opportunity of visiting the scene of another illustrious victim's sufferings, and therefore proceeded from the castle of St. Vincennes to the prison of the Conciergerie. There I found a low, small, damp, and dark cell, which has lately been converted into an expiatory chapel; and here the once beautiful, elegant, high-born, and high-minded Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of France, was confined sixty-seven days, and only left this wretched apartment to ascend the cart which conveyed her to the place of execution. During her long imprisonment she slept on a stone floor, on which a truss of straw was thrown by way of bed. No one who remembers, or has read of her personal and mental charms and regal splendour, or who recollects the beautiful passage in which our eloquent Burke has at once painted her charms, and recorded her claims to compassion, can view this spot with indifference. Perhaps I ought to apologise for troubling you with an account of my visits to these dismal scenes; they do not strictly belong to that view of national manners to which you and I have agreed to confine our remarks, but the Duc d'Enghein and Marie Antoinette are so connected with your Revolution, and your Revolution with every thing which one hears and sees in this country, that I could not help telling you how much I had been affected in viewing the spots which witnessed the sufferings of these ill-fated and illustrious personages. Perhaps Louis XVIII. acts unwisely, as a politician, while he indulges an amiable superstition, by raising these expiatory chapels which I have had occasion to mention; yet, as a man, one can understand and pardon the feelings by which he is actuated. THE DEATH OF A MISER.-A TALE. (European Mag.) ON N the wide barren heath that lies between Milford and Petersfield, traversed in its extent by the high road to Portsmouth, there stood, near the way side, a small hut, the abode as it seemed of the most abject poverty. It had originally been constructed in a rude manner, of wood and broken pieces of brick and stone, and often as it became shattered by the wear of the seasons, the breaches were plastered with clay, or filled up with straw or dried leaves, or any other worthless material that barely served to exclude the inclemency of the weather. The low roof was thatched with turf, and one latticed window, on either side of the door, ornamented the front of the building. The miserable tenant of this misera ble hovel was an old man, named Langley Dutton, a miser. Langley was sure to be seen on every marketday trudging to Petersfield habited in an old-fashioned dark-blue thread-bare coat, with grey worsted stockings, and black willow hat, carrying on his arm the little basket that was destined to 26 ATHENEUM VOL. 14. contain the scanty supplies for the week. His complexion was healthful; but an anxious contraction of his brow, and the quick glance of eager suspicion which lightened his small serpent eye rendered his countenance far from agreeable; while the sharp tone of his voice and manner was peculiarly ungrateful and forbidding; his figure, which declined with the burden of his years, was meagre to an excess of leanness, and his soul was as lean as his body. He had never been married, and it seemed to be doubtful who might succeed to the inheritance of his vast wealth; for having never had the courage to contemplate the event of parting with his beloved hoard, he had made no will that could render his death an object of interest. It appeared, indeed, not improbable, that his domestic servant would attain to the principal portion of his vast accumulation. This woman, who was called Hester, had been taken from the poor-house at Petersfield; not in charity or kindness, for of any such feeling or sentiment Langley Dutton's nature was utterly in capable; but that, because the miser, with a view to escape the customary pecuniary claim on him as a parishioner, had fixed the spot of his habitation so precisely on the boundary of two different parishes, that it was not easy to determine to which of them he was responsible; and the point was only at length settled by his consenting to receive into his own house some one individual pauper, whose maintenance and support should be considered as a commutation of all parochial dues : and the readiness with which Hester accommodated herself to her master's penurious habits, reflected some degree of credit on Langley's discernment in the selection he had made. It was late in the evening of a raw, chilly day in December, the heavy mist that hung in the air descended at intervals in a drizzling rain, and, through the leafless branches of the trees, a bleak easterly wind came in hollow gusts that even sounded cold to those who did not feel it, the birds were hushed, and the cattle were in fold, and there was no living creature abroad, when a poor woman, who was