rcised his favourite talent with greater felicity. The
curious passage I transcribe may be found in a manuscript letter to Dr.
Birch.

"If you have read Herbert's account of the last days of Charles the
First's life, you must remember he tells a story of a diamond seal, with
the arms of England cut into it. This, King Charles ordered to be given,
I think, to the prince. I suppose you don't know what became of this
seal, but would be surprised to find it afterwards in the Court of
Persia. Yet there Tavernier certainly carried it, and offered it for
sale, as I certainly collect from these words of vol. i. p. 541.--'Me
souvenant de ce qui etoit arrive au Chevalier de Reville,' &c. He tells
us he told the prime minister what was engraved on the diamond was the
arms of a prince of Europe, but, says he, I would not be more
particular, remembering the case of Reville. Reville's case was this: he
came to seek employment under the Sophy, who asked him 'where he had
served?' He said 'in England under Charles the First, and that he was a
captain in his guards.'--'Why did you leave his service?' 'He was
murdered by cruel rebels.'--'And how had you the impudence,' says the
Sophy, 'to survive him?' And so disgraced him. Now Tavernier was afraid,
if he had said the arms of England had been on the seal, that they would
have occasioned the inquiry into the old story. You will ask how
Tavernier got this seal? I suppose that the prince, in his necessities,
sold it to Tavernier, who was at Paris when the English court was there.
What made me recollect Herbert's account on reading this, was the
singularity of an impress cut on the diamond, which Tavernier represents
as a most extraordinary rarity. Charles the First was a great virtuoso,
and delighted particularly in sculpture and painting."

This is an instance of conjectural evidence, where an historical fact
seems established on no other authority than the ingenuity of a student,
exercised in his library, on a private and secret event, a century after
it had occurred. The diamond seal of Charles the First may yet be
discovered in the treasures of the Persian sovereign.

Warburton, who had ranged with keen delight through the age of Charles
the First, the noblest and the most humiliating in our own history, and
in that of the world, perpetually instructive, has justly observed the
king's passion for the fine arts. It was indeed such, that had the reign
of Charles the First proved prosper