The World's Greatest Books — Volume 10 — Lives and Letters (2024)

JOINT EDITORS

ARTHUR MEE

Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge

J.A. HAMMERTON

Editor of Harmsworth's UniversalEncyclopaedia

VOL. X

LIVES AND LETTERS

HUGO, VICTOR
Deeds and Words

HUME, MARTIN
Courtships ofElizabeth
Love Affairsof Mary Queen of Scots

IRVING, WASHINGTON
Life of ChristopherColumbus
Life of GeorgeWashington

JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS
Autobiography

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD: See ROCHEFOUCAULD

LOCKHART, JOHN GIBSON
Life of Sir WalterScott
Life of Robert Burns

LUTHER, MARTIN
Table Talk

MIRABEAU, COMTE DE
Memoirs

MOORE, THOMAS
Life of Byron

MORISON, J.A.C.
Life of St.Bernard

MORLEY, JOHN
Life of Cobden

PEPYS, SAMUEL
Diary

PLINY THE YOUNGER
Letters

RICHELIEU, CARDINAL
PoliticalTestament

ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES
Confessions

ROCHEFOUCAULD, FRANÇOIS DUC de LA
Memoirs

SÉVIGNÉ, Mme. de
Letters

SOUTHEY, ROBERT
Life of Nelson

STAAL, Mme. de
Memoirs

STANHOPE, EARL
Life of Pitt

STANLEY, A.P.
Life ofThomas Arnold, D.D.

STRICKLAND, AGNES
Life of QueenElizabeth

SWIFT, JONATHAN
Journal toStella

TOLSTOY, COUNT LYOF N.
Childhood,Boyhood, Youth
My Confession

VILLARI, PASQUALE
Life ofGirolamo Savanarola

WESLEY, JOHN
Journal

WOOLMAN, JOHN
Journal

A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the endof Volume XX.

Acknowledgement

Acknowledgement and thanks for permitting the use of thefollowing selections in this volume, viz., "The Courtships of QueenElizabeth," and "The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots," by Major MartinHume, are herewith tendered to Everleigh Nash, of London, England.

Deeds and Words

"Deeds and Words" ("Actes et Paroles"), which is datedJune, 1875, is the record of Victor Hugo's public life, speeches andletters, down to the year of his death, which occurred on May 32, 1885; butit is most important as a defence of his political career from 1848onwards. It does not, however, tell us how changeable his opinions hadactually been. His inconstant attachments are thus summed up by Dr.Brandes: "He warmly supports the candidacy of Louis Napoleon for the postof President of the Republic ... lends him his support when he occupiesthat post, and is even favourable to the idea of an empire, until thefeeling that he is despised as a politician estranges him from thePrince-President, and resentment at the coup d'etat drives him into thecamp of the extreme Republicans. His life may be said to mirror thepolitical movements of France during the first half of the century." (SeeFICTION.)

I.--Right and Law

All human eloquence, among all peoples and in all times, may be summedup as the quarrel of Right against Law.

But this quarrel tends ever to decrease, and therein lies the whole ofprogress. On the day when it has disappeared, civilisation will haveattained its highest point; that which ought to be will have become onewith that which is; there will be an end of catastrophes, and even, so tospeak, of events; and society will develop majestically according tonature. There will be no more disputes nor factions; no longer will laws bemade, they will only be discovered. Education will have taken the place ofwar, and by means of universal suffrage there will be chosen a parliamentof intellect.

In that serene and glorious age there will be no more warriors, butworkers only; creators in the place of exterminators. The civilisation ofaction will have passed away, and that of thought will have succeeded. Themasterpieces of art and of literature will be the great events.

Frontiers will disappear; and France, which is destined to die as thegods die, by transfiguration, will become Europe. For the Revolution ofFrance will be known as the evolution of the peoples. France has labourednot for herself alone, but has aroused world-wide hopes, and is herself therepresentative of all human good-will.

Right and Law are the two great forces whose harmony gives birth toorder, but their antagonism is the source of all catastrophe. Right is thedivine truth, and Law is the earthly reality; liberty is Right and societyis Law. Wherefore there are two tribunes, one of the men of ideas, theother of the men of facts; and between these two the consciences of moststill vacillate. Not yet is there harmony between the immutable and thevariable power; Right and Law are in ceaseless conflict.

To Right belong the inviolability of human life, liberty, peace; andnothing that is indissoluble, irrevocable, or irreparable. To Law belongthe scaffold, sword, and sceptre; war itself; and every kind of yoke, fromdivorceless marriage in the family to the state of siege in the city. Rightis to come and go, buy, sell, exchange; Law has its frontiers and itscustom-houses. Right would have free and compulsory education, withoutencroaching on young consciences; that is to say, lay instruction; Lawwould have the teaching of ignorant friars. Right demands liberty ofbelief, but Law establishes the state religions. Universal suffrage anduniversal jury belong to Right, but restricted franchise and packed juriesare creatures of the Law.

What a difference there is! And let it be understood that all socialagitation arises from the persistence of Right against the obstinacy ofLaw. The keynote of the present writer's public life has been "Pro jurecontra legem"--for the Right which makes men, against the Law which menhave made. He believes that liberty is the highest expression of Right, andthat the republican formula, "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," leavesnothing to be added or to be taken away. For Liberty is Right, Equality isFact, and Fraternity is Duty. The whole of man is there. We are brothers inour life, equal in birth and death, free in soul.

II.--Days of Childhood

At the beginning of this nineteenth century there was a child who livedin a great house, surrounded by a large garden, in the most deserted partof Paris. He lived with his mother, two brothers, and a venerable andworthy priest, who was his only tutor, and taught him much Latin, a littleGreek, and no history at all. Here, at the time of the First Empire, thethree boys played and worked, watched the clouds and trees and listened tothe birds, under the sweet influence of their mother's smile.

It was the child's misfortune, though no one's fault, that he was taughtby a priest. What can be more terrible than a system of untruth, sincerelybelieved? For a priest teaches falsehoods, ignorant of the truth, andthinks he does well; everything he does for the child is done against thechild, making crooked that which nature has made straight; his teachingpoisons the young mind with aged prejudices, drawing evening twilight, likea curtain, over the dawn.

That ancient, solitary house and garden, formerly a convent and then thehome of his childhood, is still in his old age a dear and religious memory,though its site is now profaned by a modern street He sees it in a romanticatmosphere, in which, amid sunbeams and roses, his spirit opened intoflower. What a stillness was in its vast rooms and cloisters. Only at longintervals was the silence broken by the return of a plumed and sabredgeneral, his father, from the wars. That child, already thoughtful, wasmyself.

One night--it was some great festival of the empire, and all Paris wasillumined--my mother was walking in the garden with three of my father'scomrades, and I was following them, when we saw a tall figure in the gloomof the trees. It was the proscribed Victor du Lahorie, my godfather. He waseven then conspiring against Bonaparte in the cause of liberty, and wasshortly after executed. I remember his saying, "If Rome had kept her kings,she had not been Rome," and then, looking on me, "Child, put liberty firstof all!" That one word outweighed my whole education.

III.--Before the Exile

It was not until the writer saw, in 1848, the triumph of all the enemiesof progress that he knew in the depths of his heart that he belonged, notto the conquerors, but to the vanquished. The Republic lay inanimate; but,gazing on her form, he saw that she was liberty, and not even the surefore-knowledge of the ruin and exile that must follow could prevent hisespousal with the dead. On June 15 he made his protest from the tribune,and from that day he fought relentless battle for liberty and the republic.And on December 2, 1851, he received what he had expected--twenty years ofexile. That is the history of what has been called his apostasy.

Throughout that strange period before his exile, the frightful phantomof the past was all-powerful with men. Every kind of question wasdebated--national independence, individual liberty, liberty of conscience,of thought, of speech, and of the Press; questions of marriage, ofeducation, of the right to work, of the right to one's fatherland asagainst exile, of the right to life as against penal law, of the separationof Church and state, of the federation of Europe, of frontiers to be wipedout, and of custom-houses to be done away--all these questions wereproposed, debated, and sometimes settled.

In these debates the author of this memoir took his part and did hisduty, and was repaid with insults. He remembers interjecting, when theywere insisting on parental rights, that the children had rights, too. Heastounded the assembly by asserting that it was possible to do away withmisery. On July 17, 1851, he denounced the conspiracy of Louis Bonaparte,unveiling the project of the president to become emperor. On another day hepronounced from the tribune a phrase which had never yet been uttered--"TheUnited States of Europe." Contempt and calumny were poured upon him, butwhat of that? They called George Washington a pickpocket.

These men of the old majority, who were doing all the evil that theycould--did they mean to do evil? Not a bit of it. They deceived themselves,thinking that they had the truth, and they lied in the service of thetruth. Their pity for society was pitiless for the people, whence arose somany laws, so many actions, that were blindly ferocious. They were rather amob than a senate, and were led by the worst of their number. Let us beindulgent, and let night hide the men of night.

What do our labours and our troubles and our exiles matter if they havebeen for the general good; if the human race be indeed passing fromDecember to its April; if the winter of tyrannies and of wars indeed befinished; if superstitions and prejudices no longer fall on our heads likesnow; and if, after so many clouds of empire and of carnage have rolledaway, we at last descry upon the horizon the rosy dawn of universalpeace?

O my brothers, let us be reconciled! Let us set out on the immensehighway of peace. Surely there has been enough of hatred. When will youunderstand that we are all together on the same ship, and that the immensem*nace of the sea is for all of us together? Our solidarity is terrible,but brotherhood is sweet.

IV.--Republican Principles

The sovereignty of the people, universal suffrage, and the liberty ofthe Press are all the same thing under three different names. The threetogether constitute the whole of our public right; the first is itsprinciple, the second its manner, and the third its expression. The threeprinciples are indissoluble from one another. The sovereignty of the peopleis the life-giving soul of the nation, universal suffrage its government,the Press its illumination; but they are all really one, and that unity isthe republic. It is curious to notice how these principles appear again inthe watchword of the republic; for the sovereignty of the people createsliberty, universal suffrage creates equality, and the Press, whichenlightens the general mind, creates fraternity.

Wherever these three great principles exist in their powers andplenitude there is the republic, even though it be known as monarchy.Wherever, on the other hand, they are betrayed, hindered, or oppressed, theactual state is a monarchy or an oligarchy, even though it goes under thename of a republic. In the latter case we see the monstrous phenomenon of agovernment betrayed by its proper guardians, and it is this phenomenon thatmakes the stoutest hearts begin to be doubtful of revolutions. Forrevolutions are vast, ill-guided movements, which bring forth out of thedarkness at one and the same time the greatest of ideas and the smallest ofmen; they are movements which we welcome as salutary when we look at theirprinciples, but which we can only call catastrophes when he consider thecharacter of their leaders.

Let us never forget that our three first principles live with a commonlife, and mutually defend one another. If the Liberty of the Press is indanger, the suffrages of the people arise and protect it; and, again, ifthe franchise is threatened, it is safeguarded by the freedom of the Press.Any attempt against either of them is a treachery to the sovereignty of thepeople.

The movement of this great nineteenth century is the movement not of onepeople only, but of all. France leads, and the nations follow. We arepassing from the old world to the new, and our governors attempt in vain toarrest ideas by laws. There is in France and in Europe a party inspired byfear, which is not to be accounted the party of order; and its incessantquestion is: Who is to blame?

In the crisis through which we are passing, though it is a salutarycrisis which will lead only to good, everyone exclaims at the dreadfulmoral disorder and the imminent social danger. Who, then, is guilty ofthese ravages? Whom shall we punish? Throughout Europe, the party of fearanswers "France." Throughout France, it answers "Paris." In Paris, itblames the Press. But every thoughtful man must see that it is none ofthese, but is the human spirit.

It is the human spirit that has made the nations what they are. From thebeginning, through infinite debate and contradiction, it has sought,unresting, to solve the problem eternally placed before the creature by hisCreator. It is the human spirit which takes from age to age the form of thegreat revolts of history; it has been in turn, and sometimes altogether,error, illusion, heresy, schism, protest, and the truth. The human spiritis ever the great shepherd of the generations, proceeding always towardsthe just, the beautiful, and the true, enlightening the multitude,ennobling souls, directing the mind of man towards God.

Let the party of fear throughout Europe consider the magnitude of thetask which they have undertaken. When they have destroyed the Press, theyhave yet to destroy Paris. When Paris is fallen, there remains France. LetFrance be annihilated, there still remains the human spirit--a thingintangible as the light, inaccessible as the sun.

V.--In Exile

Nothing is more terrible than exile. I do not say for him who suffers,but for the tyrant who inflicts it. A solitary figure paces a distantshore, or rises in the morning to his philosophic labours, or calls on Godamong the rocks and trees; his hairs become grey, and then white, in theslow passing of the years and in his longing for home; his lot is asorrowful one; but his innocence is terrible to the crowned miscreant whosent him there. From 1852 to 1870 I was in exile.

How pleasant are those islands of the Channel, and how like France!Jersey, perhaps, more charming than Guernsey, prettier if less imposing; inJersey the forest has become a garden; the island is like a bouquet offlowers, of the size of London, a smiling land, an idyll set in the midstof the sea.

The exile soon learns that, though the tyrant has placed him afar, hedoes not release his hold. Many and ingenious are the snares laid for thebanished. A prince calls on you, but though he is of royal blood, he isalso a detective of police. A grave professor stays at your house, and yousurprise him searching your papers. Everything is permitted against you;you are outside the law, outside of common justice, outside of respect.They will say that they have your authority to publish your conversations,and will attribute to you words that you have never spoken and actions thatyou have never done. Never write to your friends--your letters are openedon the way. Beware of all who are kindly to you in exile; they are ruiningyou in Paris. You are isolated as a leper. A mysterious stranger whispersin your ear that he can procure the assassination of Bonaparte; it isBonaparte offering to kill himself. Every day of your life is a newoutrage. Only one thing is open to the exile; it is to turn his thought toother subjects.

He is at least beside the sea; let its infinity bring him wisdom. Theeternal rioting of the surges against the rocks is as the agitation ofimpostures against the truth. It is a vain convulsion; the foam gainsnothing by it, the granite loses nothing, and only sparkles the morebravely in the sun.

But exile has this great advantage--one is free to contemplate, tothink, to suffer. To be alone, and yet to feel that one is with allhumanity; to consolidate oneself as a citizen, and to purify oneself as aphilosopher; to be poor, and begin again to work for one's living, tomeditate on what is good and to contrive for what is better; to be angry inthe public cause, but to crush all personal enmity; to breathe the vast,living winds of the solitudes; to compose a deeper indignation with aprofounder peace--these are the opportunities of exile. I accustomed myselfto say, "If, after a revolution, Bonaparte should knock at my door and askshelter, let never a hair of his head be injured."

Yes, an exile becomes a well-wisher. He loves the roses, and the birds'nests, and the flitting hither and thither of the butterflies. He mingleswith the sweet joys of the creatures, and learns a changeless faith in somesecret and infinite goodness. The green glades are his chosen dwelling andhis life is April; he reclines amazed at the mysteries of a tuft of grass;he studies the ant-hills of tiny republicans; he learns to know the birdsby their songs; he watches the children playing barefoot in the edge of thesea.

Against this dangerous man governments are taking the most strenuousprecautions. Victoria offers to hand over the exiles to Napoleon, andmessages of compliment are passed from one throne to the other. But thatgift did not take place. The English royalist Press applauded, but thepeople of London would have none of it. The great city muttered thunder.Majesty clothed in probity--that is the character of the English nation.That good and proud people showed their indignation, and Palmerston andBonaparte had to be content with the expulsion of the exiles.

During the whole long night of my exile I never lost Paris from my view.When Europe and even France were in darkness, Paris was never hidden. Thatis because Paris is the frontier of the future, the visible frontier of theunknown. All of to-morrow that can be seen to-day is in Paris. The eyesthat are searching for progress come to rest on Paris, for Paris is thecity of light.

VI.--After the Exile

This triology, "Before, During, and After the Exile," is no work ofmine, it is the doing of Napoleon III. He it is who has divided my life inthis way, observing, as one might say, the rules of art. Returning to mycountry on September 5, 1870, I found the sky more gloomy and my duty moreclamant than ever.

Though it is sad to leave the fatherland, to return to it is sometimessadder still; and there is no Frenchman who would not have preferred alife-long banishment, to seeing France ground beneath the Prussian heel,and the loss of Metz and Strasburg. This was an invasion of barbarians; butthere is another menace that is not less formidable. I mean the invasion ofour land by darkness, an invasion of the nineteenth century by the middleages. After the emperor, the pope; after Berlin, Rome; after the triumph ofthe sword, the triumph of night. For the light of civilisation may beextinguished in either of two ways, by a military or by a clericalinvasion. The former threatens our mother, France; the latter our child,the future.

A double inviolability is the most precious possession of a civilisedpeople--the inviolability of territory and the inviolability of conscience;and as the soldier violates the first, so does the priest violate theother. Yet the soldier does but obey his orders and the priest his dogmas,so that there are only two who are ultimately culpable--Caesar, who slays,and Peter, who lies. There is no religion which has not as its aim to seizeforcibly the human soul, and it is to attempts of this kind that France isgiven up to-day.

One may say, indeed, that in our age there are two schools, and thatthese two schools sum up in themselves the two opposed currents which drawcivilisation, the one towards the future and the other towards the past.One of these schools is called Paris and the other Rome. Each of them hasits book; the one has the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," the other hasthe "Syllabus"; and the first of these books says "Yes" to progress, butthe second of them says "No." Yet progress is the footstep of God.

Paris means Montaigne, Rabelais, Pascal, Corneille, Molière,Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, Mirabeau, Danton. Rome, on theother hand, means Innocent III., Pius V., Alexander VI., Urban VIII.,Arbuez, Cisneros, Lainez, Guillandus, Ignatius.

To educate is nothing less than to govern; and clerical education meansa clerical government, with a despotism as its summit and ignorance as itsfoundation.

Rome already holds Belgium, and would now seize Paris. We are witnessesof a struggle to the death. Against us is all that manifold power whichemerges from the past, the spirit of monarchy, of superstition, of thebarrack and of the convent; we have against us temerity, effrontery,audacity, and fear. On our side there is nothing but the light. That is whythe victory will be with us. For to enlighten is to deliver. Every increasein liberty involves increased responsibility. Nothing is graver thanfreedom; liberty has burdens of her own, and lays on the conscience all thechains which she unshackles from the limbs. We find rights transformingthemselves into duties. Let us therefore take heed to what we are doing; welive in a difficult time and are answerable at once to the past and to thefuture. The time has come, in this year 1876, to replace commotions byconcessions. That is how civilisation advances. For progress is nothingother than revolution effected amicably.

Therefore, legislators and citizens, let us redouble our good-will. Letall wounds be healed, all animosities extinguished; by overcoming hatred weshall overcome war; let no disturbance that may come be due to our fault.Our task of entering into the unknown is difficult enough without angersand bitterness. I am one of those who hope from that unknown future, butonly on condition that we make use from the first of every means ofpacification that is in our power. Let us act with the virile kindness ofthe strong.

Let us then calm the nations by peace, and the hearts of men bybrotherhood, and let us never forget that we are ourselves responsible forthis last half of the nineteenth century, and that we are placed between agreat past, the Revolution of France, and a great future, the Revolution ofEurope.

The Courtships ofElizabeth

Major Martin Andrew Hume, born in London on December 8,1847, and educated at Madrid, comes of an English family, the members ofwhich have resided in Spain for a hundred years. He began life in theBritish Army, from which he retired with the rank of major. Major Hume wasappointed editor of the Spanish state papers published by the RecordOffice; he is also lecturer in Spanish History and Literature at Cambridge,and examiner and lecturer in Spanish at the Birmingham University. He haswritten numerous works on the history of Spain; but perhaps he is bestknown for his historical studies of the Tudor period, of which may bementioned "The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth," "The Love Affairs of MaryQueen of Scots," and "The Wives of Henry VIII." In the first-named work,published in 1896, Major Hume has presented an exceedingly interestinghuman document, and classified a tangled mass of material. The epitome herepresented has been prepared for THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS by the authorhimself.

I.--Foreign Philandering

The greatest diplomatic game ever played on the world's chessboard wasthat consummate succession of intrigues which, for nearly half a century,was carried on by Queen Elizabeth and her ministers with the object ofplaying off one great Continental power against another for the benefit ofEngland and Protestantism, with which the interests of the queen wereinextricably involved. Those in the midst of the strife worked mostly forimmediate aims, and neither saw, nor cared, for the ultimate results; butwe, looking back, see that out of that tangle of duplicity there emerged anew era of civilisation and a host of vigorous impulses which move us tothis hour.

The victory of England in that struggle meant the dominance of modernideas of liberty and of the imperial destiny of our race, and it seems asif the result could only have been attained in the peculiar combination ofcirc*mstances and persons then existing. Elizabeth triumphed as much by herweakness as by her strength. Honest Cecil kept his hand upon the helm solong because the only alternative to him was the greedy crew of councillorseager for foreign bribes. Without Leicester as a permanent matrimonialpossibility, the queen could never have held the balance between herforeign suitors; and, but for the follies of Mary Stuart, the EnglishCatholics would not have been subjected so easily, whilst the religiousdissensions in France and the character of Philip II. aided Elizabeth'sdiplomacy. Elizabeth was more than once betrothed in her childhood to aidher father's policy, but when Henry died, in 1547, his younger daughter wasunbetrothed.

During her residence with the Queen-Dowager, Catharine Parr, who soonmarried Thomas, Lord Seymour, the fourteen-year-old girl was exposed toperil from the designs of the ambitious Seymour. The indecorous romping,perhaps innocent at first, that took place between her and her married hostprovided grave scandal which touched even the honour of the girl, and herkeen wits alone saved her on this occasion from disgrace. Her craftyreticence served her well, when the intrigues of Wyat, Courtenay, and theFrench party threatened Mary's throne; but when Mary was married, theSpanish party at once became interested in securing Elizabeth to their sideby her marriage. Mary's jealousy, and Elizabeth's own determination not tobe made a tool, frustrated Philip's attempt to marry the princess to hiscousin, the Duke of Savoy; and when the Protestant Swedes clandestinelyoffered her the hand of Prince Eric, her discreet wariness again protectedher from the dangerous proposal.

When Mary lay dying, Feria, the Spanish ambassador, hurried to Hatfieldto salute the rising sun, and hinted even thus early that Elizabeth mightmarry her powerful Spanish brother-in-law. But she resented his patronage,and though she coquetted, as usual, with the proposal of marriage, she tookcare not to pledge herself or submit England to foreign dictation. To Spainit was vital that England should be at her bidding. If the queen could notmarry Philip, surely she could only wed one of his Austrian cousins; or, ifnot, then England must be conquered by the sword. All that Elizabeth wantedwas time, and tardy Philip played into her hands. One English noble afterthe other was taken up and dropped, in the intervals of foreignphilandering. Lord Arundel, foolish, old, and vain, had high hopes; SirWilliam Pickering's chances looked bright, and France and Spain sought topatronise each English candidate in his turn, especially Lord RobertDudley, the queen's friend from childhood, though he was already married toAmy Robsart.

At length, after many days of dallying, great Philip decided tosacrifice himself for Spain and marry his enigmatical sister-in-law. Shemust, of course, renounce Protestantism and all the laws that made herlegally a queen; which was absurd, as Feria soon saw, and frankly told hismaster. So then Philip half-heartedly patronised the suit of his Austriancousin, the Archduke Charles. If the latter would be an obedient Spanishinstrument he could have Philip's support; but German Lutherans and EnglishProtestants had also to be considered, and Elizabeth's court was dividedinto those who feared any consort not wholly Protestant and those who wereeager for any marriage that shielded England from Spanish attack.

Elizabeth thought she could avoid the latter danger without marriage atall, so she dexterously played with all her suitors, English and foreign,while strengthening her position and gaining popularity. Sometimes sheswore she would never marry, and the next day would grow sentimental overthe archduke, or flirted with Dudley--keeping them all in suspense andafraid of offending her. The French, having no marriageable prince of theirown, supported Dudley, or any other English candidate whom they could useagainst Spain; whilst Dudley himself pretended to favour the archduke, tillmatters looked serious, and then found means of frustrating him, often toElizabeth's rage, for she wished to play her own deep game unhampered. Sheknew she could always choke off the Austrian when she wished by makingfresh religious demands. The English nobles were furious at Dudley'sselfish manoeuvres to keep the queen unwed till he was free, and theyplanned to marry the queen to Arran, the next heir of Scotland. This lookedpromising for months, but Dudley and his sister, Lady Sidney, checked theplan.

II.--The Nine Years' Comedy

In September, 1559, Dudley and his sister warmly took up the archduke'scause, and assured Quadra, the Spanish ambassador, that if the suitor wouldflatter the queen by coming to England on chance, she would marry him. ButElizabeth and Cecil, though they hinted much, would not clearly confirmDudley's promise, and Philip and the emperor dared not expose the archduketo the risk of being repulsed. The English nobles, in good faith, urged thearchduke's suit, and said that Dudley was plotting to kill his wife andmarry the queen; but they and the Spanish ambassador were outwitted atevery point by Elizabeth's diplomacy, and through 1559 and 1560 all therivals were kept between hope and fear.

Then, in September 1560, the long-predicted murder of Amy Robsart setDudley free, and made the nobles and Cecil more anxious than ever that thearchduke should be bold, take the risk, and come to England. The queen, toweaken the new friendship between France and Spain, herself again pretendedeagerness for the Austrian's coming; but the trick was stale now, andneither Philip nor the emperor believed her. To checkmate Dudley theProtestants were actively urging the suit of Eric of Sweden, when, inJanuary 1561, the former made a bold bid for Spanish support. He was, hesaid, quite innocent of his wife's death, and he promised Quadra that ifthe King of Spain would urge his (Dudley's) suit upon the queen, Englandshould send envoys to the Council of Trent, receive a papal legate, andbecome practically Catholic. He might promise, but such a thing wasimpossible, and Cecil, when he learnt of the intrigue, promptly embroiledmatters and spoilt the plan.

Elizabeth, too, saw whither she was drifting, and by pretended levityturned it into a joke. At one time she invited the old Spanish bishop tomarry her to Dudley, and next day said she would never marry at all. Butshe never ceased to flirt with Dudley, who, when his intrigue with Spainfell through, cynically appealed to the French Protestants for support.They were in no position to help him, and by January 1562, he was cringingto Spain, and pretending to be Catholic. But English Catholics hated him,and he was now no fit instrument for Philip.

In her own court it was firmly believed that Elizabeth was secretlymarried to Dudley--it was high time, said the gossips; but in truth theinternational importance of her marriage was now (1562-63) partiallyobscured by that of the widowed Mary Queen of Scots. Before the latter weredangled Eric of Sweden, the Archduke Charles, the Earl of Arran, andDarnley; but the match which Mary most wished for, and the most threateningto Elizabeth, was that with the vicious young lunatic, Don Carlos, the heirof Philip of Spain. The match with Darnley, too, as he was in the Englishsuccession, was distasteful to Elizabeth; but in order to divert theSpanish match--which, really, though she knew it not, was out of thequestion--she pretended to favour Darnley's suit at first.

In order still more to avert the Catholic alliance, Elizabeth sentactive help to the French Huguenots, and drew closer to the Protestants ofGermany and Holland, where distrust of their Spanish sovereign was alreadybrewing. In these circ*mstances, Elizabeth for the first time could defySpain, and Quadra, accused of conspiring against the queen, was expelledthe country. When the Darnley match for Mary Stuart looked too serious,Elizabeth diverted it for a time by proposing that Dudley--now Earl ofLeicester--should marry Mary. It was, of course, but a trick, through whichthe Scottish queen saw, with the object of preventing the Darnley marriageand discrediting Mary in the eyes of foreign princes; but it served itsturn for a time.

In July 1564, when the league of France and Spain again menaced her,Elizabeth set her cap at the boy Don Carlos, and even swore to the Spanishambassador that she was really a Catholic.

The further to alienate the Catholic powers from each other, shesimultaneously approached the emperor to revive the proposal of marriagewith the Archduke Charles, and to Catherine de Medici to drop a hint thatshe--Elizabeth--might marry the young King of France, Charles IX., a youthbarely half her age--anything to prevent a combination against her and themarriage of Don Carlos with Mary Stuart. Catherine de Medici had her ownreasons at the time for smiling upon Elizabeth's suggestion. She did notwish to be bound too tightly to Spain and the Catholics, for fear of theHuguenots; and in February 1565, she wrote to Elizabeth, saying that shewould be the happiest of mothers if she could see her dearly beloved sisterof England married to her son, Charles IX.

Elizabeth was full of maidenly hesitation. She was too old for him;perhaps he would not think her beautiful, and so on; but she took care tosay that there was no one else she could marry, as she would not wed asubject. The Huguenots actively pushed the proposal, and Leicesterpretended to favour it, though Cecil was against it on many grounds. But itwas never seriously meant. It brought the Huguenots to Catherine's side onthe eve of her voyage to renew the Catholic league with Philip, and itbrought the Archduke Charles once more forward as a suitor for Elizabeth'shand. When it had thus served its purpose, the idea of the mature Englishqueen marrying the boy Charles IX. was dropped.

The Austrian's new advances were looked upon somewhat askance by Spain,until his attitude towards religion was assured, and, to have a secondstring, the Spanish ambassador, Guzman, affected to favour Leicester'ssuit. Cecil and the conservative nobles were sincere now in their advocacyof the archduke, and between the two parties Elizabeth steered coquettishlyand diplomatically, modestly urging the archduke's coming, and yet flirtingdesperately with Leicester. The breach between the English nobles wasprofound, as all but Leicester wished the question of the queen's marriageand succession to be settled; and Leicester's chances were stronger thanever when it became clear, late in 1565, that the archduke would not cometo England without a firm pledge. The French played off Leicester, too,against the archduke; sometimes even again suggesting their own king whenLeicester's star waxed pale.

Later, in 1566, the Lords and Commons urged the queen to marry, evenLeicester joining in the remonstrance. But Elizabeth wished to play thegame in her own way, and soundly scolded them. She did not mean to marrythe archduke, or perhaps anyone, but whilst she kept him dangling, she knewshe need not fear the Catholic combination. Soon all danger from thatquarter disappeared for a time. Philip was in death struggle with hisProtestant subjects in Holland; civil war was again raging in France, andMary Stuart was a disgraced prisoner in the hands of her enemies. In thenine years that Elizabeth had carried on the marriage comedy she had keptthe balance whilst England was growing stronger. Now, in 1568, she couldafford to rest from her labours until danger from abroad again loomed.

