"Now," said his father, "behold the valley that lies be tween the hills." Ortogrul looked, and espied a little well, out of which issued a small rivulet. "Tell me now," said his father, "dost thou wish for sudden affluence, that may pour upon thee like the mountain torrent; or for a slow and gradual increase, resembling the rill gliding from the well?" "Let me be quickly rich," said Ortogrul; “let the golden stream be quick and violent." "Look round

thee," said his father, "once again." Ortogrul looked, and perceived the channel of the torrent dry and dusty; but following the rivulet from the well, he traced it to a wide lake, which the supply, slow and constant, kept always full. He awoke and determined to grow rich by silent profit, and persevering industry.

Having sold his patrimony, he engaged in merchandise; and in twenty years purchased lands, on which he raised a house, equal in sumptuousness to that of the vizier, to which he invited all the ministers of pleasure, expecting to enjoy all the felicity which he had imagined riches able to afford. Leisure soon made him weary of himself, and he longed to be persuaded that he was great and happyHe was courteous and liberal; he gave all that approach. ed him hopes of pleasing him, and all who should please him, hopes of being rewarded. Every art of praise was tried, and every source of adulatory fiction was exhausted. Ortogrul heard his flatterers without delight, because he found himself unable to believe them., His own heart told him its frailties; his own understanding reproached him with his faults. "How long," said he, with a deep sigh, "have I been laboring in vain to amass wealth, which at last is useless ! Let no man hereafter wish to be rich, who is already too wise to be flattered!"

LESSON XXXIV.

SECTION IV.

Lady Jane Gray.

DR. JOHNSON,

THIS excellent personage was descended from the

Royal Line of England by both her parents.

She was carefully educated in the principles of the Re

formation;

formation; and her wisdom and virtue rendered her a shining example to her sex. But it was her lot to continue only a short period on this stage of being; for, in early life, she fell a sacrifice to the wild ambition of the Duke of Northumberland; who promoted a marriage between her and his son, Lord Guilford Dudley; and raised her to the throne of England in opposition to the rights of Mary and Elizabeth. At the time of their marriage, she was only about eighteen years of age, and her husband was also very young: a season of life very unequal to oppose the interested views of artful and aspiring then; who, instead of exposing them to danger, should have been the protectors of their innocence and youth.

This extraordinary young person, besides the solid endowments of piety and virtue, possessed the most engaging disposition, the most accomplished parts; and being of an equal age with king Edward VI, she had received all her education with him, and seemed even to possess a greater facility in acquiring every part of manly and classical litera. ture. She had attained a knowledge of the Roman and Greek languages, as well as of several modern tongues; had passed most of her time in an application to learning; and expressed a great indifference for other occupations and amusements usual with her sex and station. Roger Ascham, tutor to the Lady Elizabeth, having at one time paid her a visit, he found her employed in reading Plato, while the rest of the family were engaged in a party of hunting in the park; and upon his admiring the singularity of her choice, she told him, that she "received more pleasure from that author, than the others could reap from all their sport and gaiety." Her heart, replete with this love of literature and serious studies, and with tenderness towards her husband, who was deserving of her affection, had never opened itself to the flattering allurements of ambition; and the informa tion of her advancement to the throne was by no means a. greeable to her. She even refused to accept of the crown ; pleaded the preferable right of the two princesses; expressed her dread of the consequences attending an enterprise so dan. gerous, not to say so criminal; and desired to remain in that private station in which she was born. Overcome at last with the entreaties, rather than reasons, of her father and father-in-law, and, above all; of her husband, she submitted to their will, and was prevailed on to relinquish her

Own

ance.

own judgment. But her elevation was of very short continue The nation declared for Queen Mary; and the Lady Jane, after wearing the vain pageantry of a crown during ten days, returned to a private life, with much more satisfaction than she felt when the royalty was tendered to her.

Queen Mary, who appears to have been incapable of generosity or clemency, determined to remove every person, from whom the least danger could be apprehended.

ing was, therefore, given the Lady Jane to prepare for death; a doom which she had expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which she had been exposed, rendered no unwelcome news to her. The Queen's bigotted zeal, under color of tender mercy to the prisoner's soul, induced her to send priests, who molested her with perpetual disputation; and even a reprieve of three days was granted her,in hopes that she would be persuaded,during that time, to pay, by a timely conversion to Popery, some regard to her eternal welfare. The Lady Jane had presence of mind, in those melancholly circumstances, not only to defend her religion by solid arguments, but also to write a letter to her sister in the Greek language; in which, be sides sending her a copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, she exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, a like steady> perseverance. On the day of her execution, her husband, Lord Guilford, desired permission to see her; but she te fused her consent, and sent him word, that the tenderness of their parting would overcome the fortitude of both; and would too much unbend their minds for that constancy, which their approaching end required of them.-Their-separation, she said, would be only for a moment; and they would soon rejoin each other in a scene, where their affec tions would be forever united; and where death, disappointment, and misfortunes, could no longer have access to them, or disturb their eternal felicity.

