSSIA.

Johnson.

Catharine, born near Dorpat, a little city in Livonia, was heiress to no other inheritance than the virtues and frugality of her parents. Her father being dead, she lived with her aged mother in their cottage covered with straw; and both, though very poor, were very contented. Here, retired from the gaze of the world, by the labour of her hands she supported her parent, who was now incapable of supporting herself. While Catharine spun, the old woman would sit by and read some book of devotion; thus, when the fatigues of the day were over, both would sit down contentedly by their fireside.

Though her face and person were models of perfection, yet her whole attention seemed bestowed upon her mind; her mother taught her to read, and an old Lutheran minister instructed her in the maxims and duties of religion. Nature had furnished her not only with a strong but a right understanding. Such accomplishments procured her several solicitations of marriage from the peasants of the country; but their offers were refused; for she loved her mother too tenderly to think of a separation.

Catharine was fifteen when her mother died; she now therefore left her cottage, and went to live with the Lutheran minister, by whom she had been instructed from her childhood. In his house she resided in quality of governess to his children, at once reconciling in her character unerring prudence with surprising vivacity.

The old man, who regarded her as one of his own children, had her instructed in dancing and music by the masters who attended the rest of his family; thus

she continued to improve till he died, by which accident she was once more reduced to pristine poverty. The country of Livonia was at this time wasted by war, and lay in a most miserable state of desolation. Those calamities are ever most heavy upon the poor; wherefore Catharine, though possessed of so many accomplishments, experienced all the miseries of hopeless indigence. Provisions becoming every day more scarce, and her private stock being exhausted, she resolved at last to travel to Marienburgh, a city of greater plenty.

With her scanty wardrobe packed up in a wallet, she set out on her journey on foot; she was to walk through a region miserable by nature, but rendered still more hideous by the Swedes and Russians, who plundered it at discretion: but hunger had taught her to despise the dangers and fatigues of the way.

One evening upon her journey, as she entered a cottage by the wayside, to take up her lodging for the night, 'she was insulted by two Swedish soldiers, but a subaltern officer accidentally passing by came in to her assistance; upon his appearing, the soldiers immediately desisted; but her thankfulness was hardly greater than her surprise, when she instantly recollected in her deliverer, the son of the Lutheran minister, her former instructor, benefactor, and friend.

This was a happy interview for Catharine; the little stock of money she had brought from home was by this time quite exhausted; her clothes were gone, piece by piece, in order to satisfy those who had entertained her in their houses; her generous countryman, therefore, parted with what he could spare, to buy her clothes, furnished her with a horse, and gave her letters of recommendation to Mr. Gluck, a faithful friend of his father's and superintendent at Marienburgh.

Our beautiful stranger had only to appear to be well received; she was immediately admitted into the superintendent's family, as governess to his two daughters; and though yet but seventeen, shewed herself capable of instructing them, not only in virtue, but in politeness.