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Of course, the great palace of Whitehall, where the royal patient was lying, was all in confusion. Attendants were hurrying to and fro. Councils of physicians were deliberating in solemn assemblies on the case, and ordaining prescriptions with the formality which royal etiquette required. The courtiers were thunderstruck and confounded at the prospect of the total revolution which was about to ensue, and in which all their hopes and prospects might be totally ruined. James, the Duke of York, seeing himself about to be suddenly summoned to the throne, was full of eager interest in the preliminary arrangements to secure his safe and ready accession. He was engaged night and day in selecting officers, signing documents, and stationing guards. Catharine mourned in her own sick chamber the approaching blow, which was to separate her forever from her husband, deprive her of her consequence and her rank, and consign her, for the rest of her days to the pains and sorrows, and the dreadful solitude of heart which pertains to widowhood. The king's other female intimates, too, of whom there were three still remaining in his court and in his palace, were distracted with real grief. They may have loved him sincerely; they certainly gave every indication of true affection for him in this his hour of extremity. They could not appear at his bedside except at sudden and stolen interviews, which were quickly terminated by their being required to withdraw; but they hovered near with anxious inquiries, or else mourned in their apartments with bitter grief. Without the palace the effects were scarcely less decisive. The tidings spread every where throughout the kingdom, arresting universal attention, and awakening an anxiety so widely diffused and so intense as almost to amount to a terror. A Catholic monarch was about to ascend the throne, and no one knew what national calamities were impending.

The Connecticut Valley was next the theatre of war. Springfield, Hatfield, Deerfield, and Northfield were attacked the last two having to be abandoned. At Hadley the onset occurred on a fast-day. The men rushed from their worship with their muskets, which were ready to hand in church, and hastily formed for battle. Bewildered by the unexpected assault, they were on the point of yielding, when, according to tradition, an aged hero with long beard and queer clothing appeared, placed himself at their head and directed their movements. His evident acquaintance with fighting restored order and courage. The savages were driven pell-mell out of town, but the pursuers looked in vain for their deliverer. If the account is correct, it was the regicide, General Goffe, who had been a secret guest in the house of the Rev. Mr. Russell. He could not in such danger refrain from engaging once again, as he had so often done during the Civil War in England, in the defence of God's people.

Some years ago a German Artist was travelling in Norway, on foot, with his knapsack on his back and his stick in his hand. He lodged most of time in the cottages that he fell in with on his road. In one of them there was a seal, which the fisherman had found on the sand, after harpooning the mother of the poor animal. No sooner was it admitted into the cottage than the seal became the friend of the family and the playmate of the children. It played from morning till night with them, would lick their hands, and call them with a gentle little cry, which is not unlike the human voice, and it would look at them tenderly with its large blue eyes, shaded by long black lashes. It almost always followed its master to fish, swimming around the boat and taking a great many fish, which it delivered to the fisherman without even giving them a bite. A dog could not have been more devoted, faithful, teachable, or even more intelligent.

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