daybreak, to be feelingly convinced of the fact. The dull, patchy, lifeless masses of brick and mortar, with the wharfs now silent, and conspicuous from filth and ugliness, will make him fancy he has got into a city of the dead; and if he have any quicksilver at all in his veins, may inspire him with an irresistible desire for knocking at the doors of the tombs about him, if it were only to see whether he cannot call up something like life in this immense dreary churchyard.

Now, if London at daybreak presents so chilling an aspect to one who is abroad solely from some vague notions of the beauty of early rising, or because he has a journey of business or pleasure before him, it will scarcely seem very agreeable to gentlemen who are walking abroad thus early, with a fair chance of never walking home again. But these natural throbbings, and all the other thoughts suggested by external circumstances, were quickly dispelled by the appearance of the adverse party on the ground. There was little on this occasion of the usual greetings and courtesies,-the remains, probably, of the old chivalrous spirit, which honoured a brave enemy as inferior only to a friend. Each party had come to the ground with a fierce determination to take life or lose life, though they had been led to this result by very different feelings. The Duke was indignant at being dragged into so unworthy a contest with a person he despised, and who, in his estimation, was no better than an assassin, that had received from a faction the price of his blood beforehand. Lord Mohun had probably no worse or better feeling than that which actuates the soldier on the battle-field, when, having sold his sword, he considers himself bound, for the sake of honour as well as profit, to kill the enemy who fights under other colours, and wears a different uniform from his own.

No sooner had the second party reached the ground, than the Duke, unable to conceal his feelings, turned sharply round on Macartney, and said, "I am well assured, sir, that all this is by your contrivance, and, therefore, you shall have your share in the dance; my friend here, Colonel Hamilton, will entertain you."

"I wish for no better partner," replied Macartney; "the Colonel may command me."

Little more passed between them, and the fight began with infinite fury, each being too intent upon doing mischief to his opponent to look sufficiently to his own defence. Macartney had the misfortune to be speedily disarmed, though not before he had wounded his adversary in the right leg; but, luckily for him, at this very moment the attention of the Colonel was drawn off to the condition of his friend, and, flinging both the swords to a distance, he hastened to his assistance.

The combat, indeed, had been carried on between the principals with uncommon ferocity, the loud and angry clashing of the steel having called to the spot the few stragglers that were abroad in the Park at so early an hour. In a very short time the Duke was wounded in both legs, which he returned with interest, piercing his antagonist through the groin, through the arm, and in sundry other parts of his body. The blood flowed freely on both sides, their swords, their faces, and even the grass about them being reddened with it; but rage lent them that almost supernatural strength which is so often seen in madmen. If they had thought little enough before of attending to their self-defence, they now seemed to have abandoned the idea altogether. Each at the same time made a desperate lunge at the other; the Duke's weapon passed right through his adversary up to the very hilt, and the latter, shortening his sword, plunged it into the upper part of the Duke's left

breast, the wound running downwards into his body, when his grace fell upon him. It was now that the Colonel came to his aid, and raised him in his arms. Such a blow, it is probable, would have been fatal of itself, but Macartney had by this time picked up one of the swords, and stabbing the Duke to the heart, over Hamilton's shoulder, immediately fled, and made his escape to Holland. Such, at least, was the tale of the day, widely disseminated, and generally believed by one party, although it was no less strenuously denied by the other. Proclamations were issued, and rewards offered, to an unusual amount, for the apprehension of the murderer, the affair assuming all the interest of a public question. Nay, it was roundly asserted by the Tories that the Whig faction had gone so far as to place hired assassins about the Park, to make sure of their victim if he had escaped the open ferocity of Lord Mohun, or the yet more perilous treachery of Macartney.

When the Duke fell, the spectators of this bloody tragedy, who do not appear to have interfered in any shape, then came forward to bear him to the Cake House, that a surgeon might be called in and his wounds looked to; but the blow had been struck too home; before they could raise him from the grass he expired.

Such is one of the many accounts that have been given of this bloody affair, for the traditions of the day are anything but uniform or consistent. According to some, Lord Mohun shortened his sword, and stabbed the wounded man to the heart while leaning on his shoulder, and unable to stand without support; others said that a servant of Lord Mohun's played the part that was attributed by the more credible accounts to Macartney. This intricate knot is by no means rendered easier of untying by the verdict of the jury, who,

some years after, upon the trial of Macartney for this offence in the King's Bench, found him only guilty of manslaughter.

Lord Mohun himself died of his wounds upon the spot, and with him the Barony of Mohun, of Okehampton, became extinct; but the estate of Gawsworth, in Cheshire, which he had inherited from the Gerards, vested by will in his widow, and eventually passed to her second daughter, Anne Griffith, wife of the Right Honourable William Stanhope, by whose representative, Charles, Earl of Harrington, it is now enjoyed. His lordship was twice married, his first wife being Charlotte Mainwaring niece to Charles Gerald, Earl of Macclesfield; his second was Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Thomas Lawrence, and widow of Colonel Griffith. He had no issue by either.

FRANCES, COUNTESS OF HERTFORD.

FRANCES, third Countess of Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was daughter of Thomas Howard, Viscount Bindon, and widow of Henry Prannel, citizen of London. Of her ladyship, Arthur Wilson gives the following very amusing history:

"This lady was one of the greatest, both for birth and beauty, in her time; but at first she went a step backwards, as it were, to fetch a career, to make her mount the higher. Her extraction was high, fit for her great mind ; yet she descended so low as to marry one Prannel, a vintner's son, in London, having good estate, who, dying, left her childless-a young and beautiful widow; upon whom, Sir George Rodney, a gentleman in the west, suitable to her for person and fortune, fixing his love, had good hopes from her to reap the fruits of it. But Edward, Earl of Hertford, being entangled by her fair eyes, and she having a tang of her grandfather's ambition, left Rodney, and married the Earl. Rodney, having drunk in too much affection, and not being able with his reason to digest it, summoned up his scattered spirits to a most desperate attempt; and coming to Amesbury, in Wiltshire, where the Earl and Countess were then resident, to act it, he retired to an inn in the town, shut himself up in a chamber, and wrote a large paper of well-composed