as the handles of fabres, ancient ar mour, faddle ornaments, bridles, and other horse furniture, together with the bones of animals, and particularly of the elephant.

The court of Russia, informed of these depredations, sent a general officer, with a sufficient body of troops, to open fuch of these tombs as had not been touched, and, in the name of the crown, to seize on what they contained. This officer, having examined these innumerable monuments difpersed throughout this vast desart, concluded thatthe largest barrow was, without doubt, the burying place of the prince or chief of some ancient nation. After having ordered a large quantity of earth and ftones to be carried away, the workmen found three vaults, constructed of stones very rudely cut. That in which the prince was deposited was in the centre, and larger than the rest; it was eafily diftinguished by a fabre, a lance, a bow, and a quiver filled with arrows, which were placed by his fide, The next vault was close to his feet, and contained his horse, his faddle, his bridle, and his spurs. The body of the prince was stretched out on a leaf of gold, that reached from his head to his feet, and was covered with another leaf of gold, equal in fize to the former. It was wrapped up in a rich mantle, fringed with gold, and ornamented with rubies and diamonds. The head, neck, breaft, and arms were entirely naked, and without any ornament whatever. The laft vault contained the body of a woman, which was distinguished by the ornaments proper to her lex. She was refting against the wall, and had around her neck a gold chain, of feveral links, enriched with rubies, and gold bracelets on her arms. Her head, neck, and breast were naked. The body, covered with a beautiful robe, but not embroidered, was placed between two leaves of fine gold. The four leaves weighed forty

pounds. The robes of both the prince and the princess appeared to be still perfect and brilliant; but they crumbled into dust as soon as they were touched. Search was made alío in the rest of the tombs; this one, however, was the most remarkable. A great number of curious things was found in them.

The tombs difperfed throughout the neighbourhood of this plain are probably those of the ancient Tartar heroes, who fell in the field of battle; but we are entirely ignorant of the epoch or history of thefe events. Some Tartars informed Mr Bell, that this country had been the theatre of several battles between Tamerlane, and the Kalmouk Tartars, whom this conqueror in vain attempted to subdue.

To this account we shall add that of Mr Bell, which is as follows, "A"bout eight or ten days journey from "Tomsky there is a plain, contain"ing the tombs of feveral heroes " who have perished in combat. They

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may easily be diftinguished by heaps " of earth and stones, with which " they are covered. It is not known "when, or by whom these battles " were fought, in a country lying fo "far towards the north. The Tar"tars of Baraba informed me, that "Tamerlane, or Timyr-Ack-Sack, " as they call him, had in these pla"ces fought feveral times against the "Kalmouks, without being able to

fubdue them. Many people from "the neighbouring places go to "thefe tombs every summer, where

custom still prevails among the "Kalmouk and other Tartars, and

appears to be very ancient. It is " easy to judge, from the number of "those tombs, that several thousands " of men must have perished on these " plains; for though the inhabitants " of the environs have dug there for " many years, they still find new ones. It is true, that those who " fearch for treasures here are often " interrupted in their work, and "plundered by the Kalmouks, who

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"

me, that he once discovered an " archedchamber, in which he found "the skeleton of a man, lying upon a

" I have seen several pieces of " armour and other curiofities taken " from these tombs, and among o"thers the equestrian figure of a man, armed cap-a-pie, which was of caft

" and lance placed by his fide; that "the skeleton crumbled to duit as "foon as it was touched, but that "the table and the arms were worth " a confiderable fum."

D

URING the whole time Mr Elwes was in the House of Commons, he never once rose to speak, or delivered his sentiments further than by his vote.

In his attendance at the House, he was always early and late; and he never left it for dinner, as he had accustomed himself to fasting, sometimes for twenty-four hours in continuance.

When he quitted Parliament, he was, in the common phrafe, "a fisa out of water!" Indeed, there is no trial more arduous than that of acquiring, at an advanced age, new modes of life. To form new societies, and conciliate new friends, new spirits, alas! are wanting. The style of Mr Elwes's life had left him no domestic scenes to which he could retire--his home was dreary and poor-his rooms received no chearfulness from fire; and while the outfide had all the appearance of a " House to be

Let," the inside was a defert; but he had his penury alone to thank for this, and for the want of all the little confolations which should attend old age, and smooth the paffage of declining life.