III.--Catholics and Heretics

The peace of St. Germain in 1570 ended the long religious war in France,and the Guises and Catholics there, free from the strife, planned therescue of the imprisoned Mary Stuart by force, and her marriage with theDuke of Anjou, the heir and brother of Charles IX. This was a danger bothto Elizabeth and to the Huguenots, and was at once counteracted by theirbringing forward the suggestion that the Queen of England might marryAnjou. He was, it is true, a fanatical Catholic, but the Huguenots thoughtthat with England as a bait, and the powerful mind of Elizabeth to guidehim, the youth might change his views. Leicester offered his help--for heknew the match was unlikely--and soon Catherine de Medici's agents werebusy by Elizabeth's side. Elizabeth, as usual, was coy and maidenly. Shewas too old, she said, the thought of marriage was shocking to her; but,withal, the courtship went on actively. Anjou's charms and rumouredgallantries were the staple gossip at her court, and Elizabeth never tiredof hearing praises of her young suitor.

But soon the Guises and the Catholic League took fright, and urged Anjounot to be drawn into a match with a heretic too old for him. Better, saidthey, win England by force and marry Mary. To England the marriage, or asimilar one, seemed really necessary. The Catholics at home and abroad werebusily plotting against Elizabeth. Philip and Alba were ready to connive ather murder; the Protestants in Holland and France were powerless, and thismatch with Anjou seemed the only way to meet the danger. Anjou, underCatholic influence, was scornful, whilst Catherine, anxious for thegreatness of her favourite son, was in despair at his "assottedness."

Lord Buckhurst went, as ambassador to Paris, to forward the match inMarch 1571; but it soon became evident that Elizabeth could never concedethe terms demanded by the French on religion. For many months theHuguenots, and Walsingham, as Elizabeth's ambassador, tried to reconcilethe differences; and Catherine's agents in England laboured hard in thesame cause. Elizabeth herself was ambiguous, though loving, and sometimeseven Anjou was almost persuaded by his mother to accept the English crownmatrimonial at the price demanded. For Elizabeth it was necessary to keepup the pretence at all costs, for the Spaniards were plotting her murder;and to split the Catholic party whilst secretly aiding the rebelNetherlanders seemed her only chance of safety. On one occasion, when Spainand France drew together, Elizabeth professed to be willing to marry Anjouon his own terms; but the prince grew ever more opposed to the match, andin January 1572, Catherine suddenly suggested that, as Anjou was so bigotedon religion, her youngest son, Alençon, might marry Elizabeth on anyconditions she liked.

The lad was but seventeen--a swarthy, pock-marked youth--and Elizabethwas inclined at first to resent the way in which Anjou had flouted her. Shewas thirty-nine, and her vanity was wounded; but yet the friendship orneutrality of France was vital to her. "How tall is he?" she asked Cecil."About as tall as I am," replied the elderly minister. "As tall as yourgrandson, you mean!" snapped the queen. But Walsingham, Smith, and theFrench envoys plied her busily with descriptions of Alençon's manlycharms, and a treaty between France and England was settled by which theHuguenots for a time became paramount in France conjointly with themarriage of the Huguenot Henry of Navarre with Margaret, the king's sister.Feasts and cordiality were the rules on both sides of the Channel now, andthe Huguenot leaders urged the Alençon match with Elizabeth with alltheir force. In reply to all these offers, Elizabeth replied that, thoughthe discrepancy of age was a great drawback, yet the pock-marks on thesuitor's face were a greater objection still; yet if he would let her seehim, without a pledge, she might like him. She would never, she said, marrya man she had not seen.

But already Charles IX. and his mother were chafing under the Huguenotyoke and cooling towards England. They were determined not to be drawn bytheir new treaty with England into war with Spain; so, under the pretenceof keeping up the negotiations for the Alençon match, they sent theyouth La Mole to England in the autumn of 1572, really for the purpose ofdissociating France from the Huguenot-English aid to the ProtestantNetherlanders. La Mole was a gallant young lover, with whom Elizabeth wascharmed, and when he played the vicarious wooer for Alençon, shecould not make enough of him. But whilst he was philandering with her atKenilworth, and she was losing patience at his political mission, therefell like a thunderbolt the awful news of the massacre of St. Bartholomewat Navarre's fatal wedding. At once the scene changed. La Mole and theFrench envoy hurried away amidst curses upon all false Frenchmen.Elizabeth, in a panic, smiled upon Spaniards again, and, for a time, theproject of a French consort for her slept.

But not for long. Alençon had no part in the massacre, and wasknown to favour Huguenots. He wrote a fervent love-letter to Elizabeth, andproposed to escape to England; whilst his agent Maisonfleur joined withMauvissière, the official French ambassador, in wooing Elizabethanew for Alençon and for France. Gradually the parties drew togetheragain, for Catherine was already alarmed at the effect of St. Bartholomew.All the Protestant world was arming, the English ports were full ofprivateers to attack Catholic shipping, and aid in plenty was being sentfrom England to the Huguenots of Rochelle and the rebel Dutchmen.

France could therefore not afford to quarrel with England, but Anjou andCharles IX. took care to hold Alençon tight, that he might notescape and strengthen the Protestant cause in union with Elizabeth, whilstthey still kept up the appearance of marriage negotiations. Elizabeth wasever on the alert to serve her cause, and in March 1573, said she would gono further in the Alençon match unless the Protestants in Rochellewere allowed fair terms and the siege raised. Anjou, already tired of thewar, consented, and soon afterwards Catherine asked whether Elizabeth wouldnow proceed with the Alençon plan. The lad had grown much, she said,and his budding beard covered some of his facial imperfections. It wassettled that the prince should make a flying visit to Dover, but soonCatherine began to make fresh conditions. It would be such a shame to them,she said, if her son went and returned unmarried.

IV.--The Lovelorn Alençon

In the meanwhile, Alençon's love-letters to his mature flame grewwarmer; but much as Elizabeth liked such attentions, she dreaded to go toofar. Charles IX. was sinking fast, and the next heir was Anjou. WithAlençon for heir-presumptive of France, the position would bechanged; and once more the queen began to get doubtful about thoseunfortunate pock-marks on her lover's face. Once Alençon plannedwith Henry of Navarre to escape from his mother's custody and make a dashfor England on his own account, but Catherine held him firmly.

Both the Huguenots and the French king wished for the marriage, but eachparty frustrated the other because their objects were different. When theFrench ambassador, therefore, asked Elizabeth when Alençon mightcome to see her, she refused to name a time, because she knew secretly thata great Huguenot movement in France was pending, and she wishedAlençon to be there as figurehead at the time--the very thing thatthe official French Government wished to avoid. The projected movement wasbetrayed and suppressed, and Alençon's life was for a time indanger; but when Henry III. (Anjou) was seated on the throne,Alençon kept openly a rival court to that of his brother, and theHuguenots around the prince were at deadly feud with the minions of theking.

At last the crisis came. Alençon escaped from Paris in disguise,pursued by his mother, and, joining the Huguenots in arms, defied the kingand the Guises. France was not big enough to hold both brothers in peace,and Catherine told Alençon that as Elizabeth seemed so ready to helphim and his Huguenots, he ought to reopen the marriage negotiations. ButAlençon was useless to England as a counterbalance to Spain unlessFrance herself could be pledged as well, and Elizabeth considered it safestfor the time, since that could not be done, to feign a new cordiality withPhilip.

The Catholic party in France was again paramount, and by bribery andCatherine's diplomacy, Alençon and his friends were bought over. Forthe next three years the young prince held aloof from affairs, but in 1578the hollow truce ended; he was suspected and placed under arrest, all hisfriends being cast into the Bastille. In February, 1578, Alençonbroke his prison and fled, and all France was plunged into turmoil.Elizabeth was profoundly moved. The keynote of English policy was theexclusion of France from Flanders, and if Alençon was secretlysupported in his action by his brother, then Elizabeth must oppose to thedeath any interference in Flanders.

And so began the long and clever juggle by which she usedAlençon's ambition to wed her as a means to compass her ends withoutmarrying him. Huguenots flocked to Alençon's standard, whilst hesent by every post love-lorn epistles to Elizabeth, praying her to aid himto free Flanders from the bloodthirsty Spaniards. On July 7, 1578,Alençon entered Flanders with his army, and Elizabeth, still full ofdistrust of Frenchmen, feigned to Spaniards her deep disapproval, whilstshe took care that many English and Germans in her pay slipped intoFlanders at the same time, to prevent any French national domination.Presently, persuaded that Alençon had no secret pact with hisbrother, Elizabeth took Alençon and the Flemish revolt into her ownhands, and effusively welcomed Alençon's envoys who came to promotehis love suit.

He chose for his emissary one Jehan Simier, an experienced gallant, whosoon wooed Elizabeth to such good purpose that she fell violently in lovewith the messenger, as well as with his absent master. Protestant Englandtook fright at the pending marriage of the queen with a papist of half herage. Simier, whom she called her "monkey," had bewitched her, said thecourtiers, and remonstrances from all sides came to the queen.

V.--The Battle of Wits

Alençon's demands were high, but Elizabeth seems really for onceto have lost her head, and but for the strong opposition of her Council,might have been drawn into the marriage. Simier, seeing the deadlock,decided to bring Alençon over at all risks. Leicester, deadlyjealous, tried to assassinate Simier, who revenged himself by divulging tothe queen Leicester's secret marriage. Elizabeth was beside herself withrage, and more in love than ever with Alençon and his envoy. Atlength, in August 1579, the young French prince, in disguise, suddenlyappeared at Greenwich. The queen's vanity was flattered, and though thevisit was supposed to be secret, she hardly left her young lover, whilsthe, to judge by his letters, was as badly smitten as she. But though shepromised him marriage, he had to return with little else, and as soon as hehad gone she found many good reasons for delay and hesitation.

In October 1580, a new Catholic combination forced Elizabeth's hands,and she promised greater help to Alençon's project, whilst trying todraw France also into open war with Spain. The combat of wits was keen andcynical, each party trying to pledge the other and to keep free himself. Agreat French embassy came to England in April 1581, to negotiate analliance and the queen's marriage with Alençon, who had nowre-entered Flanders and was immersed in the struggle against the Spaniards.The discussions in England were becoming interminable, for the Frenchambassadors asked hard terms, when Alençon, in June 1581, losingpatience, suddenly rushed over to England to plead his own causeindependently of his brother's envoys, whom he distrusted with good reason.This suited Elizabeth, for it made Alençon more dependent upon her,and again she sent her lover back full of great promises to help him.

In August Alençon again entered Flanders, depending entirely uponElizabeth for support, and thenceforward he looked alone to his marriagewith her for his salvation. She was sparing, and the poor prince retired toFrance in September. In desperation he came to England again to press formoney and marriage in November 1581; and for months the love-making wasfast and furious. Frantic prayers, sighs, and tears on his part wereanswered by kisses and promises on hers, but she gave as little money aswould serve to get rid of him. On February 1, 1582, Alençon sailedfor Holland to Elizabeth's professed grief and real joy; and thenceforwardthe prince, first in Flanders as sovereign, and afterwards in France afugitive, supplicated and threatened his betrothed for money, and ever moremoney. But Elizabeth had now taken the Netherlands revolt into her ownhands, and thenceforward her French lover was useless to her there. So,though she still kept up the pretence of her willingness to marry him onimpossible conditions, and drove the poor creature to love-lorn despair,Alençon had served his matrimonial purpose before he died, in 1584,and Elizabeth's courtships with a political object came to an end. She andEngland were strong enough now to face her possible foes without fear.

The Love Affairsof Mary Queen of Scots

Mary Queen of Scots was one of the most remarkable womenwho ever presided over the destinies of a nation. She was born atLinlithgow on December 8, 1542, a few days before the death of her father,James V., thus becoming a queen before she was a week old. Her complexpersonality and varied accomplishments have inspired many and varioushistorians, but it has remained for Major Martin Hume to demonstrate thehistorical fatality of Mary's love affairs. In "The Love Affairs of MaryQueen of Scots," published in 1903, Major Hume gives a convincing andlogical reason for Mary's political failure, inasmuch as it did not springfrom her goodness or badness as a woman, but from a certain weakness ofcharacter. This epitome has been prepared by Major Hume himself.

I.--Betrothed in her Cradle

When in the great hall at Worms, on that ever-memorable April day in1521, before the panic-stricken princes, Luther insolently flung at theemperor his defiance of the mediaeval church, the crash, though all unheardby the ears of men, shook to their base the crumbling foundations uponwhich, for hundreds of years, the institutions of Europe had rested. Thesixteenth century thenceforward was a period of disintegration andreconstruction, in which fresh lines of cleavage between old politicalassociates were opened, new affinities were formed, and the internationalbalance re-adjusted.

In the long struggle of the house of Aragon, and its successor, CharlesV., with France for the domination of Italy, the only effectual guaranteeagainst England's actively aiding its traditional ally, the ruler of Spainand Flanders, against its traditional enemy, France, was for the lattercountry to keep a tight hold of its alliance with Scotland, by means ofwhich English force might be diverted at any time. The existence of theScottish "back door" to England, with the ever probable enemy behind it,had long been a check upon English power, and a humiliation to Englishkings in their efforts to hold the balance between the Continental rivals.But with the spread of Lutheranism in Germany and Henry VIII.'s defiance ofthe Papacy, the Catholic powers, drawn together in the face of commondanger, found a fresh bond of union in their orthodoxy which partiallysuperseded old rivalries.

In these circ*mstances the English policy, which had aimed at thecontrol of Scottish foreign relations to the exclusion of French influence,became not only desirable as it always had been, but vitally necessary topreserve England's independence.

Henry VIII.'s policy towards Scotland had been that of divide etimpera, and a series of royal minorities and the greed and poverty ofthe semi-independent Scottish nobles had aided him. The rout of the Scotsat Solway Moss, and the pathetic passing of the gallant James V., leavinghis new-born daughter, Mary, as queen (December 1542), seemed at length toplace Scotland in England's power. The murder of Cardinal Beaton, thebribery of the Douglases, and the marriage of Lennox with Henry's sisterwere all subsequent moves in the same game. Mary was betrothed in hercradle to the heir of England, and France, whose sheet anchor for centurieshad been the "auld alliance" with the Scots, appeared to be helplessagainst a coalition of England and the emperor.

Thenceforward, England's main object was to keep a tight grip uponScotland by religion or otherwise, while at first France, and subsequentlythe Catholic league, strove ceaselessly, with the help of Mary Stuart, tofree Scotland from English influence. The marriage juggle of Elizabeth waslargely inspired by her Scottish aims, and if the fortuitous adjustment ofher qualities kept England Protestant, and France wavering for all thosecritical years, if she secured the inactivity of Spain, the resistance ofProtestant Holland, and the freedom of navigation by her skilfulstatecraft, her rival Mary Stuart was a hardly less powerful factor in thefinal triumph of England by reason of certain defects in her character, theconsequences of which are dealt with in this book.

Mary possessed a finer and nobler nature than Elizabeth; she was a womanof higher courage and greater conviction, more generous, magnanimous, andconfiding, and, apart from her incomparably greater beauty and fascination,she possessed mental endowments fully equal to those of the English queen.But, whilst caution and love of mastery in Elizabeth always saved her fromher weakness at the critical moment, Mary Stuart possessed no suchsafeguards, and was periodically swept along helplessly by the irresistiblerush of her amorous passion.

French intrigue and money, aided by the queen-regent of Scotland, Maryof Guise, succeeded, after Henry's death and Somerset's invasion ofScotland, in gaining firm hold upon Scotland, and Mary, as the betrothedwife of the dauphin Francis, was carried to France in 1548, at the age ofsix, to be reared by her cunning kinsmen of Lorraine, and made, as it washoped, a future powerful instrument to aid Catholic French objects againstEngland, and the reformation in France and elsewhere. As she grew towardswomanhood in the bravest and most amorous court in Europe, thequeen-dauphiness became a paragon of beauty, charm, accomplishments, thetheme of poets, the despair of lovers innumerable worshipping her fromafar.

The boy Francis de Valois, to whom she was affianced, was a poor,bilious, degenerate weakling, stunted in figure, uncomely of face. He wasshy and timid, shunning active exercises, and though at the time of hismarriage (1558) he was too young to have been actively engaged in the vicesof the outwardly devout court, he appears to have been fully alive to thedesirability of his bride. Mary was precocious and ambitious; she wassurrounded by profligates, male and female, and, though she can hardly havebeen in love with her young husband, she appears to have been fullyreconciled to the union.

With unsurpassed magnificence the wedding of Mary and Francis took placein Paris, but it signified to the world much more than the wedding of a boyand girl. So far as men could see, it meant the triumph of the papal Guisesin France, and a death-blow to Protestant hopes of ranging Scotland on theside of the reformation.

II.--Intrigue, Plot, and Intrigue

Francis died after sixteen months reign, and Mary Stuart and her Guisanuncles, hated jealously by the queen-mother, Catharine de Medici, and bythe reforming Bourbons, fell, for a time, into the background. Mary canhardly have loved her puny boy husband, but she nursed him night and day inhis long sickness and his death so affected her that "she would not receiveany consolation, but, brooding over her disasters with constant tears andpassionate, doleful lamentations, she universally inspired deep pity." Shehad, indeed, lost much besides her royal husband; and in a poem written byher afterwards, the waste of her youth in widowhood, the loss of her greatposition as Queen of France, and her powerlessness any longer to enforceher rule in Scotland by French power, are the main burden of her complaintsagainst Providence, not pity for the husband she had lost.

The Guises were loath to surrender power without a struggle, and as soonas Francis died they sought to sell their niece in marriage again. Theirfirst idea was for her to marry her child-brother-in-law, the new KingCharles IX., but Catharine de Medici at once stopped that plan, though theboy himself was anxious for it and Mary was not averse. That failing,Cardinal Lorraine turned to the heir of Spain, Don Carlos, as a husband forher. This would have been a death-blow to Elizabeth, and Philip feigned tolisten to it; but all the strength and cunning of Huguenots andProtestants, joined by those of Catharine and Elizabeth, were brought intoplay against this threatening move, and Mary went to Scotland with asinking, sad, and angry heart in 1561, fearing her uncouth subjects,foreign to her now, vexed with the Protestant party for standing in the wayof her ambitious marriage, and determined to oppose Elizabeth to the utmostin her designs against the independence of Scotland.

With these views, gay and winsome though she was, it was not long beforeMary was at issue with her dour Protestant subjects and their spokesman,John Knox. It was hoped by her brother, James Stuart (Murray), andSecretary Lethington that a modus vivendi might be found bypersuading Elizabeth to secure to Mary the English succession in case sheherself died childless, on the undertaking of Mary that her marriage andpolicy should be dictated by England; but it was not Elizabeth's plan topledge the future of England, and her nimble evasiveness drove the Scottishstatesmen to despair.

Brawls and bitterness grew in Mary's court around the Catholicism of thequeen, and English money and intrigue were freely lavished to set Scotlandby the ears. Half the nobles were disaffected, and Murray and Lethington,having failed to secure Scottish interests by moderate counsels and theconciliation of Elizabeth, were forced to take a strong course. Of foreignsuitors Mary had many, some promoted by the Protestants, some by the Popeand the Guises, while the Catholics of England were secretly intriguing toforce Elizabeth's hand by arranging Mary's marriage with young HenryStuart, Lord Darnley, eldest son of Margaret, Countess of Lennox, niece ofHenry VIII., who lived at Elizabeth's court. Cecil's spies were everywhere,and the plot was soon known and stopped by Elizabeth, violently angry withher kinswoman for listening to such a scheme.

But Murray and Lethington, in desperation, were aiming at higher gameeven than this. They were Protestant, they had tried their best to winElizabeth's recognition; but they were Scotsmen first, and if their countrywas to be independent it must have a great ally behind it. France was outof the question while the Guises were in the shade and Catharine wasqueen-mother. So the ministers of Mary turned their eyes to the Protestantheir of the Catholic king. Elizabeth soon heard of this, too, and suddenlypretended to be in favour of the Darnley match for Mary, while shedeveloped the most cordial friendship for Mary herself; for the Guises hadagain become paramount in France, and Elizabeth could not afford to floutall the Catholic interests at once.

That danger soon passed, for the Huguenots flew to arms, and Guise wasmurdered, Mary losing thus her principal prop abroad. And Lethington nowpushed vigorously what seemed to be Scotland's only chance of safety--themarriage of Mary with the semi-idiot heir of Spain.

The English Catholics were drawn into the plot. "Only let Mary marry theheir of Spain, and we will salute her as our leader," said they. ButElizabeth soon gained wind of it, as usual, and was ready with herantidote--a most extraordinary one--the proposal that Mary should wed herown lover, Lord Robert Dudley, with the assurance of the English successionafter Elizabeth's death without issue. It was a mere feint, of course, butit divided Scotland, and unsettled Mary herself.

Meanwhile, Philip, with his leaden methods, was pondering and seekingfresh pledges and guarantees from the English Catholics. Before histemporising answer came Elizabeth had frightened Mary's advisers intodoubt, while she was holding the English Catholics in check by danglingDarnley and Dudley before Mary's eyes, and swearing deadly vengeance if shemarried the Spaniard.

Elizabeth's first aim was to embroil Mary's prospects by discreditingher in the eyes of foreign powers. To this end was directed the offeralternately of Dudley and Darnley as a husband, and Elizabeth's pretence ofshocked reprobation of Mary in connection with Chastelard's escapade. Itmust be confessed that Mary's imprudence aided Elizabeth's object, and thesour bigotry of Knox, which looked upon all gaiety as a sin, served thesame purpose. All this drove the unhappy queen more and more into the armsof the Catholic party as her only means of defence.

III.--Prudence Overcome by Passion

The intrigue to wed Mary to the Spanish prince was met by Elizabethcordially taking up Lady Lennox, and her son, Darnley, who by many was nowregarded as the intended heir of England, and was held out to Mary as anideal husband for her. So long as she had hopes of the Spanish prince shegave but evasive answers; but late in 1564 the cunning diplomacy ofCatharine and the falseness of Cardinal Lorraine had diverted that danger;and Philip gave Mary to understand that the match with his son wasimpossible, Mary's great hope had been founded upon this marriage. Unlessshe could have a foreign Catholic husband strong enough to defy Elizabethshe knew that she must make terms with Elizabeth's enemies, the EnglishCatholics, and thus bring pressure to bear upon her by internaldissensions.

It was a dangerous game to play, for it meant conspiracy; and so long asthe Lennoxes and their effeminate, lanky son were basking in Elizabeth'sfavour, the English queen held her trump card. But Lady Lennox wasintriguing and ambitious, the head of English Catholic disaffection, andcould only be held to Elizabeth's side by delusive hopes of the Englishsuccession for her son. Lennox himself, with some misgiving, was allowed togo to Scotland to claim his forfeited estates, and there, to Elizabeth'sanger, was received with marked respect, which made the English queen holdDarnley and his mother more firmly than ever, and again push forward Dudleyas a suitor for Mary's hand. Anxious to get Darnley to Scotland, notnecessarily to marry him, but as a useful instrument, Mary feignedwillingness to accept Dudley; and, in face of this, Elizabeth was inducedto allow young Darnley to go to Scotland for a short time, ostensibly onbusiness of the family estates.

In February 1565, Darnley, aged nineteen, crossed the border, to thedismay of the English agents in Scotland. It was soon after Mary hadreceived news that the Spanish match was at an end, and she was ready for anew plan to circumvent Elizabeth. Darnley as a husband would bring to herthe support of English Catholics, and a new claim to the English crown. Sowhen her eyes first lit upon the fair stripling at Wemyss Castle, shelooked upon him with favour as "the properest tall man she ever saw." Hewas on his best behaviour, and danced delightfully with the queen. Up tothis time Mary had played her game with self-command and policy, but nowfor the first time her heart ran away with her, and she took a falsestep.

To have married Darnley as part of a transaction with Elizabeth, andwith the approval of her own Protestant subjects, would have been amaster-stroke. But she fell in love with the "long lad," and could not waitfor negotiation; so she at once sent off to pray King Philip to support herwith money and men against England and the Protestants if she marriedDarnley and became the tool of Spain. Philip, nothing loth, consented, andwelcomed the coming union as a Catholic alliance and a powerful weaponagainst Elizabeth. Mary thus made herself the head of a vast Catholicconspiracy looking to Spain for support, and Elizabeth was furious bothwith Mary and Darnley for having apparently beaten her at her own cunninggame.

How Elizabeth sought a diversion, at first by new matrimonial schemes ofher own, has been told elsewhere, but her more effectual weapon was toarouse the fears of Scottish Protestants, and breed dissension in Mary'srealm. "The young fool," Darnley, insolent and proud of his new greatness,offended all the nobles, whilst Mary grew daily more infatuated with him.They were married in July 1565, and the great conspiracy against Elizabethand Protestantism was complete. Already the Scottish Protestant lords werein a panic, and after an abortive rising, they fled before Mary's boldattack, taking refuge in England.

The queen herself led her forces, armed and mounted, with her striplinghusband by her side; but she was followed close by the shaggy, stern,martial figure of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, just returned from exileto serve her; and upon him she looked with kindling eyes as a stouter manthan the fribble she had wed. Mary had now apparently triumphed by herDarnley marriage, but the avalanche was gathering to crush her. She lookedmainly to Spain and the Pope for help, and had all Protestantism againsther, led by Elizabeth, whose hate and fury knew no bounds. It was a duelnow of life or death between two systems and two women, one with a heartand the other without; and, as usual, the heartless won.

English money and skill honeycombed Scottish loyalty. Darnley, vicious,vain, and passionate, was an easy prey to intrigue. The tools of Englandwhispered in his ear that his wife was too intimate with the Italiansecretary Rizzio, who had conducted the correspondence with the Catholicpowers. Darnley, who had earned his wife's contempt already, was besidehimself with jealousy, and himself led the Protestant conspirators andfriends of England, who murdered Rizzio in the queen's presence at Holyrood(March 1566). From that hour Darnley's doom was sealed.

He had thought to be king indeed now, but Mary outwitted him; for sherecalled her exiled lords, welcomed her brother Murray, and threw herselfinto the arms of Darnley's Protestant foes, the very men who had risen inarms against the marriage. As she fled by night with Darnley after Rizzio'smurder, to betray him, she swore over Rizzio's new-made grave that a"fatter one" than he should lie there ere long. Whether she knew of theplot of his foes to murder her husband is not proved, but she almostcertainly did so, and welcomed the deed when it was done. She made nopretence of love for him after Rizzio's death, and her husband repaid hercoldness by sulky loutishness and bursts of drunken violence. Mary'sconduct toward Bothwell, too, began to arouse scandal. By November 1566,matters had reached a crisis, and Mary, at Kelso, said that unless she wasfreed from Darnley she would put an end to herself. She spoke not to deafears. Morton, and the rest of Rizzio's slayers and bitter enemies, werepardoned, and the deadly bond was signed.

IV.--Dire Infatuation

On February 9, 1567, as the doomed consort lay sick and sorry outsideEdinburgh at the lone house of Kirk o' Field, he was, done to death byBothwell and the foes of the Lennoxes; and Mary Stuart's first true loveaffair was ended in tragedy. But already the second was in full blast.Bothwell had recently married; he was disliked by the Scottish nobles, andthe queen's constant association with him had already brought discreditupon her. There had been a good political excuse for her union withDarnley, but Bothwell could bring no support to her cause; for his creedwas doubtful, and he had no friends. Nothing, indeed, but the infatuationof an amorous woman for a brutally strong man could have so blinded her toher own great aims as to make her take Bothwell, the prime mover ofDarnley's murder, for her husband.

As soon as the crime was known, all fingers were pointed to Bothwell andthe queen as the murderers, and Protestants everywhere hastened to castobloquy upon Mary for it. But for the nobles' jealousy of Bothwell, and thereligious animus, probably Darnley's death would soon have been forgottenor condoned; but as it was, Scotland blazed out in denunciation of it, andthough Bothwell was put upon a mock trial and acquitted, the hate againsthim grew, especially when he arranged to divorce his wife in April 1567,and, ostensibly by force, but clearly by Mary's connivance, abducted thequeen and bore her off to his castle of Dunbar.

On her return to Edinburgh a few weeks later Mary publicly marriedBothwell--she swore afterwards against her will, but, in any case, to theanger and disgust of her subjects. She found her new husband an arroganttyrant rather than her slave, and he watched her closely. The direinfatuation of the lovelorn woman soon wore off, and again she sighed to befree; but it was too late, for the Catholic powers stood aloof from her nowthat she had married a divorced man, and all her nobles had abandoned her.So Mary clung to Bothwell still, for he was strong, and all Scotland criedshame upon her.

In June, Mary and her husband, fearing attack or treachery, fled fromEdinburgh Castle, which at once opened its gates to Morton and the rebellords. A parley was sent to Mary offering submission if she would leaveBothwell to his fate. She indignantly refused, for she feared the lords andhated Morton. Bothwell was strong, she thought, and he was the father ofher unborn child; be might protect her. So by Bothwell's side she rode outat the head of the border clansmen, and met the rebel army at CarberryHill, hard by Edinburgh.

It was agreed that the dispute should be decided by the single combatbetween Bothwell and Lindsay, but before the duel began Mary's bordermenbecame disordered, and then she knew that all was lost. Kirkaldy of Grangecame from her opponents to parley with her and offer safety for her, butnot for Bothwell. Whilst they were speaking, Bothwell attempted to murderGrange; and when Mary forbade such treachery, he lost his nerve and beganto whimper. In a moment the scales fell from Mary's eyes. This man was buta lath painted like steel. His strength was but a lie, and he was unworthyof her. She turned from him in contempt, and surrendered to the lords;while Bothwell fled, and unhappy Mary saw him no more.

V.--Langside and After

Cursed by crowds, who reviled her as a murderess and adulteress, Marywas led, a captive, to her capital. By night, to save her from the fury ofthe mob, she was smuggled out of Edinburgh and lodged, a prisoner, in theisland fortress of Lochleven. During her long incarceration there the storyof her wrongs and sufferings stirred the Catholics at home and abroad inher favour, and her friends and foes were again sharply divided accordingto their religious creeds. The rulers of Scotland, too, headed by herbrother Murray, were far from easy; for the Catholics were strong, andforeign crowned heads looked black at those who kept a sovereign indurance. So attempts were made to conciliate her by proposing marriage withsome harmless Scottish noble, conjoined with her abdication. But her heartwas high still, and she would bate no jot of her queenship; rather wouldshe exercise her glamour upon her gaolers and escape to power andsovereignty again. Her fascination was irresistible, and Murray'shalf-brother, young George Douglas, a mere lad, fell a victim to hersmiles. Once more Mary fell in love, and proposed to marry the youth whohad endeavoured to aid her escape.

