shrub, grows in Van Diemen's Land to the height of 200 feet, and as a trunk from thirty to forty feet in circumference, the wood resembling cedar. THE HUMAN BRAIN.-Aristotle says that man has the largest brain of all animals in proportion to the size of his body, but modern anatomists tell us that he was wrong, for that the canary bird far exceeds us in proportional weight of brain.-Sommering. MAISONS DES BAINS.-The warm bath is one of the most valuable, but most neglected, remedies which we possess, and if taken under proper restriction, is highly conducive to health. On the continent bathing-houses are almost as numerous as the chemists' and druggists' shops are in this country; the inference necessarily is, that bathing in France is as much patronized as physic is in England. DOLCOATH MINE.-This magnificent copper mine in Cornwall employs underground 750 persons, consumes monthly 3,000 pounds of gunpowder, and 5,000 pounds of candles. The pumps bring up daily 120,000 cubic feet of water. ADIEU.-In using this expression, which habit has rendered trivial, few persons recollect its real origin and meaning, and that in pronouncing it they recommend their friends, à Dieu, to the protection of God. CHOICE OF TIME AND IDLENESS.-He that is choice of his time will also be choice of his company, and choice of his actions. Idleness is the burial of a living man.-Jeremy Taylor. A NOBLE REPLY.-Henry VIII. sent for Sir Thomas Moore once when he was attending public worship. Sir Thomas returned answer, that he would wait upon him when he had first performed his service to the King of Kings. GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENON.-A Newfoundland paper relates several striking facts, from which it appears that the whole of that island is rising out of the ocean with a rapidity which threatens at no distant period, to destroy many of its best harbours. A similar upheaving, but much more slow, has been going on in Sweden for many years. A SMART REPARTEE.-A gentleman was condoling with a lady on the loss of her husband, but finding that she treated it with indifference, suddenly exclaimed-" O, very well, madam, if that be the way you take it, I care just as little about it as you!" KNOW THYSELF.-How can a man know himself? Through contemplation never, but rather through action. Endeavour to do thy duty, and thou will know thy capacity. But what is thy duty? The exigencies of the day.-Goethe. A PUZZLE.-In a house not 100 miles from Boothtown, are living. at present-one grandfather, one grandmother, one father, four mothers, three sisters, five brothers, six uncles, three aunts, five nephews, six nieces, eight cousins, five sons, six daughters, one sisterin-law, one brother-in-law, three granddaughters, one widow, and one widower-total sixty-one; and there are only thirteen persons in the whole.-Halifax Guardian. Births. On the 2nd ult., at Feltham. hill, Middlesex, the wife of William Sheffield, Esq., late of the Madras Civil Service, of a daughter.-8th, at the vicaragehouse, Bakewell, Derbyshire, the lady of the Rev. H. K. Cornish, of a son.-8th, at Duloe Rectory, Cornwall, the wife of the Rev. Paul Bush, of a son.-10th, at Ballandine-house, Aberdeenshire, the Lady Cochrane, of a son and heir.-11th, at Elton Rectory, near Oundle, Mrs. Piers C. Claughton, of a son.-12th, at Lodsworth, the wife of the Rev. Leopold Stanley Clarke, of a son.-13th, at Carlton-lodge, Clapham, the wife of the Rev. H. J. Vernon, of a daughter. Marriages.-On the 10th ult., at St. James's, Piccadilly, by the Rev. T. Beames, preacher and assistant of St. James's Piccadilly, Frederick G. T. Deshon, Esq., 48th Regiment, A.D.C., son of Major Deshon, to Mary, only daughter of the late William Hooten Deverill, of Newton, Notts.-10th, at the parish church, Bicester, by the Rev. J. W. Watts, M.A., vicar, Jonathan Mellor, Esq., of Gnat-bank, near Rochdale, to Henrietta Maria, daughter of the late William Deakins, Esq., of Pimlico, London.-12th, at Trinity Church, Paddington, by the Rev. L. J. Bernays, M.A., the Rev. Thomas Podmore, M.A., fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, eldest son of Robert Podmore, Esq., of Clapton-square, Hackney, to Georgina Elizabeth, youngest daughter of George Gray Barton, Esq., of Westbourne-terrace. -15th, at St. George's Hanover-square, William Hurd Aldam, Esq., of Sheffield, to Maria Theresa, youngest daughter of H. Hulbert, Esq., of Park-lane. Deaths. On the 4th ult., at Newtonhouse, Aberdeenshire, Sarah Forbes, the wife, of Alexander Gordon, Esq., of Newton.-4th, in a fit of apoplexy, on board the Fortitude, off Portsmouth, Captain John Christmas, sincerely and deservedly lamented by all who knew him, aged 46.9th, at Gledstone, Yorkshire, Mary Anne, second daughter of the late Rev. William Roundell.-11th, at Princess-st., Hanoversquare, Captain R. H. Glyn, late of the Grenadier Guards, aged 32.-12th, at his residence, 22, Bread-street, London, James Duncan, Esq., much regretted by a numerous circle of friends, and much respected, being for many years a member of the Common Council of the city of London.-13th, at the Grove, Carshalton, Mercy, widow of the late Thomas Edwards, Esq., LL.D., in the 59th year of her age. Her life was remarkable for self-denial, and kindness to her friends and the poor.-14th, very suddenly, Dora, the infant daughter of Charles Dickens, Esq BY THE AUTHOR OF THE "MASS DIRGE OF NORMAN LESLIE," AND A "LEGEND OF FRA DIEGO." All DURING the reign of Charles II, the invisible and vindictive power of the Inquisition was at its zenith. It had completely succeeded in rebarbarizing every class of the Spanish nation. society was overcast with the grossest ignorance-all intellectual culture was discountenanced or punished-all enlightenment, intelligence, or refinement of taste were denounced, and the moral constitution of the entire population corrupted. But in this dead tideless sea of recreated ignorance, the most horrible images of superstition wallowed like the primeval monsters in the gloom of chaos. The stagnant lake of ignorance became the "procreant cradle" of credulity and fear, and the minions of the holy office did not fail to people its solitudes with supernatural inhabitants. Whilst they anathematized the practice, they taught a firm belief in the occult sciences; magic and sorcery and demoniacal associations were subjects of constant inculcation. The exorcism of individuals, for the