no disturbance can have place." At one blow was his head severed from his body. A man in a vizor performed the office of executioner; another, in a like disguise, held up to the spectators the head, streaming with blood, and cried aloud,-"This is the head of a traitor." It is impossible to describe the grief, indignation, and astonishment which took place, not only among the spectators, who were overwhelmed with a flood of sorrow, but throughout the whole nation, as soon as the report of this fatal execution was conveyed to them. Never monarch, in the full tide of success and victory, was more dear to his people than his misfortunes, his patience and piety, had rendered this unhappy prince; in proportion to their former delusions which had animated them against him, was the violence of their return to duty and affection; while each reproached himself either with active disloyalty towards him, or with too indolent defence of his oppressed cause. On weaker minds the effects of these complicated passions was prodigious. Women are said to have fallen into convulsions, or sunk into such a melancholy as attended them to their grave; nay, some, unmindful of themselves, as though they could not or would not survive their beloved Prince, it is reported, suddenly fell down dead; the very pulpits were bedewed with pitying tears,those pulpits which had formerly thundered out the most violent curses against him; all men united in their detestation of those deceitful parricides who, by pretences, had so long disguised their treasons, and in this last act of iniquity had thrown a lasting stain on the nation.-Hume. ROYAL OAK DAY. ON the 29th of May, the anniversary of the Restoration of Charles II., it is still customary, especially in the North of England, for the common people to wear in their hats the leaves of the oak, which are sometimes covered on the occasion with leaf-gold. This is done, as everybody knows, in commemoration of the marvellous escape of that monarch from those, who were in pursuit of him, who passed under the very oak tree, in which he had secreted himself after the decisive battle of Worcester. "" 66 "May, the 29th,” says the author of the "Anglo-Roman Feasts,' is celebrated upon a double account: first, in commemoration of the birth of our sovereign king, Charles the Second, the princely son of his royal father, Charles the First, of happy memory, and Mary, the daughter of Henry the Fourth, the French king, who was born on the 29th of May, 1630; and also by Act of Parliament; by the passionate desires of the people, in memory of his most happy Restoration to his crown and dignity, after twelve years forced exile from his undoubted right, the crown of England, by barbarous rebels and regicides. And on the 8th of this month his Majesty was, with universal joy and great acclamation, proclaimed in London and Westminster, and, after, throughout all his dominions. The 16th, he came to the Hague; the 23rd, with his two brothers, embarked for England; and on the 25th, he happily landed at Dover, being received by General Monk and some of the army; from whence he was, by several voluntary troops of the nobility and gentry, waited upon to Canterbury; and, on the 29th, 1660, he made his magnificent entrance into that emporium of Europe, his stately and rich metropolis, the renowned City of London On this very day also, 1662, the king came to Hampton Court with his queen, Catherine, after his marriage at Portsmouth." "It was the custom, some years back, to decorate the monument of Richard Penderell (in the churchyard of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, London), on the 29th of May, with oak branches; but, in proportion to the decay of the popularity of kings, this practice has declined." Had the writer of this passage attributed the decline of the custom to the increasing distance of time from the event that first gave rise to it, he would perhaps have come much nearer the truth. I remember the boys of Newcastle-upon-Tyne had formerly a taunting rhyme on this occasion, with which they used to insult such persons, as they met on this day, who had not oak leaves in their hats,"Royal oak, The Whigs to provoke." There was a retort-courteous by others, who contemptuously wore plane-tree leaves, which is of the same homely sort of stuff, "Plane-tree leaves The Church-folk are thieves." Puerile and low as these and such like sarcasms may appear, yet they breathe strongly that party spirit, which they were intended to provoke, and which it is the duty of every good citizen and lover of his country to en deavour to suppress. The party spirit on this occasion showed itself very early; for we read, in a tract published in 1660, of the following judgment on an old woman for her loyalty:-" An ancient poor woman went from Wapping to London to buy flowers, about the 6th or 7th of May, 1660, to make garlands for the day of the king's proclamation, to gather the youths together to dance for the garland; and when she had bought the flowers, and was going homewards, a cart went over part of her body, and bruised her for it, just before the doors of such as she might vex thereby. But since she remains in a great deal of misery by the bruise she has got, it is thought that she will never overgrow it." Another author says, "Two soldiers were whipped almost to death and turned out of the service, for wearing boughs in their hats on the 29th of May, 1716." The royal oak was standing for many years, enclosed with a brick wall, but almost cut away in the middle by travellers, whose curiosity led them to see it. The king, after the Restoration, reviewing the place, carried some of the acorns, and set them in St. James's Park, and used to water them himself. "A bow-shot from Boscobel House, just by a horse-track passing through the wood, stood the royal oak into which the king and his companion, Colonel Carlos, climbed by means of the hen-roost ladder, when they judged it no longer safe to stay in the house; the family reaching them victuals with the nut-hook. The tree is now enclosed with a brick-wall, the inside whereof is covered with laurel." Close by its side grows a young thriving plant from one of its acorns.-Brandt's "Antiquities." "SOLDIER, rest! thy warfare o'er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Days of danger, nights of waking. In our isle's enchanted hall, Hands unseen thy couch are strewing, Fairy strains of music fall, Every sense in slumber dewing. Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er, "No rude sound shall reach thine ear, "Huntsman, rest! thy chase is done, While our slumbrous spells assail ye, Bugles here shall sound, 'Awake ye!' Sleep! thy hounds are by thee lying, How thy gallant steed lay dying. Here no bugle sound,' Awake ye!" Scott's "Lady of the Lake." MEMOIRS OF THE PLAGUE. IT was soon day at that time of the year; and as Richard the Joiner had kept guard the first part of the night, so John the Soldier relieved him, and he had the post in the morning, and they began to be acquainted with one another. It seems when they left Islington |