her jewel-case and desired him to select it from amongst more than a hundred rings which it contained, and this he did immediately. The Duke and Duchess of Medina Sidonia, it is averred, then departed sadly, and sorrowing at such an evidently unjust detention; but it is somewhat singular, and throws much doubt upon the anecdote, that no record appears of them having ever attempted to obtain an amelioration of the captive's lot, which, from their position and interest at the Spanish court, they could, undoubtedly, have procured. The unfortunate pretender was now removed to Seville, but Sampayo having excited an insurrection in Portugal, he was again taken to St. Lucar, and on the 20th April, 1603, was hanged from its highest bastion. The Dominican, and several other of the claimant's adherents, suffered the same fate shortly afterwards. THE FALSE DEMETRIUS OF RUSSIA. A.D. 1603-1606. Ivan the Terrible of Russia, having murdered his eldest son, left the crown to the next, Feodore, a prince so feeble in body and mind that the government of the country had to be committed to the care of his brother-in-law, Boris. This bold and unscrupulous man aspired to the throne, but between him and the imbecile who occupied it stood Demetrius, another child of the late monarch. The Regent left this boy to the care of his mother, the Dowager Czarina, under whose charge he attained to the age of ten. One afternoon of May 1591, the child was playing with four other boys in the palace courtyard, his governess, nurse, and another female servant being close by. According to the testimony of these persons he had a knife in his hand. For a moment he disappeared, and the next instant was discovered dying, with a large wound in his throat; he died without uttering a word. Suspicion of foul play was at once aroused, and some known emissaries of Boris being discovered in the neighbourhood, they fell victims to the fury of the populace. The Regent instituted an inquiry, and the result was a verdict that the boy had died from a wound accidentally inflicted upon himself. The towns-people were either put to death or dispersed for their hasty judgment upon the supposed assassins, the palace was razed to the ground, the flourishing town turned into a desert, and the Dowager Czarina forced into a convent. The slovenly way in which the inquiry had been made, the fact that it had been conducted by creatures of Boris, that the body was never examined, nor the knife compared with the wound, together with the attempted obliteration of all surrounding dwellings, afford very strong evidence that a murder had been done, and by the instigation of the Regent; but that Demetrius died there can scarcely be the shadow of a doubt.