At the close of the spring of 1785, he wished again to visst, which he had not done for fome years, his feat at Stoke. But then the journey was a most serious object to him. The famous old fervant was dead; all the horses that remained with him were a couple of worn-out brood mares; and he himself was not in that vigour of body, in which he could ride fixty or seventy miles on the sustenance of two boiled eggs. The mention of a poft-chaise would have been a crime," He afford a poft-chaise, indeed! where was he to get the money?" would have been his exclamation.

At length he was carried into the country, as he was carried into parliament, free of exmerce, by a gentleman, who was certainly not quite fo rien as Mr Elwes. When he reached his feat at Stoke-the feat of more active scenes, of fomewhat resembling hospitality, and where his fox-hounds had spread somewhat like vivacity around he remarked, " he had ex. pended a great deal of money once, very foolishly; but that a man grew wiser by time,"

The rooms, at his feat at Stoke, that were now much out of repair, and would have all fallen in, but for his son, John Elwes, Efq. who had refided there, he thought too expenfively furnished, as worse things might have done. If a window was broken, there was to be no repair but that of a little brown paper, or that of piecing in a bit of broken glass, which had at length been done so frequently, and in so many shapes, that it would have puzzled a mathematician to say " what figure they described." To save fire, he would walk about the remains of an old greenhouse, or fit, with a servant, in the kitchen. During the harvest he would amuse himself with going into the fields to glean the corn, on the grounds of his own tenants; and they used to leave a little more than common, to please the old gentleman, who was as eager after it as any pauper in the parish.

In the advance of the season, his morning employment was to pick up any stray chips, bones, or other things, to carry to the fire, in his pocket-and he was one day surprifed by a neighbouring gentleman in the act of pulling down, with some difficulty, a crow's nest, for this purpose. On the gentleman wondering why he gave himself this trouble--Oh, Sir, replied old Elwes, it is really a shame that these creatures should do fo. Do but fee what waste they make! They don't care how extravagant they are!"

As no gleam of favourite passion,

or any ray of amusement broke thro this groom of penury, his infatiable defire of saving was now become uni, form and fyftematic. He used still to ride about the country on one of these mares-but then he rode her very economically; on the soft turf adjoining the road, without putting himself to the expence of shoes-as he observed, "The turf was so pleafant to a horse's foot!" And when any gentleman called to pay him a vifit, and the boy who attended in the stables was profuse enough to put a little hay before his horfe, old Elwes would flily steal back into the ftable, and take the hay very carefully away.

That very strong appetite which Mr Elwes had in some measure ref. trained during the long fitting of parliament, he now indulged most voraciously, and on every thing he could find. To save, as he thought, the expence of going to a butcher, he would have a whole sheep killed, and fo eat mutton to the end of the chapter. When he occafionally had his river drawn, though sometimes horse-loads of small fish were taken, not one would he suffer to be thrown in again, for he observed, " He should never fee them again!" Game in the last state of putrefaction, and meat that walked about bis plate, would he continue to eat, rather than have new things killed before the old provision was finished,

With this diet-the charnel house of fustenance---his dress kept pace--equallý in the last stage of abfolute diffolu tion. Sometimes he would walk about in a tattered brown-coloured hat; and sometimes in a red and white woollen cap, like a prisoner confined for debt.

When any friends, who might be with him, were absent, he would carefully put on his own fire, and walk to the house of a neighbour, and thus make one fire serve both. In short, whatever Cervantes or Moliere have pictured,

pictured, in their most sportive moods, of avarice in the extreme, here might they have feen realized or furpassed! His shoes he never would fuffer to be cleaned, left they should be worn out the fooner.

But ftill, with all this felf-denialthat penury of life to which the inhabitant of an alms-house is not doomed -still did he think he was profuse, and frequently say, " He must be a little more careful of his property." And, strange as it may appear, I have no doubt he thought the resolve neceffary, for his disquietude on the subject of money was now continual. When he went to bed he would put five or ten guineas into a bureau, and then full of his money, after he had retired to rest, and sometimes in the middle of the night, he would come down to fee if it was there.

The scene of mortification, at which Mr Elwes was now arrived, was all but a denial of the common necessaries of life: and, indeed, it might have admitted a doubt, whether or not, if his manors, his fishponds, and some grounds, in his own hands, had not furnished a subsistence, where he had not any thing actually to buy, he would not, rather than have bought any thing, have starved; strange as this may appear, it is not exaggerated.-He, one day, during this pe riod, dined upon the remaining part of a moor-hen, which had been brought out of the river by a rat! and at another, eat an undigested part of a pike, which a larger one had swallowed, but had not finished, and which were taken in this state in a net. At the time this last circumstance happened, he discovered strange kind of fatisfaction, for he faid to me-aye! this was killing two birds with one stone!" in the room of all comment of all moral-let me say, that, at this time, Mr Elwes was perhaps worth nearly eight hundred thousand pounds!!! and, at this

a

period, he had not made his will, of course, was not faving from any fentiment of affection for any person.

