9. MADAME DU DEFFANT.

MADAME DU DEFFANT was conspicuous in the gay circles of France, before the period of the first French Revolution. She bore a high character as a bel-esprit, and was distinguished for wit, whim, and talent. Yet, though the object of constant attention and flattery, she was the victim of ennui, and fatigued her friends by complaining of life as an intolerable burden. In the estimation of her most familiar acquaintance, this tedium was occasioned by her complete dissatisfaction with all the objects for which she had lived, and by her ignorance of the truths which alone can, in any case, render life dignified, and the prospect of death tolerable. In a letter to Horace Walpole, dictated in advanced life, she thus describes her dismal and dreary sensations:

"Tell me why, detesting life, I yet dread to die; nothing convinces me that anything will survive myself; on the contrary, I perceive the dissolution of my mind as well as that of my body. All that is said on the one side or the other makes no impression upon me; I only listen to my own sensations, and I find only doubt and obscurity. Believe,' I am told, 'that is the safest way;' but how can I believe that which I do not understand? If I am not pleased with others, I am still less so with myself. I have more difficulty in enduring myself than any one besides."

This state of mind was what might have been anticipated from the society in which she had, during life, delighted; that, namely, of Voltaire, Grimm, Hume, and the rest of the "philosophers." Her melancholy end was in precise accordance with the tenor of her life. Death seized her whilst in the act of playing at cards, in the midst of a circle of her gay and thoughtless friends.

So little concerned was the rest of the party at the solemn event which had just occurred, and so destitute of all human sensibility, with a hardened indifference rarely to be equalled, played out their game before they gave the alarm!

10. A DYING INFIDEL.

A CERTAIN individual who resided not far from Dudley, in Worcestershire, was for some years a steady and respectable professor of Christianity. During this time, he was a good father, a good neighbour, and a loyal subject. A wicked man, however, put into his hands Paine's

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Age of Reason," and Volney's “Ruins of Empires." He read these pernicious books, renounced Christianity, and became a bad father, a bad neighbour, a disloyal subject, and a ferocious infidel! At length, sickness seized him, and death stared him in the face. Before the period of his dissolution, some Christian friends, who had formerly united with him in the sweet duties. of devotion, resolved, if possible, to obtain access to him. With much difficulty they accomplished their object. They found him in a most deplorable state. Horror was depicted on his countenance, and he seemed determined not to be comforted. They spoke to him, in a suitable manner, respecting the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation. But he replied with fury, "It is too late; I have trampled on his blood!" They offered to pray with him; but he swore they should not. However, they kneeled down and presented their supplications to God in his behalf. And while, in this humble posture, they were pleading the merits of Jesus, the poor miserable infidel actually cursed God and died!

11. ALTAMONT.

"But that I am forbid

To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy warm blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood!"-SHAKSPEARE.

THE late Dr. Young, in an account of the last hours of a young man of rank and talents, whom he denominates Altamont, has described one of the most affecting deathbed scenes that ever was beheld :—

"The sad evening before the death of the noble Altamont, I was with him. No one was there but his physician, and an intimate friend whom he loved, and whom he had ruined. At my coming in he said: 'You and the physician are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. You both aim at miracles. You would raise the dead!' Heaven, I said, was merciful. Or I could not have been thus guilty. What has it not done to bless and to save me? I have been too strong for Omnipotence! I plucked down ruin!' I said, the blessed Redeemer Hold! hold! You wound me! This is the rock on which I split-I denied his name.'

"Refusing to hear anything from me, or to take anything from the physician, he lay silent as far as sudden darts of pain would permit, till the clock struck. Then with vehemence; O time! time! it is fit thou shouldst thus strike thy murderer to the heart. How art thou fled forever! A month! O for a single week! I ask not for years; though an age were too little for the much I have

to do.' On my saying we could not do too much; that heaven was a blessed place- So much the worse. 'Tis lost! 'tis lost! Heaven is to me the severest part of hell Soon after I proposed prayer. Pray you that can. I never prayed. I cannot pray-nor need I. Is not heaven on my side already? It closes with my conscience. Its severest strokes but second my own.'

"His friend being much touched, even to tears, at this, (who could forbear? I could not,) with a most affectionate look he said: 'Keep those tears for thyself. I have undone thee. Dost weep for me? That's cruel. What can pain me more?'

"Here his friend, too much affected, would have left him: No, stay, thou still mayest hope. Therefore hear me. How madly have I talked! How madly hast thou listened and believed! But look on my present state, as a full answer to thee, and to myself. This body is all weakness and pain: but my soul, as if stung up by torment to greater strength and spirit, is full powerful to reason, full mighty to suffer. And that which thus triumphs within the jaws of mortality, is, doubtless, immortal. And, as for a Deity, nothing less than an Almighty could inflict what I now feel.'

"I was about to congratulate this passive involuntary confessor, on his asserting two prime articles of his creed, extorted by the rack of nature; when he passionately exclaimed: No, no! let me speak on. I have not long to speak. My much-injured friend! my soul, as my body, lies in ruin-in scattered fragments of broken thought. Remorse for the past, throws my thoughts on the future; worse dread of the future, strikes them back on the past. I turn, and turn, and find no ray. Didst thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou wouldst struggle with the martyr for his stake, and bless heaven for the flame that is not an everlasting flame; that is not an unquenchable fire.'

"How were we struck? Yet, soon after, still more. With what an eye of distraction, what a face of despair, he cried out, 'My principles have poisoned my friend; my extravagance has beggared my boy; my unkindness has murdered my wife! And is there another hell? O! thou blasphemed, yet most indulgent, Lord God! Hell itself is a refuge, if it hide me from thy frown.'

"Soon after, his understanding failed. His terrified imagination uttered horrors not to be repeated, or ever forgot. And ere the sun arose, the gay, young, noble, ingenuous, accomplished, and most wretched Altamont, expired."

2. ANTITHEUS

MR. CUMBERLAND, in the " Observer," gives us one of the most mournful tales that ever was related, concerning a gentleman of infidel principles, whom he denominates Antitheus.

"I remember him," says he, "in the height of his fame, the hero of his party; no man so caressed, followed, and applauded; he was a little loose, his friends would own, in his moral character, but then he was the most honest fellow in the world; it was not to be denied that he was rather free in his notions, but then he was the best creature living. I have seen men of the gravest character wink at his sallies, because he was so pleasant and so well-bred, it was impossible to be angry with him. Everything went well with him, and Antitheus seemed to be at the summit of human prosperity, when he was suddenly seized with the most alarming symptoms: he was at his country-house, and (which had rarely happened to him) he at that time chanced to be alone; wife or family he had none, and out of the multitude of his friends no one happened to be near him at the moment