straint.' This reply does credit to the good sense of Ninon, who never complained of her situation, while madame de Maintenon was the victim of ennui.

Voltaire, then a boy, was presented to mademoiselle de l'Enclos when she was eighty-five years of age. She was much pleased with him, and appeared to have a presage of his future eminence; she bequeathed to him, by her will, 2000 livres to purchase books.

Mademoiselle de l'Enclos died at Paris, October 27th, 1706, in her ninety-first year, regretted by her friends and numerous acquaintance. The approach of death produced no alteration in the tranquillity of her mind; she preserved to the last her engaging manners, and even the brilliancy of her wit: a few hours before her death she composed the following lines:

"Qu'un vain espoir ne vienne point s'offrir,

Qui puisse ébranler mon courage;

Je suis en âge de mourir,

Que ferois-je ici davantage?”

6

It was justly said of her, that she carried the flowers of spring to a late autumn.' A French writer thus speaks of her: "She united to the virtues of our sex all the graces of her own, which rendered her superior even to some of the greatest men."

A few of her letters* remain, some of which are printed in St. Evremond's collection: the abbé de Châteauneuf possessed many, which, with his papers, were, when dying, burnt by his orders. She wrote with spirit, ease and elegance. The following epitaph was composed by the abbé de Châteauneuf to her memory:

"Il n'est rien que la mort ne dompte:

Ninon, qui près d'un siècle a servi les amours,

Vient enfin de finir ses jours;

Elle fut de son sexe, et l'honneur et la honte.

Inconstant dans ses desirs,

Delicate dans ses plaisirs;
Pour ses amis, fidele et sage,

Pour ses amans tendre et volage;

* Those published under her name, in a volume, are spurious.

Elle fit régner dans son cœur,

Et la gallanterie, et l'austère pudeur;

Et montra ce que peut le triomphant mélange,

Des charmes de Venus, et de l'esprit d'un Ange."

Voltaire-Dictionnaire Historique, &c.-Anne Thicknesse's Sketches of the Lives and Writings of the Ladies of France.

EMMA,

A STORY which is told of this princess, who is mentioned with distinction by historians, savours, it must be confessed, of romance and fable. Emma was the daughter of Richard II. duke of Normandy, the wife of Ethelred, king of England, and the mother of Edward the Confessor. She accompanied her husband, who was compelled to quit his kingdom, with his sons Alfred and Edward, to Normandy; and, at his death, espoused Canute the Great, whose superior qualities and kind treatment tenderly attached her to him, and rendered her indifferent to the children of her former marriage.

She appears to have been a woman of political intrigue, and, during the reign of her son Edward the Confessor, to have had a share in the government. The earl of Kent, who had exercised great authority in the preceding reigns, became jealous, it is said, of the credit of Emma at court; and, having gained many of the nobles to his party, charged her before the king with several crimes. The monarch, simple and credulous, or probably influenced by some resentment from the past conduct of his mother, gave ear to the allegations of Kent, and going suddenly to Winchester, where Emma resided, deprived her of her treasures, under the pretence that they had been unjustly acquired, and treated her with great severity.

Thus humbled and impoverished, she had recourse, for relief, to the bishop of Winchester, to whom she was related. Her enemies, according to the legend which respects this princess, availing themselves of this circumstance, spread reports which affected her honour, respecting her frequent conferences with the prelate. Robert archbishop of Canterbury, in support of the accusations of Kent, brought against the queen three criminal charges: first, that she had consented to the death of VOL. II. 2 Z

her son Alfred; secondly, that she had endeavoured to prevent Edward from ascending the throne; and thirdly, that she held a scandalous and criminal correspondence with Alwine bishop of Winchester.

A synod was, by order of the king, convened by the archbishop, to investigate the accusations against Emma. By this ecclesiastical court it was decred, that the queen-mother should, to prove her innocence, submit to the fiery ordeal; a curious method of trial in the days of superstition and credulity, of which the following is a description: the person accused was to walk, with naked feet, over nine plough-shares, made red hot: if she escaped unhurt, her innocence was presumed, and her safety imputed to an especial interposition of Providence; if otherwise, she was compelled to submit to the penalty of her guilt.

