1834. Cadwallader D. Colden, so favorably known as a philanthropist and scholar, died at Jersey city.
1837. Gustavus Adolphus IV, ex-king of Sweden, died. He came to the throne at the age of 14, on the assassination of his father, 1792; but on account of his violent and impolitic conduct, he was deposed in 1809, and his heirs excluded from the throne. He afterwards traveled in different countries of Europe under different names, and died at St. Gall in Switzerland. The latter years of his life were spent in poverty; he was badly clothed and fed, and possessed only an annuity of £300.
1837. The royal palace at Naples took fire and was partially destroyed. The library and the magnificent collection of paintings belonging to the king were burnt.
1839. Karl August Nicander, a recent Swedish poet of no small celebrity, died.
FEBRUARY 8.
293 B. C. Papirius Cursor dedicated a temple to Quirinus, on which he placed a sun-dial, the first ever seen in Rome.
291 B. C. Esculapius, the Sanitary god, as it was fabled, was enshrined as a serpent on an island in the Tiber. As a physician he used the probe, cathartics, bandages, &c., hence the respect.
1250. Robert, count of Artois, killed. He was brother to Louis IX of France, refused the empire of Germany offered him by the pope, and accompanied his brother to the Holy Land, where he conducted himself with great valor. He fell in the battle of Massourah.
1574. Geoffrey Vallee, a French writer, author of Béatitude des Chrétiens, which drew upon him the censure of the inquisition, burnt at Paris.
1587. Mary Stuart, queen of Scots, beheaded in the great hall of Fotheringay castle, at the age of 44. She was the daughter of James V, of Scotland. The misfortunes which it was the destiny of this beautiful and accomplished woman to undergo are well known. After an imprisonment of 19 years in England, she was brought to the scaffold on a conviction of conspiracy against the queen, Elizabeth.