the sorest of all their afflictions; their estate was gone before, and now their only child was gone also; you may guess at their great grief and sorrow.

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One morning after the child's funeral, her husband being abroad, Mrs. Leaky, the younger, went up into her chamber to dress her head, and as she was looking in the glass, she spies her mother-in-law, the old beldam, looking over her shoulder. This cast her into a great horror, but recollecting herself, and recovering her reason, having cast up a short silent prayer to God, she turns about and speaks to her. In the name of God, mother, why do you trouble my peace?" Saith the spectre, "I will do thee no hurt." -"What would you have of me?" saith the daughter Why,' saith the spectre, "thou must go over to Ireland, and visit thy uncle, the lord bishop of Waterford, and tell him, that unless he does repent of the sin whereof he knows himself guilty, he shall be hanged.""-" Mother, saith she, “this is a thriftless errand that you send me about; my uncle is a great man, and if I should deliver him such an idle message, I should but render myself ridiculous: pray, mother, what is the sin whereof he is guilty, and must repent of, or be hanged ?"Why," saith she, "if you will know, it is murder; for, when he lodged at my brother's house at Barnstaple, he, being then married to my sister, got my brother's daughter with child, and I delivered her of a girl, which as soon as he had baptized, I pinched the throat of it, and strangled it; and he smoked it over a pan of charcoal that it might not stink, and it was buried in the chamber of the house."-"Oh! but, mother," replies young Mrs. Leaky, there is nobody will carry me over; for if any of our family or goods be in a ship, you appear and raise a storm, and they are all cast away.' To this the spectre retorts, "Thou shalt go, and return again, in safety; and I give thee thirty days for thy voyage; but see that thou deliver the message to the bishop that I have told thee.' Upon this, the daughter takes heart, and speaks to her, Pray, mo ther, where be you now, in Heaven or

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in hell?" At which words the spirit looked very stern upon her, but gave her no answer, and immediately vanished out of sight, and never troubled her more.

A while after, her husband coming home, she relates to him all this dialogue, and the commission that was given her, and demands his advice in it, who tells her he would have her go; but the young woman, before she would go for Ireland, consults some godly ministers about it, to whom she discovers all the aforesaid circumstances, and they considering the whole, advise her also to go over to Waterford. She crosseth over in the next ship, and goes strait to the bishop's palace, where she meets his lordship in the hall, and delivers him the message she was enjoined, who makes no other reply than this, That if he was born to be hanged, he should not be drowned."

And she, not being invited to drink, or stay in the palace one night, takes the first opportunity of a ship sailing to Minehead, and returns home again in a very few days to her own house, and being known to be come back from Ireland, she is apprehended by a wars rant from some justice of the peace, and brought to the sessions at Taun

ton;

and being examined, she gives this account to the bench which I have here written. Sir George Farrell, Knt, living at Hill Bishops, near Taunton, was one of the justices upon the bench; Mrs. Bruin, a widow, one of his daughters was also present in court; and she and Mr. Buckley, then a minister near Taunton (afterwards, when I was minister of Knightsbridge, he was rector of Thurlston in the South Hundred of Devon), heard the whole examination. From these two last persons, Madam Bruin and Mr. Buckley, I had this relation, and this circumstance more, that the justices having examined Mrs. Leaky on oath, sent her depositions up to Whitehall to the council table, in the reign of King Charles the First. But this deposition being no legal evidence or proof in law, the business was let fall, and the bishop (however he might be suspected) was not at all prosecuted at that time.

This narration is succeeded by another, relating to the same parties, and equally singular in its detail; but its length compels us to reserve it for a future number.

Enteresting Varieties.

ENGLISH CIPHER.

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THE following is the meaning of the Cipher. Inscription for the Inside of a Book," printed in our 21st number:

Reader, be thou grave or gay,

Pejuse me through, I pray, with care; My leaves deface not, that I may Be lent again to one as FAIR. Children and grease are both my dread, Return me then as soon as read.

To the gentlemen who favoured us with solutions we are extremely obliged, particularly to Sedeboy, Ingenuus, Albion, D. B., D. Abel, Tyro, and Woodbury.