Murray was shocked, and had his brother expelled the castle; but inApril 1568 the faithful George planned her evasion of the guard andjoyfully welcomed her on the shore of the lake. To her standard flocked theCatholic lords, and, safe at Hamilton, Mary, again a queen, swore vengeanceupon her foes. On her way with her army to Dumbarton she met Murray's forceat Langside, near Glasgow. She had been strong at Carberry Hill withBothwell at her side. Here she was weak, for no man of weight or characterwas with her, and as her men wavered she turned rein and fled.

For sixty miles on bad roads she struggled on, almost without sleep, andliving on beggar's fare. With no adviser or woman near her, in her panicand despair she took the fatal resolve and crossed the Solway intoElizabeth's realm, trusting to the magnanimity of the woman whom she hadtried to ruin and supplant. Again her heart had deceived her. Elizabeth hadno pity for a vanquished foe, and for the rest of her miserable life, wellnigh a score of years, Mary Stuart was a prisoner. But in all those yearsshe never ceased to plot and plan for the overthrow of Elizabeth and herown elevation to the Catholic throne of all Britain.

Amidst her many weapons, that of marriage and her personal fascinationwere not forgotten. Twice, at least, she tried to make her love affairsserve her political ambition. Poor, f*ckless Norfolk was drawn by hisvanity and ambition into her net. Love epistles, breathing eternaldevotion, passed between them, but murder was behind it all--the murder ofElizabeth, and the subjection of England to Spain to work Mary's vengeanceon her foes, and Norfolk lost his head deservedly.

Again she dreamed of marrying the Christian champion, Don Juan ofAustria, and conquering and ruling over a Catholic England. But this plot,too, was discovered, and Don Juan, like all the rest of Mary's lovers, diedmiserably. Mary thenceforward was the centre of Spain's great conspiracyagainst England's queen, but she sought the end no more by love; for thathad failed her every time she tried. She and her cause were beaten becauseher heart of fire was pitted against a heart of ice, and she lost allbecause she loved too much.

Life of ChristopherColumbus

Washington Irving, American historian and essayist, wasborn on April 3, 1783, in New York, of a family which came originally fromScotland. He knew Europe well, and was equally at home in London, Paris,and Madrid; he held the offices, in 1829, of Secretary to the AmericanEmbassy in London, and, in 1842, of American Minister in Spain. He wasdeeply interested in Spanish history, and besides the "Life and Voyages ofChristopher Columbus," he wrote "The Voyages of the Companions ofColumbus," "The Conquest of Granada," "The Alhambra," and "Legends of theConquest of Spain." He was an industrious man of letters, having anexcellent style, wide knowledge, and pleasant humour. His chief work wasthe "Life of George Washington," of which we give an epitome elsewhere.Other writings include "A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker,"the celebrated "Sketch Book," "Bracebridge Hall," "Tales of a Traveller,"and a "Life of Goldsmith." Irving did not marry, and died on November 28,1859, in his home at Sunnyside on the Hudson River, and is buried atTarrytown. The "Life of Columbus" was published in 1828 and is nowobtainable in a number of popular editions.

The Years of Waiting

Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa about 1435, of poor but reputableparents. He soon evinced a passion for geographical knowledge, and anirresistible inclination for the sea. We have but shadowy traces of hislife till he took up his abode in Lisbon about 1470. His contemporariesdescribe him as tall and muscular; he was moderate and simple in diet andapparel, eloquent, engaging, and affable. At Lisbon he married a lady ofrank, Doña Felipa. He supported his family by making maps andcharts.

Portugal was prosecuting modern discovery with great enthusiasm, seekinga route to India by the coast of Africa; Columbus's genius conceived thebold idea of seeking India across the Atlantic. He set it down that theearth was a terraqueous globe, which might be travelled round. Thecircumference he divided into twenty-four hours. Of these he imagined thatfifteen hours had been known to the ancients; the Portguese had advancedthe western frontier one hour more by the discovery of the Azores and theCape de Verde Islands; still, about eight hours remained to be explored.This space he imagined to be occupied in great measure by the easternregions of Asia. A navigator, therefore, pursuing a direct course from eastto west, must arrive at Asia or discover intervening land.

The work of Marco Polo is the key to many of the ideas of Columbus. Theterritories of the Great Khan were the object of his search in all hisvoyages. Much of the success of his enterprise rested on two happy errors;the imaginary extent of Asia to the east, and the supposed smallness of theearth. Without these errors he would hardly have ventured into theimmeasurable waste of waters of the Atlantic.

A deep religious sentiment mingled with his thoughts; he looked uponhimself as chosen from among men, and he read of his discovery as foretoldin Holy Writ. Navigation was still too imperfect for such an undertaking;mariners rarely ventured far out of sight of land. But knowledge wasadvancing, and the astrolabe, which has been modified into the modernquadrant, was being applied to navigation. This was the one thing wantingto free the mariner from his long bondage to the land.

Columbus now laid his great project before the King of Portugal, butwithout success. Greatly disappointed, he sailed to Spain, hoping toreceive the patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was many months beforehe could even obtain a hearing; his means were exhausted, and he had tocontend against ridicule and scorn, but the royal audience was at lengthobtained. Ferdinand assembled learned astronomers and cosmographers to holda conference with Columbus. They assailed him with citations from theBible. One objection advanced was, that should a ship ever succeed inreaching India, she could never come back, for the rotundity of the globewould present a mountain, up which it would be impossible to sail. Finally,after five years, the junta condemned the scheme as vain andimpossible.

Columbus was on the point of leaving Spain, when the real grandeur ofthe subject broke at last on Isabella's mind, and she resolved to undertakethe enterprise. Articles of agreement were drawn up and signed by Ferdinandand Isabella. Columbus and his heirs were to have the office of HighAdmiral in all the seas, lands, and continents he might discover, and hewas to be viceroy over the said lands and continents. He was to haveone-tenth of all profits, and contribute an eighth of the expense ofexpeditions. Columbus proposed that the profits from his discoveries shouldbe consecrated to a crusade.

The First Voyage

(August, 1492--March, 1493)

Columbus set out joyfully for Palos, where the expedition was to befitted out. He had spent eighteen years in hopeless solicitation, amidstpoverty, neglect, and ridicule. When the nature of the expedition washeard, the boldest seamen shrank from such a chimerical cruise, but at lastevery difficulty was vanquished, and the vessels were ready for sea. Two ofthem were light, half-decked caravels; the Santa Maria, on which Columbushoisted his flag, was completely decked. The whole number of persons wasone hundred and twenty.

Columbus set sail on August 3, 1492, steering for the Canary Islands.From there they were wafted gently over a tranquil sea by the trade wind,and for many days did not change a sail. The poor mariners gradually becameuneasy at the length of the voyage. The sight of small birds, too feeble tofly far, cheered their hearts for a time, but again their impatience roseto absolute mutiny. Then new hopes diverted them. There was an appearanceof land, and the ships altered their course and stood all night to thesouth-west, but the morning light put an end to their hopes; the fanciedland proved to be an evening cloud.

Again the seamen broke forth into loud clamours, and insisted onabandoning the voyage. Fortunately, the following day a branch with berrieson it floated by; they picked up also a small board and a carved staff, andall murmuring was now at an end. Not an eye was closed that night. Columbustook his station on the top of the cabin. Suddenly, about ten o'clock, hebeheld a light. At two in the morning the land was clearly seen, and theytook in sail, waiting for the dawn. The great mystery of the ocean wasrevealed.

When the day dawned, Columbus landed, threw himself upon his knees,kissed the earth, and returned thanks to God. Rising, he drew his sword,displayed the royal standard, and took possession in the names of theCastillian sovereigns, naming the island San Salvador. It is one of theBahama Islands, and still retains that name, though also called CatIsland.

The natives thought that the ships had descended from above on theirample wings, and that these marvellous beings were inhabitants of theskies. They appeared to be simple and artless people, and of gentle andfriendly dispositions. As Columbus supposed that the island was at theextremity of India, he called them Indians. He understood them to say thata king of great wealth resided in the south. This, he concluded, could beno other than Cipango, or Japan. He now beheld a number of beautifulislands, green, level, and fertile; and supposed them to be the archipelagodescribed by Marco Polo. He was enchanted by the lovely scenery, thesinging of the birds, and the brilliantly colored fish, though disappointedin his hopes of finding gold or spice; but the natives continued to pointto the south as the region of wealth, and spoke of an Island calledCuba.

He set sail in search of it, and was struck with its magnitude, thegrandeur of its mountains, its fertile valleys, sweeping plains, statelyforests, and noble rivers. He explored the coast to the east end of Cuba,supposing it the extreme point of Asia, and then descried the mountains ofHayti to the south-east. In coasting along this island, which he namedHispaniola, his ship was carried by a current on a sandbank and lost. Theadmiral and crew took refuge in one of the caravels. The natives,especially the cacique Guacanagari, offered him every assistance. TheSpanish mariners regarded with a wistful eye the easy and idle existence ofthese Indians, who seemed to live in a golden world without toil, and theyentreated permission to remain.

This suggested to Columbus the idea of forming the germ of a futurecolony. The cacique was overjoyed, and the natives helped to build a fort,thus assisting to place on their necks the yoke of slavery. The fortressand harbour were named La Navidad.

Columbus chose thirty-nine of those who volunteered to remain, chargedthem to be circ*mspect and friendly with the natives, and set sail forSpain. He encountered violent tempests, his small and crazy vessels werelittle fitted for the wild storms of the Atlantic; the oldest mariners hadnever known so tempestuous a winter, and their preservation seemedmiraculous. They were forced to run into Tagus for shelter. The King ofPortugal treated Columbus with the most honourable attentions. When theweather had moderated he put to sea again, and arrived safely at Palos onMarch 15, having taken not quite seven months and a half to accomplish thismost momentous of all maritime enterprises.

Columbus landed and walked in procession to the church to return thanksto God. Bells were rung, the shops shut, and all business suspended. Thesovereigns were dazzled by this easy acquisition of a new empire. Theyaddressed Columbus as admiral and viceroy, and urged him to repairimmediately to court to concert plans for a second expedition. His journeyto Barcelona was like the progress of a sovereign, and his entrance intothat city has been compared to a Roman triumph. On his approach thesovereigns rose and ordered him to seat himself in their presence. WhenColumbus had given an account of his voyage, the king and queen sank ontheir knees, and a Te Deum was chanted by the choir of the royalchapel. Such was the manner in which the brilliant court of Spaincelebrated this sublime event.

The whole civilised world was filled with wonder and delight, but no onehad an idea of the real importance of the discovery. The opinion ofColumbus was universally adopted that Cuba was the end of Asia; the islandswere named the West Indies, and the vast region was called the NewWorld.

The Second Voyage

(September, 1493--June, 1496)

Extraordinary excitement prevailed about the second expedition, and manyhidalgos of high rank pressed into it. They sailed from Cadiz in September1493; all were full of animation, anticipating a triumphant return. Whenthey reached La Navidad they found the fortress burnt. At length, from somenatives they heard the story of the brawls of the colonists betweenthemselves, and their surprise and destruction by unfriendly Indians.Columbus fixed upon a new site for his colony, which he named Isabella. Twosmall expeditions were sent inland to explore, and returned withenthusiastic accounts of the promise of the mountains, and Columbus sent toSpain a glowing report of the prospects of the colony.

Soon, however, maladies made their appearance, provisions began to fail,and murmuring prevailed among the colonists. In truth, the fate of many ofthe young cavaliers, who had come out deluded by romantic dreams, waslamentable in the extreme. Columbus arranged for the government of theisland, and set sail to explore the southern coast of Cuba, supposing it tobe the extreme end of Asia. He had to contend with almost incredibleperils, and was obliged to return. Had he continued for two or three dayslonger he would have passed round the extremity of Cuba; his illusion wouldhave been dispelled, and a different course given to his subsequentdiscoveries.

During his absence from Isabella the whole island had become a scene ofviolence and discord. Margarite, the general left in charge of thesoldiers, and Friar Boyle, the apostolical vicar, formed a cabal of thediscontented, took possession of certain ships, and set sail for Spain, torepresent the disastrous state of the country, and to complain of thetyranny of Columbus. The soldiers indulged in all kinds of excesses, andthe Indians were converted from gentle hosts into vindictive enemies.

Meanwhile, a commissioner was sent out to inquire into the distress ofthe colony and the conduct of Columbus. He collected all complaints, andreturned to Spain, Columbus sailing at the same time. Never did a moremiserable crew return from a land of promise.

The vessels anchored at Cadiz, and a feeble train of wretched mencrawled forth, emaciated by diseases. Contrary to his anticipation,Columbus was received with distinguished favour. Thus encouraged, heproposed a further enterprise, and asked for eight ships, which werereadily promised; but it was not until May 1498, that he again setsail.

The Third Voyage

(May, 1498--October, 1500)

From the Cape de Verde Islands, Columbus steered to the south-west,until he arrived at the fifth degree of north latitude. The air was like afurnace, the mariners lost all strength and spirit, and Columbus wasinduced to alter his course to the northwest. After sailing some distancethey reached a genial region with a cooling breeze and serene and clearsky. They descried three mountains above the horizon; as they drew nearer,they proved to be united at the base, and Columbus, therefore, named thisisland La Trinidad. He coasted round Trinidad, and landed on the mainland,but mistook it for an island. He was astonished at the body of fresh waterflowing into the Gulf of Paria, and came to the conclusion that it must bethe outpouring of a great unknown continent stretching to the south, farbeyond the equator. His supplies were now almost exhausted, and hedetermined to return to Hispaniola.

He found the island in a lamentable situation. A conspiracy had beenformed against his viceroy, and the Indians, perceiving the dissensionsamong the Spaniards, threw off their allegiance. After long negotiationsColumbus was forced to sign a humiliating capitulation with the rebels.Meanwhile, every vessel that returned from the New World came freightedwith complaints against Columbus. The support of the colony was anincessant drain upon the mother country. Was this compatible, it was asked,with the pictures he had drawn of the wealth of the island?

Isabella herself at last began to entertain doubts about Columbus, andthe sovereigns decided to send out Don Francisco del Bobadilla toinvestigate his conduct. This officer appears to have been needy,passionate, and ambitious. He acted as if he had been sent out to degradethe admiral, not to inquire into his conduct. He threw Columbus into irons,and seized his arms, gold, jewels, books, and most secret manuscripts.Columbus conducted himself with characteristic magnanimity, and bore allindignities in silence. Bobadilla collected testimony sufficient, as hethought, to ensure the condemnation of Columbus, and sent him a prisoner toSpain.

The arrival of Columbus at Cadiz, in chains, produced almost as great asensation as his first triumphant return. A general burst of indignationarose. The sovereigns sent orders that he should be instantly set atliberty, and promised that Columbus should be reinstated in all hisdignities. But Ferdinand repented having invested such great powers in anysubject, and especially in a foreigner. Plausible reasons were given fordelaying his reappointment, and meanwhile Don Nicholas de Ovando was sentout to supersede Bobadilla.

The Fourth Voyage

(May, 1502--November, 1504)

Columbus's thoughts were suddenly turned to a new enterprise. Vasco daGama had recently reached India round the Cape of Good Hope, and immensewealth was poured by this route into Portugal. Columbus was persuaded thatthe currents of the Caribbean Sea must pass between Cuba and the land whichhe had discovered to the south, and that this route to India would be moreeasy and direct than that of Vasco da Gama. His plan was promptly adoptedby the sovereigns, and he sailed in May 1502, on his last and mostdisastrous voyage. He steered to Hispaniola, but was not permitted to land,and then coasted along Honduras and down the Mosquito Coast to Costa Rica.Here he found gold among the natives, and heard rumours of Mexico. Hecontinued beyond Cape Nombre de Dios in search for the imaginary strait,and then gave up all attempt to find it.

Possibly he knew that another voyager, coasting from the eastward, hadreached this point. He turned westward to search for the gold-mines ofVeragua, and attempted unsuccessfully to found a settlement there. As hisvessels were no longer capable of standing the sea, he ran them aground onJamaica, fastened them together, and put the wreck in a state of defence.He dispatched canoes to Hispaniola, asking Ovando to send a ship to relievehim, but many months of suffering and difficulty elapsed before itcame.

Columbus returned to Spain in November 1504. Care and sorrow weredestined to follow him; his finances were exhausted, and he was unable,from his infirmities, to go to court. The death of Isabella was a fatalblow to his fortunes. Many months were passed by him in painful andhumiliating solicitation for the restitution of his high offices. At lengthhe saw that further hope of redress from Ferdinand was vain. His illnessincreased, and he expired, with great resignation, on May 20, 1506.

Columbus was a man of great and inventive genius, and his ambition wasnoble and lofty. Instead of ravaging the newly-found countries, he soughtto found regular and prosperous enterprises. He was naturally irritable andimpetuous, but, though continually outraged in his dignity, and foiled inhis plans by turbulent and worthless men, he restrained his valiant andindignant spirit, and brought himself to forbear and reason, and even tosupplicate. His piety was genuine and fervent, and diffused a sober dignityover his whole deportment.

He died in ignorance of the real grandeur of his discovery. What visionsof glory would have broken upon his mind could he have known that he hadindeed discovered a new continent! And how would his spirit have beenconsoled, amidst the afflictions of age and the injustice of an ungratefulking, could he have anticipated the empires which would arise in the worldhe had discovered; and the nations, towns, and languages, which were torevere and bless his name to the latest posterity!

Life of George Washington

This great historical biography was Washington Irving'sprincipal work. It was founded chiefly upon George Washington'scorrespondence, which is preserved in manuscript in the archives of theUnited States Government. Irving worked at it intermittently for manyyears; and it was published in successive sections during the last years ofhis life, 1855 to 1859, while he was living in retirement with his niecesat Sunnyside, on the Hudson River.

The De Wessyngton family, of the county of Durham, in feudal times,produced many men of mark in the field and in the cloister, and at a laterperiod the Washingtons were intrepid supporters of the unfortunate House ofStuart. Compromised by this allegiance, two brothers, John and Andrew,uncles of Sir Henry Washington, the gallant defender of Worcester,emigrated to Virginia in 1657, and purchased lands in Westmoreland County,by the River Potomac. John, who became military leader of the Virginiansagainst the Indians, was great-grandfather of the illustrious GeorgeWashington.

George, born February 22, 1732, in a homestead on Bridges Creek, was theeldest son of Mary Ball, second wife of Augustine Washington. Twohalf-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, survived from the first marriage;and Mary had three other sons and two daughters. George received his firsteducation in an "old field school-house," taught by the parish sexton; butthe chief influences of his boyhood were the morality of his home and themilitary ardour of the colonists against the Spanish and the French.Lawrence, his eldest brother, had a captaincy in the colonial regimentwhich fought for England in the West Indies, in 1740, and the boy's wholemind was turned to war.

His father died when he was eleven years old, and George was sent tolive with his married brother Augustine. Here he attended school, was eagerin the acquirement of knowledge, and became expert in all athleticexercises. He very nearly entered on a naval career, but at his mother'searnest entreaty renounced the project, and returning to school, studiedland-surveying.

Lawrence, his brother, having married into the Fairfax family, Georgecame under the notice of Lord Fairfax, owner of immense tracts of country,who was so pleased with the lad's character and accomplishments that heentrusted him with the task of surveying his possessions. At the age ofsixteen George Washington set out into the wilderness, and acquittedhimself so well that he was appointed public surveyor. He thus gained anintimate knowledge, and of the ways of the Indians.

The English and French governments were at this time making conflictingclaims to the Ohio valley, and their agents were treating with the variousIndian tribes. At length the French prepared to enforce their claim byarms, and Washington received, in 1751, a commission as adjutant-generalover a military district of Virginia. In October, 1753, he was sent byGovernor Dinwiddie on a mission to the French commander, from which hereturned in the following January; and his conduct on this occasion, whenhe had to traverse great distances of unknown forest at midwinter, and tocope with the craft of white men and savages alike, marked him out as ayouth fitted for the most important civil and military trusts.

Conflicts with the French

Washington was for the first time under fire in April, 1754, when he hadbeen sent, as second in command of the colonial forces, to take charge of afort on the Ohio. He fell in with a French party of spies, whom his smallforce, with Indian assistance, put to flight. His fort, named FortNecessity, was defended by three hundred men, but was attacked in July by agreatly superior force of French and Indians, and Washington had tocapitulate, marching out with the honours of war.

When it was determined, the same autumn, by the Governor and the BritishSecretary of State, that the colonial troops should be reduced toindependent companies, so that there should no longer be colonial officersabove the rank of captain, Washington, in accordance with the dawningrepublicism of America, resigned his commission, and settling at MountVernon, prepared to devote himself to agriculture. But in 1755, GeneralBraddock was sent out to undertake energetic operations against the French,and Washington accepted the General's offer of a position on hisstaff.

It was now that the eminent Benjamin Franklin did such great service tothe British arms by organizing transport, and listened with astonishment toBraddock's anticipations of easy victory. The young aide-de-camp alsowarned the English soldier in vain. On July 9 Braddock's force was utterlyrouted by the French and Indians, and the general himself was slain. Thisreverse did away with all belief, throughout the colonies, in the power ofBritish arms, and prepared the way for the independence that was tofollow.

On August 14 George Washington was appointed to the supreme command ofthe Virginian forces, with his headquarters at Winchester, and was occupiedin the defence of a wide frontier with an insufficient force, until theexpedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758, when he planted the British flagon its smoking ruins, and put an end to the French domination of theOhio.

His marriage to Mrs. Martha Custis, a young and wealthy widow, wascelebrated on January 6, 1759; he took his seat in the House of Burgessesat Williamsburg, and established himself at Mount Vernon to develop hisestates. A large Virginia estate, in those days, was a little empire.

The Dawn of Independence

The definitive treaty of peace between France and England was signed atFontainebleau in 1763; but the tranquility of the colonies was again brokenby an Indian insurrection, known as Pontiac's war. Washington had no partin its suppression, but he was soon to be called again to the defence ofhis country.

He was in his place in the House of Burgesses on May 29, 1765, when theclaims of Britain to tax the colony were first repudiated, and it wasdeclared that the General Assembly of Virginia had the exclusive right totax the inhabitants, and that whoever maintained the contrary should bedeemed an enemy to the colony. These resolutions were the signal forgeneral applause throughout the continent.

The repeal, in 1766, of the objectionable Stamp Act only postponed thecrisis, which became acute when the port of Boston was closed byParliament, because of the resistance of that city to the importation ofEast Indian tea. A General Congress of deputies from the several colonieswas convened for September 5, 1773, at Philadelphia, in which Washingtontook part, and a Federal Union of the colonies was then established. TheEnglish commander, General Gage, struck the first blow against popularliberties, in the engagement at Lexington, April 18, 1775, and on June 15Washington was unanimously elected commander-in-chief of the Americanforces.

Two days later was fought, outside Boston, the heroic battle of Bunker'sHill, and on the 21st Washington set out from Philadelphia to the seat ofwar, where he laid a strict siege about Boston, with a view to forcing theBritish to come out. An English ship having bombarded the American port ofFalmouth, an act was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts,encouraging the fitting out of armed vessels to defend the coast ofAmerica, and granting letters of marque and reprisal. In October aconference of delegates was held, under Washington's presidency, of whichBenjamin Franklin was a member, with regard to a new organisation of thearmy; and a new force of twenty-two thousand was formed, every soldierbeing enlisted for one year only.

Montreal had been captured by an American expedition, and Washington wasnow looking forward to equal success in an expedition against Quebec. Hewas further encouraged by the capture, by one of his cruisers, of abrigantine laden with munitions of war, including a huge brass mortar. Hiswife joined the camp before Boston, and the eventful year was closed withfestivities.

But the gallant attempt on Quebec, in which Montgomery fell, wasfrustrated, and the siege of Boston dragged on uneventfully, until theAmericans, in March, seized Dorchester Heights, and made the town no longertenable. On the 17th there were in Boston Harbor seventy-eight ships andtransports casting loose for sea, and twelve thousand soldiers, sailors andrefugees, hurrying to embark. The flag of thirteen stripes, the standard ofthe Union, floated above the Boston forts, after ten tedious months ofsiege.

The eminent services of Washington throughout this arduous period, hisadmirable management by which, in the course of a few months, anundisciplined band of husbandmen became soldiers, and were able to expel abrave army of veterans, commanded by the most experienced generals, won theenthusiastic applause of the nation. A unanimous vote of thanks was passedto him in Congress.

Declaration of Independence

Despatches from Canada continued to be disastrous, and the evacuation ofthat country was determined on in June, 1776. The great aim of the Britishwas now to get possession of New York and the Hudson, and to make them thebasis of military operations. While danger was gathering round New York,and its inhabitants were in mute suspense and fearful anticipations, theGeneral Congress at Philadelphia was discussing with closed doors thegreatest question ever debated in America. A resolution was passedunanimously, on July 2, "that these United Colonies are, of right ought tobe, free and independent States."

The fourth of July is the day of national rejoicing, for on that day the"Declaration of Independence," that solemn and sublime document, wasadopted. Tradition gives a dramatic effect to its announcement. It wasknown to be under discussion, but the closed doors of Congress excluded thepopulace. They awaited, in throngs, an appointed signal. In the steeple ofthe state-house was a bell, bearing the portentous text from Scripture,"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitantsthereof." A joyous peal from that bell gave notice that the bill had beenpassed. It was the knell of British domination.

Washington hailed the Declaration with joy. It was but a formalrecognition of a state of things which had long existed, but it put an endto all those temporizing hopes of reconciliation which had clogged themilitary action of the country. On July 9, he caused it to be read at thehead of each brigade of the army. "The general hopes," said he, "that thisimportant event will serve as a fresh incentive to every officer andsoldier, to act with fidelity and courage, as knowing that now the peaceand safety of his country depend, under God, solely on the success of ourarms; and that he is now in the service of a state possessed of sufficientpower to reward his merit, and advance him to the highest honours of a freecountry." and again: "The general hopes and trusts that every officer andman will endeavour so to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier,defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."

The Winning of Independence

But the exultation of the patriots of New York was soon overclouded.British warships, under Admiral Lord Howe, were in the harbour on July 12,and affairs now approached a crisis. Lord Howe came "as a mediator, not asa destroyer," and had prepared a declaration inviting communities as wellas individuals to merit and receive pardon by a prompt return to theirduty; it was a matter of sore regret to him that his call to loyalty hadbeen forestalled by the Declaration of Independence.

The British force in the neighbourhood of New York, under General Howe,brother of the Admiral, was about thirty thousand men; the Americans wereonly about twenty thousand, for the most part raw and undisciplined, andthe sectional jealousies prevalent among them were more and more a subjectof uneasiness to Washington. On August 27 the American force was defeatedwith great loss in the battle of Long Island, and was withdrawn from theisland by a masterly night retreat; this led to the loss of New York andthe Hudson River to the British. Reverse followed reverse; Washington wasdriven by the British arms from one point after another; many of the chiefAmerican cities were taken; and on September 26, 1777, General Sir WilliamHowe marched into Philadelphia and thus occupied the capital of theconfederacy. But Washington still maintained his characteristic equanimity."I hope," he said, "that a little time will put our affairs in a moreflourishing condition."

This anticipation was soon to be fulfilled. General Burgoyne had beenadvancing from the north with a large force of British and Hessian troops,but was compelled by General Gates, with a superior American force, tocapitulate on October 17,1777. By this capitulation the Americans gained afine train of artillery, seven thousand stand of arms, and a great quantityof clothing, tents, and military stores of all kinds; and the surrender ofBurgoyne struck dismay into the British army on the Hudson River.

But the struggle for independence was still to continue for four yearsof incessant military operations, and it was not until the surrender ofYorktown, on October 19, 1781, by Lord Cornwallis, that Britain gave uphope of reducing her rebel colonies. When the redoubts of Yorktown weretaken, Washington exclaimed, "The work is done, and well done!"

A general treaty of peace was signed in Paris on January 20, 1783; andin March of that year Sir Guy Carleton informed Washington that he wasordered to proclaim a cessation of hostilities by sea and land. On April19, the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, thus completing the eighthyear of the war, Washington issued a general order to the army in theseterms--"The generous task for which we first flew to arms beingaccomplished, the liberties of our country being fully acknowledged andfirmly secured, and the characters of those who have persevered throughevery extremity of hardship, suffering, and danger, being immortalised bythe illustrious appellation of 'the patriot army,' nothing now remains butfor the actors of this mighty scene to preserve a perfect, unvaryingconsistency of character through the very last act, to close the drama withapplause, and to retire from the military theatre with the same approbationof angels and men which has crowned all their former virtuous actions."

Writing, on June 8, to the Governors of the several States, hesaid--"The great object for which I had the honour to hold an appointmentin the service of my country being accomplished, I am now preparing toreturn to that domestic retirement which, it is well known, I left with thegreatest reluctance; a retirement for which I have never ceased to sigh,through a long and painful absence, and in which, remote from the noise andtrouble of the world, I meditate to pass the remainder of life in a stateof undisturbed repose."

The Years of Peace

Washington returned to Mount Vernon on Christmas Eve, 1783, and busiedhimself with the care of his estates. He had never ceased to be theagriculturist; through all his campaigns he had kept himself informed ofthe course of rural affairs at Mount Vernon. By means of maps on whichevery field was laid down and numbered, he was enabled to give directionsfor their several cultivation, and to receive accounts of their severalcrops. No hurry of affairs prevented a correspondence with his agent, andhe exacted weekly reports. He now read much on agriculture and gardening,and corresponded with the celebrated Arthur Young, from whom he obtainedseeds of all kinds, improved ploughs, plans for laying out farmyards, andadvice on various parts of rural economy.

His active day at Mount Vernon began some time before dawn. Much of hiscorrespondence was despatched before breakfast, which took place athalf-past seven. After breakfast he mounted his horse and rode off tovarious parts of his estate; dined at half-past two; if there was nocompany he would write until dark; and in the evening he read, or amusedhimself with a game of whist.

The adoption of the Federal Constitution opened another epoch in thelife of Washington. Before the official forms of an election could becarried into operation, a unanimous sentiment throughout the Unionpronounced him the nation's choice to fill the presidential chair. Theelection took place, and Washington was chosen President for a term of fouryears from March 4, 1788. An entry in his diary, on March 16, says--"I badeadieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to domestic felicity; and witha mind oppressed with more anxious and painful sensations than I have wordsto express, set out for New York with the best disposition to renderservice to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope ofanswering its expectations."