expulsion of evil spirits, was a frequent as well as a favourite recreation of the priests; and the higher the rank or quality of the possessed, with all the more unction and solemnity was the cruel ceremony performed. The poor N. S. VOL. XXX. D D imbecile king, Charles II, as well as his more energetic but equally superstitious predecessor Philip, were both subjected to this degrading ceremonial. In short, the ferocious and sanguinary tribunal had now established a universal dominion throughout Spain, and the meanest as well as the highest circles submitted to this spiritual vassalage. Neither did the ambition of the church end in subjugating the minds of the people, as when did ever an irresponsible priesthood or oligarchy? The national and personal liberty of Spain and of Spaniard sank beneath the feet of the poorest mendicant friar. In the civil, military, and judicial arrangements of the government, the principal appointments to office rested on the influence of the Church. In all the intrigues of the court, and affairs of the royal household, the moving spirit was the same. When it became a matter of certainty that Charles II. would have no children, and that the succession to the crown involved a change in the dynasty of Spain, the interest of the church was a matter to be eagerly purThese chased by the parties having claims on the royal inheritance. were the Emperor Leopold of Austria, Louis XIV. of France, and the Elector of Bavaria. The two first, being the most powerful and wealthy families, soon outstripped their poorer fellow ligitant in the contest. By the most open and avowed bribery, they created and maintained, during the latter years of Charles's miserable reign, two powerful adverse parties in Madrid. The Infanta, Maria Theresa, aunt of Charles, had been forced, for political purposes of course, to espouse that precocious voluptuary, Louis XIV. of France, at a very immature age. The inauspicious union received the benediction of the Church on 3rd June 1660; one of the conditions in the contract was, that the parties should renounce for themselves and their heirs all right of succession to the Spanish throne, and that as an equivalent, Louis should receive from the coffers of Spain a moderate annual dowry. It was exactly forty years after this marriage, so destructive to the happiness of one of the parties, that the young and beautiful queen of the almost idiotic Charles II. died suddenly of a strange and unknown disease. This lady Louisa d'Orleans had also been sacrificed on the plea of political expediency, but was as much beloved by Charles as it was possible for a nature so gloomy and an intellect so deranged to love. Her death affected him much, the more so as the French party, at the head of which was the chief inquisitor Recamberti and the Cardinal Portocarrero, industriously propagated a rumour that the queen's death was from poison, administered by the emissaries of Austria. From this period the peace of the king was continually invaded by the machinations of both parties, to induce him to declare in favour of one of them as his successor. Charles, however, irritated perhaps by such constant importunity, passed by both the claimants, and made choice of Leopold, the young prince of Bavaria. The selection was fatal to the youth. Not many days after the announcement at his father's court, he was carried off by a disease as mysterious, but involving similar symptoms and indicia as that by which Louisa d'Orleans perished. Years passed on; Charles became still more and more the victim of hypochondriacism; and with broken health and a mind shattered to pieces, he was inhumanly forced into a second marriage through the devices of the Austrian party. Mary Anne of Neuberg became his second wife, and the active agent of Austria. Meantime Recamberti, Portocarrero, and the Count de Montery, were vigilant and unscrupulous. All the fearfully dismal machinery of superstition were played off upon the credulous sovereign; he was continually tormented and alarmed by spectral delusions, ventriloquial sounds, and the application of the tremendous terms and appalling inquiry of the exorcist, all inviting him to settle the questio vexata of the succession in favour of the children of his aunt, the Infanta Maria Theresa. Amongst other instruments in this barbarous mental persecution was employed a certain Dominican monk, named Roylan Diaz, of an extremely forbidding appearance, having a loud but doleful tone of voice, and an eye of such deep concentrated burning darkness, that it had the effect of fascination on all it lighted on. This man had, in the monastic seclusions of the convent, and whilst living as an eremite amongst the lonely mountains of Catalonia, made the science of chemistry (or alchemy, as it was then called) his chief study. He was also an astrologer and an adept in animal magnetism, and singularly well skilled as an herbalist. Him the confederated adherents of Louis installed as the king's confessor, and he did his cruel "spiriting" well-so well, that Charles, under the tortures of mental terror and excruciating bodily disease, became a confirmed maniac; and after an appeal to the Pope, for the satisfaction of his scruples respecting the succession, and the disinheriting of his own family, viz., that of Austria, he conceived the project of seeking the counsel of his dead father and mother in the shades of the pantheon at Escurial. Some show of resistance, it was said, was offered to this design at first by the court physicians, but overruled by Roylan Diaz, who was the originator. Doubtless this miscreant calculated on the horrors, real and artificial, with which he was prepared to invest this gloomy pilgrimage, as sufficient to effect the total overthrow of the fragments of intelligence the unhappy king seemed at intervals to possess: and he calculated rightly; for in a month afterwards Charles occupied en permanence a niche in the gorgeous but dreary vault to which his morbid feelings had casually led him. He died a few days after signing the settlement of his crown on the young Duke of Anjou, the grandchild of Maria Theresa, who thus became the first of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain. The following legend does not materially differ from the narrative of facts presented by Lord Mahon in his "Wars of the Spanish Succession": ROYAL DIAZ. ROYAL DIAZ, the confessor, was an alchemist of might- |