want to be corrected of nothing but too much piety, too much rigour towards yourself, and too much sensibility for others.  Is not it possible to serve mankind without feeling too great pity?  Perhaps I am a little too much hardened, I am grown too little alarmed for the health of my friends, from being become far more indifferent to life; I look to the nearness of’ my end, as a delivery from spectacles of wo.  We have even amongst us monsters, more criminal, in speculation at least, than the French.  They had cause to wish for correction of a bad government; though, till taught to dislike it, three-fourths of the country, I maintain, adored theirs.  We have the perfectest ever yet devised; but if to your numerous readings of little pamphlets. you would add one more, called “Village Politics,"(847) infinitely superior to any thing on the subject, clearer, better stated, and comprehending the whole mass of matter in the shortest compass, you will be more mistress of the subject than any man in England.  I know Who wrote it, but will not tell you, because you did not tell me.

(844) On the 21st of January, Louis the Sixteenth had been beheaded in the Place Louis Quinze, erected to the memory of his grandfather.  M. Thiers thus concludes his account of this horrible event:—­“At ten minutes past ten, the carriage stopped.  Louis rising briskly, stepped out into the Place.  Three executioners came up; he refused their assistance, and stripped off his clothes himself; but, perceiving that they were going to bind his hands, he betrayed a movement of indignation, and seemed ready to resist.  M. Edgeworth, whose every expression was then sublime, gave him, a last look, and said, ’I Suffer this outrage, as a last resemblance to that God who is about to be your reward.’  At these words the victim, resigned and submissive, suffered himself to be bound and conducted to the scaffold.  All at once, Louis took a hasty step, separated himself from the executioners, and advanced to address the people.  ‘Frenchmen,’ said he, in a firm voice, ’I die innocent of the crimes which are imputed to me; I forgive the authors of my death, and I pray that my blood may not fall upon France.’  He would have continued but the drums were instantly ordered to beat:  their rolling drowned the voice of the Prince, the executioners laid hold of him, and M. Edgeworth took his leave in these memorable words, ‘’Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven!’ As soon as the blood flowed, furious wretches dipped their pikes and their handkerchiefs in it spread themselves throughout Paris, shouted Vive la Republique! vive la nation! and even went to the gates of the Temple to display their brutal and factious joy.”  Vol. ii. p. 228.-E.