The Maiden next, in blushing beauty drest,

Whose graceful form, and heart-subduing eyes,

And glowing cheek, and pure unsullied breast

Half fearful, yet half fond, prompt many a lover's sighs.

(Here my heart trembles for thee, my sweet child!

And anxious muses on those dang'rous hours,

When Love, beguiling Love! with wing so wild,

First strews life's thorny path with his enchanted flowers.

Blest season! when the young heart learns to glow

With hopes, that love, and love alone can feel;

Tho' oft the God of the unerring bow, Inflicts those fatal wounds, that Time

can never heal!)

TRANS-ATLANTIC VARIETIES. [We have just been favoured, by our kind correspondent CL19, with a large bundle of New-York newspapers, in which, among the innumerable advertisements with which the enterprising inhabitants of that commercial city crowd the columns, we have met with many interesting and amusing mor, sels of literature. A few of these we present to our readers.]

DRAMA. The first tragedy performed in Boston was in 1750; the novelty made such a crowd and so much disturbance, that the legislature passed a law, prohibiting theatrical entertainments, as tending to unnecessary expense, the increase of impiety, and a contempt for religion..

ELEPHANTS-A gentleman from India assures us that he has seen ele phants emploved to pile wood, which have, after adding heap to heap, drawn back, and placed themselves in a situ, ation to see if they have kept a perpendicular line and preserved a just level in their work, and have then corrected any perceptible defect in one or the other. The same person has seen two elephants employed to roll barrels to a distance; one has kept them in motion, while the other has been prepared with a stone in his trunk to stop their progress at the required spot!

HENRY SLEEPER is a stage driver, well known to many of the citizens of Philadelphia and Germantown, who travel between those places.

For

three and twenty years he has followed his present employment, most of which time he has been occupied in driving the Germantown stage; dur ing this period he has passed over a space daily, including Sundays, of thirty miles-consequently he has rode two hundred and fifty-one thousand eight hundred and fifty miles, equal to going ten times

round the globe! And what is worthy of remark, he was never overset but once, and that when turning a four horse stage in a narrow street in Philadelphia.

Henry is a man of temperate habits, cheerful disposition, obliging and kind, and those who know him, always prefer riding with him; and such is their confidence, that young children are frequently placed in the stage under his care, without parents or friends. He has a wife and five children, whom he supports comfortably.

DEGENERACY.In a party of ladies, the coversation turned upon the fact, that females have many admirers, but few or no lovers. " Ah!" said a venerable old lady, who sat by, lamenting the degeneracy of times, Courting is nothing now to what it was when I was young."

In the black annals of crime and cruelty there occur few details of perfidy and deliberate villainy more extraordinary than the narrative of Mr. Penny's murder, at Clement's Inn, by his do mestic, James Hall.

Hall, who was the son of a farmer in Hampshire, after passing his boyish days in the occupations of husbandry, repaired to London, where he lived for several years with a corn dealer, during which time his conduct was unexceptionable. On quitting this situation, he entered the service of Mr. Penny, a gentleman residing in chambers in Clement's Inn, of which he was what is termed the Principal. With him he lived seven years, and was highly esteemed by his master, who always treated him with great indulgence, and frequently presented him with sums of money beyond the actual amount of his wages.

In this service Hall remained seven years. At first he was extremely re

gular in his deportment, but unluckily contracting some loose acquaintance, he became involved in debt, and in other respects greatly embarrassed in his affairs, having, it is said, married Two women, in different quarters of the town, and living in daily dread of a discovery. Under these circumstances, he formed the determination tơ murder and plunder his master and quit England; and although several times when he had determined to effect his purpose his resolution failed him, he at length completed the barbarous deed on the 7th June, 1741.

Mr. Penny, who had been spending the evening with a friend, returned to his chambers about eleven at night; and Hall having, as was his custom, pulled off his coat, waistcoat, shoes, and stockings, the old gentleman was about to step into bed, when Hall knocked him down with a large bludgeon, which he had provided for the purpose. He repeated the blow seve