in the persons of three good and true citizens,
whose names were appended. The only
noteworthy peculiarity about them was the well
known moderation of their views.

Florence accepted the new Government with
perfect contentment, and has since been well
satisfied with all its acts.

Much erroneous statement has been put forth
in the English newspapers respecting the acts
of the Provisional Government during its short
career. Here, however, I have endeavoured to
describe it exactly as it occurred.

                         DRIFT.

IN the public Record-office, that vast block of
would-be-mediæval masonry lying midway
between Fetter-lane and Chancery-lane, rightly
parallel are these two thoroughfares, and ending
in Holborn, the old road to Tyburn, for are not
Chancery and Fetters almost one and the same
thing? Ay, in one of the iron cages of a stone
walled room to which light and air have—being
two requisites as needful for the existence and
due preservation of records, as for the wellbeing
of the Recorders who wrote them—the
very sparest access, lies the warrant, which is
copied hereunder, from King Richard the Third
to his Chancellor, bidding him send the Great
Seal to attest the parchment mandate which was
to realise the important and famous exclamation,
interpolated by Garrick, or Colley Gibber, or
some of the meddlers into Shakespeare's play,
"Off with his head, so much for Buckingham!"

The Duke of Buckingham, Henry Stafford,
grandson and heir, aged four in 1459, to his
grandfather the first Duke, who was slain at
Northampton at that date, constituted Hereditary
Lord High Constable in 1483, a K.G., was
beheaded at Shrewsbury, without legal process
or trial, and by the simple word of mouth of his
master, on the 3rd November, 1483.

The deed, writing, instrument, or what you
will, which authorised his execution might have
been sealed with the seal alluded to in the
following missive, though the Chancellor had no
excuse for yielding to the extremely unconstitutional
demand of the King for possession of
the Great Seal of the kingdom, and most
probably did not yield. Whether he did or did not
is of no consequence here. The King wished
him to overstep custom, propriety, and so forth,
and this is the expression of his wish:

"By the King——
"Right reverend fadre in god right trusty
and welbeloved we grete you wele. And in oure
hertiest wyse thanke you for the manifolde
presents that your servaunts on your behalve
have presented unto us at this oure being here.
Whiche we assure you we toke and accepted
with good hert, and soo we have cause. And
whereas we by godd's grace entende briefly to
dvaunce us towards our Rebelle and traytour the
duc of Bukingham, to resiste and withstande
his maliciouse purpose as lately by our other
lettres. We certifyed you our mynde, more at
large, ffor whiche cause it behoueth us to haue our
grete sele here. We being enformed that for
suche infirmities and diseases as ye susteyue,
ne may in your persone to your ease conueniently
come unto us with the same, Wherfor
we desir, and nathelesse charge you that forthwith
upon the sight of thies, ye saufly doo the
same our grete sele to be sent unto us, and
suche of thoffice of our Chauncery as by your
wysedom shalbe thought necessary. Receyuyng
thise our lettres for your sufficient discharge in
that behalve, yeven undre our signet, at our
Cite of Lincoln the xijth day of Octobre."

But to make assurance doubly sure, and to
enforce legal formality itself with unanswerable
authority, the King adds in his own nervous
vernacular, written, as it were, with the dagger's
point in a mailed hand:

"We wolde most gladly ye came yourselff yf
yat ye may & yf ye may not we pray you not
to fayle but to Accomplyshe in All dyllygence
our sayde comawndement to sende our seale
Incontenent upon the syght heroff. As we trust
you with suche as ye trust & the offycers
pertenyng to attend with hyt praying you to
assertayne us of your newes there. Here loved be
god ys all well & trewly determyned & for to
Resyste the malysse of hym that hadde best
Cawse to be trewe the duc of Bokyngam the
most untrewe Creatur lyvyng whom with god's
grace we shall not be long tyll yat we wyll be in
that partyes & subdewe hys malys. We assure
you ther was never ffalse traytor better purvayde
for As this berrer Gloucestre shall shewe you.

"To the right reuereud fadre in god our rigt
trusty and welbeloved the Bisshop of Lincoln
our Chaunceller of Englaund."

The strong, bold, threatening words which
make up this dread postscript, extended by me
out of the abbreviated original, had best be left
without comment, note, or corollary: all that I
would add for the reader to muse upon, is this
facsimile of the last seven words, that he may
observe that the writing is as powerful and
impressive as the language:

{image:text:[writing]}

              FOUR WILD STORIES.

THE Samoyedes, whose country will readily
be found in the northern, extremity of Asiatic
Russia, belong to that large family of the human
race which comprises the Turks, the Mongols,
the Tungusians, and the Finns, with all their
subdivisions, and which is distinguished by
ethnologists as the "Altaic." Their life is
chiefly passed in the desert regions bordering
the Arctic Ocean, which are sometimes of a
rocky character, sometimes damp and marshy;
and their principal property consists of the
reindeer which convey them from place to place