The weight and influence of his name and character were deemed allessential to complete his work; to set the new government in motion, andconduct it through its first perils and trials. He undertook the task, firmin the resolve in all things to act as his conscience told him was "rightas it respected his God, his country, and himself." For he knew no dividedfidelity, no separate obligation; his most sacred duty to himself was hishighest duty to his country and his God.

His death took place on December 14, 1799, at Mount Vernon.

The character of Washington may want some of the poetical elements whichdazzle and delight the multitude, but it possessed fewer inequalities and ararer union of virtues than perhaps ever fell to the lot of one man.Prudence, firmness, sagacity, moderation, an overruling judgement, animmovable justice, courage that never faltered, patience that neverwearied, truth that disdained all artifice, magnanimity without alloy.

Autobiography

Flavius Josephus was born in Jerusalem in 37 A.D. Hisfather, Matthias, was a priest, and his mother belonged to the Asmoneanprincely family. So distinguished was he as a student that, at the age oftwenty-six, he was chosen delegate to Nero. When the critical juncturearose for his nation, through the rebellion excited by the cruelties ofGessius Florus, the Roman procurator, Josephus was appointed governor ofGalilee The insurrection proved fatal, for Vespasian by his invasionrendered resistance hopeless. Subsequently he lived in Rome, and the dateof his death is unknown. The works of this writer are monumental. He wrotehis vivid "Wars of the Jews" in both Hebrew and Greek. His "Antiquities ofthe Jews" traces the whole history of the race down to the outbreak of thegreat war. Scaliger, one of the acutest of mediaeval critics, declares thatin his writings on the affairs of the Jews, and even on those of foreignnations, Josephus deserves more credit than all the Greek and Roman writersput together. His fidelity and veracity are as universally admitted as hisdirect and lucid style is generally admired. His account of his own lifeand career is a masterpiece in this category of literature, for it iswritten with blended modesty and naïveté. In many passages ofthis "Autobiography" he does not hesitate to assume great credit for hisown courage, probity, and skill, but in each case the justification ismanifest, for he constantly refers to the tortuous and treacherousmachinations of his virulent enemies. The "Autobiography" is from beginningto end a thrilling and wonderful romance of real life, for the hairbreadthescapes of this extraordinary man are among the most singular recitals inthe whole world of adventure. The whole story is unique, as was the nobleindividuality of the man himself.

I.--Priest of the Blood-Royal

The family from which I, Flavius Josephus, am derived is not an ignobleone, but hath descended all along from the priests. I am not only sprungfrom a sacerdotal family in general, but from the first of the twenty-fourcourses of the Jewish priests, and I am of the chief family of that coursealso. With us, to be of the sacerdotal dignity is an indication of thesplendour of a family. But, further, by my mother I am of the royal blood;for the children of Asmonaeus, from whom that family was derived, had boththe office of the high-priesthood and the dignity of a king for a long timetogether.

My father Matthias, to whom I was born in the first year of the reign ofGaius Caesar, was not only eminent in Jerusalem, our greatest city, onaccount of his nobility, but had a higher commendation on account of hisrighteousness. I was brought up with my brother Matthias. As a child Igained a great reputation through my love for learning, and, when I wasabout fourteen years of age, was frequently asked by the high-priests andchief men of the city my opinion about the accurate understanding of pointsof the law.

In my twenty-sixth year I took a voyage to Rome. My object was to pleadbefore Caesar the cause of certain excellent priests whom Felix, thenprocurator of Judaea, had put in bonds on a trivial pretext. I was desirousto procure deliverance for them, not only because they were of my ownfriends, but because I heard that they sustained their piety towards Godunder their afflictions, and that they simply subsisted on figs andnuts.

Our voyage was an adventurous one, for the ship was wrecked in theAdriatic Sea, and we that were in it, being about six hundred in number,swam all night for our lives. I and about eighty others were saved by aship of Cyrene. When I had thus escaped, and was come to Puteoli, I becameacquainted with an actor named Alityrus, much beloved by Nero, but a Jew bybirth. Through his interest I became known to Poppaea, Caesar's wife, andhaving, through her, procured the liberty of the priests, besides receivingfrom her many presents, I returned to Jerusalem.

Now I perceived that many innovations were begun, and that many werecherishing hopes of a revolt from the Romans.

II.--The Prelude to the Great Crisis

So I retired to the inner court of the Temple. Yet I went out of theTemple again, after Menahem and the chief members of the band of robberswere put to death, and abode among the high-priests and the chief of thePharisees. But no small fear seized upon us when we saw the people in arms,while we were not able to restrain the seditious. We hoped that GessiusFloras would speedily arrive with great forces. But on his arrival he wasdefeated with great loss.

The disgrace that fell upon him became the calamity of our whole nation,for it elevated the hopes of conquering the Romans on the part of those whodesired war. But another cause of the revolt arose in Syria from the crueltreatment of the Jews in many cities, where they showed not the leastdisposition towards rebellion. About 13,000 were treacherously slain inScythopolis, and the Jews in Damascus underwent many miseries; but of theseevents accounts are given in the books of the Jewish War.

I was now sent, together with two other priests, Joazar and Judas, bythe principal men of Jerusalem, to Galilee, to persuade the ill men thereto lay down their arms, and to teach them that it were better for us all towait to see what the Romans would do. I came into Galilee, and found thepeople of Sepphoris in no small agony about their country, by reason thatthe Galileans had resolved to plunder it, because of their friendship withthe Romans, and because they had made a league with Cestius Gallus, thepresident of Syria. But I quieted their fears. Yet I found the people ofTiberias ready to take arms, for there were three factions in thatcity.

The first faction, with Julius Capellus for the head, was composed ofmen of worth and gravity, and advised the city to continue in allegiance tothe Romans; the second faction, consisting of the most ignoble persons, wasdetermined for war. But as for Justus, the head of the third faction,though he pretended to be doubtful about war, yet he was really desirous ofinnovation, as supposing that he should gain power by the change ofaffairs.

By his harangues Justus inflamed the minds of many of the people,persuading them to take arms, and then he went out and set fire to thevillages that belonged to Gadara and Hippos, on the border of Tiberias, andof the region of Scythopolis.

Gamala persevered in its allegiance to the Romans, under the persuasionof Philip, the son of Jacimus, who was governor of the city under KingAgrippa. He reminded the people of the benefits the king had bestowed onthem, and pointed out how powerful the Romans were, and thus he restrainedthe zeal of the citizens.

Now, as soon as I was come into Galilee, and had ascertained the stateof affairs, I wrote to the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem asking for theirdirection. They replied that I should remain there; and that, if myfellow-delegates were willing, I should join with them in the care ofGalilee. But these my colleagues, having gotten great riches from thosetithes which as priests were their dues, and were given to them, determinedto return to their own country. Yet when I desired them to stay to settlepublic affairs, they complied, and we removed from Sepphoris to Bethmanus,a village four furlongs from Tiberias, whence I sent messengers to thesenate of that city, asking that the principal men should come to me.

III.--Governor of Galilee

When the chief men of Tiberias were come, I told them I was sent as alegate from the people at Jerusalem, in order to persuade them to destroythat house which Herod the tetrarch had built in Tiberias, and which,contrary to our laws, contained the figures of living creatures. I desiredthat they would give us leave to do so; but for a good while they wereunwilling, only being overcome by long persuasion. Then Jesus, son ofSapphias, one of the leaders of sedition, anticipated us and set the palaceon fire, thinking that as some of the roofs were covered with gold, heshould gain much money thereby. These incendiaries also plundered muchfurniture; then they slew all the Greeks who dwelt in Tiberias, and as manyothers as were their enemies.

When I understood this state of things, I was greatly provoked, and wentdown to Tiberias and took care of all the royal furniture that could berecovered from such as had plundered it. Next I committed it to ten of thechief senators. From thence I and my fellow-delegates went to Gischala toJohn, to learn his designs, and soon discovered that he was forinnovations, for he wished me to give him authority to carry off the cornthat belonged to Caesar, and to lay it in the villages of Upper Galilee.Though I refused, he corrupted my colleagues with money, and so I, beingout-voted, held my tongue. By various other cunning contrivances which Icould not prevent, John gained vast sums of money. But when I had dismissedmy fellow-delegates I took care to have arms provided and the citiesfortified. My first care was to keep Galilee in peace, so I made friends ofseventy of the principal men, and took them on my journeys as companions,and set them to judge causes.

I was now about thirty years of age, in which time of life it isdifficult to escape from the calumnies of the envious. Yet did I preserveevery woman free from injury; I despised and refused presents; nor would Itake the tithes due to me as a priest. When I twice took Sepphoris byforce, and Tiberias four times, and Gadara once, and when I had subdued andcaptured John, who had laid treacherous snares for me, I did not punishwith death either him or others. And on this account I suppose it was thatGod, Who is never unacquainted with those that do as they ought to do,delivered me still out of the hands of my enemies, and afterwards preservedme when I fell into many perils.

At this time, when my abode was at Cana, a village of Galilee, John cameto Tiberias and stirred a revolt against me, so that my life was in danger.I escaped only by fleeing down the lake in a ship to Taricheae, whence Iproceeded to Sepphoris. John returned to Gischala, where he continued tocultivate bitter hatred against me. Through the machinations of himself andSimon, a chief man in Gadara, all Galilee was filled with rumours thattheir country was about to be betrayed by me to the Romans.

Hereby I again incurred extreme peril, but I took a bold course. Dressedin a black garment, with my sword hung at my neck, I went to face, in thehippodrome, a multitude of the citizens of Taricheae, and addressed them insuch terms that, though some wished to kill me, these were overcome by therest.

Although the multitude returned to their homes, yet the robbers andother authors of the tumult, afraid lest I might punish them, took sixhundred armed men and came to burn the house where I abode. Thinking itignoble to run away, I resolved to expose myself to danger; so I shutmyself up in an upper room, and asked that one of them should be sent up tome, by whom I would send out to them money from the spoils I had taken.

When they had sent in one of their boldest, I had him whipped severely,and commanded one of his hands to be cut off and hung about his neck. Inthis case he was put out, and those who had sent him, affrighted at thesupposition that I had more armed men about me than they had, immediatelyfled.

I dealt in like manner with cl*tus, a young man of Tiberias, who was theauthor of a fresh sedition in that city. Since I thought it not agreeableto piety to put one of my own people to death, I called to cl*tus himself,and said to him, "Since thou deservest to lose both thy hands for thineingratitude to me, be thou thine own executioner, lest by refusal to do sothou undergo a worse punishment."

When he earnestly begged me to spare one of his hands, it was withdifficulty that I granted it. So, in order to prevent the loss of both hishands, he willingly took his sword and cut off his own left hand; and thisput an end to the sedition.

IV.--The Failure of His Foes

The people of Gamala wrote to me, asking that I would send them an armedforce, and also workmen to raise up the walls of their city, and I accededto each of their requests. I also built walls about many villages andcities in Upper and Lower Galilee, besides laying up in them much corn. Butthe hatred of John of Gischala grew more violent by reason of myprosperity. He sent his brother Simon to Jerusalem with a hundred armed mento induce the Sanhedrin to deprive me of my commission; but this was not aneasy thing to do, for Ananus, one of the chief priests, demonstrated thatmany of the people bore witness that I had acted like an excellentgeneral.

Yet Ananus and some of his friends, corrupted by bribes, secretly agreedto expel me out of Galilee, without making the rest of the citizensacquainted with what they were doing. Accordingly they sent four men ofdistinction down to Galilee to seek to supersede me in ruling theprovince.

These were to ask the people of Galilee what was their reason of theirlove to me. If the people alleged that it was because I was born atJerusalem, that I was versed in the law, and that I was a priest, then theywere to reply that they also were natives of Jerusalem, that theyunderstood the law, and that two of them were priests. To Jonathan and hiscompanion were given 40,000 drachmae out of the public money, and a largeband of men was equipped with arms and money to accompany them.

But wonderful was what I saw in a dream that very night. It seemed to methat a certain person stood by me, and said, "O Josephus, put away allfear, for what now afflicts thee will render thee most happy, and thoushalt overcome all difficulties! Be not cast down, but remember that thouart to fight the Romans."

When I had seen this vision I arose, intending to go down to the plainto meet a great multitude who, I knew, would be assembled, for my friends,on my refusal had dispatched messengers all around to inform the people ofGalilee of my purpose to depart. And when the great assembly of men, withtheir wives and children, saw me, they fell on their faces weeping, andbesought me not to leave them to be exposed to their enemies.

When I heard this, and saw what sorrow affected the people, I was movedwith compassion, and promised that I would stay with them, thinking itbecame me to undergo manifold hazards for the sake of so great a multitude.So I ordered that five thousand of them should come to me armed, and thatthe rest should depart to their own homes.

It was not long before Vespasian landed at Tyre, and King Agrippa withhim. How he then came into Galilee, and how he fought his first battle withme near Taricheae, and how, after the capture of Jotapata, I was takenalive and bound, and how I was afterward loosed, with all that was done byme in the Jewish war, and during the siege of Jerusalem, I have accuratelyrelated in the books concerning the "Wars of the Jews."

When the siege of Jotapata was over, and I was among the Romans, I waskept with much care, by means of the great respect that Vespasian showedme. After being freed from my bonds I went to Alexandria, where I married.From thence I was sent, together with Titus, to the siege of Jerusalem, andwas frequently in danger of being put to death. For the Jews desired to getme into their power to have me punished, and the Romans, whenever they werebeaten, thought it was through my treachery. But Titus Caesar was wellacquainted with the uncertain fortune of war, and returned no answer to thesoldiers' solicitation against me.

When Titus was going away to Rome he made choice of me to sail alongwith him, and paid me great respect And when we were come to Rome I hadgreat care taken of me by Vespasian, for he gave me an apartment in his ownhouse.

When Vespasian was dead, Titus kept up the same kindness which hisfather had shown me, and Domitian, who succeeded, still augmented hisrespects to me; nay, Domitia, the wife of Caesar, continued to show me manykindnesses.

Life of Sir Walter Scott

John Gibson Lockhart was born in Scotland in 1794. Hereceived part of his education at Glasgow, part at Oxford, and in 1816 hebecame an advocate at the Scotch bar. As one of the chief supporters ofBlackwood's Magazine, he began to exhibit that sharp, bitter wit which washis most salient characteristic. In 1820 he married the eldest daughter ofSir Walter Scott, and for this reason, perhaps no one has been betterqualified to write the biography of the great novelist. Lockhart's "Life ofSir Walter Scott" is a biography in the best sense of the word--one whichhas been ranked even with Boswell's "Johnson." It reveals to the reader theinmost personality of the man himself, and no life from first to last couldbetter afford such complete revelation. Moreover, the "Life" was a labourof love, Lockhart himself receiving not a fraction of its very considerableproceeds, but resigning them absolutely to Scott's creditors. Published inseven volumes in 1838, in every respect it is the greatest of allLockhart's books. Lockhart died in 1854.

Early Years

Sir Walter Scott was distantly connected with ancient families both onhis father's and his mother's side. His father, Walter Scott, a Writer tothe Signet in Edinburgh, was a handsome, hospitable, shrewd and religiousman, who married, in 1758, Anne, eldest daughter of Dr. John Rutherford,professor of medicine in Edinburgh University. The Scotts had twelvechildren, of whom only five survived early youth.

The subject of this biography was born on August 15, 1771, in a house atthe head of the College Wynd. He was a healthy child, but when eighteenmonths old was affected with a fever which left a permanent lameness in theright leg. With a view to curing this weakness he was sent to live with hispaternal grandfather, at the farm house of Sandy-Knowe near Dryburgh Abbey,in the extreme south of Berwickshire.

Here, in the country air, he became a sturdy boy, and his mind wasstored with the old Broder tales and songs. In his fourth year he was takento London by sea, and thence to Bath, where he remained about a year forthe sake of the waters, became acquainted with the venerable John Home,author of "Douglas," and was introduced by his uncle, Capt. Robert Scott,to the delights of the theatre and "As You Like It."

From his eighth year Scott lived at his father's house in George Square,Edinburgh. His lameness and solitary habits had made him a good reader, andhe used to read aloud to his mother, Pope's translation of Homer and AllanRamsay's "Evergreen;" his mother had the happiest of tempers and a goodlove of poetry. In the same year he was sent to the High School, Edinburgh,under the celebrated Dr. Adam, who made him sensible of the beauties of theLatin poets.

After his school years, the lad, who had become delicate from rapidgrowth, spent half a year with an aunt, Miss Janet Scott, at Kelso. He hadnow awaked to the poetry of Shakespeare and of Spenser, and had acquired anample and indiscriminate appetite for reading of all kinds. To this time atKelso he also traced his earliest feeling for the beauties of naturalobjects. The love of Nature, especially when combined with ancient ruins,or remains of our forefathers' piety or splendour, became his insatiablepassion.

He was then sent to classes in the Faculty of Arts in EdinburghUniversity; and in 1785 was articled to his father and entered upon thewilderness of law. Though he disliked the drudgery of the office, he lovedhis father and was ambitious, and the allowance which he received affordedthe pleasures of the circulating library and the theatre. His reading hadnow extended to the great writers in French, Spanish and Italianliterature. Distant excursions on foot or on horseback formed his favoriteamusem*nt, undertaken for the pleasure of seeing romantic scenery andplaces distinguished by historic events.

In 1790, Scott determined, in accordance with his father's wishes, tobecome an advocate, and assumed the gown on July 11, 1792. His personalappearance at this time was engaging. He had a fresh, brilliant complexion,his eyes were clear and radiant, and the noble expanse of his brow gavedignity to his whole aspect. His smile was always delightful, and there wasa playful intermixture of tenderness and gravity well calculated to fix alady's eye. His figure, except for the blemish in one limb, was eminentlyhandsome, and much above the usual stature; and the whole outline was thatof extraordinary vigour, without a touch of clumsiness.

The Poet's Education

I do not know when his first attachment began; its object was Margaret,daughter of Sir John and Lady Jane Stuart Belcher, of Invermay. But afterScott had for several years nourished the dream of union with this lady,his hopes terminated in her being married to the late Sir William Forbes,of Pitsligo, a gentleman of the highest character, who lived to act thepart of a generous friend to his rival throughout the distresses of 1826and 1827.

After being admitted an advocate, Scott undertook many excursions tovarious parts of Scotland, gaining that intimate knowledge of the country,and its people and traditions, which appears in his poems and novels. Thus,he visited Northumberland, and made a close inspection of the battle-fieldof Flodden, and on another journey studied the Saxon cathedral of Hexam.During seven successive years he made raids, as he called them, into thewild and inaccessible district of Liddesdale, picking up the ancient"riding ballads" preserved among the descendants of the moss-troopers. Tothese rambles he owed much of the materials of his "Minstrelsy of theBorder," and here he came to know Willie Elliot, the original of DandieDinmont. Another expedition, into Galloway, carried him into the scenery ofGuy Mannering. Stirlingshire, Perthshire and Forfarshire became familiarground to him, and the scenery of Loch Katrine especially was associatedwith many a merry expedition. His first appearance as counsel in a criminalcourt was at the Jedburgh assizes, where he helped a veteran poacher andsheep-stealer to escape through the meshes of the law.

In June, 1795, Scott was appointed one of the curators of the Advocate'sLibrary and became an adept in the deciphering of old manuscript. Hishighlands and border raids were constantly suggesting inquiries as toancient local history and legend, which could nowhere else have beenpursued with equal advantage.

In the same year, a rhymed translation of Burger's "Lenore," from hispen, was shown by him to Miss Cranstoun, afterwards Countess of Purgstall,who was delighted and astonished at it. "Upon my word," she wrote in aletter to a friend, "Walter Scott is going to turn out a poet--something ofa cross I think between Burns and Gray." This lady had the ballad elegantlyprinted in April, 1796, and Scott thus made his first appearance as anauthor. In October, this translation, together with that of the "WildHuntsman," also from Burger, was published anonymously in a thin quarto byManners and Miller, of Edinburgh. The little volume found warm favour: itsfree, masculine and lively style revealing the hand of a poet.

Marriage

In July, 1797, Scott set out on a tour to the English lakes, accompaniedby his brother John and Adam Fergusson, visiting Tweeddale, Carlisle,Penrith, Ullswater and Windermere, and at length fixing their headquartersat Gilsland, a peaceful and sequestered little watering place.

He was riding one day with Fergusson when they met, some miles away fromhome, a young lady on horseback, whose appearance instantly struck both ofthem so much, that they kept her in view until they had satisfiedthemselves that she was staying in Gilsland. The same evening there was aball, at which Scott was introduced to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter.

Without the features of a regular beauty, she was rich in personalattractions; a fairy-like form; a clear olive complexion; large, deep eyesof Italian brown; a profusion of silken tresses, raven-black; her addressmingling the reserve of a pretty young Englishwoman with a certain naturalarchness and gaiety that suited well her French accent. A lovelier vision,as all who remember her youth have assured me, could hardly be imagined,and from that hour the fate of the poet was fixed.

She was the daughter of Jean Charpentier, of Lyons, a devoted royalist,who died in the beginning of the Revolution; Madame Charpentier had diedsoon after bringing her children to London; and the Marquis of Downshirehad become their guardian. Miss Charpentier was now making a summerexcursion under the care of the lady who had superintended hereducation.

In an affectionate and dutiful letter Scott acquainted his mother withhis purpose of marriage, and Miss Carpenter remained at Carlisle until herdestiny was settled. The lady had a considerable private income, amountingto about £500 a year; the difficulties presented by the prudence andprejudices of family connections were soon overcome; and the marriage tookplace in St. Mary's, Carlisle, on December 24, 1797. Scott took his brideto a lodging in George Street, Edinburgh, the house which he had taken notbeing quite ready, and the first fortnight convinced her husband's familythat she had the sterling qualities of a wife.

Their house in South Castle Street, soon after exchanged for one inNorth Castle Street, which he inhabited down to 1826, became the centre ofa highly agreeable circle; the evenings passed in a round of innocentgaiety; and they and their friends were passionately fond of the theatre.Perhaps nowhere else could have been formed a society on so small a scaleas that of Edinburgh at this time, including more of vigorous intellect,varied information, elegant tastes, and real virtue, affection and mutualconfidence.

In the summer of 1798, Scott hired a cottage at Lasswade, on the Esk,about six miles from Edinburgh, having a garden with a most beautiful view.In this retreat they spent several happy summers, receiving the visits oftheir chosen friends from the neighbouring city, and wandering amidst someof the most romantic scenery of Scotland.

Early Poems

In February, 1799, a London Bookseller named Bell, brought out Scott'sversion of Goethe's tragedy, "Goetz von Berlichingen of the Iron Hand,"having purchased the copyright for twenty-five guineas. This was the firstpublication that bore Scott's name. In March of that year he took his wifeto London, and met with some literary and fashionable society; but hischief object was to examine the antiquities of the Tower and Westminster,and to make researches among the manuscripts of the British Museum. Hefound his "Goetz" favourably spoken of by the critics, but it had notattracted general attention.

About this time Scott wrote a play entitled "House of Aspen" which,having been read and commended by the celebrated actress, Mrs. Esten, wasput in rehearsal by Kemble for the stage. But the notion was abandoned; anddiscovering the play thirty years after among his papers, Scott sent it tothe "Keepsake" of 1829.

His return to Scotland was hastened by the news of his father's death,and his mother and sister spent the following summer and autumn in hiscottage at Lasswade. This summer produced his first serious attempt inverse, "Glenfinlas," which was followed by the noble ballads, "Eve of St.John," "The Grey Brother" and "Fire-King"; and it was in the course of thisautumn that he first visited Bothwell Castle, the seat of Archibald, LordDouglas, whose wife, and her companion, Lady Louisa Stuart, were among hisdearest friends through life.

During a visit to Kelso, before returning to Edinburgh for the winter,Scott renewed an acquaintance with a classfellow of his boyhood, Mr. JamesBallantyne, who was now printer and editor of a weekly paper in his nativetown. Scott showed him some of his poems, expressed his wonder that his oldfriend did not try to get some bookseller's printing and suggested acollection of old Border ballads. Ballantyne printed for him a fewspecimens to show to the booksellers; and thus began an experiment whichchanged the fortunes of both Scott and Ballantyne.

Soon after the commencement of the Winter Session, the office ofSheriff-depute of Selkirkshire became vacant, and the Duke of Buccleuchused his influence with Mr. Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville, toprocure it for Scott. The appointment to the Sheriff ship was made onDecember 16, 1799. It brought him an annual salary of £300; theduties of the office were far from heavy; the small pastoral territory waslargely the property of the Duke of Buccleuch; and Scott turned withredoubled zeal to his project of editing the ballads, many of which belongto this district. In this design he found able assistants in Richard Heberand John Leyden. During the years 1800 and 1801, the "Minstrelsy" formedhis chief occupation.

The duties of the Sheriffship took him frequently to Ettrick Forest, andon such occasions he took up his lodging at the little inn at Clovenford, afavourite fishing station on the road from Edinburgh to Selkirk. Here hewas within a few miles of the values of Yarrow and Ettrick. On one of hisexcursions here, penetrating beyond St Mary's Lake, he found hospitality atthe farmhouse of William Laidlaw, through whom he came to know James Hogg,a brother poet hardly conscious of his powers.

The first and second volumes of the "Minstrelsy" appeared in January,1802, from the house of Cadell and Davies in the Strand, and formed Scott'sfirst introduction as an original writer to the English public. Theirreception greatly elated Ballantyne, the printer, who looked on hisconnection with them as the most fortunate event in his life. The greatbookseller, Longman, repaired to Scotland soon after this, and purchasedthe copyright of the "Minstrelsy," including the third volume; and not longafterwards James Ballantyne set up as a printer in Edinburgh, assisted by aliberal loan from Scott.

Scott's Chief Poems

The "Edinburgh Review" was begun in 1802, and Scott soon became acontributor of critical articles for his friend Mr. Jeffrey, the elder. Hischief work was now on "Sir Tristram," a romance ascribed to Thomas ofErcildoune; but "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" was making progress in 1803,when Scott made the acquaintance of Wordsworth and his sister, undercirc*mstances described by Dorothy Wordsworth in her Journal. In thefollowing May, he took a lease of the house of Ashestiel, with an adjoiningfarm, on the southern bank of the Tweed, a few miles from Selkirk; and inthe same month "Sir Tristram" was published by Constable of Edinburgh.Captain Robert Scott, his uncle, died in June, leaving him the house ofRosebank near Kelso, which Scott sold for £5000.

"The Lay of the Last Minstrel" was published in the first week of 1805,and its success at once decided that literature should form the mainbusiness of Scott's life. Its design arose originally from the suggestionof the lovely Countess of Dalkeith, who had heard a wild, rude legend ofBorder diablerie, and sportively asked him to make it the subject ofa ballad. He cast about for a new variety of diction and rhyme, and havinghappened to hear a recitation of Coleridge's unpublished "Christabel"determined to adopt a similar cadence. The division into cantos wassuggested by one of his friends, after the example of Spenser's "FaeryQueen." The creation of the framework, the conception of the ancientharper, came last of all. Thus did "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" grow outof the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." The publishers were Longman ofLondon, and Constable of Edinburgh, and the author's share of profits cameto £769.

It was at this time that Scott took over a third share in Ballantyne'sbusiness, a commercial tie which bound him for twenty years. Its influenceon his literary work and his fortunes was productive of much good and not alittle evil. Meanwhile, he entered with the zest of an active partner intomany publishing schemes, and exerted himself in the interests of manyauthors less fortunate than himself.

With the desire of placing his financial position on a more substantialbasis, Scott had solicited the office of Clerk of Session; and after somedifficulties, during which he visited London and was received by thePrincess of Wales, he was installed in that position on March 8, 1806, andcontinued to discharge its duties with exemplary regularity for twenty-fiveyears.

The progress of "Marmion" was further interrupted by Scott's appointmentas secretary to a Commission for the improvement of Scottish Jurisprudence,but the poems appeared at last in February, 1808. It received only veryqualified praise from Jeffrey, but I think it may be considered on thewhole Scott's greatest poem, and its popularity was from the very firstextraordinary.

In April of the same year William Miller of Albemarle Street publishedScott's great edition of Dryden, with a biography, in eighteen volumes; andthe editor's industry and critical judgement were the subject of alaudatory article by Hallam in the "Edinburgh Review."

Scott was now engaged in a vast multiplicity of business. He waspreparing an edition of Swift for Constable, establishing his own partneras a publisher in Edinburgh under the title of "John Ballantyne and Co.,Booksellers," and was projecting a new periodical of sound constitutionalprinciples, to be known as the "Quarterly Review," published by Murray inLondon and by Ballantyne in Edinburgh. In connection with the latterenterprise Scott and Mrs. Scott went up to London for two months in theSpring of 1809, and enjoyed the society of Coleridge, Canning, Croker, andEllis. The first "Quarterly" appeared while he was in London, and containedthree articles from his pen. At this time also he prevailed on HenrySiddons, the nephew of Kemble, to undertake the lease and management of theEdinburgh Theatre; and purchasing a share himself, became an actingtrustee, and for many years took a lively concern in the Edinburghcompany.

Early in May, 1810, "The Lady of the Lake" came out, like her two eldersisters, in all the majesty of quarto, at the price of two guineas, theauthor receiving two thousand guineas for the copyright. The whole countryrang with the praises of the poet, and crowds set off to view the sceneryof Loch Katrine. The critics were in full harmony with one another and withthe popular voice.

The Waverley Novels

On returning, in 1810, from an excursion to the Islands of the westernScottish coast, where he had been collecting impressions for "The Lord ofthe Isles," Scott was searching one morning for fishing-flies in an olddesk at Ashestiel, when he came across a forgotten manuscript, written andabandoned five years before. It contained the first two chapters of"Waverley." He submitted it to Ballantyne, whose opinion was on the wholeagainst completion of the novel, and it was again laid aside.

Although his publishing venture had begun to wear a bad aspect, Scottwas now in receipt of £1300 a year as Clerk of Session, and when thelease of Ashestiel ran out in May, 1811, he felt justified in purchasing,for £4000, a farm on the banks of the Tweed above Galafoot. Thisfarm, then known as "Garty Holes," became "Abbotsford," so called becausethese lands had belonged of old to the great Abbey of Melrose; and in hisown mind Scott became henceforth the "Laird of Abbotsford."

