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AN AUXILIARY OF DEATH.

It was in the tranquil reign of

-, when

neither war, pestilence, nor famine, swept the sub-jects of his kingdom from the face of the earth,that the grim Monarch of the Tomb began to thinkhimself defrauded of his rights, and to devise howto remedy the wrongs which he concluded had beeninflicted upon him.

And, first, he called before him his regulatingagent, Old Father Time, upbraiding him withlengthening the years of the inhabitants of thisfavoured empire, and especially by unnaturallyprolonging the duration of peace.

With this Time said he had nothing to do, butthat he could perhaps give a guess at one of thecauses that kept this portion of the human race alonger period than heretofore on earth. It was