it struck me, everything ought to have presented the coldness and motionless stillness of the grave. The rivet was knocked out, the fetters fell to the floor, and the prisoner was passed from the anvil to the further extremity of the room. A second entered. This was a middle-aged man. Reflection seemed with him to have well performed its duty. Calm and undismayed, he advanced to the anvil, apparently unconscious of the presence of a single spectator, and wholly occupied with meditations on eternity. Having already witnessed that part of the preparatory ceremony which he was then to undergo, I withdrew from the circle to observe the other sufferer. He had now been joined by the ordinary, and was standing near a table, on which several ropes were lying. He was directed to place his hands together, and he was then pinioned. Here, again, I felt a disposition to criticise the conduct of the officers, like that which I had previously experienced while witnessing the labours of the smith. The adroitness and merciful despatch which I noticed, I could hardly help regarding as meriting censure for the insensibility which they marked. Those who have to perform a severe duty cannot often properly fulfil their task, and at the same time conciliate the admiration of the pitying spectator. Lest what I have said should be misunderstood, it is right distinctly to say, no want of consideration for the feelings of the criminals was evinced. The officers who pinioned them, when their work was done, shook each by the hand with an appearance of sincere commiseration. The matter-of-course way in which they acquitted themselves offended me, but I had no right to expect that in performing what to them were but common-place labours, they should study my fastidious notions of fitness and effect. But a still greater contrast to the awful character of the preparations presented itself. When I drew near the table on which the ropes lay, and by which the miserable being who had most engrossed my attention then stood, I perceived on that very table the materials for gambling. Lines, passing across it, had been indented to prepare it for a game, I believe the same as that which king Henry VIII. took some trouble to put down, under the name of "Shove-groat." The strange variety thus placed before me--the mingling symbols of dissipation and misery, of pastime and of death, caused my mind, already sufficiently excited, to experience a sudden emotion which I know not how to convey to another.