The last days at Ashestiel were marked by a friendly interchange ofletters with Lord Byron, whose "Childe Harold" had just come out, and withcorrespondence with Johanna Baillie and with Crabbe. At Whitsuntide thefamily, which included two boys and two girls, moved to their newpossession, and structural alterations on the farmhouse began.

The poem "Rokeby" appeared in January, 1813. A month or two later thecrisis in the war affected credit aniversally, and many publishing firms,including that of the Ballantynes, were brought to extremity. Thedifficulty was relieved for a time by the sale of copyrights and much ofthe stock to Constable, on the understanding that the publishing concernshould be wound up as soon as possible. But Scott was preparing freshembarrassments for himself by the purchase of another parcel of land; a yetmore acute crisis in the Ballantyne firm forced him to borrow from the Dukeof Buccleuch; and when planning out his work for the purpose of retrievinghis position he determined to complete the fragment of "Waverley."

The offer of the post of poet-laureate was made to Scott at this time,but holding already two lucrative offices in the gift of the Crown, hedeclined the honour and suggested that it should be given to Southey, whichwas accordingly done. The "Swift" in nineteen volumes, appeared in July,1814, and had a moderate success.

"Waverley," of which Scott was to receive half the profits, waspublished by Constable in July, 1814, without the author's name, and itsgreat success with the public was assured from the first. None of Scott'sintimate friends ever had, or could have, the slightest doubt as to itsparentage, and when Mr. Jeffrey reviewed the book, doing justice to itssubstantial merits, he was at no pains to conceal his conviction of theauthorship. With the single exception of the "Quarterly," the criticshailed it as a work of original creative genius, one of the masterpieces ofprose fiction.

From a voyage to the Hebrides with the Commissioners of the NorthernLighthouses, Scott returned in vigour to his desk at Abbotsford, where heworked at "The Lord of the Isles" and "Guy Mannering." The poem appeared inJanuary and the novel in February, 1815. "The Lord of the Isles" neverreached the same popularity as the earlier poems had enjoyed, but "GuyMannering" was pronounced by acclamation to be fully worthy of the honoursof "Waverley." In March, Scott went to London with his wife and daughter,met Byron almost daily in Murray's house, and was presented to the PrinceRegent, who was enchanted with Scott, as Scott with him. A visit to Parisin July of the same year is commemorated in "Paul's Letters to HisKinsfolk." Scott's reputation had as yet made little way among the French,but the Duke of Wellington, then in Paris, treated him with kindness andconfidence, and a few eminent Frenchmen vied with the enthusiastic Germansin their attentions to him.

"The Antiquary" came out early in 1816, and was its author's favouriteamong all his novels. The "Tales of my Landlord," published by Murray andBlackwood, appeared in December, and though anonymous was at oncerecognized as Scott's. The four volumes included the "Black Dwarf" and "OldMortality." A month later followed a poem, "Harold the Dauntless." Thetitle of "Rob Roy" was suggested by Constable; and the novel was publishedon the last day of 1817.

During this year the existing house of Abbotsford had been building, andScott had added to his estate the lands of Toftfield, at a price of£10,000. He was then thought to be consolidating a large fortune, forthe annual profits of his novels alone had, for several years, been notless than the cost of Toftfield.

Having been asked by the Ballantynes to contribute to the historicaldepartment of the "Annual Register," I often had occasion now to visitScott in his house in Castle Street, where I usually found him working inhis "den," a small room behind the dining parlour, in company with his dog,Maida. Besides his own huge elbow-chair, there were but two others in theroom, and one of these was reserved for his amanuensis, a portrait ofClaverhouse, over the chimneypiece, with a Highland target on either sideand broadswords and dirks disposed star-fashion round them. A venerablecat, fat and sleek, watched the proceedings of his toaster and Maidswith dignified equanimity.

Abbotsford

The house of Abbotsford was not completed, and finally rid of carpentersand upholsterers, until Christmas, 1824; but the first time I saw it was in1818, and from that time onwards Scott's hospitality was extended freelynot only to the proprietors and tenants of the surrounding district, but toa never-ending succession of visitors who came to Abbotsford as pilgrims.In the seven or eight brilliant seasons when his prosperity was at itsheight, he entertained under his roof as many persons of distinction inrank, in politics, in art, in literature, and in science, as the mostprincely nobleman of his age ever did in the like space of time. It is notbeyond the mark to add that of the eminent foreigners who visited ourIsland within this period, a moiety crossed the Channel mainly inconsequence of the interest in which his writings had invested Scotland,and that the hope of beholding the man under his own roof was the crowningmotive with half that moiety. His rural neighbours were assembledprincipally at two annual festivals of sport; one was a solemn bout ofsalmon fishing for the neighbouring gentry, presided over by the Sheriff;and the other was the "Abbotsford Hunt," a coursing field on a large scale,including, with many of the young gentry, all Scott's personal favouritesamong the yeomen and farmers of the surrounding country.

Notwithstanding all his prodigious hospitality, his double officialduties as Sheriff and Clerk of Session, the labours and anxieties in whichthe ill-directed and tottering firm of Ballantyne involved him, the keeninterest which he took in every detail of the adornment of the house andestate of Abbotsford, and finally, notwithstanding obstinate and agonizingattacks of internal cramp which were undermining his constitution, Scottcontinued to produce rapidly the wonderful series of the Waverley Novels."The Bride of Lammermoor," "Legend of Montrose" and "Ivanhoe" appeared in1819, "The Monastery," "The Abbot" and "Kenilworth" in 1820, "The Pirate"in 1821, "The Fortunes of Nigel" in 1822, "Peveril of the Peak," "QuentinDurward" and "St. Ronan's Well" in 1823, and "Redgauntlet" in 1824. Hisgreat literary reputation was acknowledged by a baronetcy conferred in1820, and by the most flattering condescensions on the part of King GeorgeIV on his visit to Edinburgh in 1822.

The End of All

Scott's Diary from November, 1825, shows dear forebodings of thecollapse of the houses of Constable and Ballantyne. In a time of universalconfidence and prosperity, the banks had supported them to an extent quiteunwarranted by their assets or their trade, and as soon as the banks beganto doubt and to enquire, their fall was a foregone conclusion. In December,Scott borrowed £10,000 on the lands of Abbotsford, and advanced thatsum to the struggling houses; on January 16, 1826, their ruin, and Scott'swith them, were complete. Scott immediately placed his whole affairs in thehands of three trustees, and by the 26th all his creditors had agreed to aprivate trust to which he mortgaged all his future literary labours.

On March 15, he left for the last time his house in Castle Street; onApril 3; "Woodstock" was sold for the creditors' behoof, realising£8228; on May 15, Lady Scott died, after a short illness, atAbbotsford. "I think," writes Scott in his Diary, "my heart will break.Lonely, aged, deprived of all my family--all but poor Anne; animpoverished, embarrassed man, deprived of the sharer of my thoughts andcounsels, who could always talk down my sense of the calamitousapprehensions which break the heart that must bear them alone. Even herfoibles were of service to me, by giving me things to think of beyond myweary self-reflections."

An expedition to Paris, in October, to gather materials for his "Life ofNapoleon." was a seasonable relief. On his return through London, the Kingundertook that his son, Charles Scott, then at Oxford, should be launchedin the diplomatic service. The elder son, heir to the baronetcy, was nowwith his regiment in Ireland.

The "Life of Buonaparte" was published in June, 1827, and secured highpraise from many, among whom was Goethe. It realised £18,000 for thecreditors, and had health been spared him, Scott must soon have freedhimself from all encumbrances. Before the close of 1829 he had publishedalso the "Chronicles of the Canongate," "Tales of a Grandfather," "The FairMaid of Perth" and "Anne of Geirstein," but he had been visited also byseveral threatenings of apoplexy, and on February 15, 1830, was prostratedby a serious attack. Recovering from this illness, Scott resigned hisoffice as Clerk of Session, and during the rest of the year produced agreat quantity of manuscript, including the "Letters on Demonology andWitchcraft," and the series of "Tales of a Grandfather" dealing with Frenchhistory. April, 1831, brought with it a distinct stroke of paralysis, yetboth "Castle Dangerous" and "Count Robert of Paris" were finished in thecourse of the year.

Sailing in October, in the "Barham," Sir Walter Scott visited Malta andNaples, and came to Rome in April, 1832. In May he set out for home byVenice, Munich and the Rhine, but his companions could hardly prevail onhim to look at the interesting objects by the way, and another seriousattack fell upon him at Nimeguen. He reached London on June 13, and on July7 was carried on board the steamer for Leith, and was at Abbotsford by the11th. Here the remains of his strength gradually declined, and his mind washopelessly obscured.

As I was dressing on the morning of September 17, a servant came to tellme that his master had awoke in a state of composure and consciousness, andwished to see me immediately. I found him entirely himself, though in thelast extreme of feebleness. "Lockhart," he said "I may have no more than aminute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man--be virtuous--bereligious--be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when youcome to lie here." He scarcely afterwards gave any sign of consciousness,and breathed his last on September 21, in the presence of all hischildren.

His funeral was unostentatious but the attendance was very great. He waslaid in the Abbey of Dryburgh, by the side of his wife, in the sepulchre ofhis ancestors.

The Life of Robert Burns

John Gibson Lockhart was born, a son of the manse, atCambusnethan, Lanarkshire, on July 14, 1794. Receiving his early educationin Glasgow, he went, at sixteen, with a scholarship to Balliol College,Oxford. In 1816 he was called to the Scottish Bar; but literature occupiedhim more than law, and as early as 1819 he wrote the once popular "Peter'sLetters to his Kinsfolk." Next year he married Scott's eldest daughter,Sophia. Lockhart was a leading contributor to the early "Blackwood," wherehis fine translations of Spanish ballads first appeared, and he edited the"Quarterly Review" from 1825 to 1853. He died at Abbotsford on November 25,1854, and was buried at Scott's feet in Dryburgh Abbey. Lockhart's fortewas biography, and his "Life of Scott" ranks beside Boswell's "Johnson."The "Life of Burns" was published first in Constable's "Miscellany" in1828, when the whole impression was exhausted in six weeks. It passedthrough five editions before the author's death. Though many lives of Burnshave appeared since, with details unknown to Lockhart, his biography is inmany respects the best we possess, and is never likely to be superseded.Even Mr. Henley is "glad to agree with Lockhart." It is this book that isthe subject of Carlyle's famous essay on Burns.

I.--The Poet in the Making

Robert Burns was born on January 25, 1759, in a clay cottage at Alloway,two miles south of Ayr, and near the "auld brig o' Doon." His father,William Burnes, or Burness--for so he spelt his name--was fromKincardineshire. When Robert was born he had the lease of a seven-acrecroft, and had intended to establish himself as a nurseryman. He was a manof notable character and individuality, immortalised by his son as "thesaint, the father, and the husband" of "The Cottar's Saturday Night." "Ihave met with few," said Burns, "who understood men, their manners, andtheir ways, equal to my father." Agnes Brown, the poet's mother, isdescribed as a very sagacious woman, with an inexhaustible store of balladsand traditionary tales, upon which she nourished Robert's infantimagination, while her husband attended to "the weightier matters of thelaw."

When Burns was between six and seven, his father removed to the farm ofMount Oliphant, two miles from the Brig o' Doon. But the soil was poor, andthe factor--afterwards pictured in "The Twa Dogs"--so harsh andunreasonable, that the tenant was glad to quit. In 1777 he removed aboutten miles to the larger and better farm of Lochlea, in the parish ofTarbolton. Here, after a short interval of prosperity, some trouble aroseabout the conditions of the lease. The dispute involved William Burnes inruin, and he died broken-hearted in February, 1784.

Meanwhile, at the age of six, Robert, with his brother Gilbert, waslearning to read, write, and sum under the direction of John Murdoch, anitinerant teacher, who has left an interesting description of hispupil.

"Gilbert always appeared to me to possess a more lively imagination,"says Murdoch, "and to be more of the wit, than Robert. I attempted to teachthem a little church-music. Here they were left far behind by all the restof the school. Robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and hisvoice untunable. It was long before I could get them to distinguish onetune from another. Robert's countenance was generally grave and expressiveof a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind. Gilbert's face said,'Mirth, with thee I mean to live;' and, certainly, if any person who knewthe two boys had been asked which of them was the more likely to court themuses, he would never have guessed that Robert had a propensity of thatkind."

When Murdoch left the district, the father himself continued to instructthe boys; but when Robert was about thirteen he and Gilbert were sent,"week about, during a summer quarter," to the parish school of Dalrymple.The good man could not pay two fees, or his two boys could not be spared atthe same time from the farm!

"We lived very poorly," says the poet. "I was a dexterous ploughman formy age; and the next eldest to me was a brother [Gilbert], who could drivethe plough very well, and help me to thrash the corn. A novel-writer mightperhaps have viewed these scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not I."Burns's person, inured to daily toil, and continually exposed to everyvariety of weather, presented, before the usual time, every characteristicof robust and vigorous manhood. He says himself that he never feared acompetitor in any species of rural exertion; and Gilbert, a man of uncommonbodily strength, adds that neither he, nor any labourer he ever saw atwork, was equal to him, either in the cornfield or on thethrashing-floor.

Before his sixteenth year Burns had read a large amount of literature.But a collection of songs, he says significantly, "was my vademecum. I pored over them, driving my cart, or walking to labour, songby song, verse by verse; carefully noticing the true, tender, or sublimefrom affectation or fustian." It was about this date that he "firstcommitted the sin of rhyme." The subject was a "bewitching creature," apartner in the harvest field, and the song was that beginning "Once I loveda bonnie lass."

After this, though much occupied with labour and love, he found leisureoccasionally to clothe the various moods of his mind in verse. It was asearly as seventeen that he wrote the stanzas which open beautifully, "Idream'd I lay where flowers were springing," and also the ballad, "Myfather was a farmer upon the Carrick border," which, years afterwards, heused to con over with delight, because of the faithfulness with which itrecalled to him the circ*mstances and feelings of his opening manhood.These are the only two of his very early productions in which there isnothing expressly about love. The rest were composed to celebrate thecharms of those rustic beauties who followed each other in the domain ofhis fancy, or shared the capacious throne between them. The excursions ofthe rural lover form the theme of almost all the songs which Burns is knownto have produced about this period; and such of these juvenile performancesas have been preserved are beautiful. They show how powerfully his boyishfancy had been affected by the old rural minstrelsy of his own country, andhow easily his native taste caught the secret of its charm.

In 1781, despairing of farming, he went to Irvine to learn flax-dressingwith a relative. He was diligent at first, but misfortune soon overtookhim. The shop where he was engaged caught fire, and he "was left, like atrue poet, not worth a sixpence." Gilbert Burns dates a serious change inhis character and conduct from this six months' residence in the seaporttown. "He contracted," he says, "some acquaintance of a freer manner ofthinking than he had been accustomed to, whose society prepared him foroverleaping the bounds of rigid virtue which had hitherto restrainedhim."

He had certainly not come unscathed out of the society of those personsof "liberal opinions" with whom he consorted in Irvine; and he expresslyattributes to their lessons the scrape into which he fell soon after "heput his hand to plough again." He was compelled, according to the then allbut universal custom of rural parishes in Scotland, to do penance inchurch, before the congregation, in consequence of the birth of anillegitimate child. But not the amours, or the tavern, or drudging manuallabour could keep him long from his true calling. "Rhyme," he says, "I hadgiven up [on going to Irvine], but meeting with Fergusson's 'ScottishPoems,' I strung anew my wildly sounding lyre with emulating vigour." Itwas probably this accidental meeting with Fergusson that in a great measurefinally determined the Scottish character of his poetry.

II.--The Loves of a Peasant Poet

Just before their father's death, Robert and Gilbert took the cold andungrateful farm of Mossgiel, in the parish of Mauchline, to which thefamily now removed. The four years of Burns's connection with this placewere the most important of his life. It was then that his genius developedits highest energies; on the works produced in these years his fame wasfirst established, and must ever continue mainly to rest; it was then alsothat his personal character came out in all its brightest lights, and inall but its darkest shadows; and indeed from the commencement of thisperiod the history of the man may be traced, step by step, in his ownimmortal writings.

Burns now began to know that Nature had meant him for a poet; anddiligently, though as yet in secret, he laboured in what he felt to be hisdestined vocation. He was never more productive than at this time, when hewrote such skits on the kirk and its associates as "The Twa Herds"(pastors), "Holy Willie's Prayer," "The Holy Fair," and "The Ordination.""Hallowe'en," a descriptive poem, perhaps even more exquisitely wroughtthan "The Holy Fair," also belongs to the Mossgiel period, as does an evenmore notable effort.

Burns had often remarked to his brother that there was somethingpeculiarly venerable in the phrase, "Let us worship God," used by a decent,sober head of a family introducing family worship. To this sentiment we areindebted for "The Cottar's Saturday Night," the hint of the plan and titleof which were taken from Fergusson's "Farmer's Ingle." It is, perhaps, ofall Burns's pieces, the one whose exclusion from the collection, were sucha thing possible nowadays, would be the most injurious, if not to thegenius, at least to the character of the man. In spite of many feeble linesand some heavy stanzas, it appears to me that even his genius would suffermore in estimation by being contemplated in the absence of this poem thanof any other single performance he has left us. Loftier flights hecertainly has made, but in these he remained but a short while on the wing,and effort is too often perceptible; here the motion is easy, gentle,placidly undulating.

Burns's art had now reached its climax; but it is time to revert moreparticularly to his personal history. In this his loves very nearly occupythe chief place. That they were many, his songs prove; for in those days hewrote no love-songs on imaginary heroines. "Mary Morison," "Behind yonhills where Lugar flows," and "On Cessnock banks there lives a lass,"belong to this date; and there are three or four inspired by MaryCampbell--"Highland Mary"--the object of by far the deepest passion Burnsever knew, a passion which he has immortalised in the noblest of hiselegiacs, "To Mary in Heaven."

Farming had, of course, to engage his attention as well as love-making,but he was less successful in the one than in the other. The first year ofMossgiel, from buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, he losthalf his crops. In these circ*mstances, he thought of proceeding to theWest Indies. Presently he had further cause for contemplating an escapefrom his native land. Among his "flames" was one Jean Armour, the daughterof a mason in Mauchline, where she was the reigning toast. Jean foundherself "as ladies wish to be that love their lords." Burns's worldlycirc*mstances were in a most miserable state when he was informed of hercondition, and he was staggered. He saw nothing for it but to fly thecountry at once.

Meanwhile, meeting Jean, he yielded to her tears, and gave her a writtenacknowledgment of marriage, valid according to Scottish law. Her father'swrath was not appeased thereby. Burns, confessing himself unequal to thesupport of a family, proposed to go immediately to Jamaica in search ofbetter fortunes. He offered, if this were rejected, to abandon his farm,already a hopeless concern, and earn at least bread for his wife andchildren as a day labourer at home. But nothing would satisfy Armour, who,in his indignation, made his daughter destroy the written evidence of her"marriage."

III.--Burns at His Zenith

Such was his poverty that he could not satisfy the parish officers; andthe only alternative that presented itself to him was America or a gaol. Asituation was obtained for him in Jamaica, but he had no money to pay hispassage. It occurred to him that the money might be raised by publishinghis poems; and a first edition, printed at Kilmarnock in 1786, brought himnearly £20, out of which he paid for a steerage passage from theClyde. "My chest was on the road to Greenock," he tells; "I had composedthe last song I should ever measure in Caledonia, 'The gloomy night isgathering fast,' when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mineoverthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my poeticambition."

Blacklock, the blind divine upon whom Johnson "looked with reverence,"had read the newly published poems, and it was his praise of them thatdirectly prevented Burns from expatriating himself. "His opinion that Iwould meet with encouragement in Edinburgh fired me so much that away Iposted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a single letter ofintroduction. The baneful star that had so long shed its blasting influencein my zenith for once made a revolution to the nadir." In Edinburgh, whichBurns reached in November, 1786, he was introduced by Blacklock to all theliterati, and within a fortnight he was writing to a friend: "I amin a fair way of becoming as eminent as Thomas à Kempis or John Bunyan; andyou may expect to see my birthday inscribed among the wonderful events inthe Poor Robin and Aberdeen Almanacks, along with the Black Monday and theBattle of Bothwell Bridge."

But he bore his honours in a manner worthy of himself. "The attentionshe received," says Dugald Stewart, "from all ranks and descriptions ofpersons were such as would have turned any head but his own. I cannot saythat I could perceive any unfavourable effect which they left on his mind."Scott, then a lad of fifteen, met him, and wrote a vivid description of hisappearance:

"His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish; asort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of itseffect, perhaps, from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. Hisfeatures are represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture, but to me it conveys theidea that they are diminished as if seen in perspective. I think hiscountenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. I wouldhave taken the poet, had I not known what he was, for a very sagaciouscountry farmer of the old Scotch school--i.e., none of your modernagriculturists, who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the doucegudeman who held his own plough. There was a strong expression of senseand shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, indicated thepoetical character and temperament. It was large, and of a dark cast, whichglowed (I say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling orinterest. I never saw such another eye in a human head, though I have seenthe most distinguished men of my time. His conversation expressed perfectself-confidence, without the slightest presumption. He was like a farmerdressed in his best to dine with the laird. I do not speak in malampartem when I say I never saw a man in company with his superiors instation and information more perfectly free from either the reality or theaffectation of embarrassment. I was told that his address to females wasextremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic orhumorous, which engaged their attention particularly. I have heard the lateduch*ess of Gordon remark this."

It needs no effort of imagination to conceive what the sensations of anisolated set of scholars, almost all either clergymen or professors, musthave been in the presence of this big-boned, brawny stranger, with hisgreat flashing eyes, who had forced his way among them from the plough-tailat a single stride; and it will always be a reflection in their honour thatthey suffered no pedantic prejudices to interfere with their reception ofthe poet.

Shortly after his arrival he arranged with Creech, the chief booksellerin Edinburgh, to undertake a second edition of his poems. This waspublished in March, 1787, the subscribers numbering over 1,500. Out ofmoney thus derived, he provided a tombstone for the neglected grave ofRobert Fergusson, his "elder brother in the muses," in the Canongatechurchyard. Then he decided to visit some of the classic scenes of Scottishhistory and romance. He had as yet seen but a small part of his owncountry, and this by no means among the most interesting, until, indeed,his own poetry made it equal, on that score, to any other. Various tourswere, in fact, undertaken, the chief being, however, in the Border districtand in the Highlands. Usually he returned to Edinburgh, partly to be nearhis jovial intimates, and partly because, after the excitement attendinghis first appearance in the capital, he found himself incapable of settlingdown contentedly in the humble circle at Mossgiel.

IV.--The Clarinda Romance

During the winter of 1787--1788, he had a little romance with Mrs.McLehose, the beautiful widow to whom he addressed the song, "Clarinda,mistress of my soul," and a series of letters which present more instancesof bad taste, bombastic language, and fulsome sentiment than could beproduced from all his writings besides. It was the same lady who inspiredthe lines which furnished Byron with a motto, and Scott declared to be"worth a thousand romances ":

Had we never loved so kindly
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met--or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

At this time the publication of Johnson's "Scots Musical Museum" wasgoing on in Edinburgh; and Burns, being enlisted as a contributor,furnished many of his best songs to that work. From his youth upwards hehad been an enthusiastic lover of the old minstrelsy and music of hiscountry; but he now studied both subjects with better opportunities andappliances than he could have commanded previously; and it is from thistime that we must date his ambition to transmit his own poetry toposterity, in eternal association with those exquisite airs which hadhitherto, in far too many instances, been married to verses that did notdeserve to be immortal. Later, beginning in 1792, he wrote about sixtysongs for George Thomson's collection, many of which, like "Auld Lang Syne"and "Scots Wha Hae," are in the front rank of popularity. The letters headdressed to Thomson are full of interesting detail of various kinds. Inone he writes:

"Until I am complete master of a tune in my own singing, such as it is,I can never compose for it. My way is this. I consider the poetic sentimentcorrespondent to my idea of the musical expression--then choose mytheme--compose one stanza. When that is composed, which is generally themost difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit down now and then,look out for objects in Nature round me that are in unison or harmony withthe cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom, humming every now andthen the air, with the verses I have framed. When I feel my muse beginningto jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit myeffusions to paper; swinging at intervals on the hind legs of myelbow-chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my pengoes. Seriously this, at home, is almost invariably my way."

But to return. During his second winter in Edinburgh, Burns met with ahackney coach accident which kept him to the house for six weeks. While inthis state he learned from Mauchline that his intimacy with Jean Armour hadagain exposed her to the reproaches of her family. The father sternlyturned her out of doors, and Burns had to arrange about a shelter for herand his children in a friend's house. In the meantime, through theinfluence of some sympathisers, he had been appointed an officer of excise."I have chosen this," he wrote, "after mature deliberation. It is immediatebread, and, though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of myexistence, 'tis luxury in comparison of all my preceding life." However,when he settled finally with Creech about his poems, he found himself withbetween £500 and £600; and he retained his excise commission asa dernier ressort, to be used only if a reverse of fortune renderedit necessary.

He decided now to exchange Mossgiel for Ellisland farm, about six milesfrom Dumfries. As soon as he was able to leave Edinburgh, he had hurried toMossgiel and gone through a justice-of-peace marriage with Jean Armour.Burns, with all his faults, was an honest and a high-spirited man, and heloved the mother of his children. Had he hesitated to make her his wife, hemust have sunk into the callousness of a ruffian, or that misery ofmiseries, the remorse of a poet.

Some months later he writes that his marriage "was not, perhaps, inconsequence of the attachment of romance, but I have no cause to repent it.If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, Iam not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-schoolaffectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, thesoundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the country." It was duringthe honeymoon, as he calls it, that he wrote the beautiful "O a' the airtsthe wind can blaw." He used to say that the happiest period of his life wasthe first winter at Ellisland, with wife and children around him. It wasthen that he wrote, among other songs, "John Anderson, my Jo," "Tarn Glen,""My heart's in the Highlands," "Go fetch to me a pint of wine," and "Williebrewed a peck o' maut."

But the "golden days" of Ellisland were short. Burns's farmingspeculations once more failed, and he had to take up his excise commission."I am now," says he, "a poor rascally gauger, condemned to gallop twohundred miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels." Bothin prose and verse he has recorded the feelings with which he firstfollowed his new vocation, and his jests on the subject are uniformlybitter. It was a vocation which exposed him to temptations of the kind hewas least likely to resist. His extraordinary conversational powers led himinto peril wherever he went. If he entered an inn at midnight, after allthe inmates were in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from the cellarto the garret; and ere ten minutes had elapsed, the landlord and all hisguests were assembled round the ingle; the largest punch-bowl was produced;and "Be ours this night--who knows what comes to-morrow?" was the languageof every eye in the circle that welcomed him.

At home, too, lion-gazers from all quarters beset him; they ate anddrank at his cost, and often went away to criticise him and his fare, as ifthey had done Burns and his black bowl great honour in condescending to beentertained for a single evening with such company. Among others who calledon him was Captain Grose, the antiquary, and it is to this acquaintancethat we owe "Tam o' Shanter," which Burns believed to be the best of allhis productions.

V.--Closing Years of the Poet's Life

Towards the close of 1791 he gave up his farm, and procuring an exciseappointment to the Dumfries division, removed to the county town. His moralcourse from this time was downwards. "In Dumfries," says Heron, speakingfrom personal knowledge, "his dissipation became still more deeplyhabitual. He was here exposed more than in the country to be solicited toshare the riot of the dissolute and idle." His intemperance was, as Heronsays, in fits; his aberrations were occasional, not systematic; they wereall to himself the sources of exquisite misery in the retrospect; they werethe aberrations of a man whose moral sense was never deadened, of one whoencountered more temptations from without and from within than the immensemajority of mankind, far from having to contend against, are even able toimagine; of one, finally, who prayed for pardon, where alone effectualpardon could be found.

In how far the "thoughtless follies" of the poet did actually hasten hisend, it is needless to conjecture. They had their share, unquestionably,along with other influences which it would be inhuman to characterise asmere follies. In these closing years of his life he had to struggleconstantly with pecuniary difficulties, than which nothing could have beenmore likely to pour bitterness intolerable into the cup of his existence.His lively imagination exaggerated to itself every real evil; and thisamong, and perhaps above, all the rest; at least, in many of his letters wefind him alluding to the probability of his being arrested for debts, whichwe now know to have been of very trivial amount.

In 1795 he was greatly upset by the death, in his absence, of hisyoungest child. Writing in January, 1796, he says: "I had scarcely begun torecover from that shock, when I became myself the victim of a most severerheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful, until, after many weeks ofa sick-bed, it seems to have turned up life, and I am beginning to crawlacross my room, and once indeed have been before my own door in thestreet."

But a few days after this Burns was so imprudent as to join a festivecircle at a tavern dinner, where he remained till about three in themorning. The weather was severe, and he, being too much intoxicated, tookno precaution in thus exposing his debilitated frame to its influence. Ithas been said that he fell asleep upon the snow on his way home. The resultwas an acute return of his rheumatism, and his health gradually got worse.He went to the Solway for sea-bathing, but came back to Dumfries "visiblychanged in his looks, being with difficulty able to stand upright and reachhis own door."

It soon became known that he was dying, and the anxiety, not of the richand the learned only, but of the mechanics and peasants, exceeded allbelief. Wherever two or three people stood together their talk was solelyof Burns. His good humour was unruffled, and his wit never forsook him; buthe repressed with a smile the hopes of his friends, and told them he hadlived long enough. The fever increased, and his strength diminished, and hedied on July 21, 1796. His funeral, attended by ten or twelve thousandpeople, was an impressive and mournful sight. The grave was at firstcovered by a plain tombstone; but a costly mausoleum was subsequentlyerected on the most elevated site which the churchyard presented. Thitherthe remains of the poet were solemnly transferred on June 5, 1815.

It requires a graver audacity of hypocrisy than falls to the share ofmost men to declaim against Burns's sensibility to the tangible cares andtoils of his earthly condition; there are more who venture on broaddenunciations of his sympathy with the joys of sense and passion.

That some men in every age will comfort themselves in the practice ofcertain vices, by reference to particular passages both in the history andin the poetry of Burns, there is all reason to fear; but surely the generalinfluence of both is calculated, and has been found, to produce fardifferent effects. The universal popularity which his writings have allalong enjoyed among one of the most virtuous of nations is of itself adecisive circ*mstance.