Of a character, therefore, so singular, who would not wish to know every thing? and among traits so various, a theatrical anecdote may not be unamusing. It was during this period of his being in the country, that he first became acquainted with Mrs Wells. The gallantry peculiar to the manners of the old court, led him to be very attentive and very ceremonious to her: and to the last moment of his life, she remembered the civilities which at times so diftinguished him, and paid him every attention to the latest day in which she saw him.

As was natural, he would frequent. ly talk to her about theatres; and she as naturally made mention of those present talents which adorn the drama of our day. She concluded he had seen Mrs Siddons? No.-Mrs Jordan? No.-Perhaps Mr Kemble? No, none of them. It was probable then that he must have seen the stage of his own times and remembered Mr Garrick? No, he had never feen him. In short, he had never beenat a theatre at all! Thus, not amongst the leastextraordinary parts of his character had this extraordinary man let go by, and pass without his notice, all that had been most gratifying to the national tasle; all that a whole country had crowded to fee; all that had been distinguished by public fame and honour; and all that must live while tafte has a name amongst us!

And, strong as may be suppofed the desire to see some part of this must have been, not once in the course of nearly eighty years, had the inclination been forcible enough to make him pay one crown for the fight! And Mr Garrick, Mrs Siddons, Mrs Jordan, and Mr Kemble, all funk before--five shillings! Is there in Great Britain one man able to have feen

seen these things and living in the fame town, of whom the fame can be faid?

The

The summer of 1788, Mr Elwes passed at his house in Welbeck-street, London, and he passed that fummer without any other society than that of two maid fervants, for he had now given up the expence of keeping any male domeftic. His chief employment used to be that of getting up early in a morning to visit some of his houses in Mary-le-Bone, which during the fummer were repairing. As he was there generally at four o'clock in a morning, he was of course on the spot before the workmen; and he used contentedly to fit down on the steps before the door, to scold them when they did come. neighbours who used to see him appear thus regular every morning, and who concluded, from his apparel, he was one of the workmen, observed, " there never was so punctual a man as the old carpenter." During the whole morning, he would continue to run up and down stairs, to fee the men were not idle for an inftant, with the same anxiety as if his whole happiness in life had been centered in the finishing this house, regardless of the greater property he had at stake in various places, and for ever employed in the minutie only of affairs. Indeed fuch was his anxiety about this house, the rent of which was not above fifty pounds a year, that it brought on a fever which nearly cost him his life: but the fate which dragged him on thus strangely, to bury him under the load of his own wealth, seemed as resistless as it was unaccountable.

In the muscular and unencumbered frame of Mr Elwes, there was everything that promised extreme length of life; and he lived to above seventy years of age, without any natural diforder attacking him: but as Lord Bacon has well observed, "the minds of fome men are a lamp that is con

tinually burning," and such was the mind of Mr Elwes. Removed from those occasional public avocations which had once engaged his attention, money was now his only thought. He rose upon money-upon money he lay down to reft; and as his capacity funk away from him by degrees, he dwindled from the real cares of his property, into the puerile concealment of a few guineas. This little store he would carefully wrap up in various papers, and depofiting them in differentcorners, would amuse himfelf with running from one to the other, to fee whether they were all safe. Then forgetting, perhaps, where he had concealed some of them, he would become as seriously afflicted as a man might be who had lost all his property. Nor was the day alone thus spent-he would frequently rife in the middle of the night, and be heard walking about different parts of the house, looking after what he had thus hidden and forgotten,

Mr

During the winter of 1789, the last winter Mr Elwes was fated to fee, his memory visibly weakened every day; and from the unceasing wish to save money, he now began to apprehend he should die in want of it. Gibson had been appointed his builder, in the room of Mr Adams; and one day, when this gentleman waited upon him, he said, with apparent concern-" Sir, pray confider in what a wretched state I am; you fee in what a good house I am living and here are five guineas, which is all I have at present; and how I shall go on with such a sum of money puzzles me to death---I dare say you thought I was rich; now you fee how it is!"

The close of Mr Elwes's life was still reserved for one singularity more, and which will not be held less fingular than all that has passed before it, when his disposition and his advanced age are confidered. He gave away his affections: he conceived the