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The small-pox commits as many ravages among the Indian hordes, as the plague does amongst us, when it is brought from the Levant. As soon as the Indians perceive that any one is attacked with this contagious disease, which generally proves mortal in Paraguay, they abandon their habitations, and retire in haste into the woods, after putting near the sick person provisions sufficient to last him three or four days, and from time to time somebody returns to renew the supply, till the patient be either dead or cured*.

Father Gaëtan Cattanéo has described the manner in which father Ximenes saw the Indians fight with a jaguar, or American tiger. This missionary was travelling with three Indians, when they observed the tiger enter a small wood or coppice, and resolved to go and kill it. The father concealed himself in a place from which he could observe, without danger, all that passed. The Indians, who were accustomed to this kind of hunting and combat, arranged themselves as follows: two of them were armed with lances, and the third, who carried a musket, placed himself between the others; they then advanced all abreast, and walked round the coppice till they saw the tiger,

*Even the savages of South America, however, are now submitting to the blessings of Vaccination, which was introduced amongst them only last year, by a Royal Spanish commission.

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when the man with the gun fired, and shot the animal in the head. Father Ximenes asserts, that, at the same instant when the ball was fired, he saw the tiger transfixed by the two lances: for as soon as the beast felt itself wounded, it darted forwards upon the person who had shot it. The two other Indians having a presentiment of what would happen, held their lances ready to stop the animal in its course ; in fact, they pierced it in the flanks with admirable skill, and in an instant held it suspended in the air.

CLOPTON HOUSE AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON,

In one chamber was a very curious carved bedstead of oak, with silk hangings. This, together with all the furniture of the apartment, was an heirloom to the premises, having been the gift of king Henry VII. to Sir Hugh Clopton, who was one of the lord mayors of London during the reign of that monarch. In this antique mansion were innumerable chambers, many of them totally darkened to obviate the expence of the tax upon window-lights; and in the cockloft were piles of mouldering household goods, all of the same remote antiquity; among the rest was an emblazoned representation, on vellum, of queen Elizabeth, the wife of Henry the Seventh, as she lay in state in the chapel of the Tower of London, after having died in child-bed; which curious relic

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the then owner of Clopton-house gave to Mr. S. Ireland, as a "picture which was, in his opinion, of no service, because, being on vellum, it would not do to light the fire."

Chapel in a Garret.-Near the cock-loft just mentioned, was a garret, the walls of which were adorned with rude paintings of scriptural subjects, hieroglyphical characters, and quotations from the New Testament. Among the designs I recollect a large fish was delineated as being caught, and a hand drawing the string which was attached to the hook in the fish's mouth. Under this curious design were the following lines of rude poetry in black letter characters: they may be found in Weever's Funeral Monuments:

Whether you rise yearlye,
Or goe to bed late,
Remember Christ Jesus

That died ffor your sake*.

* From the enquiries made by Mr. Ireland, we were given to understand that Sir Hugh Clopton, or his descendant, eing a very staunch catholic, had gained permission to have this garret consecrated at the time of the reformation, that the celebration of mass might take place in secret,

DESCRIPTION OF NIGHT.

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"All things are bush'd, as Nature's self lay dead, The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head;

The little birds in dreams their songs repeat,

And sleeping flowers beneath the night-dew sweat."

DRYDEN.

How often have I heard the morning described by the poet and the philosopher in all its glowing colours, and just reproaches hurled against those who lose its cheering influence and fascinating beauties in the arms of the somnific deity! That man is extolled as wise, who retires to rest with the setting, and arises with the orient sun. But night, with all her glories, is neglected; and it should seem as if Heaven had displayed the most awful, majestic, and brilliant part of the creation as unworthy the praise or contemplation of man. The objects which now surround me, and the sensations which I enjoy, are sufficient to convince me, that every portion of the stupendous work has its peculiar charms; and particularly night, for sublimity and diversity of objects, affords food for the mind, best calculated to impress it with just ideas of the Omnipotent, and displays nature in a dress by no means inferior to that of day; so that, in my opinion, the man who regularly rises and retires with the sun, loses some of the fairest portion of his time, and most interesting beauties of the creation.

ACCOUNT OF CARDINAL FESCH.

Paris, August 1905.

MY LORD,

THE arrival of the Pope in this country was certainly a grand epoch, not only in the history of the revolution, but in the annals of Europe. The debates in the sacred college for and against this journey, and for and against his coronation of Buonaparte, are said to have been long as well as violent; and only arranged, according to the desires of Cardinal Fesch, by the means of four millions of livres, 166,000l. à propos, among its pious members. Of this money, the Cardinals Mattei, Panphili, Dugnani, Maury, Pignatelli, Roverella, Somaglia, Pacca, Brancadoro, Litta, Galnelli, Spina, Despuig, and Galeffi, are said to have shared the greatest part; and from the most violent anti-Buonapartists, they instantly became the strenuous adherents of Napoleon the First; who of course cannot be ignorant of their real worth.

The person entrusted by Buonaparte and Talleyrand, to carry on at Rome the intrigue which sent Pius VII. to cross the Alps, was Cardinal Fesch, brother of Madame Letitia Buonaparte by the side of her mother, who, in her second marriage, chose a pedlar of the name of Nicholo Fesch, for her husband.

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