On one point there can be no controversy; the poetry of Burns has hadmost powerful influence in reviving and strengthening the national feelingsof his countrymen. Amidst penury and labour his youth fed on the oldminstrelsy and traditional glories of his nation, and his genius divinedthat what he felt so deeply must belong to a spirit that might liesmothered around him, but could not be extinguished. Burns "knew his ownworth, and reverenced the lyre." But he ever announced himself, as apeasant, the representative of his class, the painter of their manners,inspired by the same influences which ruled their bosoms; and whosoeversympathised with his verse had his soul opened for the moment to the wholefamily of man.

Short and painful as were his years, Burns has left behind him a volumein which there is inspiration for every fancy and music for every mood;which lives, and will live in strength and vigour, "to soothe," as agenerous lover of genius has said, "the sorrows of how many a lover, toinflame the patriotism of how many a soldier, to fan the fires of how manya genius, to disperse the gloom of solitude, appease the agonies of pain,encourage virtue, and show vice its ugliness." In this volume, centurieshence as now, wherever a Scotsman may wander he will find the dearestconsolation of his exile.

Table Talk

Martin Luther, "the monk who shook the world," was bornNov. 10, 1483, at Eisleben, in Germany. In 1507 he was ordained a priest,and became popular almost immediately as a preacher. A visit to Romeshocked him, and in revolt against the practice of raising money by thesale of indulgences, he began his career as a reformer. In 1518 he wassummoned to Rome to answer for his opinions, which now included a totaldenial of the right of the Pope to forgive sins. He proceeded to attack thewhole doctrinal system of the Roman Catholic Church. For this he wasdenounced in a papal bull and his writings were condemned to be burned. In1525 he married an escaped nun. That Luther was a true child of his age maybe seen in the selections made from his "Table Talk." His shrewdness,humour, plain bold speech, and his change of belief from an infallibleChurch to an infallible Bible there appear, as also do his narrowness ofknowledge, asperity of temper, and susceptibility to superstition. He mustbe judged by the mind of his times, not by modern standards. We give someof his strong opinions that have not borne the wear and tear of later ages;but they are more than balanced by teaching what is beautiful, as well astrue. Luther died on February 18, 1546.

God's Word and Book

That the Bible is God's word and book I prove thus. Infinite potentateshave raged against it, and sought to destroy and uproot it--King Alexanderthe Great, the princes of Egypt and Babylon, the monarchs of Persia, ofGreece, and of Rome, the Emperors Julius and Augustus--but they nothingprevailed; they are all gone and vanished, while the book remains and willremain. Who has thus helped it? Who has thus protected it against suchmighty forces? No one, surely, but God Himself, who is the Master of allthings.

The Holy Scriptures are full of divine gifts and virtues. The books ofthe heathen taught nothing of faith, hope, or charity; they present no ideaof these things; they contemplate only the present, and that which man,with the use of his material reason, can grasp and comprehend. Look nottherein for aught of hope and trust in God. But see how the Psalms and theBook of Job treat of faith, hope, resignation, and prayer; in a word, theHoly Scripture is the highest and best of books, abounding in comfort underall afflictions and trials. It teaches us to see, to feel, to grasp, and tocomprehend faith, hope, and charity far otherwise than mere human reasoncan, and when evil oppresses us it teaches how these virtues throw lightupon the darkness.

The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no measure or limit tothe fever for writing. The Bible is now buried under so many commentariesthat the text is nothing regarded. I could wish all my books were buriednine ells deep in the ground by reason of the ill example they will give. Iwould not have those who read my books, in these stormy times, devote onemoment to them that they would otherwise have consecrated to the Bibleitself.

God's Dealing with Us

How should God deal with us? Good days we cannot bear, evil we cannotendure. Gives He riches unto us--then we are proud, so that no man can liveby us in peace; nay, we will be carried on heads and shoulders, and will beadored as gods. Gives He poverty to us--then are we dismayed, impatient,and murmur against Him.

God only, and not wealth, maintains the world; riches merely make peopleproud and lazy. Great wealth cannot still hunger, but rather occasions moredearth, for where rich people are there things are always dear. Moreover,money makes no man right merry, but much rather pensive and full of sorrow;for riches, says Christ, are thorns that prick people. Yet is the world somade that it sets therein all its joy and felicity, and we are suchunthankful slovens that we give God not so much as a Deo Gratias,though we receive of Him overflowing benefits, merely out of His goodnessand mercy. No man can estimate the great charge God is at only inmaintaining birds and such creatures, comparatively nothing worth. I ampersuaded that it costs Him yearly more to maintain only the sparrows thanthe revenue of the French king amounts to.

Points from "Popedom"

I much marvel that the pope extols his church at Rome as the chief,whereas the church at Jerusalem is the mother; for there Christian doctrinewas first revealed. Next was the church at Antioch, whence the Christianshave their name. Thirdly, was the church at Alexandria; and still beforethe Romish were the churches of the Galatians, of the Corinthians,Ephesians, Philippians. Is it so great a matter that St. Peter was at Rome?Which, however, has never yet been proved, nor ever will be, whereas ourblessed Saviour Christ Himself was at Jerusalem, where all the articles ofour Christian faith were made.

Prayer in popedom is mere tongue-threshing; not prayer but a work ofobedience. Hence the confused sea of howling and babbling in cells andmonasteries, where they read and sing the psalms and collects without anyspiritual devotion. Though I had done no more but only freed people fromthat torment, they might well give me thanks for it.

Kings and princes coin money only out of metals, but the pope coinsmoney out of everything--indulgences, ceremonials, dispensations, pardons;'tis all fish comes to his net. 'Tis only baptism escapes him, for childrencome into the world without clothes to be stolen or teeth to be drawn.

Patristic Literature

I will not presume to criticise too closely the writings of the fathers,seeing they are received of the church and have great applause, but whosoreads Chrysostom will find he digresses from the chief points, and proceedson other matters, saying nothing, or very little, of that which pertains tothe business. St. Jerome wrote upon Matthew, upon the Epistles to theGalatians, and Titus, but, alas, very coldly. Ambrose wrote six books uponthe first book of Moses, but they are very poor.

We must read the fathers cautiously, and lay them in the gold balance,for they often stumbled and went astray. Gregory expounds the five poundsmentioned in the Gospel, which the husbandman gave to his servant to put touse, to be the five senses, which the beasts also possess. The two poundshe construes to be the reason and understanding. Faithful Christians shouldheed only the embassy of our blessed Saviour Christ, and what He says.

None of the fathers of the church made mention of original sin untilAugustine came, who made a difference between original and actual sin,namely, that original sin is to covet, to lust, and to desire, which is theroot and cause of actual sin.

Hints for Preachers

The good preacher should know when to make an end. A preacher that willspeak everything that comes into his mind is like a maid that goes tomarket, and, meeting another maid, makes a stand, and they hold together agoose-market.

I would not have preachers in their sermons use Hebrew, Greek, orforeign languages, for in the church we ought to speak as we use to do athome, the plain mother tongue, which everyone is acquainted with. It may beallowed in courtiers, lawyers, advocates, etc., to use quaint, curiouswords. St. Paul never used such high and stately words as Demosthenes andCicero used.

Ambition is the rankest poison to the church when it possessespreachers. It is a consuming fire.

When I preach I sink myself deep down. I regard neither doctors normagistrates, of whom are here in this church above forty; but I have an eyeto the multitude of young people, children, and servants, of whom are morethan two thousand. I preach to those. Will not the rest hear me?

Time's Forelock

It is said Occasion has a forelock, but it is bald behind. Our Lord hastaught this by the course of nature. A farmer must sow his barley and oatsabout Easter; if he defer it till Michaelmas it were too late. When applesare ripe they must be plucked from the tree or they are spoiled.Procrastination is as bad as over-hastiness. There is my servant Wolf, whenfour or five birds fall upon the bird-net he will not draw it; but says,"Oh, I will stay until more come." Then they all fly away, and he getsnone.

Occasion is a great matter. Terence says well, "I came in time, which isthe chief thing of all." Julius Caesar understood Occasion; Pompey andHannibal did not. Boys at school understand it not, therefore they musthave fathers and masters, with the rod, to hold them thereto, that theyneglect not time and lose it. Many a young fellow has a school stipend forsix or seven years, during which he ought diligently to study, but hethinks, "Oh, I have time enough yet." But I say, "No, fellow; what littleJack learns not great John learns not." Occasion salutes thee, and reachesout her forelock to thee, saying, "Here I am, take hold of me." Thouthinkest she will come again. Then says she, "Well, seeing thou wilt nottake hold of my top, take hold of my tail," and therewith she flingsaway.

Modern Luxury

Whereto serve or profit such superfluity, such show, such ostentation,such extraordinary luxurious kind of life as is now come upon us? If Adamwere to return to earth, and see our mode of living, our food, drink, anddress, how would he marvel. He would say: "Surely this is not the world Iwas in?" For Adam drank water, ate fruit from the trees, and, if he had anyhouse at all, 'twas a hut supported by four wooden forks; he had no knifeor iron, and he wore simply a coat of skin. Now we spend immense sums ineating and drinking, now we raise sumptuous palaces, and decorate them witha luxury beyond all comparison. The ancient Israelites lived in greatmoderation and quiet. Boaz says: "Dip thy bread in vinegar and refreshthyself therewith."

Ministers and Matrimony

I advise in everything that ministers interfere not in matrimonialquestions. First, because we have enough to do in our own office; secondly,because these affairs concern not the church, but are temporal things,pertaining to temporal magistrates; thirdly, because such cases are in amanner innumerable; they are very high, broad, and deep, and produce manyoffences, which may tend to the shame and dishonour of the Gospel.Moreover, we are therein ill dealt with--they draw us into the business,and then, if the issue is evil, the blame is laid altogether upon us.Therefore, we will leave them to the lawyers and magistrates.

Miscellaneous Topics

Philip Melancthon showing Luther a letter from Augsburg wherein he wasinformed that a very learned divine, a papist of that city, was converted,and had received the Gospel, Luther said, "I like best those that do notfall off suddenly, but ponder the case with considerate discretion, comparetogether the writing and arguments of both parties, and lay them on thegold balance, and in God's fear search after the upright truth; and of suchfit people are made, able to stand in controversy. Such a man was St. Paul,who at first was a strict Pharisee and man of works, who stiffly andearnestly defended the law; but afterwards preached Christ in the best andpurest manner against the whole nation of the Jews."

As all people feel they must die, each seeks immortality here on earth,that he may be had in everlasting remembrance. Some great princes and kingsseek it by raising great columns of stone and high pyramids, greatchurches, costly and glorious palaces and castles. Soldiers hunt afterpraise and honour by obtaining famous victories. The learned seek aneverlasting name by writing books. With these and such like things peoplethink to be immortal. But as to the true everlasting and incorruptiblehonour and eternity of God, no man thinks or looks after these things.

When two goats meet on a narrow bridge over deep waters how do theybehave? Neither of them can turn back again, and neither can pass the otherbecause the bridge is too narrow. If they should thrust one another theymight both fall into the water and be drowned. Nature, then, has taughtthem that if one lays himself down and permits the other to go over himboth remain without hurt. Even so, people should endure to be trod uponrather than to fall into discord with one another.

Strong Opinions Outworn by Time

I should have no compassion on witches; I would burn all of them. Weread in the old law that the priests threw the first stone at suchmalefactors. Our ordinary sins offend and anger God. What then must be Hiswrath against witchcraft, which we may justly designate high treasonagainst divine majesty, a revolt against the infinite power of God. Themaladies I suffer are not natural but devils' spells.

Luther, taking up a caterpillar, said: "'Tis an emblem of the devil inits crawling, and bears his colours in its changing hue."

The devil plagues and torments us in the place where we are most tenderand weak. In Paradise he fell not upon Adam, but upon Eve. It commonlyrains where it was wet enough before.

The anabaptists pretend that children, not as yet having reason, oughtnot to receive baptism. I answer: That reason in no way contributes tofaith. Nay, in that children are destitute of reason they are all the morefit and proper recipients of baptism. For reason is the greatest enemy thatfaith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things.

I always loved music. A schoolmaster ought to have skill in music, or Iwould not regard him; neither should we ordain young men as preachersunless they have been well exercised in music.

Erasmus of Rotterdam is the vilest miscreant that ever disgraced theearth. He made several attempts to draw me into his snares, and I shouldhave been in danger but that God lent me special aid. Erasmus was poisonedat Rome and at Venice with epicurean doctrines. His chief doctrine is thatwe must carry ourselves according to the time, or, as the proverb goes,hang the cloak according to the wind. I hold Erasmus to be Christ's mostbitter enemy.

I never work better than when I am inspired by anger. When I am angry Ican write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament isquickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations andtemptations depart.

Characteristic Sayings

When the abbot throws the dice, the whole convent will play.

When men blaspheme we should pray and be silent, and not carry wood tothe fire.

When Jesus Christ utters a word, He opens His mouth so wide that itembraces all heaven and earth, even though that word be but in awhisper.

When I lay sucking at my mother's breast I had no notion how I shouldafterwards eat, drink, and live. Even so we on the earth have no idea whatthe life to come will be.

The two sins, hatred and pride, deck and trim themselves out as thedevil clothed himself in the Godhead. Hatred will be godlike; pride will betruth. These two are right deadly sins; hatred is killing, pride islying.

A scorpion thinks that when his head lies hid under a leaf he cannot beseen; even so the hypocrites and false saints think, when they have hoistedup one or two good works, all their sins therewith are covered and hid.

Luther, holding a rose in his hand, said, "'Tis a magnificent work ofGod. Could a man make but one such rose as this he would be thought worthyof all honour, but the manifold gifts of God lose their value in our eyesfrom their very infinity."

Memoirs

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, was bornat Bignon, near Nemours, on March 9, 1749, and died at Paris on April 2,1791. His father was a most eccentric and tyrannical representative of theFrench aristocracy, and Honoré, a younger son, inherited somethingof his violent temperament, but was endowed with real genius. Entering thearmy, young Mirabeau soon displayed an erratic disposition by eloping withthe young wife of an aged nobleman. He fled to Holland, but was capturedand imprisoned. Being at length liberated, he turned to literature andpolitics, and soon gained celebrity in both. His magnificent oratoricalpowers brought him rapidly to the front in the period immediately anteriorto the outbreak of the Revolution. Mirabeau's "Memoirs, by Himself, hisFather, his Uncle, and his Adopted Son," published in eight volumes in1834, contain no original writings by Mirabeau himself, except in the shapeof extracts from his speeches, letters, and pamphlets. The followingepitome has been prepared from the French text.

I.--"The Hurricane"

The Marquis of Mirabeau, father of Honoré Gabriel, the subject ofthese memoirs, was endowed with a mind of great power, rendered fruitful bythe best education. He had, however, become independent at too early anage, and this had brought into play his natural inordinate vanity.

Honoré Gabriel, since so famous under the name of the Count ofMirabeau, was the fifth child of the marquis. Destined to be the mostturbulent and active of youths, as well as the most eloquent of men and thegreatest orator of his day, Gabriel was born with one foot twisted and histongue tied, in addition to which his size and strength were extraordinary,and already two molars were formed in his jaw. At the age of three the boynearly lost his life from small-pox, and was thus disfigured greatly forlife; while the other children were, like the parents, gifted withwonderful beauty.

Young Gabriel was a most precocious child, and he received an excellenteducation. At the age of seven he was confirmed by a cardinal, but hischildhood was difficult of control, and chastisem*nt from his father andtutor was continual. His inquisitiveness was irrepressible. He relates thatat the family supper after his confirmation, "they explained to me that Godcould not make contradictions--for instance, a stick with only one end. Iasked whether a stick which had but one end was not a miracle. Mygrandmother never forgave me."

Placed under the kindly teaching of the Abbé Choquart in amilitary school of high repute in Paris, Gabriel made marvellously rapidprogress, assiduously exercising his memory, which afterwards became aprodigious repository of the most diversified knowledge.

On July 10, 1767, Gabriel entered the army, joining the Marquis ofLambert's regiment. The young volunteer, who was now eighteen, behavedwell, and speedily gave evidence of the military talents he afterwardsdisplayed. But a quarrel arose over a love affair, which led to harshpunishment by his colonel. The incident was bitterly resented by hisfather, who condemned him without hearing his side of the matter, andactually procured his imprisonment in the fortress of the Isle ofRhé.

When the young soldier came out of prison he unwittingly offended anofficer at Rochelle, who had been dismissed the service. The result was aduel, in which the aggressor was wounded. Gabriel was appointed to servicein Corsica, with the rank of second-lieutenant, and here he distinguishedhimself by his zeal, his military talents, and his constantapplication.

Young Mirabeau was, in September, 1770, transferred to Limousin, in westCentral France. Such was his energy that he was called "the hurricane." Nowbegan a series of troubles caused by bitter quarrels between his parents,who were openly at variance. Each sought to gain an adherent in their son,who was condemned to witness the wickedness and folly of both in theirungovernable passion. The effect on the character of the young count wasdeplorable.

Then ensued a singular episode. The marquis had determined that Gabrielshould marry before the age of twenty-three, and had fixed on Mary Emily deCovet, only daughter of the Marquis de Marignane, eighteen years of age,for his son's bride. She was plain, yet attractive, with a sweet smile,fine eyes, and beautiful hair, and was gay, lively, sensible, mild, andvery amiable. Having been neglected by her father and ill-treated by hermother, she showed no disinclination to marriage, and in 1772 youngMirabeau obtained the hand of the wealthy heiress.

No sooner was the young count married than every attempt was made toruin him. He received no property with his bride, and his avaricious fatherrefused to advance him any money for necessary expenses. His father-in-lawoffered to lend him 60,000 livres, but his father's consent wasindispensable, and this was sternly refused. Mirabeau, harassed bycreditors, was dragged into lawsuits, and his embarrassments only set hisfather entirely against him. The marquis actually procured a lettre decachet, obliging his son to leave the home he had set up, and toconfine himself to the little town of Manosque.

Here domestic sorrow and the most painful circ*mstances assailed theyoung exile. But these did not prevent him from pursuing serious studiesand composing his first work, the "Essay on Despotism." Misfortunesaccumulated. Chastising with a horsewhip a baron who grossly insulted him,the count was again imprisoned, this time in the Château d'If, agloomy citadel on a barren rock near Marseilles.

On May 25, 1770, Mirabeau was transferred to the Castle of Joux, nearPontarlier, where, on June 11, 1775, festivities were held, as at otherplaces, to honour the coronation of Louis XVI. Here Mirabeau enjoyed a sortof half freedom, being allowed to visit in Pontarlier, and the event ensuedwhich, it must sorrowfully be owned, tarnished his name. In a word, we seeMirabeau "ruin himself," by a fatal intimacy with the young wife of theaged Marquis of Monnier. The two fled to Dijon, where Mirabeau surrenderedhimself at the castle.

He was released after a short time and went on to Geneva, nearlyperishing in a storm on the lake. Returning to Pontarlier, he was joined bySophie Monnier, and the two left for Holland, and arrived at Amsterdam onOctober 7, 1776. Mirabeau was naturally obliged to draw his principal meansof subsistence from his literary labours, and this, perhaps, had been hismotive for choosing Holland as his residence, for at that period the Dutchbooksellers entered largely into literary speculations.

Mirabeau and Sophie Monnier were arrested at Amsterdam on May 14, 1777.Both were brought to France. She was placed in a convent at Monilmontant,and Mirabeau was deposited on June 7 in the donjon of Vincennes, and wassubjected to every sort of privation, remaining in confinement forforty-two months. His release marked the end of his private life; hispublic and political life was about to begin.

II.--Into Political Life

The "Essay on Despotism" had been the first sign of Mirabeau's politicalvocation, and the most singular instance, perhaps, of a war audaciouslydeclared against despotism by a young man bearing its yoke. The keynote isthat though the natural man may not be inclined to despotism, thesocial man assuredly is disposed to be a despot. This spirit,maintains Mirabeau, exists even in republics.

In 1784 Mirabeau visited England. One of his motives was to collectmaterials for his "Considerations on the Order of Cincinnatus," a treatisedealing with Washington and American independence. He was greatly delightedwith English scenery. "It is here," he says, "that nature is improved, notforced. All tells me that here the people are something; that every manenjoys the development and free exercise of his faculties, and that I am inanother order of things."

But he proceeds: "I am not an enthusiast in favour of England, and I nowknow sufficient of that country to tell you that if its constitution is thebest known, the application of this constitution is the worst possible; andthat if the Englishman is as a social man the most free in the world, theEnglish people are the least free of any."

He resided in England from August to February, 1785. During that briefperiod he began to write his "History of Geneva," and he showed hisversatility by composing for a young refugee clergyman a sermon on theimmortality of the soul. By the gift of this sermon he drew the exiledpreacher from poverty, for it was the means of obtaining for him alucrative appointment.

Mirabeau sent forth from Paris several most able pamphlets on bankingand on share companies. These were written with energy and often withviolence. As they attacked many private interests they aroused againsttheir author much hatred, insult, and calumny. He was accused of venality,though he was attacking and driving to despair powerful stock-jobbers, whowould have paid him magnificently for silence, could he have beenbought.

In July, 1785, Mirabeau went to Berlin. It is a singular fact that inhis various journeys some accident always befel him. On the way to Berlinan attempt was made to assassinate him by some unknown enemies, but hesafely reached the German capital. King Frederick the Great, now very aged,no longer received foreigners, yet he replied to a letter from Mirabeau andfixed a day for seeing him at Potsdam.

Mirabeau informed the king that he had come to seek permission to studythe great military manoeuvres, and that he hoped to push on to Russia.During this period he worked like a labourer all day at his writings. Partof his time he spent at supper parties of the most tiresome etiquette. Thesame laborious habits attended him everywhere, in prison and in freedom, inhis own country and in other lands. It was in Germany that he conceived theidea of his treatise on "The Reform of the Jews," which is acknowledged tobe one of his best works.

Frederick the Great died on August 17, 1786. Feeling that he could donothing useful, Mirabeau resolved at the close of 1786 to quit Berlin. Hewas urged also by a special motive in which he took pride, and which hethus described in a letter: "My heart has not grown old, and if myenthusiasm is damped, it is not extinguished. I have fully experienced thisto-day. I consider one of the best days of my life that on which I receivedan account of the convocation of the notables, which no doubt will not longprecede that of the National Assembly. In this I see a new order of thingswhich may regenerate the monarchy. I should deem myself a thousand timeshonoured in being even the junior secretary of this assembly, of which Ihad the happiness of giving the first idea."

Mirabeau was prodigiously occupied at Berlin. He often did not retire torest till one in the morning, but regularly rose at five, even in the midstof severe winter. Without anything on but a simple quilted dressing-gown,without stockings or waistcoat, he worked away without even calling up hisservant to light a fire. Besides his correspondence in cypher, whichoccupied him much, he worked assiduously at his "Prussian Monarchy," whichwas published in 1788.

On departing from Berlin the count wrote a most eloquent letter ofcounsel to King Frederick William, appealing to him to cultivate peace,reminding him that his illustrious predecessor had conquered the admirationof mankind but never won their love, commending him not to extend thedirect action of the royal power to matters which did not require it,advising him not to govern too much, and exhorting him to abolish militaryslavery; that is to say, the obligation then imposed on every Prussian toserve as a soldier from the age of eighteen to sixty or more, which forcedmen to go to the battle-field like cattle to the slaughterhouse.

In the same remarkable document Mirabeau raises his voice against theharsh laws which arbitrarily deprived Prussians of freedom to leave thecountry. The tyrannical prohibition of emigration excited his vehementprotest, and he proceeded also to denounce to the new king the right ofseizing the property of deceased foreigners, and demanded for burghers thefreedom of purchasing the estates of nobles. He urged Frederick William toabolish the prerogatives claimed by nobles and the helotism of all who werenot noble, and suggested that judges should be appointed for life andjustice rendered free of expense.

III.--For King and People

It was chiefly the meeting of the notables which had hastened Mirabeau'sreturn to Paris. He felt that his proper place was in the centre of thegreat events announced and begun by this convocation. After the undignifiedand inglorious prodigality of the previous reign, which had laid thefoundation of serious financial vicissitudes, the young King Louis XVI. hadbrought with him to the throne the private virtues of a good and honestman, but not the qualities of a sovereign.

Though economic to excess himself, he nevertheless suffered to exist andeven to increase around him those dilapidations which at last ruined theresources of the state. He had no confidence in himself, and Mirabeaurespectfully reproached him with his fatal timidity. Nothing was doneeither to increase revenue or diminish expenditure.

The possessors of privilege and representatives of personal interest,the courtiers, the great lords, and the parliaments strenuously resistedall reforms and then drove from office the best intentioned, the mostvirtuous, and the ablest ministers whom the young king, in the sincerity ofhis patriotism, had chosen on his accession, in deference to publicfeeling. Among these ministers were Malesherbes, Turgot, Necker, andCalonne.

Mirabeau returned to Paris on January 27, 1787. He at once publishedthat famous "Address to the Notables," in which he denounced the wholecorrupt system of finance and in which he demanded local provincialadministrations. This and his "Denunciation of Stock-jobbing" made greatimpression on the public mind.

Nevertheless, the "Denunciation" displeased the government, and theauthor was much persecuted. He learned that he was to be arrested and sent,not to the Bastille, but to a remote provincial fortress, where he wouldhave been lost to public notice. So he escaped from Paris to Liège,whence he again attacked the administration of Calonne and the policy ofNecker, declaring that loans should have been effected on methods lessonerous for the state.

His exile from Paris was of brief duration, for friends intervened. ButMirabeau returned only to renew and intensify his attacks. He remained,however, only for a short time, for on May 24, 1787, he set out on a thirdjourney to Prussia, in order to complete his great work on the "PrussianMonarchy." Returning to France, he reached Paris in September. Five monthshad elapsed since the assembling of the notables. The eloquent Leominie deBrienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, had been the most brilliant figure in theconclave. The first assembly broke up on July 27, 1787. Though gathered bythe privileged orders, patriotism had raised its voice within it, and thearchbishop, as prime minister, had failed to direct the new currentaright.

Mirabeau disapproved of what had taken place in his absence, anddeclined to be employed by the administration, but he offered to undertakeany foreign mission in the exercise of the king to which he might beappointed. The application was unsuccessful. The crisis approached nearerand nearer. Archbishop Brienne passed rapidly from violence to weakness.Mirabeau refused to countenance his plans for contracting a new loan of 420millions. The king was resisted by an almost unanimous opposition, headedby the Duke of Orleans, and the loan was refused at a memorablesitting.

Mirabeau exhorted the government to announce in precise and solemn termsthe convocation of the States-General in 1789, that bankruptcy might beaverted and the national honour saved. Said he: "The year in which the kingassembles the nation will be the finest in his life. Everybody knows thathe has been deceived, and could not help being so, and everybody will dojustice to his intentions. The assembled nation has a right to vote a tax.In future the nation alone will raise up its political fortunes."

Mirabeau saw that the nation ought to be trusted. He strenuouslycontended for a policy in accordance with this conviction. But heindefatigably continued his literary labours, sending forth pamphlet afterpamphlet, one against the prison system in vogue, another demanding theliberty of the Press, in which he extolled the example of England. Hebecame increasingly impatient with the ineptitude of the government, forthe affairs of the state were lapsing into desperate disorder, and thepublic discontent was being steadily aggravated.

The aim of Mirabeau was at one and the same time to support the monarchyand to subvert the influences by which the throne was environed. He wassolicitous of securing popular freedom, but regarded the monarchy as theonly form of rule suitable for France in that age, and was led to adoptthat peculiar statesmanship identifying the royal interest with the popularcause. Though ready to give his life for the people, he did not hesitate torisk his popularity by his fidelity to the throne.

IV.--President of the National Assembly

The immediate causes of the Revolution were now in full operation.Mirabeau, attempting to practise his own doctrine of the freedom of thePress, turned journalist and brought out a gazette. The famous NationalAssembly opened on May 5, 1789. He then entered on a career of immensepolitical energy, beginning by issuing a stirring and eloquent "Address tothe French People." This was especially a reply to a reactionary protest onthe part of the clergy.

Soon there were disturbances everywhere. The Bastille was stormed by thefurious Parisians and demolished. Just at this time Mirabeau lost hisfather, and the event overwhelmed him with grief. He refused to stand forelection as mayor of Paris. But he brought about a constitutionalorganisation of the municipality, and delivered a splendid series oforations on various abuses, such as plural voting, iniquitous monopolies,etc. Yet he proved his studious moderation by strenuously declaimingagainst the famous "Declaration of the Rights of Man," pronouncing itinopportune and perilous. His heroic harangues provoked disorder in hisaudience dangerous to himself. But his courage was dauntless, for even whenthe king and his chief minister abandoned the royal prerogative, Mirabeaudefended it.

Throughout the terrible events of 1789 Mirabeau was consistent as aloyalist and as a patriot. But disappointment awaited his generousillusions, for the vacillation of the king rendered the outlookhopeless.

At the end of January, 1791, he was appointed president of the NationalAssembly, which, during the stormy period of its existence duringtwenty-one months, had already had forty-two presidents.

He exercised his functions with consummate skill, but the end of hiswonderful life was at hand. He had been in weak health from the very firstsittings of the Assembly, his condition causing constant anxiety to hisintimate friends and his admirers. He was depressed by sad presentiments,and was in constant apprehension of assassination, for it was well-knownthat there were plots against his life. After a brilliant oration, thegreat tribune went home exhausted, and, indeed, dying.

One of his last experiences was a pathetic interview with Talleyrand,with whom he had often crossed swords in debate. His weakness dated fromFebruary, 1788, when he was attacked with violent internal pains, and wasbled to such an extent by a surgeon that he never recovered his wonderfulnatural vitality. After much suffering, endured with the most heroicfortitude, he passed away as if in sleep, with a sweet smile on hisfeatures. France mourned the loss of the greatest orator that had evergraced her tribune. His funeral was celebrated at St. Genevieve withsplendid ceremonial. The verdict of those best qualified to judge was thatMirabeau was the most remarkable man of the eighteenth century, and thathis premature death, soon after the outbreak of the Revolution, led to theoverthrow of a monarchy which he alone could have saved.

