"I told your lordship, in my last, the Bishop of Ely was appointed by his majesty to attend the Duke of Monmouth, and to prepare him to die the next day. The duke wrote to his majesty, representing how usefull he might and would be, if his majesty would be pleased to grant him his life. But, if it might not be, he desired a longer time, and to have another divine to assist him, Dr. Tenison, or whom else the king should appoint. The king sent him the Bishop of Bath and Wells to attend, and to tell him he must die the next morning. The two bishops sate up in his chamber all night, and watcht whilst he slept. In the morning, by his majesty's orders, the lords Privy Seale and Dartmouth brought him also Dr. Tenison and Dr. Hooper. All these were with him till he died.

"They got him to owne the king's title to the crown, and to declare in writing that the last king told him he was never married to his mother, and by word of mouth to acknowledge his invasion was sin; but could never get him to confess it was a rebellion. They got him to owne that he and Lady Harriot Wentworth had lived in all points like man and wife; but they could not make him confess it was adultery. He acknowledged that he and his duchess were married by the law of the land, and therefore his children might inherit, if the king pleased; but he did not consider what he did when he married her. He confest that he had lived many years in all sorts of debauchery, but said he had repented of it, askt pardon, and doubted not that God had forgiven him. He said, that since that time he had an affection for Lady Harriot, and prayed that if it were pleasing to God, it might continue, otherwise that it might cease; and God heard his prayer. The affection did continue, and therefore he doubted not it was pleasing to God; and that this was a marriage, their choice of one another being guided not by lust, but by judgment, upon due consideration. They endeavoured to show him the falsehood and mischievousness of this enthusiasticall principle; but he told them it was his opinion, and he was fully satisfied in it. After all, he desired them to give him the communion next morning. They told him they could not do it, while he was in that error and sin. He said he was sorry for it.

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"The next morning, he told them he had prayed that if he was in an error in that matter, God would convince him of it; but God had not convinced him, and therefore he believed it was no error.

"When he was upon the scaffold, he profest himself a Protestant of the Church of England. They told him he could not be so, if he did not owne the doctrine of the Church of England in the point of non-resistance, and if he persisted in that enthusiastic persuasion. He said he could not help it, but yet he approved the doctrine of the Church in all other things. He then spoke to the people, in vindication of the Lady Harriot, saying she was a woman of great honour and virtue, a religious, godly lady (these were his words). They told him of his living in adultery with her. He said-No: for these two yeers last past he had not lived in any sin that he knew of, and that he had never wronged any person; and that he was sure, when he died, to go to God, and therefore he did not fear death, which (he said) they might see in his face. Then they prayd for him, and he kneeld down and joind with them. After all, they had a short prayer for the king, at which he paused, but at last said Amen. He spoke to the headsman to see he did his business well, and not use him as he did the Lord Russell, to give him 2 or 3 strokes; for if he did, he should not be able to lie still without turning. Then he gave the executioner 6 ginnies, and 4 to one Marshall, a servant of Sir T. Armstrong's, that attended him with the king's leave: desiring Marshall to give them the executioner if he did his work well, and not otherwise. He gave this Marshall overnight his ring and watch, and now he gave him his case of pickteeth; all for Lady Harriot. Then he laid himself down; and upon the signe given, the headsman gave a light stroke, at which he lookt him in the face; then he laid him down again, and the headsman gave him 2 strokes more, and then layd down the ax, saying he could not finish his work; till being threatened by the sheriff and others then present, he took up the ax again, and at 2 strokes more cut off his head.

"All this true as to matter of fact, and it needs no comment to your lordship. I desire your prayers, and remain, "Your lordship's most affectionate,

"W. ASAPH."

To this sorry complexion came the ambitious projects of one whom the pen of history points to as "the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth." One of his children died in the Tower, but the two others were liberated in the following year.

has given a good account of these extraordinary tribunals and their jurisdiction, which he took in great measure from a work nearly forgotten, styled "De Arte Amatoria et Reprobatione Amoris," written by Maistre André, Chaplain at the Royal Court of France, about 1170.

The Courts of Love consisted of an indefinite number of married ladies, presided by a princess, or wife of a sovereign baron. The Countess of Champagne assembled one of sixty ladies. Nostradamus mentions ten ladies as sitting in the court of Signa in Provence, twelve in that of Romanin, fourteen in Avignon. Knights also sometimes sat in them. Queen Eleanor, consort of Louis VII., and afterwards of Henry H. of England, held a Court of Love. This princess, who was niece to the celebrated Count of Poictiers, was the means of spreading in northern France the gallantry and customs of the south, greatly to the scandal of the old French Walloon knights; she encouraged the Troubadours, who sung her praises, especially Bernard de Ventadour, who continued to address his verses to her after she was Queen of England. Her daughter Mary, wife of Henry Count of Champagne, presided likewise over several Courts of Love, as well as Sybilla of Anjou, Countess of Flanders, also in the twelfth century, and Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne.

The Troubadours had invented, among other species of compositions, one which they called Tenson, probably from the Latin contentio, which was a sort of dialogue in verse between two poets, who questioned each other on some refined points of love's casuistry, such as "one lover is jealous and feels alarmed at a straw, another is so confident of his mistress's faith that he does not perceive even just motives of suspicion; it is asked, which of the two feels most love, &c. ?" The answers were equally ingenious, and the debate was often referred to the courts of love for a final decision. Those decisions were registered and formed a sort of statute book of the "gay science." These tensons were also called joulx d'amour, and the decisions Lous arrets d'amours. Raymond de Miraval and Bertrand d'Allamanon had a tenson in which the question was, "which of the two nations, Provençal or Lombard, meaning thereby Italian, was the most noble?" Raymond sustained the cause of the Provençals as having produced a greater number of poets or Troubadours. The question was brought before the Court

of Pierre-a-feu and Signe, and was of course decided in favour of Provence.

