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written to agree with real history. In looking over Planta's History of Switzerland, I found that a violent pestilence, about the time when I have supposed it to happen, did actually carry off great multitudes of people in that country.* Had it been a real story, handed down by tradition, the circumstances of which were believed to be miraculous, I should have allowed it to remain so; but not thinking myself entitled to assume so much, I have attempted to trace a natural connection from association of ideas, by which one thing produces another, or is insinuated to have done so from beginning to end. The only circumstance that cannot be accounted for on this principle, is the falling of the lot to the guilty hand; and this must be conceded to me as a providential direction, or happy coincidence.