Elizabeth; not with the ostentation of a Pharisee, but the holy benevolence of a dying Christian. At the conclusion of her last prayer, she rose and holding up the crucifix, exclaimed, "As Thy arms, O Christ! were extended on the cross, even so, receive me into the arms of Thy mercy, and blot out all my sins with thy most precious blood." "Madam," interrupted the Earl of Kent, "it were better for you to eschew such popish trumpery, and bear Him in your heart." "Can I," she mildly answered, "hold the representation of the sufferings of my crucified Redeemer in my hand, without bearing him, at the same time in my heart?"

The two executioners seeing her preparing to make herself ready for the block, knelt before her and prayed her forgiveness. "I forgive you and all the world with all mine heart," she replied, " for I hope this death will give an end to all my troubles." They offered to assist her in removing her mantle: but she drew back, and requested them not to touch her, observing with a smile, "I have not been accustomed to be served by such pages of honour, nor to disrobe before so numerous a company." Then beckoning to Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle, who were on their knees in tears below, they came to her on the scaffold; but when they saw for what purpose they were required, they began to scream and cry, and were too much agitated at first, to render her the assistance she required, so that she began to take out the pins herself, a thing to which she was not accustomed. "Do not weep," said she, tenderly reproving them, "I am very happy to leave this world. You ought to rejoice to see me die in so good a cause. Are you not ashamed to weep? Nay, if you do not

give over these lamentations, I must send you away, for you know I have promised for you."

66

Then she took off her gold pomander, chain and rosary, which she had previously desired one of her ladies to convey to the Countess of Arundel as a last token of her regard. The executioner seized it and secreted it in his shoe. Jane Kennedy, with the resolute spirit of a brave Scotch lassie, snatched it from him, and a struggle ensued. Mary, mildly interposing, said, "Friend, let her have it, she will give you more than its value in money:" but he sullenly replied, "It is my perquisite." "It would have been strange indeed," observes our authority, with sarcastic bitterness, if this poor Queen had met with courtesy from an English hangman, who had experienced so little from the nobles of that country witness the Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife." Before Mary proceeded further in her prěparations for the block, she took a last farewell of her weeping ladies, kissing, embracing, and blessing them, by signing them with the cross, which benediction they received on their knees. Her upper garments being removed, she remained in her petticoat of crimson velvet and camisole which laced behind, and covered her arms with a pair of crimson velvet sleeves. Jane Kennedy now drew from her pocket the gold-bordered handkerchief Mary had given her to bind her eyes. Within this, she placed a Corpus Christi cloth, probably the same in which the consecrated wafer sent her by the Pope had been enveloped. Jane folded it cornerwise, kissed it, and with trembling hands prepared to execute this last office; but she and her companion burst into a fresh paroxysm of hysterical sobbing and crying.

Mary placed her finger on her lips, reprovingly. "Hush," said she, "I have promised for you, weep not, but pray for me." When they had pinned the handkerchief over the face of their beloved mistress, they were compelled to withdraw from the scaffold; and she was left alone to close up the tragedy of life by herself, which she did with her wonted courage and devotion. Kneeling on the cushion, she repeated in her usual clear, firm voice, - "In te Domine speravi," "In thee, Lord, have I hoped, let me never be put to confusion." Being then guided by the executioners to find the block, she bowed her head upon it intrepidly, exclaiming as she did so, "In manus tuas," ," "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." The Earl of Shrewsbury raised his baton in performance of his duty as Earl Marshal, and gave the signal for the coup de grace, but he averted his head at the same time, and covered his face with his hand to conceal his agitation and streaming tears. A momentary pause ensued: for the executioner's assistant perceived that the Queen, grasping the block firmly with both hands, was resting her chin upon them; and that they must have been cut off, or mangled if he had not removed them, which he did by drawing them down and holding them tightly in his own, while his companion struck her with the axe, a cruel but ineffectual blow. Agitated alike by the courage of the royal victim, and the sobs and groans of the sympathising spectators, he missed his aim, and inflicted a deep wound on the side of the skull. She neither screamed nor stirred; but her sufferings were too sadly testified by the convulsion of her features, when, after the third blow, the butcher work was accomplished, and the

severed head, streaming with blood, was held up to the gaze of the people. "God save Queen Elizabeth!" cried the executioner; "So let all her enemies perish !" exclaimed the Dean of Peterborough: one solitary voice alone responded "Amen!" it was that of the Earl of Kent. The silence, the tears, and the groans of the witnesses of the tragedy, yea, even of the very assistants in it, proclaimed the feelings with which it had been regarded. Agnes Strickland's Lives of the Queens of Scotland.

-

CROSSING THE ATLANTIC.

To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy till you step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another world.

I have said that all at sea is vacancy. I should correct the expression. To one given up to daydreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then, they are the wonders of the deep, and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter railing, or climb to the main-top on a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summer sea; or to gaze upon the piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own; or to watch the gentle undulating billows rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores.

There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe, with which I looked down from my height on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols. Shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus slowly heaving his huge form above the surface; or the ravenous shark darting like a spectre through the blue waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me; of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth; and those wild phantasms, that swell the tales of fishermen and sailors.

Sometimes a distant sail gliding along the edge of the ocean would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a world hastening to join the great mass of existence! What a glorious monument of human invention, that has thus triumphed over wind and wave; has brought the ends of the earth in communion; has established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile regions of the north all the luxuries of the south; diffusing the light of knowledge and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus bound together those scattered portions of the human race, between which Nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier.

We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance. At sea, everything that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have been completely wrecked; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their being washed