"Of dying? And shall I not equally die if I go on, besides enduring this diabolical torture?" "We will send off an account, then, direct to Vienna, soliciting permission; and the moment it comes, you shall have your leg cut off." "What! Does it require a permit for this?" "Assuredly, sir," was the reply. He In about a week a courier arrived from Vienna, with the permission for the amputation. My sick friend was carried from his dungeon into a larger room. begged me to follow him. "I may die under the knife," said he, "and I should wish, in that case, to expire in your arms." I promised, and was permitted to accompany him. The sacrament was first administered to the prisoner; and we then quietly awaited the arrival of the surgeons. Maroncelli filled up the interval by singing a hymn. At length they came. One was an able surgeon, sent from Vienna to superintend the operation; but it was the privilege of our ordinary prison apothecary, and he would not yield it to the man of science, who must be contented to look on. The patient was placed on the side of a couch, with his leg down, while I supported him in my arms. It was to be cut off above the knee. First an incision was made to the depth of an inch-then through the muscles; and the blood flowed in torrents. The arteries were next taken up, one by one and secured by ligaments. Next came the saw. This lasted some time; but Maroncelli never uttered cry. When he saw them carrying his leg away he cast on it one melancholy look; then, turning toward the surgeon, he said: "You have freed me from an enemy, and I have no money to give you.' He saw a rose placed in a glass in a window, and said, "May I beg you to bring hither that flower?" I brought it to him, and he then offered it to the surgeon, with an indescribable air of good-nature: "See, I have nothing else to give you in token of my gratitude." The surgeon took it as it was meant, and even wiped away a tear.-My Prisons. PENN, WILLIAM, founder of the Colony of Pennsylvania, born in London, October 14, 1644; died at Ruscombe, Berks, July 30, 1718. Of his public career we shall not speak further than to say that, although from about his twentieth year he was an earnest and consistent Quaker, he was one of the most accomplished gentlemen of his time, and was in high favor at Court during the latter part of the reign of Charles II., and the whole of that of James II. Macaulay, alone among historians, speaks in disparaging terms of his personal character; but there is good reason to believe that the acts of turpitude with which Macaulay charges him were committed by a" Mr. Penne," an altogether different person. The Life of William Penn has been exhaustively written by W. Hepworth Dixon (1872), with a special view to refuting the aspersions of Macaulay. Penn was a voluminous writer. His Select Works occupy five volumes in the edition of 1782, and three stout volumes in the more compact edition of 1825. Most of them relate directly to the history and doctrines of the Quakers. Besides these are his No Cross, No Crown (1669), written during an eight months' imprisonment for the offence of preaching in public, and Fruits of a Father's Love, being wise counsels to his children, published eight years after his death. ON PRIDE OF NOBLE BIRTH. That people are generally proud of their persons is too visible and troublesome, especially if they have any pretence either to blood or beauty. But as to the first: What a pother has this noble blood made in the world : antiquity of name or family; whose father or mother, great-grandfather or great-grandmother was best descended or allied? What stock or of what clan they came of? What coat-of-arms they have? Which had of right the precedence? But, methinks, nothing of man's folly has less show of reason to palliate it. What matter is it of whom anyone descended who is not of ill fame; since 'tis his own virtue that must raise or vice depress him? An ancestor's character is no excuse to a man's ill actions, but an aggravation of his degeneracy; and since virtue comes not by generation, I am neither the better nor the worse for my forefathers; no, to be sure not, in God's account; nor should it be in man's. Nobody would endure injuries easier, or reject favors the more, for coming from the hands of a man well or ill descended. I confess it were greater honor to have had no blots, and with an hereditary estate to have had a lineal descent of worth. But that was never found; not in the most blessed of families upon earth; I mean pious Abraham's. To be descended of wealth and titles fills no man's head with brains, or heart with truth. Those qualities come from a higher cause. 'Tis vanity, then, and most condemnable pride, for a man of bulk and character to despise another of less size in the world and of meaner alliance, for want of them; because the latter may have the merit, where the former has only the effects of it in an ancestor; and, though the one be great by means of a forefather, the other is so, too, but 'tis by his own; then, pray, which is the braver man of the two?—No Cross, No Crown. PATERNAL COUNSELS. Betake yourselves to some honest, industrious course of life and that not of sordid covetousness, but for |