Life of Byron

Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, was born in Dublin on May 28,1779, was educated at Trinity College, and studied for the Bar at theMiddle Temple. At twenty-one years of age he published a translation ofAnacreon, and his reputation was further established by his love-poems,under the pseudonym of Thomas Little, in 1801. He received in 1803 anofficial post in Bermuda, but entrusted his duties there to a substitute,by whose defalcations he was later embarrassed. He was married atthirty-one to a beautiful and amiable actress, Bessy Dyke, and lived veryhappily for most of his life in Wiltshire, but with an interval of a fewyears in Paris. In 1835 he received a literary pension of £300, towhich a Civil List pension of £100 was added in 1850. He died onFebruary 25, 1852. Undoubtedly, Moore's most important contribution toprose literature was his "Letters and Journals of Lord Byron," published in1830, six years after the poet's death; as payment he received£4,200. Although the work was frankly and even severely criticised inmany quarters, it did a great deal to put Byron right with public opinion.Certainly no literary contemporary was better fitted to write the biographyof his friend than Moore, who, moreover, had been marked for this work by afree gift of Byron's own memoirs.

I.--Ancestors and Early Days

It has been said of Lord Byron that he was prouder of being a descendantof those Byrons of Normandy, who accompanied William the Conqueror intoEngland, than of having been the author of "Childe Harold." The remark isnot altogether unfounded, for the pride of ancestry was a feature of hischaracter; and justly so, for his line was honourably known on the fieldsof Cressy, Bosworth, and Marston Moor; and in the faithful royalist, SirJohn Biron, afterwards Lord Biron, throughout the Civil Wars.

In 1784, the father of the poet, Captain John Byron, nephew of the fifthLord Byron, with the sole object of relieving his debts, married, as hissecond wife, Miss Catherine Gordon, a wealthy lady of illustrious Scottishancestry. Her fortune was swallowed up, and she was reduced to £150 ayear, before she gave birth, on January 22, 1788, in Holles Street, London,to her first and only child, George Gordon Byron. The boy was somewhatdeformed, one of his feet being twisted.

In 1790, we find the unhappy parents living in separate lodgings inAberdeen; and this estrangement was followed by complete separation, theworthless Captain Byron proceeding to France, where he died in thefollowing year. The mother, a woman of the most passionate extremes, sentthe boy to day school and grammar school. His schoolmates remember him aslively, warm-hearted, and more ready to give a blow than to take one. Tosummer excursions with his mother in the Highlands the poet traces his loveof scenery and especially of mountainous countries; and he refers manyyears after, still with keen feeling, to a little girl, Mary Duff, forwhom, in his eighth year, he cherished a consuming attachment. So earlywere his sensibilities dominant.

On the death, in 1794, of the grandson of the old lord, little Georgestood in immediate succession to the peerage; in May, 1798, the fifth LordByron died at Newstead Abbey, and the boy's name was called in school withthe title "Dominus." The Earl of Carlisle was appointed his guardian inchancery, and in the same summer, Lord Byron, in his eleventh year, tookpossession, with his mother, of the seat of his ancestors. The next yearMrs. Byron was placed on the Civil List for a pension of £300 a year.Removing to London, she placed George at school with Dr. Glennie atDulwich, but thwarted the progress of his education with her fondness andself-will, until Lord Carlisle gave up all hope of ruling her. It was atthis period that a boyish love for Margaret Parker, his cousin, who diedshortly after, led Byron into the practice of verse.

From 1801 to 1805, from thirteen years of age to seventeen, George wasat Harrow, where he sat beside Peel, the future statesman. This period ofardent friendship with his fellows includes also the romantic affection, in1803, for Miss Chaworth, heiress of Annesley, near Newstead, who looked onher admirer as the mere schoolboy that he was. Leaving Harrow with thereputation of an idler who would never learn, Byron was entered at TrinityCollege, Cambridge, in October, 1805. His vacations were spent with hismother at Southwell, and her explosions of temper, in which she would throwpoker and tongs, alienated him increasingly. In vacation and in term alikehe read with extraordinary avidity and variety, wrote a great deal ofverse, and in November, 1806, printed a small volume of poems for privatecirculation.

He was a frank and vivid correspondent; his letters to Miss Pigot, ofSouthwell, and others, are full of the liveliest descriptions of theCambridge days. At this time Byron was painfully shy of new faces, andperpetually mortified on account of his poverty. He rose, and retired torest, very late. He was very fond of the exercises of swimming, riding,shooting, fencing, and sparring; greatly devoted to his dogs, delighted inmusic, and was known as remarkably superstitious. Of his charity andkindheartedness there was no end. Always conscious of his deformity, andterribly afraid of becoming corpulent, he was sedulously careful of hisperson and dress.

"Hours of Idleness," Byron's first published volume, came out while hewas at the university, and was received by the "Edinburgh Review" with acontempt which stung him to the quick. With intervals of dissipation inLondon and at Brighton, Byron threw himself, at Newstead, into thepreparation of a satirical revenge, training himself for it by a deep studyof the writings of Pope. After his coming of age, in 1809, he went up toLondon with his satire, and on March 13 took his seat in the House ofLords. A few days later "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers" was the talkof the town. Wild festivities at Newstead followed its publication, and onJuly 2 Byron sailed from Falmouth in the Lisbon packet.

II.--The Poet Finds Himself

Lord Byron was absent from England for two years, and in the solitude ofhis nights at sea and in his lone wanderings through Greece he had leisureand seclusion to look within himself, and there catch the first glimpses ofhis glorious mind. His deep passion for solitude grew to full power; thevaried excitement of his travels invigorated his character and stored hisimagination with impressions, and his inborn sadness rose from a querulousbitterness to the grandeur of his later melancholy.

His letters show him on Parnassus, where a flight of eagles seemed anomen of his destiny; at Athens, where he lodged with the mother of the"Maid of Athens"; standing among the ruins of Ephesus and the mounds ofTroy; swimming the Hellespont in honour of Leander; at Constantinople,where the prospect of the Golden Horn seemed the fairest of all; at Patras,in the woeful debility of fever; and again at Athens, making acquaintancewith Lady Hester Stanhope and "Abyssinian" Bruce. Through all these variedscenes his mind was brooding on the verses of the "Childe Harold."

On Byron's return to England, in July, 1811, that poem was placed in Mr.Murray's hands, and thus was laid the foundation of a long connectionbetween author and publisher. Mrs. Byron died on August 1. With all herfaults she had loved her son deeply, and he could at least look back upondutiful and kindly behaviour to her. It was in November that I first hadthe pleasure of meeting the poet at dinner, and what I chiefly remarked wasthe nobleness of his air, his beauty, the gentleness of his voice andmanner, and his marked kindness. From our first meeting our acquaintancequickly ripened into friendship.

On February 27, 1812, a day or two before the appearance of "ChildeHarold," Byron made the first trial of his eloquence in the House of Lords,and it was on this occasion that he made the acquaintance of Lord Holland.The subject of debate was the Nottingham Frame-breaking Bill. Workmen wererioting and wrecking because their labour had been displaced by theintroduction of machinery, and Byron's view was that "we must not allowmankind to be sacrificed to improvements in mechanism"--"the maintenance ofthe industrious poor is of greater consequence than the enrichment ofmonopolists"--"I have seen the state of these miserable men, and it is adisgrace to a civilised country." The speech was well received. Theimpression produced two days later by Byron's "Childe Harold" was asinstantaneous as it has proved deep and lasting. Even the dashes ofscepticism, with which he darkened his strain, served only to heighten itssuccess. The Prince Regent had the poet presented to him, and the author of"Marmion" offered his praise. In the following May appeared the wild andbeautiful fragment, "The Giaour." This new offspring of his genius washailed with wonder and delight, and on my rejoining him in town thisspring, I found an intense enthusiasm for Byron throughout the literary andsocial world. But his mind was already turning to freedom and solitude, andhis third and last speech in the House of Lords was made in June.

III.--Byron's Unfortunate Marriage

Byron's restlessness is reflected throughout his "Journal," which hebegan at this time. He had dreams of living in the Grecian Islands and ofadopting an Eastern manner of life; but in December, 1813, when "The Brideof Abydos" was published, he was still feverishly dissipating himself inEngland.

A significant entry in the "Journal" says: "A wife would be thesalvation of me," and Lord Byron became a suitor for the hand of MissMilbanke, a relative of Lady Melbourne. His proposal was not at firstaccepted, but a correspondence ensued between them, and in September, 1814,after the appearance of "The Corsair" and "Lara," they became formallyaffianced. I was much in his society at this time, and was filled withforeboding anxieties, which the unfortunate events that followed only toofully justified. At the end of December he set out for Seaham, the seat ofSir Ralph Milbanke, the lady's father, and on January 2, 1815, was married.On March 8, he wrote to me from Seaham: "Bell is in health, and unvariedgood-humour and behaviour."

Lord Byron's pecuniary embarrassments now accumulated upon him, and justa year after his marriage, and shortly after the birth of their daughter, Ireceived a letter which breathed a profound melancholy, due partly to hisdifficulties, but more, I thought, to a return of the restless and rovingspirit. I replied: "Do tell me you are happier than that letter has led meto fear, and I shall be satisfied." It was only a few weeks later that LadyByron adopted the resolution of parting from him. She had left London inJanuary on a visit to her father, and Byron was to follow her. They hadparted in the utmost kindness; she wrote him a letter, full of playfulnessand affection, on the road; but immediately on her arrival her father wroteto acquaint Lord Byron that she would return to him no more. At the timewhen he had to stand this unexpected shock, his financial troubles, whichhad led to eight or nine executions in his house within the year, hadarrived at their utmost; and at a moment when, to use his own expression,he was "standing alone on his hearth, with his household gods shiveredaround him," he was also doomed to receive the startling intelligence thatthe wife who had just parted with him in kindness, had parted with him forever.

I must quote from a letter he wrote me in March: "The fault was not inmy choice, unless in choosing at all; for I do not believe--and I must sayit in the very dregs of all this bitter business--that there ever was abetter, or even a brighter, a kinder, or a more amiable and agreeable beingthan Lady Byron. I never had any reproach to make her while with me. Wherethere is blame, it belongs to myself, and if I cannot redeem, I must bearit."

IV.--Wanderings and Work

On April 25, 1816, being now twenty-eight years of age, Byron took finalleave of England, and sailed with two servants for Ostend. His route, byFlanders and the Rhine, may be traced in his matchless verses. He settledin Geneva, where he met Shelley and Mrs. Shelley; they boated on the lakeand walked together, and Byron's susceptible mind was deeply influenced byhis mystical companion. We may discover traces of that vague sublimity inthe third canto of "Childe Harold," and traces also of Mr. Wordsworth'smood which Byron absorbed from Shelley's favourite author.

From November, 1816, his letters are dated from Venice. "This has alwaysbeen, next to the East, the greenest island of my imagination, and it hasnot disappointed me." They are considerably taken up with love affairs ofan irregular kind, and contain also many vivid pictures of Venetian societyand manners. "Manfred" was completed in 1817, and was followed by thefourth canto of "Childe Harold." Margarita Cogni was the reigning favouriteof Byron's unworthy harem at this time; and his poem of "Don Juan," nowbegun, most faithfully and lamentably reflects every whim and passion that,like the rack of autumn, swept across his mind.

But April, 1819, brought a revulsion against all this libertine way ofliving, and brought also the dawn of the only real love of his whole life.Lord Byron had first met the Countess Guiccioli in the autumn of 1818, whenshe made her appearance, three days after her marriage, at the house of theCountess Albrizzi, in all the gaiety of bridal array, and the first delightof exchanging a convent for the world. She has given her impressions oftheir meeting: "His noble and exquisitely beautiful countenance, the toneof his voice, his manners, the thousand enchantments that surrounded him,rendered him so superior a being to any whom I had hitherto seen, that itwas impossible he should not have left the most profound impression uponme."

In June, Byron joined her at Ravenna, and for the next three yearsremained devotedly attached to her. She struck me, during our firstinterview, when I visited them at La Mira, as a lady not only of a style ofbeauty singular in an Italian, as being fair-complexioned and delicate, butalso as being highly intelligent and amiable.

A letter to me from Pisa, dated August 27, 1822, has a mournfulinterest: "We have been burning the bodies of Shelley and Williams on theseashore. You can have no idea what an extraordinary effect such a funeralpile has, with mountains in the background and the sea before." Another, ofNovember 17, to Lady Byron, shows that if the author of it had not right onhis side, he had at least most of those good feelings which generallyaccompany it. "I have to acknowledge the receipt of Ada's [theirdaughter's] hair; this note will reach you about her birthday.... We bothmade a bitter mistake; but now it is over, and better so.... I assure youthat I bear you now no resentment whatever.... Whether the offence has beensolely on my side, or reciprocal, or on yours chiefly, I have ceased toreflect on any but two things--that you are the mother of my child, andthat we shall never meet again."

Byron was thirty-five years old when from his exile at Genoa he turnedhis eyes to Greece, where a spirit was now rising such as he had imagedforth in dreams of song, but hardly could have dreamed that he should havelived to see it realised. He longed to witness, and very probably to sharein, the present triumphs of liberty on those very fields where he hadgathered for immortality such memorials of the liberty of the past. LordByron was in touch with the committee concerned with Grecian liberty inMay, 1823, and two months later sailed with his party on July 14.

Arriving at Cephalonia he made a journey to Ithaca for a few days. Hisconfidence in the Greek cause was soon clouded; the people were grosslydegenerate, and he saw that the work of regeneration must be slow. Toconvince the government and the chiefs of the paralysing effect of theirdissensions, to inculcate the spirit of union, to endeavour to humanise thefeelings of the belligerents on both sides, so as to take from the war thecharacter of barbarism--these, with the generous aid of his money, were theobjects of his interference.

At length the time for action arrived, and, leaving Cephalonia, Byronlanded at Missolonghi on January 4, 1824. He was welcomed with all honour,and at the end of the month received a formal commission from thegovernment as commander of the expedition against Lepanto, a fortifiedtown. This design was a failure, and Byron occupied himself with thefortification of Missolonghi, and with the formation of a brigade for thenext campaign.

But his health had lately been giving way; he was living in littlebetter than a swamp; and one day, after exposure to a heavy shower, he wasseized with acute pains. On April 11, the illness, now recognised asrheumatic fever, increased, and on the 19th he was no more. The funeraltook place in the Church of St. Nicholas, Missolonghi, on April 22, and theremains were carried to England on the brig Florida, and buried, close tothose of his mother, in the village church of Hucknall.

V.--A Bewildering Personality

Can I clear away some of the mists that hang round my friend, and showhim as worthy of love as he was of admiration? The task is not an easy one.In most minds some one influence governs, from which all secondary impulsesare found to radiate, but this pivot of character was wanting to LordByron. Governed at different moments by totally different passions, andimpelled sometimes, as in his excess of parsimony in Italy, by springs ofaction never before developed in his nature, he presents the strangestcontradictions and inconsistencies, a bewildering complication ofqualities.

So various, indeed, were his moral and intellectual attributes, that hemay be pronounced to have been not one, but many. It was this multiformaspect that led the world to compare him with a medley host of personages:"within nine years," as he playfully records, "to Rousseau, Goethe, Young,Aretino, Timon of Athens, Dante, Petrarch, Satan, Shakespeare, Buonaparte,Tiberius, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Harlequin, Henry VIII.,Mirabeau, Michael Angelo, Diogenes, Milton, Alfieri, and many others."

But this very versatility, which renders it so difficult to fix thefairy fabric of his character, is itself the clue to whatever was mostdazzling in his might, or startling in his levity, or most attractive ormost repellent in his life and genius. A variety of powers almostboundless, and a pride no less vast in displaying them; an unusualsusceptibility and an uncontrolled impetuosity--such were the two greatsources of all that varied spectacle of his life--unchecked feeling anddominant self-will.

Great versatility of power will hardly be found without a tendency toversatility of principle. Byron was fully aware, not only of thischaracteristic quality of his nature, but also of its danger to singlenessof character; and this consciousness had the effect of keeping him in ageneral line of consistency, throughout life, on certain great subjects,and helped him to preserve unbroken the greater number of his personalattachments. But, except in some few respects, he gave way to his versatilehumour without scruple or check; and it was impossible but that such arange of will and power should be abused. Is it to be wondered at that inthe works of one thus gifted and carried away we should find, without anydesign of corrupting on his side, evil too often invested with a grandeurwhich belongs intrinsically but to good?

Nay, it will be found that even the strength and impressiveness ofByron's poetry is sometimes injured by a capricious and desultory qualitydue to this very pliancy of mind. It may be questioned whether aconcentration of his powers would not have afforded a grander result. Itmay be that, if Lord Byron had not been so actively versatile, he wouldhave been, not less wonderful, but more great.

Again, this love of variety was one of the most pervading weaknesses,not only to his poetry, but of his life. The pride of personating everykind of character, evil as well as good, influenced his ambition and hisconduct; and to such a perverse length did he carry this fancy forself-defamation that, if there was any tendency to mental derangement, itwas in this point that it manifested itself. I have known him more thanonce, as we have sat together, to throw out dark hints of his past lifewith an air of gloom and mystery designed to awaken interest; and I havelittle doubt that, to produce effect at the moment, there is hardly anycrime so dark or so desperate of which, in the excitement of acting uponthe imaginations of others, he would not have hinted that he had beenguilty. It has sometimes occurred to me that the occult cause of his lady'sseparation from him may have been nothing more, after all, than someimposture of this kind, some dim confession of undefined horror.

But the over-frankness with which he uttered every chance impression ofthe moment was by itself enough to bring his character unfavourably beforethe world. Which of us could bear to be judged by the unnumbered thoughtsthat course like waves of the sea through our minds and pass away unutteredand even unowned by ourselves? To such a test was Byron's character,throughout his life, exposed.

Yet, to this readiness in reflecting all hues, whether of the shadows orlights of our variegated existence, Lord Byron owed his personalfascination. His social intercourse was perfectly charming, because whoeverwas with him occupied for the moment all his thoughts and feelings. Evenwith the casual acquaintance of the hour his heart was on his lips, readyto give away every secret of his life.

To my assertion that "at no time of his life was Lord Byron a confirmedunbeliever" it has been objected that his writings prove the directcontrary. But this is to confuse the words "unbeliever" and "sceptic," theformer of which implies decision of opinion, and the latter only doubt.Many passages in his "Journal" show doubt strongly inclined to belief. "Ofthe immortality of the soul it appears to me there can be little doubt." "Ihave often been inclined to materialism in philosophy, but could never bearits introduction into Christianity, which appears to me essentially foundedupon the soul." Here are doubt and unrest, but not unbelief.

And so I conclude my labours, undertaken at the wish of my friend, andleave his character to the judgement of the world. Let it be rememberedthat through life, with all his faults, he never lost a friend; that thoseabout him in his youth, whether as companions, teachers, or servants,remained attached to him to the last; that the woman to whom he gave thelove of his maturer years idolises his name; and that, with a singleunhappy exception, those who were brought into relations of amity with himhave felt towards him a kind regard in life, and retain a fondness for hismemory.

Life and Times of St.Bernard

James Augustus Cotter Morison, English essayist andhistorian, was born in London on April 20, 1832, and was the son of theinventor and proprietor of "Morison's Pills." His first years were spent inParis, where he laid the foundation of his intimate knowledge of the Frenchpeople. After graduating at Oxford, he wrote for the "Saturday Review" andother papers, and in 1863 brought out his "Life and Times of SaintBernard." His other chief work is entitled "The Service of Man: an Essaytowards the Religion of the Future," published in 1886. He had projected anhistorical study of France under Louis XIV., but never completed it. Hedied on February 26, 1888. Morison was a Positivist, and had many friendsin that group, and his rich mind and genial temper endeared him to severalof the leading literary men of his time, such as George Meredith, MarkPattison and Matthew Arnold.

I.--The Early Days of a Useful Life

Saint Bernard was born in 1091, and died in 1153. His life thus almostcoincides with the central portion of the Middle Ages. He saw the First andSecond Crusades, the rising liberties of the communes, and the beginningsof scholasticism under Abelard. A large Church reformation and the noblestperiod of monasticism occurred in his day, and received deep marks of hisgenius.

He was the son of Tesselin, a wealthy feudal baron of Burgundy,remarkable for his courage, piety, justice and modesty. Alith, his mother,was earnest, loving and devout, and full of humility and charity. Hisearliest years were passed amid the European fervour of the First Crusade;and as he grew from boyhood into youth--at which time his mother died--hemade choice of the monastic profession. His friends vainly tried to tempthim aside into the pursuit of philosophy; but his commanding personalascendancy brought his brothers and friends to follow him instead into thereligious life. Having assembled a company of about thirty chosen spirits,he retired into seclusion with them for six months, and then, in 1113, atthe age of twenty-two, led them within the gates of Citeaux.

This community, founded fifteen years before, and now ruled by StephenHarding, an Englishman from Dorsetshire, was exceedingly austere, keepingSaint Benedict's rule literally. Here Bernard's uncompromisingself-mortification, and his love of, and communion with, Nature, showedthemselves as the chief characteristics of his noble spirit. "Believe me,"he said to a pupil, "you will find something far greater in the woods thanyou will in books; stones and trees will teach you that which you willnever learn from masters." The arrival of Bernard and his companions was aturning-point in the history of Citeaux; and the monastery had to send outtwo colonies, to La Ferté and Pontigny, and in 1115 a third, underBernard himself, to Clairvaux. Here, in a deep umbrageous valley, traversedby a limpid stream, the thirteen pioneers built a house little better thana barn. Their privations were great. Beech-nuts and roots were at firsttheir main support; but soon the sympathy of the surrounding countrybrought sufficiency for their frugal needs. Bernard was consecrated Abbotof Clairvaux by the Bishop of Chalons, the renowned William of Champeaux,with whom he established a deep friendship.

His labours, anxieties and austerities had well-nigh brought Bernard tothe grave, when the good bishop, finding him inflexible, went to Citeaux,and, prostrating himself before Stephen Harding, begged and obtained leaveto direct and manage Bernard for one year only. The young abbot obeyed hisnew director absolutely, and lived in a cottage apart from the monastery"at leisure for himself and God, and exulting, as it were, in the delightsof Paradise."

William of St. Thierry and other chroniclers, telling of Clairvaux atthis time, are fervid in their reverence and praise. "Methought I saw a newheaven and a new earth" ... "the golden age seemed to have revisited theworld" ... "as you descended the hill you could see it was a temple of God;the still, silent valley bespoke the unfeigned humility of Christ's poor.In this valley full of men, where one and all were occupied with theirallotted tasks, a silence, deep as that of night, prevailed. The sounds oflabour, or the chants of the brethren in the choral service, were the onlyexceptions. The order of this silence struck such a reverence even intosecular persons that they dreaded breaking it even by pertinentremarks."

Saint Benedict's rule had reference only to a single religious house;but Abbot Stephen of Citeaux united in one compact whole all themonasteries which sprang from the parent stock of Citeaux, and establishedan organised system of mutual supervision and control. A general chapterwas held annually in September, and every Cistercian abbot whose monasterywas in France, Italy or Germany was bound to attend every year; those fromSpain, every two years; those from Ireland, Scotland, Sicily and Portugal,every four years; those from Norway, every five years; and those from Syriaand Palestine, every seven years. The "Charter of Charity," promulgated bythis chapter for the guidance of the Cistercian Order, is a brief butpregnant document, which quite explains its success.

II.--A Great Preacher and Essayist

About 1119, Bernard, who had resumed the duties of abbot, began thecareer of literary and ecclesiastical activity--the wide and impassionedcorrespondence, the series of marvellous sermons--which have won for himthe title of the Last of the Fathers. His early essays are vigorous, butlack judgement and skill; they are stiff and rhetorical, and far removedfrom the tender poetry of his later writings. Three years later we findBernard credited with many miracles, narrated by William of St. Thierry,who afterwards retired to become a monk at Signy, where he wrote his recordof the saint. It was then regarded as natural that a man of eminent pietyshould work miracles; and we ought to accept these stories, in their nativecrudity and simplicity, not as true, but as significant. Belonging to thetime, as much as feudal castles and mail armour do, they form part of apicture of it.

With the exception of a visit to La Grande Chartreuse, and of another toParis, where he preached the "true philosophy" of poverty and contempt ofthe world to the schools distracted by scholastic puzzles, Bernard remaineda secluded monk of a new and humble Order. But already, in his thirty-fifthyear, the foundations had been laid of that authority which enabled him toquell a widespread schism, to oppose a formidable heretic, and to give thestrongest impulse to the Second Crusade. His power was growing, chiefly byhis voluminous correspondence. He wrote to persons of all classes on allsubjects; his letters afford to the historian a wide repertory ofindubitable facts, and show what was the part played at that time by thespiritual power--that of a divine morality and superior culture coming intoconflict with, and strong enough to withstand, a vigorous barbarism. Theseepistles are full of commonsense and clear, practical advice, and oftengive us a glimpse of the human, as distinct from the ascetic, element inmonastic life. They show how men could pass pleasant and thoughtful daysamid the barbarism of the time.

The feudal fighting, plundering and slaying seemed to spectators of thattime, and doubtless to Bernard also, as fixed and unalterable, part of thenature of things. Louis VI., King of France, had spent his life in asuccession of sieges, forays and devastations, as one feudal lord amongothers often more powerful than he. But generally he was in the right, andhis enemies in the wrong; he generally fought for justice and mercy, andthey for power and for plunder. The feudal aristocracy was now at thezenith of its power, and the peasant was oppressed by injustice, taxationand forced labour. Only the Church, and she only on grand occasions, couldstand up for the poor; but now the royal power made common cause withChurch and poor, and was rewarded by a gain in extent and in influence. Yeteven Louis, whose whole life showed respect for the spiritual power, hadsome disagreement with the Bishop of Paris and with the Archbishop of Sens,so that the two ecclesiastics placed the kingdom under interdict, and fledto Citeaux. Thence Bernard, with an astonishing tone of authority, calledupon his king to do justice; and Louis was on the point of restoring thestolen property. Pope Honorius, however, sent letters to the king, raisingthe interdict, and thereupon Bernard turned his fearless indignation uponthe supreme pontiff himself. "We speak with sadness; the honour of theChurch has been not a little blemished in the time of Honorius."

The same intrepidity is shown in Bernard's controversy with the monks ofCluny, an abbey of pre-eminent power and moral authority, so that Louis hadcalled it the "noblest member of his kingdom." Pontius, its abbot, havingfallen into ways of pride and extortion, had been induced from Rome toresign his abbacy, and to promise a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; but soonafterwards he fell upon the monastery with an armed force, and ruled therelike a robber chieftain. This scandalous outrage was soon reported at Rome,and the sacrilegious usurper was excommunicated and banished. Bernardseized the moment when laxity of observance of the rule had produced itsbitterest fruit to break out in remonstrances and warnings, as well to hisown Cistercians as to the Cluniacs, on the decline of the genuine monasticspirit. The invective of what he calls his "Apology" spares neither thesoftness, nor the ostentation, nor the avarice, of religious houses. Itcondemns even their stately sanctuaries. "The walls of your church areresplendent, but the poor are not there." It recalls the erring monasteriesto real mortification. In another early treatise, "The Degrees of Humilityand of Pride," the modes of pride are exhibited forcibly, and with not alittle humour. Curiosity, thoughtless mirth, mock humility, and othersymptoms of the protean vice are painted by a master.

But Bernard's period of retirement was drawing to a close; he wasbecoming indispensable to his contemporaries. In 1128 he was called to theCouncil of Troyes, at which the Order of Knights Templars was founded, andwrote a treatise in praise of the "new warfare," called the "Exhortation tothe Knights of the Temple." He was brought, again, to the council convenedby Louis VI. at Étampes to decide between the claims of the rivalPopes in the Papal schism. The council opened by unanimous consent thatBernard's judgement should decide their views; and without hesitation hepronounced Innocent II. the lawful Pope, and Peter Leonis, or AnacletusII., a vain pretender. He bore the same testimony, in the presence ofInnocent, before Henry I. of England, at Chartres, and before Lotharius,the German Emperor, at Liège. The Pope visited Clairvaux, where hewas moved to tears at the sight of the tattered flock of "Christ's poor,"then presided at the Council of Rheims, 1131, and continued his journeyinto Italy, still accompanied by the Abbot of Clairvaux. Bernard, convincedthat the cause of Innocent was the cause of justice and religion, set nobounds to his advocacy of it in letters to kings, bishops and cities. Suchwas now the fame of his sanctity that on his approach to Milan the wholepopulation came out to meet him.

He returned to Clairvaux in 1135, where he found the community allliving in Christian amity, and again retired to a cottage in theneighbourhood for rest and reflection. "Bernard was in the heavens," saysArnold of Bonnevaux; "but they compelled him to come down and listen totheir sublunary business." The buildings were too small for theirconstantly growing numbers, and a convenient site had been found in an openplain farther down the valley. Bishops, barons and merchants came to thehelp of the good work; and the new abbey and church rose quickly.

To Bernard's forty-fifth year belong the "Sermons on the Canticles." Inthe auditorium, or talking-room of the monastery, the abbot, surrounded byhis white-cowled monks, delivered his spiritual discourses. A strangecompany it was: the old, stooping monk and the young beginner, the lord andthe peasant, listening together to the man whose message they believed camefrom another world.

III.--St. Bernard and the Second Crusade

In the meanwhile, the affairs of the Papacy had not improved--Innocentwas still an exile from his see. Worst of all, the monastery of MonteCasino, the head and type of Western monarchism, had declared forAnacletus, the anti-Pope; and in 1137 Bernard set out for Italy, visitedInnocent at Viterbo, and proceeded to Rome. As he advanced, Anacletus wasrapidly deserted by his supporters, and shortly afterwards solved thedifficulty by his death. So ended the schism; and Bernard left Rome withinfive days after finishing his work. With broken health and depressedspirits he returned to Clairvaux. His brother Gerard, who had shared hisjourney, died soon after they reached home; and Bernard's discourse on thatevent is one of the most remarkable funeral sermons on record. The monk hadnot ceased to be a loving and impassioned man.

Towards the end of 1139, the heresies of Peter Abelard, brought to hisnotice by William of St. Thierry, called the Abbot of Clairvaux again intopublic controversy. He implored Pope and cardinals to stay the progress ofa second Arius. Abelard was at this time sixty-one years old, Bernard'ssenior by twelve years, and was without a rival in the schools. The two menwere such that they could not but oppose one another; they looked at theshield from opposite sides; reconciliation, however desirable, could beonly superficial. Bernard met Abelard, and "admonished him secretly." Hewell knew to what epoch this subtle mind, with its "human and philosophicreasons," was about to lead; his quick ear caught the distant thunder-rollof free inquiry. The heresies of Peter de Bruis and the rebellion of Arnoldof Brescia had already marked the beginning of the great change. At lastBernard unwillingly yielded to Abelard's challenge to a public dispute atSens; but his speech had hardly begun when Abelard rose in his place,refused to hear more, and appealed to Rome. He never reached Rome, butremained a penitent monk at Cluny, reconciled to his great antagonist.

