By an ordinance of 1533, persons recovering from a contagious malady, together with their domestics, and all the members of their families, were forbidden to appear in the streets for a given period without a white wand in their hands, to warn the public of the danger of contact.—Three years after, the authorities were yet more severe against the convalescents, who were ordered to remain shut up at home for forty days after their cure; and even when the quarantine had expired, they were not allowed to appear in the streets until they had presented to a magistrate a certificate from the commissary of their district, attested by a declaration of six house-holders, that the forty days had elapsed. In the preceding century (in 1498) an ordinance still more extraordinary had been issued. It was at the coronation of Louis XII., when a great number of the nobles came to Paris to take part in the ceremony. The provost, desiring to guard them from the danger of infection, published an order that all persons of both sexes, suffering under certain specified maladies, should quit the capital in twenty-four hours, _under the penalty of being thrown into the river_! VISION OF CHARLES XI. We are in the habit of laughing incredulously at stories of visions and supernatural apparitions, yet some are so well authenticated, that if we refuse to believe them, we should, in consistency, reject all historical evidence. The fact I am about to relate is guaranteed by a declaration signed by four credible witnesses; I will only add, that the prediction contained in this declaration was well known, and generally spoken of, long before the occurrence of the events which have apparently fulfilled it. Charles XI. father of the celebrated Charles XII. was one of the most despotic, but, at the same time, wisest monarchs, who ever reigned in Sweden. He curtailed the enormous privileges of the nobility, abolished the power of the Senate, made laws on his own authority; in a word, he changed the constitution of the country, hitherto an oligarchy, and forced the States to invest him with absolute power. He was a man of an enlightened and strong mind, firmly attached to the Lutheran religion; his disposition was cold, unfeeling, and phlegmatic, utterly destitute of imagination. He had just lost his queen, Ulrica Eleonora, and he appeared to feel her death more than could have been expected from a man of his character. He became even more gloomy and silent than before, and his incessant application to business proved his anxiety to banish painful reflections.