journeying from London to Petersfield, in crossing the dreary waste of Lebbock-heath, became so spent with fatigue as to be unable to proceed any further, and, attracted by the light that showed faintly in Langley Dutton's cottage window, she knocked at the door and implored shelter, for the night, for herself and a child who stood shivering at her side. Langley was seated by the side of the fire-place, where a few pieces of fuel were parting from each other, while some not unsavoury soup, which he had contrived to obtain by artifice, being a portion of a charitable distribution, was smoking on the table. On hearing the stranger's voice he pressed forward, and, in order to prevent by anticipation the expression of any compassionate sentiments from Hester, exclaimed in reply to the affecting application, "No, no, we have no room for you here; nothing but beggars about the country; there's a farmhouse about a mile farther on. Shut the door, Hester, shut the door." Hester was proceeding to obey, but the woman, feeble as she was, exerted all her remaining strength to oppose it. by placing her two hands against the door, crying in a tone of wild despair, "Oh! pray, for dear Heaven's sake have pity on me; I'm a dying creature; dying of cold and hunger." "Ay, ay, that's just what they all say," rejoined Langley; "I dare say she's one of the gypsies I saw to-day; go along about your business, my good woman; we've got nothing for you here." "A little cold water, I'm so thirsty," gasped the other in a subdued, inarticulate voice, the violence of her emotion giving way to excessive languor. Hester, perceiving that the stranger appeared to suffer greatly from weakness and exhaustion, accorded what she asked for; and the woman,having drank very sparingly, gave the cup to the child, who greedily finished the draught. During this, Langley again said, "There's a brick-kiln behind here, not far off, you could sleep there very well; very warm and comfortable; come in, Hester, it's very cold; come in, and let me have supper." The door of avarice was then closed against the unfortunate travellers; the female uttered a moan of poignant anguish, and taking her child by the hand turned her slow steps towards the place that Langley had mentioned; which having reached, they laid them down beneath the covering of a shed where the brick-makers were accustomed to labour, and soon sunk into unconsciousness. The rain fell in torrents on the following morning, and no one approached the spot until two o'clock in the afternoon, when, the weather having cleared, a boy came to tend the kiln. On perceiving the mother and child he stared, and wondered, and walked round and about the shed, and came near and looked on its strange tenantry, yet, with the usual shyness of children, went lingering away without saying a word, resolved to report what he had seen when he should arrive at home. In his way to his own village he passed the farm-house alluded to by Langley Dutton, and, being known to its inha bitants, turned in, and related the circumstance of the shed; and having succeeded in arousing the curiosity of his auditors, the master of the house, with one of his men and a female servant, sallied forth to seek an explanation of so unaccountable an occurrence. On coming to the shed they saw the female lying stretched upon the ground with her face to the earth, while a boy, apparently about nine years of age, sat crouching by her with his head resting on his knees. The urchin looked up, as Radford the farmer advanced and said, "Why, my little fellow, what what makes you here? How long have you been here?" Then, without waiting for the reply, which the child evinced no readiness in making, stooped down and was proceeding to examine the features of the woman, when the boy partly interposed himself, saying, "You shan't wake mother;" but Radford had seen enough to ascertain the fact, and called out to his party "She's dead!" on hearing which they all gathered round, and having each come to the same conclusion, the question arose, "Who is she?" but none of them knew her; no one recollected to have ever seen her before. Radford searched her pockets in the hope of finding something that might lead to her identity; but the expectation was defeated; for, with the exception of a small bit of dry crust, they were utterly empty. She appeared to be about thirty years of age, and wore a pewter ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, and seemed to have belonged to the lower ranks of life; though the trace of extreme delicacy of complexion, and the neat arrangement of a profusion of light hair, were somewhat at variance with the coarseness of her hands, and the meanness of her apparel. Radford then again addressed himself to the child, but he possessed so little of intelligence or vivacity as to be able to afford scarcely any information. "Wat is your