The queen, it is related, passed the night previous to her trial in prayer before the tomb of St. Swithin; and, strange to tell, the next day, in presence of the king, the assembled nobility, clergy, and people, in the cathedral church of Winchester, walked unhurt over the burning plough-shares. She appeared plainly dressed, her feet and legs uncovered to the knee, and during the ordeal had her eyes constantly raised towards heaven. Her innocence proved so miraculous a preservation, that she was not even sensible of any reflection from the heated irons, but inquired, with much simplicity, after having passed over them, when they designed to bring her to the test. On being told that all was over, she gave thanks to God for this public manifestation of the falsehood of her ac

cusers.

The king, struck with the miracle, fell on his knees before his mother, and implored her pardon; while, to expiate the injury done both to her and her relation, the reverend prelate, he devoutly laid bare his shoulders before the bishop, whom he ordered to inflict on him the discipline of the scourge. This edifying ceremony having been performed, the plough-shares, in memory of the miracle, were buried in the cloister of Winchester; and twenty-one manors, of which three were given by the king, nine by queen Emma, and nine by the archbishop, were settled on the bishopric and church of Winchester.

Rapin appears to want faith in this story: how, he observes,

could the queen, who had just before been deprived by the king of all her possessions, make this bequest to the church? In contradiction to this account, he adds, that Emma, stripped by Edward of the immense treasures which she had amassed, spent the last ten years of her life in misery, in a kind of prison or monastery at Winchester; whence, in 1502, she was delivered by death.

History of England-Bayle's Historical Dictionary-The Female
Worthies.

EPONINA.

THE following little history has in it something so peculiarly interesting and affecting, that it can scarcely be read without the most lively emotion.

During the struggles of Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian, for the sovereignty of Rome, and in the unsettled state of the empire, Sabinus, a native of Langres, an ambitious and wealthy man, of high quality, put in his claim, among others, to the possession of the throne. Encouraged by his countrymen to this bold undertaking, he pretended, by casting an imputation on the chastity of his grand-mother, to trace his lineage from Julius Cæsar. Having revolted against the Romans, he caused himself, by his followers, to be saluted emperor.

But his temerity and presumption quickly received a check: his troops, who were defeated, and scattered in all directions, betook themselves to flight; while of those who fell into the hands of their pursuers, not one was spared. In the heart of Gaul, Sabinus might have found safety, had his tenderness for his wife permitted him to seek it. Espoused to Eponina, a lady of admirable beauty and accomplishments, from whom he could not prevail upon himself to live at a distance, he retired from the field of battle to his country-house. Having here called together his servants, and the remnant of his people, he informed them of his disaster, and of the miscarriage of his enterprise; while he declared to them his resolution of putting a voluntary period to his existence, to escape the tortures prepared for him by the victors, and avoid the fate of his unfortunate companions. He proceeded to thank them for their ser

vices, after which he gave them a solemn discharge: he then ordered fire to be set to his mansion, in which he shut himself up; and of this stately edifice in a few hours nothing remained but a heap of ashes and ruins.

The news of the melancholy catastrophe being spread abroad, reached the ears of Eponina, who, during the preceding events, had remained at Rome. Her grief and despair on learning the fate of a husband whom she dearly loved, and who had fallen a victim to his tenderness for her, were too poignant to be long supported. In vain her friends and acquaintance offered her consolation; their efforts to reconcile her to her loss served but to aggravate her distress. She determined to abstain from nourishment, and to re-unite herself in the grave to him without whom she felt existence to be an intole rable burthen.

For three days she persevered in her resolution. On the fourth, Martial, a freedman, who had been a favourite domestic in the service of her husband, desired to be admitted by his mistress to a private conference, on affairs of the utmost importance.

In this interview, Eponina learned, with an emotion that had nearly shaken to annihilation her languid and debilitated frame, that Sabinus, whom she so bitterly lamented, was still living, and concealed in a subterraneous cavern under the ruins of his house, where he waited with impatience to receive and embrace his beloved and faithful wife. This scheme had been concerted in confidence with two of his domestics, in whose attachment Sabinus entirely confided. It had been hitherto concealed from Eponina, that, through her unaffected grief on the supposed death of her husband, greater credit might be given to a report on which his preservation entirely depended. To these welcome tidings, Martial presumed to add his advice, that his lady should still preserve the external marks of sorrow, and conduct herself with the utmost art and precaution.

Eponina promised, with transport, to observe all that was required of her, however difficult might be the task of dissimulation; and to endure yet a short delay, lest suspicion should be awakened, of the meeting which she anticipated with so much tenderness and joy.