on my conscience were the arts I made use of to induce the king to part with the queen, my ill usage of lady Mary, and my jilting lord Percy. However, I endeavored to calm my mind as well as I could, and hoped these crimes would be forgiven me; for in other respects I had led a very innocent life, and always did all the good-natured actions I found any opportunity of doing. From the time I had it in my power, I gave a great deal of money amongst the poor; I prayed very devoutly, and went to my execution very composedly. Thus I lost my life at the age of twenty-nine, in which short time I believe I went through more variety of scenes than many people who live to be very old. I had lived in a court, where I spent my time in coquetry and gayety; I had experienced what it was to have one of those violent passions which makes the mind all turbulence and anxiety; I had had a lover whom I esteemed and valued, and at the latter part of my life I was raised to a station as high as the vainest woman could wish. But in all these various changes I never enjoyed any real satisfaction, unless in the little time I lived retired in the country free from all noise and hurry, and while I was conscious I was the object of the love and esteem of a man of sense and honor.” On the conclusion of this history Minos paused for a small time, and then ordered the gate to be thrown open for Anna Boleyn’s admittance on the consideration that whoever had suffered being the queen for four years, and been sensible during all that time of the real misery which attends that exalted station, ought to be forgiven whatever she had done to obtain it. [11] Footnotes: [Footnote 1: Some doubt whether this should not be rather 1641, which is a date more agreeable to the account given of it in the introduction: but then there are some passages which seem to relate to transactions infinitely later, even within this year or two. To say the truth there are difficulties attending either conjecture; so the reader may take which he pleases.] [Footnote 2: Eyes are not perhaps so properly adapted to a spiritual substance; but we are here, as in many other places, obliged to use corporeal terms to make ourselves the better understood. ] [Footnote 3: This is the dress in which the god appears to mortals at the theaters. One of the offices attributed to this god by the ancients, was to collect the ghosts as a shepherd doth a flock of sheep, and drive them with his wand into the other world.] [Footnote 4: Those who have read of the gods sleeping in Homer will not be surprised at this happening to spirits.] [Footnote 5: A particular lady of quality is meant here; but every lady of quality, or no quality, are welcome to apply the character to themselves.]