feel none. Incensed at the reply, a young officer sprung on his horse, which he had quitted from respect while addressing the Suprema, and was in a moment levelled by the blow of a stone that fractured his skull. He turned his bloodswimming eyes on the Inquisitor, and died. The multitude raised a wild shout, and pressed closer. Their intentions were now too plain. They pressed close on that part of the procession among which their victim was placed. Again, and in the most urgent terms, the officers implored leave to disperse the crowd, or at least cover the retreat of the obnoxious object to some neighbouring church, or even to the walls of the Inquisition. And the wretched man himself, with loud outcries, (as he saw the danger thickening around him), joined in their petition. The Suprema, though looking pale, bated not a jot of his pride. These are my arms!" he exclaimed, pointing to the crucifixes, and their inscription is εν τούτω νικα. I forbid a sword to be drawn, or a musket to be levelled. On, in the name of God. And on they attempted to move, but the pressure now rendered it impossible. The multitude, unrepressed by the military, became ungovernable; the crosses reeled and rocked like standards in a battle; the ecclesiastics, in confusion and terror, pressed on each other. Amid that vast mass, every particle of which seemed in motion, there was but one emphatic and discriminate movement-that which bore a certain part of the crowd straight on to the spot where their victim, though inclosed and inwrapt by all that is formidable in earthly, and all that is awful in spiritual power-sheltered by the crucifix and the sword-stood trembling to the bottom of his soul. The Suprema saw his error too late, and now called loudly on the military to advance, and disperse the crowd by any means. They attempted to obey him; but by this time they were mingled among the crowd themselves. All order had ceased; and, besides, there appeared a kind of indisposition to this service, from the very first, among the military. They attempted to charge, however; but, entangled as they were among the crowd, who clung round their horses' hoofs, it was impossible for them even to form, and the first shower of stones threw them into total confusion. The danger increased every moment, for one spirit now seemed to animate the whole multitude. What had been the stifled growl of a few, was now the audible yell of all- Give him to us we must have him; and they tossed and roared like a thousand waves assailing a wreck.

Bb

As the military retreated, a hundred priests instantly closed round the unhappy man, and with generous despair exposed themselves to the fury of the multitude. While the Suprema, hastening to the dreadful spot, stood in the front of the priests, with the cross uplifted, his face was like that of the dead, but his eye had not lost a single flash of its fire, nor his voice a tone of its pride. It was in vain ; the multitude proceeded calmly, and even respectfully, (when not resisted,) to remove all that obstructed their progress; in doing so, they took every care of the persons of priests whom they were compelled to remove, repeatedly asking their pardon for the violence they were guilty of. And this tranquillity of resolved vengeance was the most direful indication of its never desisting till its purpose was accomplished. The last ring was broken-the last resister overcome. Amid yells like those of a thousand tigers, the victim was seized and dragged forth, grasping in both hands fragments of the robes of those he had clung to in vain, and holding them up in the impotence of despair.

The cry was hushed for a moment, as they felt him in their talons, and gazed on him with thirsty eyes. Then it was renewed, and the work of blood began. They dashed him to the earth-tore him up again-flung him into the air -tossed him from hand to hand, as a bull gores the howling mastiff with horns right and left. Bloody, defaced, blackened with earth, and battered with stones, he struggled and roared among them, till a loud cry announced the hope of a termination to a scene alike horrible to humanity, and disgraceful to civilization. The military, strongly reinforced, came galloping on, and all the ecclesiastics with torn habits, and broken crucifixes, following fast in the rear,-all eager in the cause of human nature-all on fire to prevent this base and barbarous disgrace to the name of Christianity and of human nature.

Alas! this interference only hastened the horrible catastrophe. There was but a shorter space for the multitude to work their furious will. I saw, I felt, but I cannot describe, the last moments of this horrible scene. Dragged from the mud and stones, they dashed a mangled lump of flesh right against the door of the house where I was. With his tongue hanging from his lacerated mouth, like that of a baited bull; with one eye torn from the socket, and dangling on his bloody cheek; with a fracture in every limb, and a wound for every pore, he still howled for life-life—life

-mercy 'till a stone, aimed by some pitying hand, struck him down. He fell, trodden in one moment into sanguine and discoloured mud by a thousand feet. The cavalry came on, charging with fury. The crowd, saturated with cruelty and blood, gave way in grim silence. But they had not left a joint of his little finger-a hair of his head-a slip of his skin. Had Spain mortgaged all her reliques from Madrid to Monserrat, from the Pyrennees to Gibraltar, she could not have recovered the paring of a nail to canonize. The officer who headed the troop dashed his horse's hoofs into a bloody formless mass, and demanded, 'Where was the victim?' He was answered, Beneath your horse's feet;' and they departed.

