that Sextus IV., in a brief published Jan. 29, 1482, could not refrain from deploring the wellknown truth, in lamentations which were re-echoed from all parts of Christendom. The formula of the sentence of torture began thus, Christo nomine invocato; and it was therein expressed, that the torture should endure as long as it pleased the inquisitors; and a protest was added, that, if during the torture the culprit should die, or be maimed, or if effusion of blood or mutilation of limb should ensue, the fault should be chargeable to the culprit, and not to the inquisitors. The culprit was bound by an oath of secresy, strengthened by fearful penalties, not to divulge any thing that he had seen, known, or heard, in the dismal precincts of that unholy tribunal—a secresy illegal and tyrannical, but which constituted the soul of that monstrous association, and by which its judges were sheltered against all responsibility.—For. Rev.

COLONIZATION.

In the colonization of the West Indies, "when a city was to be founded, the first form prescribed was, with all solemnity, to erect a gallows, as the first thing needful; and in laying out the ground, a site was marked for the prison as well as for the church."

"An attempt to handle the English law of evidence, in its former state," says the Edinburgh Review, "was like taking up a hedgehog—all points!"

Man is not quite so manageable in the hands of science as boiling water or a fixed star.

PICTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

(From the French of Lebrun.)

Queen of the Morn! Sultana of the East!
City of wonders, on whose sparkling breast,
Fair, slight, and tall, a thousand palaces
Fling their gay shadows over golden seas!
Where towers and domes bestud the gorgeous land,
And countless masts, a mimic forest stand;
Where cypress shades the minaret's snowy hue,
And gleams of gold dissolve in skies of blue,
Daughter of Eastern art, the most divine—
Lovely, yet faithless bride of Constantine—
Fair Istamboul, whose tranquil mirror flings
Back with delight thy thousand colourings,
And who no equal in the world dost know,
Save thy own image pictured thus below!

Dazzled, amazed, our eyes half-blinded, fail,
While sweeps the phantasm past our gliding sail—
Like as in festive scene, some sudden light
Rises in clouds of stars upon the night.
Struck by a splendour never seen before,
Drunk with the perfumes wafted from the shore,
Approaching near these peopled groves, we deem
That from enchantment rose the gorgeous dream,
Day without voice, and motion without sound,
Silently beautiful! The haunted ground
Is paved with roofs beyond the bounds of sight,
Countless, and coloured, wrapped in golden light.
'Mid groves of cypress, measureless and vast,
In thousand forms of circles—crescents—cast,
Gold glitters, spangling all the wide extent,
And flashes back to heaven the rays it sent.
Gardens and domes, bazaars begem the woods;
Seraglios, harems—peopled solitudes,
Where the veil'd idol kneels; and vistas, through
Barr'd lattices, that give the enamoured view,
Flowers, orange-trees, and waters sparkling near,
And black and lovely eyes,—Alas, that Fear,
At those heaven-gates, dark sentinel should stand,
To scare even Fancy from her promised land!

Foreign Quar. Rev.

THE SKETCH BOOK.

THE MYSTERIOUS TAILOR.

A Romance of High Holborn.

(Concluded from page 46.)

On recovering from my stupor, I found myself with a physician and two apothecaries beside me, in bed at the George Inn, Ramsgate. I had been, it seems, for two whole days delirious, during which pregnant interval I had lived over again all the horrors of the preceding hours. The wind sang in my ears, the phantom forms of the unburied flitted pale and ghastly before my eyes. I fancied that I was still on the sea; that the massive copper-coloured clouds which hovered scarcely a yard overhead, were suddenly transformed into uncouth shapes, who glared at me from between saffron chinks, made by the scudding wrack; that the waters teemed with life, cold, slimy, preternatural things of life; that their eyes after assuming a variety of awful expressions, settled down into that dull frozen character, and their voices into that low, sepulchral, indefinable tone, which marked the Mysterious Tailor. This wretch was the Abaddon of my dreamy Pandaemonium. He was ever before me; he lent an added splendour to the day, and deepened the midnight gloom. On the heights of Bologne I saw him; far away over the foaming waters he floated still and lifeless beside me, his eye never once off my face, his voice never silent in my ear.

My tale would scarcely have an end, were I to repeat but the one half of what during two brief days (two centuries in suffering) I experienced from this derangement of the nervous system. My readers may fancy that I have exaggerated my state of mind: far from it, I have purposely softened down the more distressing particulars, apprehensive, if not of being discredited, at least of incurring ridicule. Towards the close of the third day my fever began to abate, I became more sobered in my turn of thought, could contrive to answer questions, and listen with tolerable composure to my landlord's details of my miraculous preservation. The storm was slowly rolling off my mind, but the swell was still left behind it. The fourth day found me so far recovered, that I was enabled to quit my chamber, sit beside an open window, and derive amusement from the uncouth appearance of a Dutch crew, whose brig was lying at anchor in the harbour. From this time forward, every hour brought fresh accession to my strength, until at the expiration of the tenth day—so sudden is recovery in cases of violent fever when once the crisis is passed—I was sufficiently restored to take my place by a night-coach for London. The first few stages I endured tolerably well, notwithstanding that I had somewhat rashly ventured upon an outside place; but as midnight drew on, the wind became so piercingly keen, accompanied every now and then by a squally shower of sleet, that I was glad to bargain for an inside berth. By good luck, there was just room enough left for one, which I instantly appropriated, in spite of sundry hints hemmed forth by a crusty old gentleman, that the coach was full already. I took my place in the coach, to the dissatisfaction of those already seated there. Not a word was spoken for miles: for the circumstance of its being dark increased the distrust of all, and, in the firm conviction that I was an adventurer, they had already, I make no doubt, buttoned up their pockets, and diligently adjusted their watch-chains. In a short time, this reserve wore away. From this moment the conversation became general. Each individual had some invalid story to relate, and I too, so far forgot my usual taciturnity as to indulge my hearers with a detail of my late indisposition—of its origin in the Mysterious Tailor—of the wretch's inconceivable persecution—of the fiendish peculiarities of his appearance—of his astonishing ubiquity, and lastly, of my conviction that he was either more or less than man. Scarcely had the very uncourteous laughter that accompanied this narrative concluded, when a low, intermittent snore, proceeding from a person close at my elbow, challenged my most serious notice. The sound was peculiar—original—unearthly—and reminded me of the same music which had so harrowed my nerves at Bologne. Yet it could not surely be he—he, the very thoughts of whom now sent a thrill through every vein. Oh, no! it must be some one else—there were other harmonious sternutators beside him, he could not be the only nasal nightingale in the three