Southey, in his "Common-place Book," has traced the outlines of what might be worked up into a very effective story of "citation" for those who unjustly and cruelly put others to death. "The Philipsons of Colgarth coveted a field, like Ahab, and had the possessor hung for an offence which he had not committed. The night before his execution the old man (for he was very old) read the 109th Psalm as his solemn and dying commination, verses 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16." The verses contain a prayer for vengeance upon the "wicked and deceitful," who "have spoken with a lying tongue," and whose days are to be few, their children to be fatherless and continually vagabonds and beggars, and their posterity to be cut off. "The curse," Southey adds, "was fully accomplished; the family were cut off, and the only daughter who remained sold laces and bobbins about the country." _Legend of an Inventor._ A story is told of an inventor whose skill was the occasion of his own death. An immense bell, with the twelve hours carved upon it, had been hung in a high tower. A female figure was so arranged as to glide from her hiding place and strike each hour on the bell with a huge hammer. Everything was in its place, and it had been previously arranged with the concourse below, who had assembled to hear the bell strike, that it should sound the hour of one. Forgetful that the hour approached, the artist was still at work upon the carving of the bell, with his head near it, when the female figure, true to the machinery that moved it, glided from its place, and, hammer in hand, struck a fatal blow upon the head of the workman. _A Strange Legend._ We are told that when St. Helena had discovered the true cross of Christ, she permitted various fragments to be taken from it, which were encased, some in gold and some in gems, and conveyed to Europe, leaving the main part of the wood in the charge of the Bishop of Jerusalem, who exhibited it annually at Easter, until Chosroes, King of Persia, plundered Jerusalem in the reign of Phocas, and took away the holy relic. Before this fatal event we are taught to believe, by Rigordus, an historian of the thirteenth century, that the mouths of Christians used to be supplied with thirty teeth, and in some instances, no doubt according to their faith, with thirty-two teeth; but that _after_ the cross was stolen by the infidels no mortal has ever been allowed more than twenty-three! _Abraham and Sarah._