But other and less hypothetical matters were also brought before the courts of love for final judgment. Lovers complaining of the infidelity of their mistresses, ladies complaining of their lovers' neglect, or wishing to have an authorization to free themselves from their chains, these appealed often in person to the courts of love with as much earnestness and gravity as an injured husband would sue before our courts for a separation or divorce. The court, it appears, summoned the accused, who submitted to its authority, although it was supported only by opinion. One knight brought a charge of venality against a lady for having accepted costly presents from him without making him any returns in kindness. Queen Eleanor's decision was that, a lady ought either not to accept presents, or make a due return for them. The influence of Provençal manners on chivalry is remarkable in as much as instead of combats and other romantic feats, disputes of jealousy and rivalry between knights were often quietly submitted to the decision of a female tribunal.

The morality, if we may use such a misnomer, of the Courts of Love, was a code of licentiousness and adultery, mixed with an affected display of refined sentimentality. It strictly corresponds with the practice of cicisbeism, which has so long prevailed in the South of Europe, only still less veiled than it is in modern times. The unblushing effrontery with which ladies expressed their sentiments on the subject is astonishing, even to us who have witnessed the familiarity of the cavalieri serventi and cortejos of the two southern peninsulas. A few extracts from the questions brought before the Courts of Love, and of the judgment passed thereon, will bear us out fully in our expression of unqualified reprobation of the whole system.

A question was laid before the Countess of Champagne, whether love can exist between husband and wife? The countess, after prefacing that she and her other ladies were always ready to give advice to those who might otherwise err in the articles of love, decided that "there can be no love in the state of matrimony, because, unlike free lovers who act from their own will and favour, married people are bound to accede to their mutual wishes, and cannot deny one another. There can be no jealousy between them, and, accord

ing to rules, without jealousy there can be no love: ergo, &c." And this precious decision from a lady of the highest rank, herself married, is dated A. D. 1164, Kalend. Maii.

A young lady, after being in love with a knight, has married another; is she obliged to keep away her first lover, and refuse her favour to him? The answer of Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne, is, that the marriage bond does not exclude by right the former attachment, unless the lady declare that she meant to abjure love for ever.

Again a knight fell in love with a lady already engaged to another: she however promised him, that if she ever ceased to love his rival, she should take him into favour. After a short time the lady married her first lover. The knight now required the fulfilment of her promise; the lady refused, saying, that although married, she still loved her husband. This was referred as a knotty point to Queen Eleanor, who replied thus: "We do not presume to contradict the sentence of the Countess of Champagne, who has solemnly pronounced that there can be no true love in wedlock. We therefore are of opinion that the lady in question should grant her love to the wooing knight."

There was a code of love, by which the decisions of the courts were chiefly guided. A fabulous legend was related of its being found by a knight of King Arthur's court, suspended by a gold chain from a tree. This code contained thirty-one articles.

Discretion, however, was strongly inculcated to the favoured lover, and one of the articles of the code of love says, "amor raro consuevit durare vulgatus." Violence was also reprobated. In short, things had been contrived so as to constitute an easy system of refined profligacy. And many of these Troubadours went over to Palestine, singing pious themes and erotic lays on the same harp!

Several causes contributed, in the thirteenth century, to the suppression of the Courts of Love, the dispersion of the Troubadours, and the extinction of the langue d'Oc. The terrible wars of religion against the Albigenses, the sword of De Montfort, and the fagots of the Inquisitors, scared away poetry and love, such as it was, from those desolate countries. Afterwards Charles of Anjou, Count of Provence, having re moved to Naples, took with him many of the knights, ladies, and Troubadours, to grace his new court. Italian became the favourite language of the Anjou

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dynasty at Naples. Joanna I., during her forced residence in Provence, endeavoured to revive the study of Provençal poetry, but in vain; and when thirty years after she adopted Louis, son of King John, who was the head of the second house of Anjou, that prince, who thus became possessed of Provence, spoke the langue d'Oil, or of northern France, and had no taste for the Provençal, the language of his adopted country. His grandson René, also, Count of Provence in the fifteenth century, with whom the great northern romancer has lately made us so well acquainted, made some attempts at reviving the poetry of the langue d'Oc; but the race of the Trobadours was now extinct, and the only result was collecting and compiling the lives of the old Troubadours, by the Monk of the isles of Hyeres, and after him by Hugues de St. Cesaire.

A Prince of Love continued to be elected yearly by the nobility of the South of France, until the period of the Revolution. He imposed a fine on those noblemen and ladies who married out of their country. This fine was called pelote, and is found registered in several arrêtes of the Parliament of Aix.-Foreign Quarterly Review.

MIRRORS.

"Ista repercussæ, quam cernis, imaginis umbra est."-OVID's Narcissus.

WHEN mankind were in a state of primeval simplicity, enjoying the pure pleasures of a rural life, and content with those luxuries and conveniences which the spontaneous hand of Nature offered, it is obvious, they would soon discover that transparent water had the power of reflecting substantial bodies. To the female sex, who are ever ingenious in improving their native charms, we may give the credit of this natural discovery. The beauties of the antediluvian world, not suffocated by the heated atmosphere of a dressing-room, nor flattered by a brilliant looking-glass illumined by a constellation of half-a-dozen wax tapers, used to make their toilette on the margin of a silver-eddying stream, or by the side of a clear pellucid fountain.Those aboriginal daughters of Nature, "free as the vital air or light of heaven," gave their long streaming hair to be fanned by the refreshing breezes, nor feared they lest it should be discomposed by the heated vortex of a crowded apartment, or the enervating puffs of a ballroom. It is almost superfluous to apprize our fair readers, that in the infant state of society, when the chief substance