De Bourgueville, who went to the spot and exerted his eloquence to check this last act of violence, witnessed the opening of the coffin.  It contained the bones of the king, wrapped up in red taffety, and still in tolerable preservation; but nothing else.  He collected them with care, and consigned them to one of the monks of the abbey, who kept them in his chamber, till the Admiral de Chatillon entered Caen at the head of his mercenaries, on which occasion the whole abbey was plundered, and the monks put to flight, and the bones lost.  “Sad doings these,” says De Bourgueville, “et bien peu reformez!” He adds that one of the thigh-bones was preserved by the Viscount of Falaise, who was there with him, and begged it from the rioters, and that this bone was longer by four fingers’ breadth than that of a tall man.  The bone thus preserved, was reinterred, after the cessation of the troubles:  it is the same that is alluded to in the inscription, which also informs us that a monument was raised over it in 1642, but was removed in 1742, it being then considered as an incumbrance in the choir.

The melancholy end of the Conqueror, the strange occurrences at his interment, the violation of his grave, the dispersion of his remains, and the demolition and final removal of his monument, are circumstances calculated to excite melancholy emotions in the mind of every one, whatever his condition in life.  In all these events, the religious man traces the hand of retributive justice; the philosopher regards the nullity of sublunary grandeur; the historian finds matter for serious reflection; the poet for affecting narrative; and the moralist for his tale.

J.R.S.

* * * * *

THE SKETCH-BOOK.

THE PICNIC AT TEMPE.

It was the most sultry of the dog-days—­Jupiter sat lolling in his arm chair vainly endeavouring to get a quiet nap, and a little further sat Minerva, lulling her father to sleep, as she thought, and keeping him awake, as he thought, by the whirring noise of her spinning-wheel.  At length Venus entered the saloon in which they were sitting, and the noise she made effectually aroused the Thunderer.  “Venus, my darling, where’s your mother-in-law?” said Jupiter raising himself on his elbow.

“In her dressing room,” replied Venus, “trying on some of my new beautifying inventions.”

“Ah,” smiled Jupiter, “you women are never easy but when you’re beautifying yourselves:  well, go and tell her I think we may as well take a trip down to Tempe, by way of employment this hot day; and send Iris to tell all the other gods to meet us there.”

Away tripped Venus to execute her commission, and the Thunderer turned again to doze; but suddenly a thought struck him:  “Here, Pallas, go and borrow Mars’s curricle for Juno and myself to ride in, for it is much too hot to think of walking, such a day as this, and tell him to put some bottles of nectar in the driving box, d’ye hear?”