These are truths that will be readily admitted by every one who is young and unhackneyed in the ways of men; but as age approaches, thefe fympathetic affections seem to fubfide: the pleasures of focial intercourfe diminish; and the love of wealth and power acquire dominion in their ftead. Aged perfons in general, greedy of power, and callous to the impulfes of kindness, imagine that wealth or grandeur alone are fufficient to gratify every defire of the foul. Forgetting their own rule for judging while young, they wish to deprive others of the fame privilege they valued once fo highly themselves; and thus are led to dictate with the most inflexible authority to their children as to the choice of a companion for life; the most momentuous tranfaction in which any man can ever be engaged.

Nor is this propenfity confined to one country, or to one set of people on the globe; but it extends its influence, in a greater or leffer degree, to all nations that can affume to themselves the proud name of civilized. Among such people, laws have ever been contrived, which, by a ftern inflexibility, overpower the voice of nature, and make man fubmit to her imperious decrees. The following affecting story evinces the truth of these remarks would to God it were in the regions of defpotifm alone, that fuch transactions were to be found! But in defpotic and in free governments, the fame cruel principle will be found to prevail. Even in Britain, which boasts of the happiness her people are permitted to enjoy, the fame tyrannical law in this refpect prevails, as in that defpotic ftate, where the tranfaction I am about to relate, took place. What follows is a literal translaion of a letter from Rome, which appeared as an article of intelligence in the Mercurio de Espana for the month of December 1786.

"In this capital (Rome) we have just now witneffed an event, which has drawn tears from every body here. It is five years fince a young gentleman of the family VOL. I.

S

Amedei, married an amiable and virtuous young wo. man he loved, but whose birth was not equal to his. At the end of one year, they had a daughter as the fruit of their love; but this tender union was in a short time cruelly disturbed by the parents and relations of the gentleman, who exclaimed against his marriage as clandeftine, and obtained against the unhappy young man an order of the Pope, by virtue of which they tore him from the arms of his spouse, and conducted him a prifoner to the castle of St. Angelo. A process was immediately inftituted for annulling the marriage. The gentleman tried every means poffible to prove that his marriage was valid, and to make it be ratified; his wife alfo went with her daughter in her arms, and threw herself at the feet of her judges; but in vain. A fentence was at laft pronounced, annulling the mar riage, obliging the mother, that inconfolable wife, to write to her husband with her own hand, the fatal news of their eternal feparation. Oppreffed with the moft cruel defpair, the thus wrote to him: "I find myself under the cruel neceffity of renouncing those fweet and facred bands, which till now have held our hearts firmly united; but I refign myself with less repugnance, from the confideration that it will be the means of terminating that long and fevere captivity which you have fuffered for my fake. Live free, dear husband, (this alas! is the laft time that my lips will pronounce fo fweet a name): O'live! take comfort; and, if it be poffible, live happy, far from me. Since you love the mother, remember the daughter which he has given to you, and take care of her when you know that I no longer exift; for the grief which this feparation caufes to me is fo bitter, fo penetrating, and abforbs in fuch a manner the faculties of my foul, that I want ftrength to refift it. Very foon I fhall cease to live; may my death fatiate the inhumanity of our cruel perfecutors! God bless you. Farewell!

Farewell!for ever!" Four days afterwards that unhappy and tender wife died in horrible convulfions and her death fet the gentleman at liberty, whose defpair has not yet been calmed.

Kantufa, or Abyffinian Thorn.

any

PLANTS, which are very troublefome, or very useful to man, are nearly alike interefting to him. The beautiful plant, which forms the fubject of the prefent atticle, is of the former class, in thofe uncultivated countries of which it is a native. Its branches are fo numerous and flexile, and its thorns fo ftrong and fo much hooked, as to make it an object of terror to approach it in almost any cafe. The natives, if naked, have their flesh so much lacerated by it, as to make them dread coming near it; and if clothed, it catches fuch firm hold of their garments as to tear them to pieces, if they be of a fine texture; and it burries its hooks fo deep into them, when coarfe, as to top the progrefs of perfon it has once laid hold of; nor is it eafy, even by patience and addrefs, to get one's felf difengaged from it; for the prickles, pointing in oppofite directions, often fink deeper in one fide, while they are drawn out from the other; and while the unfortunate fufferer is bufied in extricating one part of his drefs, the flexible branches, agitated by the flighteft motion of the wind, or otherwife, feize him at unawares in another place, till he is fometimes under the neceffity of quitting his garments, and leaving them behind him. Soldiers alone, who are covered with the fkin of a lion or a tiger, dare with fafety approach it; for thefe thick hides are impervious by the thorns.

So troublefome are these trees to travellers, that it is cuftomary for the Emperor every year, before he fets out from his capital, to the diftant part of his dominions, to make proclamation to this effect: "Cut