Damien

,—a virtuous assassin, who aimed an abortive blow at the life of a tyrant (Louis XV.) who by his prodigality and brutal vices had scattered famine far and wide over his country., and corrupted the morals of a whole people. Damien underwent the most studied and excruciating tortures; his eye­balls were torn out; hot boiling lead, drop by drop, was poured into their sockets, and every refinement of cruellest invention practised on his mangled body; and for what? for an ineffectual attempt to rid the world of a monster, who every day of his life was the cause of misery and death to thousands. Damien expired on the bed of torture. The other was suffered to die in peace on a bed of state; but after death, the people could not be restrained from venting their execration and pointing their wrath against his putrid, Royal corpse.