but, with his avoiding, missed my aim, yet passed through the body, and drawing out my sword, repassed it again through another place, when he cried, ‘Oh! I am slain!’ seconding his speech with all the force he had to cast me. But being too weak, after I had defended his assault, I easily became master of him, laying him on his back—when being upon him, I redemanded if he would request his life; but it seemed he prized it not at so dear a rate to be beholden for it, bravely replying, ‘He scorned it.’ Which answer of his was so noble and worthy, as I protest I could not find in my heart to offer him any more violence, only keeping him down until at length his surgeon afar off cried, ‘He would immediately die, if his wounds were not stopped.’ Whereupon I asked if he desired his surgeon should come, which he accepted of; and so, being drawn away, I never offered to take his sword, accounting it inhuman to rob a dead man, for so I held him to be. This thus ended, I retired to my surgeon, in whose arms, after I had remained a while, for want of blood, I lost my sight, and withal, as I then thought, my life also. But strong water and his diligence quickly recovered me; when I escaped a great danger; for my lord’s surgeon, when nobody dreamt of it, came full at me with his lord’s sword; and had not mine with my sword interposed himself, I had been slain by those base hands; although my Lord Bruce, weltering in his blood, and past all expectation of life, conformable to all his former carriage, which was undoubtedly noble, cried out, ‘Rascal, hold thy hand!’ So may I prosper, as I have dealt sincerely with you in this relation. “Louvain, September 8, 1613.” Such is the melancholy story of Edward Lord Bruce, a young nobleman, who, but for a false point of honour, arising from the incorrect judging of the world, might have lived to make many fellow-creatures happy, and adorn the annals of his country. The sacred griefs of those to whom he was most peculiarly endeared, it would be vain to paint. A mistress who wore mourning, and lived single for his sake all the rest of her life—a mother, who survived him only to mourn his irreparable loss—upon such holy sorrow it is not for me to intrude. It may be only mentioned, that the latter individual, recollecting the last parting words of her son, caused his heart to be embalmed, and brought to her in a silver case (the body being buried in the cathedral of Bergen-op-Zoom), and carried it with her to Culross, where she spent the remainder of her life in gloomy solitude, with that object always before her upon her table. After her death, it was deposited in the family vault already described, where it has ever since remained, the best monument of its own fatal history. FOOTNOTES: [1] Lord Buckhurst. [2] The Earl of Dorset, a poetical ornament of the court of Charles the Second. CULTIVATIONS.