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 twenty years. There is every reason to suppose that her naturally warm affection, and her strong sense, would have rendered her, in a private station, an admirable, an exemplary parent; and it was not her fault, but rather her misfortune, that she was placed in a situation where the most sacred duties and feelings of her sex became merely secondary. While her numerous family were in their Infancy, the empress was constantly and exclusively occupied in the public duties and cares of her high station; the affairs of government demanded almost every moment of her time. The court physician. Von Swietar, waited on her each morning at her levée, and brought her a minute report of the health of the princes and princesses. If one of them was indisposed, the mother, laying aside all other cares, immediately hastened to their apartment. They all spoke and wrote Italian with elegance and facility. Her children were brought up with extreme simplicity. They were not allowed to indulge in personal pride or caprice; their benevolent feelings were cultivated both by precept and example.

Maria Theresa had long been accustomed to look death in the face; and when the hour of trial came, her resignation, her fortitude, and her humble trust in heaven never failed her. Her agonies during the last ten days of her life, were terrible, but never drew from her a single expression of complaint or impatience. She was only apprehensive that her reason and her physical strength might fail her together. She was once heard to say, "God grant that these sufferings may soon terminate, for otherwise, I know not if I can much longer endure them."

After receiving the last sacraments, she summoned all her family to her presence, and solemnly recommended them to the care of the Emperor Joseph, her eldest son. "My son," said she, "as you are the heir to all my worldly possessions, I cannot dispose of them; but my children are still, as they have ever been, my own. I bequeath them to you; be to them a father. I shall die contented if you promise to take that office upon you." She then turned to her son Maximilian and her daughters, blessed them individually, in the tenderest terms, and exhorted them to obey and honour their elder brother as their father and sovereign. After repeated fits of agony and suffocation, endured to the last, with the same invariable serenity and patience, death, at length, released her, and she expired on the 29th. of November, 1780, in her sixty fourth year. She was undoubtedly the greatest and best ruler who ever swayed the imperial sceptre of Austria; while, as a woman, she was one of the most amiable and exemplary who lived in the eighteenth century.

MARIAMNE, of Alexander and wife of Herod the Great, Tetrarch or King of Judsea, and mother of Alexander and Aristobulus, and of two daughters; was a woman of great beauty, intelligence, and powers of conversation. Her husband was so much in love with her that he never opposed her or denied her anything, but on two occasions. When he left her on dangerous errands, he gave Orders with persons high in his confidence, that she should not be allowed to survive him. Mariamne was informed of these orders, and conceived such a dislike to her husband, that on his return she could not avoid his perceiving it; nor would her pride allow