It is a fact, that while witnessing this horrible execution, I felt all the effects vulgarly ascribed to fascination. I shuddered at the first movement—the dull and deep whisper among the crowd. I shrieked involuntarily when the first decisive movements began among them; but when at last the human shapeless carrion was dashed against the door, I echoed the wild shouts of the multitude with a kind of savage instinct. I bounded-I clasped my hands for a moment-then I echoed the screams of the thing that seemed no longer to live, but still could scream; and I screamed aloud and wildly for life-life-and mercy! One face was turned towards me as I shrieked in unconscious tones. The glance, fixed on me for a moment, was in a moment withdrawn. The flash of the well-known eyes made no impression on me then. My existence was so purely mechanical, that, without the least consciousness of my own danger, (scarce less than that of the victim, had I been detected), I remained uttering shout for shout, and scream for scream-offering worlds in imagination to be able to remove from the window, yet feeling as if every shriek I uttered was as a nail that fastened me to it-dropping my eye-lids, and feeling as if a hand held them open, or cut them away-forcing me to gaze on all that passed below, like Regulus, with his lids cut off, compelled to gaze on the sun that withered up his eye-balls-till sense, and sight, and soul, failed me, and I fell grasping by the bars of the window, and mimicking, in my horrid trance, the shouts of the multitude, and the yell of the devoted. I actually for a moment believed myself the object of their cruelty. The drama of terror has the irresistible power of converting its audience into its victims.

FIELDING.*

THE following excellent observations upon FIELDING are from the same source to which we were indebted for the remarks upon SMOLLETT.

"There is very little to warrant the common idea, that Fielding was an imitator of Cervantes,-except his own declaration of such an intention, in the title-page of Joseph Andrews, the romantic turn of the character of Parson Adams (the only romantic character in his works),—and the proverbial humour of Partridge, which is kept up only

* HENRY FIELDING was born in Somersetshire, in 1707, and educated first at Eton school, and afterwards at Leyden, where he studied under the most celebrated civilians for about two years. On his return to London, he commenced writer for the stage, and produced several dramatic pieces, none of which were very successful. At the same time, he addicted himself to all the follies and intemperances of a town life, and soon dissipated a respectable fortune-leaving himself, at the age of thirty, no dependance but on his own abilities. Not discouraged, however, he applied himself vigorously to the study of the law, and, after the customary time of probation at the Temple, was called to the bar, and made no inconsiderable figure in Westminster-hall. But violent attacks from the gout, to which he was very early liable, soon rendered him unable to give such constant attendance at the bar as the laboriousness of that profession requires, and he was therefore obliged to accept of the office of an acting magistrate in the commission of the peace for the county of Middlesex, in which station he continued till near the time of his death. While holding

this office he published his three great works-Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and Amelia-the first in 1742, the second in 1749, and the last in 1752. In 1754, he was advised by his physicians to set out for Lisbon, as a last effort to support a broken constitution; but he did not survive his arrival there above two months. The Journal of his Voyage' to that place was published in 1755, and contains the last gleams of his wit and humour.

for a few pages. Fielding's novels are, in general, thoroughly his own; and they are thoroughly English. What they are most remarkable for, is neither sentiment, nor imagination, nor wit, nor humour, though there is a great deal of this last quality; but profound knowledge of human nature -at least of English nature-and masterly pictures of the characters of men as he saw them existing. This quality distinguishes all his works, and is shown almost equally in all of them. As a painter of real life, he was equal to Hogarth: as a mere observer of human nature, he was little inferior to Shakspeare, though without any of the genius and poetical qualities of his mind. His humour is less rich and laughable than Smollett's ;-his wit as often misses as hits; he has none of the fine pathos of Richardson or Sterne-But he has brought together a greater variety of characters in common life,-marked with more distinct peculiarities, and without an atom of caricature, than any other novel writer whatever. The extreme subtilty of observation on the springs of human conduct in ordinary characters, is only equalled by the ingenuity of contrivance in bringing those springs into play in such a manner as to lay open their smallest irregularity. The detection is always complete-and made with the certainty and skill of a philosophical experiment, and the ease and simplicity of a casual observation. The truth of the imitation is indeed so great, that it has been argued that Fielding must have had his materials ready-made to his hands, and was merely a transcriber of local manners and individual habits. For this conjecture, however, there seems to be no foundation. His representations, it is true, are local and individual; but they are not the less profound and natural. The feeling of the general principles of human nature operating in particular circumstances, is always intense, and uppermost in his mind: and he makes use of incident and situation, only to bring out character.