"Tell me, good friends," he cried, "in what shape death is to come to the son of a king, that he may prepare his mind to meet his end as becometh a man. Grant me, at least, the privilege of dying by my own hand, that the descendant of Bruce may escape the fate of malefactors, or the mangled termination of the devoted victim of revenge. You are not, you cannot be, so bad as the sternness of office makes you appear. Shall the Prince of Scotland sue in vain to the subjects of his father for the boon of a dagger? Merciful Heaven! am I refused this request? Then is cruelty to be added to injustice; and perhaps starvation--dreadful thought--awaits me, with its attendant agonies." As the unfortunate prince uttered these words, he fell on the damp floor of the dungeon. His appeal produced nothing but a hollow growl, more like the sound of a mastiff's anger than the voice of a human being. Turning abruptly from him, they left him extended on the ground, and in an instant seemed to be entirely occupied about the manner in which they should secure, with double certainty, the door of the dungeon. On lifting his head, the victim heard nothing but the harsh expostulations of the two men, as they differed about the expediency of riveting the iron bars by which the door was fastened. The wretched youth had truly anticipated his fate. Starvation was the mode of death fixed upon by his cowardly murderers. What might have been accomplished in an instant, was prolonged for many days. Cruelty was, indeed, as he had said, added to injustice; and the merciful death of the malefactor on the gallows was denied to the heartrending entreaties of a prince. For fifteen days, according to a historian, he was suffered to remain without food, under the charge of Wright and Selkirk, whose task it was to watch the agony of their victim till it ended in death. It is said that, for awhile, the wretched prisoner was preserved in a remarkable manner, by the kindness of a poor woman, who, in passing through the garden of Falkland, was attracted by his groans to the grated window of his dungeon, which was level with the ground, and became acquainted with his story. It was her custom to steal thither at night, and bring him food, by dropping small cakes through the grating, whilst milk, conducted through a pipe to his mouth, was the only way he could be supplied with drink. But Wright and Selkirk, suspecting from his appearance that he had some secret supply, watched, and detected the charitable visitant, and the prince was abandoned to his fate. Such was the death assigned to the son of a king, the most favoured by nature, the most engaging, the most generous--what pity is it to add, the most volatile and irregular--that ever was born to a kingdom, amidst the acclamations of a loving people! RETRIBUTION.