It had been intended to execute the Lady Jane and Lord Guilford together on the same scaffold, at Tower-hill; but the council, dreading the compassion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and noble birth, changed their or ders, and gave directions that she should be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. She saw her husband led to execution; and having given him from the window some token of her remembrance, she waited with tranquility till her own appointed hour should bring her to a like fate. She even

saw.

saw his headless body carried back in a cart; and found her. self more confirmed by the reports, which she heard of the constancy of his end, than shaken by so tender and melan. eholly a spectacle. Sir John Gage, constable of the Tower,. when he led her to execution, desired her to bestow on him some small present, which he might keep as a perpetual memorial of her. She gave him her table-book, in which she had just written three sentences, on seeing her husband's dead body; one in Greek, another in Latin, a third in English. The purport of them was, "that human justice was against his body, but the Divine Mercy would be favor. able to his soul; and that if her fault deserved punishment, her youth, at least, and her imprudence, were worthy of excuse; and that God and posterity, she trusted, would show her favor." On the scaffold, she made a speech to the by. standers, in which the anildness of her disposition led her to take the blame entirely on herself, without uttering one complaint against the severity with which she had been treated. She said, that her offence was, not having laid her hand upon the crown, but not rejecting it with sufficient constancy: that she had less erred through ambition than through reverence to her parents, whom she had been taught to respect and obey that she willingly received death, as the only satisfac tion which she could now make to the injured state; and though her infringement of the laws had been constrained, she would show,by her voluntary submission to their sentence, that she was desirous to atone for that disobedience, into which too much filial piety had betrayed her: that she had justly deserved this punishment for being made the instru ment, though the unwilling instrument, of the ambition of others and that the story of her life, she hoped, might at least be useful, by proving that innocence excuses not great misdeeds, if they tend any way to the destruction of the commonwealth. After uttering these words, she caused herself to be disrobed by her women, and with a steady, serene countenance submitted herself to the executioner.

HUME.

LESSON XXXV

own judgment. But her elevation was of very short continu=1 ance. The nation declared for Queen Mary; and the Lady Jane, after wearing the vain pageantry of a crown during ten days, returned to a private life, with much more satisfaction than she felt when the royalty was tendered to her.

Queen Mary, who appears to have been incapable of generosity or clemency, determined to remove every person, from whom the least danger could be apprehended. Warn. ing was, therefore, given the Lady Jane to prepare for death; a doom which she had expected, and which the innocence of her life, as well as the misfortunes to which she had beenexposed, rendered no unwelcome news to her. The Queen's bigotted zeal, under color of tender mercy to the prisoner's soul, induced her to send priests, who molested her with perpetual disputation; and even a reprieve of three dayswas granted her,in hopes that she would be persuaded,during that time, to pay, by a timely conversion to Popery, some regard to her eternal welfare. The Lady Jane had presence of mind, in those melancholly circumstances, not only to defend her religion by solid arguments, but also to write a letter to her sister in the Greek language; in which, be sides sending her a copy of the Scriptures in that tongue, she exhorted her to maintain, in every fortune, a like steady› perseverance. On the day of her execution, her husband, Lord Guilford, desired permission to see her; but she te fused her consent, and sent him word, that the tenderness of their parting would overcome the fortitude of both; and would too much unbend their minds for that constancy, which their approaching end required of them.-Their-separation, she said, would be only for a moment; and they would soon rejoin each other in a scene, where their affec tions would be forever united; and where death, disappointment, and misfortunes, could no longer have access to them, or disturb their eternal felicity.

It had been intended to execute the Lady Jane and Lord Guilford together on the same scaffold, at Tower-hill; but the council, dreading the compassion of the people for their youth, beauty, innocence, and noble birth, changed their or ders, and gave directions that she should be beheaded within the verge of the Tower. She saw her husband led to execution; and having given him from the window some token of her remembrance, she waited with tranquility till her ownappointed hour should bring her to a like fate. She even

saw...