name, my boy?" said the farmer. "Otto," replied the child, with sullen reluctance. "Nothing else." "How long has your mother been dead? Did you know she was dead ?" This was only replied to by a stare of ignorance and wonder. And cannot you tell the last place you were at, the last person you spoke to?" Whether the child was stupid, or obstinate, or that bis terror at the presence of so many strangers bewildered his comprehension, it was difficult to decide; but it was not until each question had been repeated, sometimes more than once, that even these brief and unsatisfactory answers were obtained. Radford, however, humanely persevered in his investigation, and, by degrees, drew from him an account of the vain application his mother had made on the preceding evening at Langley Dutton's cottage; for, that it could be no other than his, Radford felt assured from a description of the treatment they had received. Thither, therefore, Radford repaired, where his conjecture was confirmed by Hester's recital of the incident; though both Langley and his satellite appeared to be considerably alarmed and confounded on hearing that the woman was dead. After consulting some time on the subject, it was agreed to be most expedient, that the deceased should be removed to a public-house about two miles distant, in order that an inquest might be held; while Radford expressed his intention to proceed to Petersfield, to acquaint the magistrate there with what had happened; having first despatched his servant to the farm for a caravan to convey the body. He also required that both Hester and her master should accompany him, but "Yes, yes; you have got two Langley refused to leave his treasure unguarded, and it was agreed that Hester only should attend. Little Otto watched intently the operations of the men as they placed his mother in the kind of car that was brought for the purpose; and as he gazed on her altered and inanimate countenance, and saw her arm fall listlessly down from her evidently lifeless form, he seemed to be struck with an indistinct apprehension of the mystery of death, and uttered a sorrowful exclamation of surprise and fear. Langley Dutton by his mean, selfish, inhospitable way of life, had long rendered himself obnoxious to the neighbouring peasantry, for parsimony is ever an unpopular vice, and they were now glad to have a fair occasion afforded them for expressing a general sentiment of aversion and contempt. So that when the little cavalcade passed the door of his hut they unanimously testified their indignation at his inhumanity by setting up a loud hissing noise, that could not fail to be displeasing to the ear it was designed to reach, inasmuch as it taught the miser to contemplate for a moment the worthlessness of his wealth, in feeling its insufficiency to protect him from the ridicule and insults of the meanest kind. "I wish old flint and his den were burnt, that's what I do; I'm sure I would not give a cup of water to put the fire out; we'd see if he could feel then, as he's got no feeling for other people," said an elderly village matron, who was holding Otto by the band. "I don't think fire would burn him," answered another female; "they say he deals with the devil, and that's how he got all his money; and do you know," added she, lowering her voice, "I've heard that there Hester is a witch. I'm not over fond of her company I can tell you." One of the farmer's men now joined them, saying, "I should like to catch that fellow near our horse-pond, I'd give him a good ducking, I warrant him; the savage, to drive a poor fellow creature from his door, in the agonies of death, so bitter cold as it was last night; poor thing! what she must have suffered; I say he's as good as killed her." "It's my opinion she's been starved to death," observed the first speaker, "for when I gave a piece of our cake as I baked this morning to the child here, he devoured it so, I thought he would have eaten his fingers." Otto listened to all that was said with the most eager attention; and the dialogue which was kept up by decrying Langley's churlishness to the poor, canvassing his unsocial habits, and relating various superstitious stories concerning his solitary austere way of life, lasted until the whole party stopped at the inn; and so much time had already been consumed, that it was just dark before they arrived there. The unfortunate stranger was then decently deposited in an upper room; Radford having left strict injunctions that no one should interfere in the matter until his return from Petersfield, while the villagers, together with a vast accession of gossips, who were assembled in the kitchen of the inn, amused themselves with debating, and discussing, and speculating on the mysterious circumstan ces of the affair. Nearly an hour had elapsed, and they were yet deeply engaged on the question, when Radford entered the room accompanied by a magistrate; a gentleman who was highly respected for his integrity and urbanity of deportment throughout the whole of the district over which he presided. The whole company then adjourned to the apartment where the deceased lay; and now, on a more minute inspection, a sealed letter was found in her bosom, addressed to a gentleman at Portsmouth; which, having been opened by the magistrate, went to prove that she was the erring and repentant child of a naval officer at Portsmouth, who, after having suffered the extremity of want and distress, was about to seek her paternal abode, to throw herself at her father's feet, and beseech protection for her child. Upon reading the letter the magistrate looked round and desired to see the child, when it was discovered that he was unaccountably missing. Diligent search was instantly made all over and around the house; but in vain. Radford severely reproved the negligence of those to whose care he had entrusted the boy, and desired that the different roads should be carefully explored with lights. From some strange questions that Otto had asked the lad who had first seen them in the shed it was concluded, as most probable, that he had traced his way back to the brick-kiln; and several persons took this route in that expectation. As they came within sight of Langley Dutton's dwelling they were surprised to see flames issuing from the roof; they hastily advanced, but in ten minutes it was nearly level with the ground; for the wind blowing briskly seemed to take sport in assisting his brother element in the work of destruction; while Otto was discovered standing opposite, contemplating with looks of wonder and deep interest the progress of the fire which his own hands, nerved by revenge for his mother's loss, one. had kindled. There was a rick of old hay, standing against the back of the hovel, which he having ignited, by means of the proximity of the kiln, instantly communicated with the building, and Langley, who, having made fast his doors and windows was dozing in darkness, perished by suffocation from the smoke. On an investigation of the ruins the following morning it appeared that Langley's last act had been an effort to secure his money chest, for the miser and his hoard were found frightfully associated; his skeleton was literally invested with gold; the fleshless fingers still clutched it; and what seemed to have been the heart was encrusted by it; and the skull was clogged with the molten ore. ARIETTA. VARIETIES. ORIGINAL ANECDOTES, LITERARY NEWS, INCIDENTS, &c. Vicissitudes of Fortune.-The subject of presentiments is a very common There are few persons to whom some internal and involuntary emotion has not at times appeared to presage what has afterwards happened to them. A Madame D--, resident at Paris, although still young and handsome, had not to congratulate herself on having either a husband or a fortune. For that reason she wore in society a con'strained air, very different from her natural gaiety. Twelve hundred francs was all her wealth. A short time ago, dining at a friend's house, the original vivacity of her character for a while returned to her. "Ah!" said she, as she took her leave, "I have laughed too much to-day; something extraordinary will certainly happen to me." On her return home she found a letter requiring her to go to the Foreign Of fice. Thither she next day went. They asked her if she was not related to a certain M. Martin, the son of an artizan at Lyons. She replied that she was of that family, and that M. Martin was her cousin. They then informed her that this young man, who had left Lyons as a conscript in the French army, had been made prisoner in Corsica by the English, that he had after wards enlisted in an English regiment sent to Pondicherry, that by degrees he had become a Major in the service of the English East India Company, and the chief minister of one of the native princes, and finally that, dying, he did not forget either his native city or his family in the disposal of his property amounting to several millions; in the various bequests of which, she Madame D- would find herself included for a legacy of 400,000 francs. The surprise of Madame D-- at seeing the presentiment of the preceding evening verified, and her situation so materially and unexpectedly changed from that which, although she had endured it, was very different from the one she ought to enjoy in the world, may easily be conceived. The decree of the Supreme Court of Calcutta has, as we mentioned in our last, confirmed those brilliant hopes, by ordering the payment of all the legacies to the various legatees. WIZARDS, &c. (Mon. Ma g.) Sir,-Your correspondent Common Sense, referring to the effects of the belief of witchcraft, so brutally manifested by some of the female inhabitants of Wivilscombe, in Somersetshire, has justly described oth |