Bernard was fifty-five years of age, and old for his years, when thePope delegated to him the office of preaching the Second Crusade. Pale andattenuated to a degree which seemed almost supernatural, his contemporariesdiscovered something in the mere glance of his eyes which filled them withwonder and awe. When his words of love, aspiration and sublimeself-sacrifice reached their ears, they were no longer masters ofthemselves or of their feelings. A great meeting had been convened by Popeand king at Vézelay, on Easter, 1146. Bernard, attended by the king,spoke from a platform erected on a hill; there was a shout of "Crosses!Crosses!" and the preacher scattered a sheaf of these badges among thepeople. The spiritual mind of Europe had spoken through Bernard, and nowthe military mind spoke through Louis VII. He called upon France to destroythe enemies of God. Then Bernard preached the Crusade through France andGermany, welcomed everywhere by almost unparalleled enthusiasm and attendedby miraculous signs.

Bernard was shortly to die; but he had first to bear the trial of beingreviled as the author of the calamities which had overtaken the Crusade.Why had he preached it and prophesied success if this was to be the event?A murmur of wrath against him was heard from the broad population ofEurope. It was during this dark time that he began his largest literarywork, the five books "De Consideratione," addressed to his disciple,Eugenius III., a powerful and elaborate plea against the excessivecentralization of all administration and decisions into the hands of thePapal Court. Bernard called this period "the season of calamities." Hediscovered that his secretary had been forging his name and used hisauthority to recommend men and causes most unworthy of his patronage. Hishealth was such that he could take no solid food; sleep had left him; hisdebility was extreme. Pope Eugenius died in July, 1153; and Bernard had nowish to stay behind. "I am no longer of this world," he said; and on August20 he passed away.

Life of Richard Cobden

In an age when many have gained the double distinction ofeminence in statesmanship and in letters, the name of Lord Morley standsout as that of a man so illustrious in both provinces that it is hard todecide in which he has earned the greater fame. We are here concerned withhim as a brilliant English man of letters. The "Life of Cobden" waspublished in 1881, when John Morley was in the height of his literaryactivity. Born at Blackburn on December 24, 1838, and educated atCheltenham and Oxford, he had entered journalism, had edited the "Pall MallGazette" and the "Fortnightly Review," and had followed up his firstbook--a monograph on Burke--by a remarkable study of Voltaire, and by hiswork entitled "On Compromise." Political preoccupations drew him somewhataway from literature after 1881; but in 1901 he published his book onCromwell, which was followed two years later by the monumental "Life ofGladstone."

I.--On the Road

Heyshott is a hamlet in a sequestered corner of West Sussex, not manymiles from the Hampshire border. Here, in an old farmhouse, known asDunford, Richard Cobden was born on June 3, 1804. His ancestors were yeomenof the soil, and, it is said, with every appearance of truth, that the namecan be traced in the annals of the district as far back as the fourteenthcentury.

Cobden's father, a man of soft and affectionate disposition, but whollywithout the energy of affairs, met with financial disaster in 1814, andrelatives charged themselves with the maintenance of his dozen children.Richard was sent by his mother's brother-in-law, a merchant in London, to aschool in Yorkshire. Here he remained for five years, a grim and desolatetime, of which he could never afterwards endure to speak. In 1819 he wasreceived as a clerk in his uncle's warehouse in Old Change; and at the ageof twenty-one he was advanced from the drudgery of the warehouse to theglories of the road. What made the life of a traveller specially welcome toCobden was the gratification that it offered to the master-passion of hislife, an insatiable desire to know the affairs of the world.

In 1826, his employer failed, and for some months Cobden had to takeunwelcome holiday. In September he found a situation, and again set out onthe road with his samples of muslin and calico prints. Two yearsafterwards, in 1828, he and two friends determined to begin business ontheir own account. They arranged with a firm of Manchester calico-printersto sell goods on commission; and so profitable was the enterprise that in1831 the partners determined to print their own goods, and took an oldfactory at Sabden in Lancashire.

Cobden's imagination was struck by the busy life of the county withwhich his name was destined to be so closely bound up. "Manchester," hewrites with enthusiasm, "is the place for all men of bargain and business."His pen acquires a curiously exulting animation as he describes the bustleof its streets, the quaintness of its dialect, the abundance of itscapital, and the sturdy veterans with a hundred thousand pounds in eachpocket, who might be seen in the evening smoking clay pipes and calling forbrandy-and-water in the bar-parlours of homely taverns. He prosperedrapidly in this congenial atmosphere; but it is at Sabden, not atManchester, that we see the first monument of his public spirit--a littlestone school-house, built as the result of an agitation led by him with asmuch eager enthusiasm as he ever threw afterwards into great affairs ofstate.

Between 1833 and 1836 Cobden's character widened and ripened withsurprising quickness. We pass at a single step from the natural andwholesome egotism of the young man who has his bread to win to the wideinterests and generous public spirit of the good citizen. His first motionwas towards his own intellectual improvement, and early in life heperceived that for his purposes no preparation could be so effective asthat of travel. In 1833 and 1834 he visited the Continent; in 1835, theUnited States; and in 1836 and 1837 he travelled to Egypt, the Levant, andTurkey.

In the interval between the two latter journeys he made what wasprobably his first public speech, at a meeting to further the demand of acorporation for Manchester. The speech is described as a signal failure."He was nervous," says the chronicler, "confused, and in fact practicallybroke down, and the chairman had to apologise for him."

He was much more successful in two pamphlets he published at this time,"England, Ireland, and America," and "Russia," in which he opened the longstruggle he was to wage against the restriction of commerce, and the policyof intervention in European feuds. It is no strained pretension to say thatalready Richard Cobden, the Manchester manufacturer, was fully possessed ofthe philosophic gift of feeling about society as a whole, and thinkingabout the problems of society in an ordered connection.

II.--The Corn Laws

In 1837, Cobden was invited to become candidate for the borough ofStockport. Although he threw himself into the struggle with all his energy,on the day of election he was found to be at the bottom of the poll. Fouryears later he was returned for Stockport by a triumphant majority. But in1841 he was no longer a rising young politician; he had become the leadingspirit of a national agitation.

In October, 1838, a band of seven men met at an hotel in Manchester, andformed a new Anti-Corn-Law Association. They were speedily joined byothers, including Cobden, who from this moment began to take a prominentpart in all counsel and action. The abolition of the duties on corn was thesingle object of Cobden's political energy during the seven years thatfollowed, and their destruction was the one finished triumph with which hisname is associated.

After the rejection in the following year by a large majority of Mr.Villiers' motion that the House of Commons should consider the actregulating the importation of corn, the association developed into a Leagueof Federated Anti-Corn-Law Associations in different towns and districts.The repealers began the work of propagandism by sending out a band ofeconomic missionaries, who were not long in discovering how hardly an oldclass interest dies. In many districts neither law nor equity gave themprotection. The members of the league were described in the London Press asunprincipled schemers, as commercial and political swindlers, and asrevolutionary emissaries, whom all well-disposed persons ought to assistthe authorities in putting down.

Before he entered Parliament, Cobden re-settled his business by enteringinto partnership with his brother Frederick, and married (May, 1840) ayoung Welsh lady, Miss Catherine Ann Williams. In Parliament Cobden wasinstantly successful. His early speeches produced that singular andprofound effect which is perceived in English deliberative assemblies whena speaker leaves party recriminations, abstract argument, and commonplacesof sentiment, in order to inform his hearers of telling facts in thecondition of the nation.

But Cobden's parliamentary work was at this time less important than hiswork as an agitator. If in one sense the Corn Laws did not seem a promisingtheme for a popular agitation, they were excellently fitted to bring outCobden's peculiar strength. It was not passion, but persuasiveness, towhich we must look for the secret of his oratorical success. Cobden madehis way to men's hearts by the union which they saw in him of simplicity,earnestness, and conviction, with a singular facility of exposition. Thenmen were attracted by his mental alacrity, by the instant readiness withwhich he turned round to grapple with a new objection.

His patience in acquiring and shaping matter for argument was surpassedby his inexhaustible patience in dealing with the mental infirmities ofthose whom it was his business to persuade. He was wholly free from theunmeasured anger against human stupidity which is itself one of the mostprovoking forms of that stupidity.

III.--Cobden and Bright

In the autumn of 1841, Cobden and Bright made that solemn compact whichwas the beginning of an affectionate and noble friendship that lastedwithout a cloud or a jar until Cobden's death.

"On the day when Mr. Cobden called upon me," said Bright, "I was in thedepths of grief, I might almost say of despair; for the light and sunshineof my house had been extinguished. All that was left on earth of my youngwife, except the memory of a sainted life and of a too brief happiness, waslying still and cold in the chamber above us. Mr. Cobden called upon me asa friend, and addressed me, as you might suppose, with words of condolence.After a time he looked up, and said, 'There are thousands of houses inEngland at this moment where wives, mothers, and children are dying ofhunger. Now,' he said, 'when the first paroxysm of your grief is past, Iwould advise you to come with me, and we will never rest till the Corn Lawis repealed.' I accepted his invitation."

Although the agitation for repeal was in Cobden's mind only a part ofthe broad aims of peace and social and moral progress for which he strove,he was too practical to put forth his thoughts on too many subjects atonce. He confined his enthusiasm to repeal until repeal was accomplished.But his efforts left him no time to attend to his own business, which wasfalling to pieces under the management of his brother Frederick. In theautumn of 1845 he felt compelled to give up his work as an agitator onaccount of his private affairs, but Bright and one or two friends procuredthe money that sufficed to tide over the emergency.

The cause was now on the eve of victory. The autumn of 1845 was thewettest in the memory of man. For long the downpour never ceased by nightor by day; it was the rain that rained away the Corn Laws. The bad harvestand the Irish potato famine brought the long hesitation of Sir Robert Peelto an end. Soon after the opening of the session of 1846, he announced hisproposals.

The repeal of the Corn Laws was to be total, but not immediate. Forthree years there was to be a lowered duty on a sliding scale, and then theports were to be opened entirely. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" wrote Cobden to hiswife on June 26, "the Corn Bill is law, and now my work is done!"

IV.--In the Cause of Peace

Cobden was now absent from England for fourteen months, travelling onthe Continent. His reception was everywhere that of a great discoverer in ascience which interests the bulk of mankind much more keenly than anyother, the science of wealth. People looked on him as a man who had foundout a momentous secret. He had interviews with the Pope, with three or fourkings, with ambassadors, and with all the prominent statesmen. He neverlost an opportunity of speaking a word in season. They were not allconverted, but they all listened to him; and they all taught him something,whether they chose to learn anything from him in return or not.

On his return he joined with Bright in an agitation for financial andparliamentary reform. While he believed in an extension of the franchise asa means of attaining the objects he had in view, he was essentially aneconomical, a moral, and a social reformer. He was never an enthusiast formere reform in the machinery. He made it his special mission to advocatefinancial reform, and left the advocacy for franchise extension verylargely to his colleague.

Retrenchment was the keynote of the financial reform urged by Cobden;and retrenchment involved the furtherance of international peace and thereduction of British armaments by means of the abandonment of the policy ofintervention in European disputes and the policy of "clinging to colonies,"with the consequent expenditure upon colonial defence. From 1846 to 1851Lord Palmerston was at the Foreign Office, and was incessantly active inthe affairs of half the countries of Europe. To this policy of interferenceCobden offered resolute opposition. He was especially energetic inprotesting against the lending to Austria and Russia of money that was ineffect borrowed to repay the cost of the oppressive war against Hungary. Itis impossible not to admire the courage, the sound sense, and the elevationwith which Cobden thus strove to diffuse the doctrine of moralresponsibility in connection with the use of capital.

In 1852, a Protectionist Ministry under Lord Derby came into power, andthe Anti-Corn Law League was revived. The danger, however, soon passedaway; the Derby Ministry made no attempt to interfere with freedom oftrade, and ere the year ended gave place to the Aberdeen Ministry. Cobden'spolicy of peace and retrenchment, however, became more and more unpopular.Cobden's urgent feeling about war was not in any degree sentimental. Heopposed war because war and the preparation for it consumed the resourceswhich were required for the improvement of the temporal condition of thepopulation. But in the inflamed condition of public opinion his argumentswere powerless.

The invasion panic of 1853 was followed in 1854 by the Crimean War, andin opposing that war Cobden and Bright found themselves absolutelyalone.

"The British nation," said Lord Palmerston, "is unanimous in thismatter. I say unanimous, for I cannot reckon Cobden, Bright, and Co. foranything." His estimate was perfectly correct; Cobden and Bright had thewhole world against them. The moral fortitude, like the political wisdom,of these two strong men, stands out with a splendour that already recallsthe great historic types of statesmanship and patriotism.

V.--Cobden as Treaty-Maker

In 1857, Cobden was compelled to retire for a time from politics. Hevigorously opposed the Chinese War, and succeeded in defeating LordPalmerston's Government in the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston, with hisusual acuteness and courage, at once dissolved parliament, and in theGeneral Election his victory was complete. The Manchester School wasrouted. Cobden, who contested Huddersfield, was heavily beaten; and atManchester itself Bright was at the bottom of the poll. Cobden went to hishome at Dunford, in Sussex, and remained there nearly two years. Once morehe was afflicted with financial trouble. An unfortunate land speculation atManchester, and certain investments in American railroads, had againbrought him into difficulties, from which he was ultimately rescued by amunificent gift of £40,000 from subscribers whose names he neverknew.

The General Election of 1859 was held while Cobden was absent in theUnited States, and on his return he found that he had been chosen memberfor Rochdale. To his surprise, he also received from his old enemy,Palmerston, an offer of the Presidency of the Board of Trade. Cobden, whohad consistently refrained from accepting any office, courteouslydeclined.

But he was none the less able to render a great service to the newGovernment. Mr. Bright, in a parliamentary speech, incidentally asked why,instead of lavishing the national substance in armaments, they did not goto the French Emperor and attempt to persuade him to allow his people totrade freely with ours. The idea of a commercial treaty occurred to M.Chevalier on reading the speech, and he wrote in this sense to Cobden, whowas strongly impressed by the notion. He opened his mind to Gladstone, whowas then Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, as the outcome, Cobden went toParis in the autumn of 1859 as unofficial negotiator of a treaty.

The negotiation was long and tedious. Cobden had to convert the emperorto his views, and to await the reconciliation of the various Frenchinterests that were opposed to freedom of trade. It was not until November,1860, that Cobden's labours were concluded. England cleared her tariff ofprotection, and reduced the duties which were retained for revenue on thetwo French staples of wine and brandy. France, on her part, replacedprohibition by a series of moderate duties.

Palmerston offered Cobden a choice between a baronetcy and a PrivyCouncillorship as a reward for his services. He replied begging permissionmost respectfully to deny himself the honour. "An indisposition to accept atitle," he wrote, "being in my case rather an affair of feeling than ofreason, I will not dwell further on the subject."

VI.--The Last Days of Cobden

When Cobden returned to England his public position had more thanrecovered the authority and renown which had been seriously impaired by hisunpopular attitude on the Russian war. But he and Bright were soon involvedin an almost angrier conflict than before with the upper and middleclasses, on account of their championship of the North in the AmericanCivil War.

The remaining years of his life were largely spent in systematiconslaughts upon the policy of Lord Palmerston, and in opposition tomilitary expenditure. It was with the purpose of resisting a Canadianfortification scheme that he made his last journey to London in March,1865. On his arrival he was seized by a sharp attack of asthma; bronchitissupervened, and it became evident that he would not recover. On the morningof Sunday, April 2, Bright took his place by the side of the dying man. Asthe bells were ringing for the morning service the mists of death began tosettle heavily on his brow, and his ardent, courageous, and brotherlyspirit soon passed tranquilly away.

He was buried by the side of his son in the little churchyard atLavington, on the slope of the hill among the pine-woods. "Before we leftthe house," Bright has told us, "standing by me, and leaning on the coffin,was his sorrowing daughter, one whose attachment to her father seems tohave been a passion scarcely equalled among daughters. She said, 'My fatherused to like me very much to read to him the Sermon on the Mount. His ownlife was, to a large, extent, a sermon based upon that best, that greatestof all sermons. His was a life of perpetual self-sacrifice.'"

Diary

Samuel Pepys, author of the incomparable "Diary," was borneither in London or at Brampton, Huntingdonshire, on February 23, 1632-3,son of John Pepys, a London tailor. By the influence of the Earl ofSandwich, he was entered in the public service. Beginning as a clerk in theExchequer, he was soon transferred to the Naval Department, and rose to thehigh office of secretary to the Admiralty. His services were interruptedfor a time, on the baseless suspicion that he was a Catholic, during thepanic about the supposed "Popish Plot," but he was returned to his charge,and held it until the accession of William and Mary. Pepys was a man ofvery wide interests. He was a member of parliament, and became president ofthe Royal Society. He was an accomplished musician and a keen critic ofpainting, architecture, and the drama. But it is as a connoisseur of humannature that Pepys is known to-day. The "Diary" extended over the ten years,January, 1659-60, to May, 1669; it closed when he was thirty-seven yearsold, and he lived thirty-four years afterwards. The manuscript, written inshorthand, fills six volumes, which repose at Magdalene College, Cambridge.It was deciphered in 1825, when it was published as "Memoirs of SamuelPepys, comprising his Diary from 1659 to 1669, deciphered by the Rev. J.Smith, and a Selection of his Private Correspondence, edited by LordBraybrooke." Pepys died on May 26, 1703.

I.--"God Bless King Charles"

January 1, 1659-60. Blessed be God, at the end of last year I wasin very good health, without any sense of my old pain, but upon taking ofcold. I lived in Axe Yard, having my wife and servant, Jane, and no otherin family than us three.

The condition of the state was thus: the Rump, after being disturbed bymy Lord Lambert, was lately returned to sit again. The officers of the armyall forced to yield. Lawson still lies in the river, and Monk is with hisarmy in Scotland. The New Common Council of the City do speak very high;and had sent to Monk their sword-bearer, to acquaint him with their desiresfor a free and full parliament, which is at present the desires, and thehopes, and the expectations of all. My own private condition very handsome,and esteemed rich, but indeed very poor; besides my goods of my house, andmy office, which at present is somewhat certain.

March 9, 1660. To my lord at his lodging, and came to Westminsterwith him in the coach; and I telling him that I was willing and ready to gowith him to sea, he agreed that I should. I hear that it is resolvedprivately that a treaty be offered with the king.

May 1. To-day I hear they were very merry at Deal, setting up theking's flag upon one of their maypoles, and drinking his health upon theirknees in the streets, and firing the guns, which the soldiers of the castlethreatened, but durst not oppose.

May 2. Welcome news of the parliament's votes yesterday, whichwill be remembered for the happiest May-day that hath been many a year toEngland. The king's letter was read in the house, wherein he submitshimself and all things to them. The house, upon reading the letter, ordered£50,000 to be forthwith provided to send to his majesty for hispresent supply. The City of London have put out a declaration, wherein theydo disclaim their owning any other government but that of a king, lords,and commons.

May 3. This morning my lord showed me the king's declaration tobe communicated to the fleet. I went up to the quarter-deck with my lordand the commanders, and there read the papers; which done, the seamen didall of them cry out, "God bless King Charles!" with the greatest joyimaginable. After dinner to the rest of the ships quite through thefleet.

May 11. This morning we began to pull down all the state's armsin the fleet, having first sent to Dover for painters to come and set upthe king's. After dinner we set sail from the Downs, but dropped anchoragain over against Dover Castle.

May 12. My lord gave order for weighing anchor, which we did, andsailed all day.

May 14. In the morning the Hague was clearly to be seen by us.The weather bad; we were sadly washed when we come near the shore, it beingvery hard to land there.

May 23. Come infinity of people on board from the king to goalong with him. The king, with the two dukes and Queen of Bohemia, PrincessRoyal, and Prince of Orange, come on board, where I, in their coming in,kissed the king's, queen's, and princess's hands, having done the otherbefore. Infinite shooting of the runs, and that in a disorder on purpose,which was better than if it had been otherwise. We weighed anchor, and witha fresh gale and most happy weather we set sail for England.

May 24. Up, and made myself as fine as I could, with thestockings on and wide canons that I bought at Hague. Extraordinary press ofnoble company, and great mirth all day.

May 25. By the morning we were come close to the land, andeverybody made ready to get on shore. I spoke to the Duke of York aboutbusiness, who called me Pepys by name, and upon my desire did promise mehis future favour. The king went in my lord's barge with the two dukes, andwas received by General Monk with all love and respect at his entrance uponthe land of Dover. The shouting and joy expressed by all is pastimagination.

1660-1661. At the end of the last and the beginning of this year, I dolive in one of the houses belonging to the Navy Office, as one of theprincipal officers; my family being myself, my wife, Jane, Will Hewer, andWayneman, my girl's brother. Myself in constant good health, and in a mosthandsome and thriving condition. Blessed be God for it. The king settled,and loved of all.

II.--The Plague

July 31, 1665. I ended this month with the greatest joy that Iever did any in my life, because I have spent the greatest part of it withabundance of joy, and honour, and pleasant journeys, and braveentertainments, and without cost of money. We end this month after thegreatest glut of content that ever I had, only under some difficultybecause of the plague, which grows mightily upon us, the last week beingabout 1,700 or 1,800 of the plague. My Lord Sandwich at sea with a fleet ofabout one hundred sail, to the northward, expecting De Ruyter, or the DutchEast India fleet.

August 8. To my office a little, and then to the Duke ofAlbemarle's about some business. The streets empty all the way now, even inLondon, which is a sad sight. To Westminster Hall, where talking, hearingvery sad stories. So home through the City again, wishing I may have takenno ill in going; but I will go, I think, no more thither. The news of DeRuyter's coming home is certain, and told to the great disadvantage of ourfleet; but it cannot be helped.

August 10. To the office, where we sat all morning; in greattrouble to see the bill this week rise so high, to above 4,000 in all, andof them above 3,000 of the plague. Home to draw over anew my will, which Ihad bound myself by oath to dispatch by to-morrow night; the town growingso unhealthy that a man cannot depend upon living two days.

August 12. The people die so that now it seems they are fain tocarry the dead to be buried by daylight, the nights not sufficing to do itin. And my lord mayor commands people to be within at nine at night, thatthe sick may have liberty to go abroad for air. There is one also dead outof one of our ships at Deptford, which troubles us mightily. I am told,too, that a wife of one of the grooms at court is dead at Salisbury, sothat the king and queen are speedily to be all gone to Milton. So Godpreserve us!

August 16. To the Exchange, where I have not been in a greatwhile. But, Lord! how sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people,and very few upon the 'Change. Jealous of every door that one sees shut uplest it should be the plague; and about two shops in three, if not more,generally shut up.

August 22. I walked to Greenwich, in my way seeing a coffin witha dead body therein, dead of the plague, which was carried out last night,and the parish have not appointed anybody to bury it; but only set a watchthere all day and night, that nobody should go thither or come thence, thisdisease making us more cruel to one another than we are to dogs.

August 25. This day I am told that Dr. Burnett, my physician, isthis morning dead of the plague, which is strange, his man dying so longago, and his house this month open again. Now himself dead. Poor,unfortunate man!

August 30. I went forth and walked towards Moorfields to see (Godforgive my presumption!) whether I could see any dead corpse going to thegrave. But, Lord! how everybody looks, and discourse in the street is ofdeath and nothing else, and few people going up and down, that the town islike a place distressed and forsaken.

September 3 (Lord's Day). Up; and put on my coloured silk suitvery fine, and my new periwig, bought a good while since, but durst notwear, because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is awonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done as to periwigs,for nobody will dare to buy any hair, for fear of the infection, that ithas been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague. My Lord Brouncker,Sir J. Minnes, and I up to the vestry at the desire of the justices of thepeace, in order to the doing something for the keeping of the plague fromgrowing; but, Lord! to consider the madness of the people of the town, whowill, because they are forbid, come in crowds along with the dead corpsesto see them buried.

September 6. To London, to pack up more things; and there I sawfires burning in the streets, as it is through the whole city, by the lordmayor's order.

September 14. To the Duke of Albemarle, where I find a letterfrom my Lord Sandwich, of the fleet's meeting with about eighteen more ofthe Dutch fleet, and his taking of most of them; and the messenger saysthey had taken three after the letter was sealed, which being twenty-one,and those took the other day, is forty-five sail, some of which are good,and others rich ships. Having taken a copy of my lord's letter, I awaytoward the 'Change, the plague being all thereabouts. Here my news washighly welcome, and I did wonder to see the 'Change so full--I believe twohundred people. And, Lord! to see how I did endeavour to talk with as fewas I could, there being now no shutting up of houses infected, that to besure we do converse and meet with people that have the plague upon them. Ispent some thought on the occurrences of this day, giving matter for asmuch content on one hand and melancholy on another, as any day in all mylife. For the first, the finding of my money and plate all safe at London;the hearing of this good news after so great a despair of my lord's doinganything this year; and the decrease of 500 and more, which is the firstdecrease we have yet had in the sickness since it begun. Then, on the otherside, my finding that though the bill in general is abated, yet in the Citywithin the walls it is increased; my meeting dead corpses, carried close tome at noonday in Fenchurch Street.

One of my own watermen, that carried me daily, fell sick as soon as hehad landed me on Friday last, when I had been all night upon the water, andis now dead of the plague. And, lastly, that both my servants, W. Hewer andTom Edwards, have lost their fathers of the plague this week, do put meinto great apprehension of melancholy, and with good reason.

November 15. The plague, blessed be God! is decreased 400, makingthe whole this week but 1,300 and odd, for which the Lord be praised!

December 25 (Christmas Day). To church in the morning, and theresaw a wedding in the church, which I have not seen many a day, and theyoung people so merry with one another, and strange to see what delight wemarried people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition,every man and woman gazing and smiling at them.

December 31. Thus ends this year, to my great joy, in thismanner. I have raised my estate from £1,300 in this year to£4,400. I have got myself greater interest, I think, by my diligence,and my employments increased by that of treasurer for Tangier and surveyorof the victuals. It is true we have gone through great melancholy becauseof the plague, and I put to great charges by it, by keeping my family longat Woolwich, and myself and my clerks at Greenwich, and a maid at London;but I hope the king will give us some satisfaction for that. But now theplague is abated almost to nothing, and I intending to get to London asfast as I can. To our great joy the town fills apace, and shops begin to beopen again.

III.--The Great Fire

September 2, 1666. Some of our maids sitting up late last nightto get things ready against our feast to-day, Jane called us up about threein the morning to tell us of a great fire they saw in the City. So I rose,and slipped on my nightgown, and went to her window, and thought it to beon the back side of Mark Lane at the farthest, and so went to bed again.About seven rose again to dress myself, and there looked out at the window,and saw the fire not so much as it was, and further off. By-and-by Janecomes and tells me that above 300 houses have been burned down, and that itis now burning down all Fish Street, by London Bridge. So I made myselfready, and walked to the Tower, and there got up upon one of the highplaces; and there I did see the houses at that end of the bridge all onfire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side of the bridge.So down with my heart full of trouble to the lieutenant of the Tower, whotells me that it begun this morning in the king's baker's house in PuddingLane.

So I down to the waterside, and there got a boat, and through bridge,and there saw a lamentable fire. Everybody endeavouring to remove theirgoods, and flinging into the river, or bringing them into lighters that layoff; poor people staying in their houses till the very fire touched them,and then running into boats or clambering from one pair of stairs by thewaterside to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive,were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows andbalconies till they burned their wings and fell down. Having staid, and inan hour's time seen the fire rage every way, and nobody, to my sight,endeavouring to quench it, I to White Hall, and there up to the king'scloset in the chapel, where people come about me, and I did give them anaccount which dismayed them all, and word was carried in to the king.

So I was called for, and did tell the king and Duke of York what I saw,and that unless his majesty did command houses to be pulled down, nothingcould stop the fire. They seemed much troubled, and the king commanded meto go to my lord mayor from him and command him to spare no houses, but topull down before the fire every way. Meeting with Captain co*cke, I in hiscoach, which he lent me, to Paul's, and there walked along Watling Street,as well as I could, every creature coming away loaded with goods to save,and here and there sick people carried away in beds. At last met my lordmayor in Canning Street, like a man spent. To the king's message, he cried,like a fainting woman, "Lord! what can I do? I am spent; people will notobey me. I have been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us fasterthan we can do it." So I walked home, seeing people almost all distracted,and no manner of means used to quench the fire. The houses, too, so verythick thereabouts, and full of matter for burning, as pitch and tar inThames Street, and warehouses of oil and wines and brandy.

Soon as I dined, I away, and walked through the City, the streets fullof people, and horses and carts loaden with goods. To Paul's Wharf, where Itook boat, and saw the fire was now got further, both below and abovebridge, and no likelihood of stopping it. Met with the king and Duke ofYork in their barge. Their order was only to pull down houses apace; butlittle was or could be done, the fire coming so fast. Having seen as muchas I could, I away to White Hall by appointment, and there walked to St.James's Park, and there met my wife, and Creed and Wood and his wife, andwalked to my boat; and upon the water again, and to the fire, stillincreasing, and the wind great. So near the fire as we could for smoke, andall over the Thames you were almost burned with a shower of fire-drops.

When you could endure no more upon the water, we to a little ale-houseon the Bankside, and there stayed till it was dark almost, and saw the firegrow; and as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners andupon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see upthe hill of the City, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not likethe fine flame of an ordinary fire. We stayed till, it being darkish, wesaw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side ofthe bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long; itmade me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flamingat once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses attheir ruin. So home with a sad heart.

IV.--Of the Badness of the Government

April 26, 1667. To White Hall, and there saw the Duke ofAlbemarle, who is not well, and do grow crazy. Then I took a turn with Mr.Evelyn, with whom I walked two hours; talking of the badness of thegovernment, where nothing but wickedness, and wicked men and women commandthe king; that it is not in his nature to gainsay anything that relates tohis pleasures; that much of it arises from the sickliness of our ministersof state, who cannot be about him as the idle companions are, and thereforehe gives way to the young rogues; and then from the negligence of theclergy, that a bishop shall never be seen about him, as the King of Francehath always; that the king would fain have some of the same gang to be lordtreasurer, which would be yet worse.

And Mr. Evelyn tells me of several of the menial servants of the courtlacking bread, that have not received a farthing wages since the king'scoming in. He tells me that now the Countess Castlemaine do carry allbefore her. He did tell me of the ridiculous humour of our king and knightsof the Garter the other day, who, whereas heretofore their robes were onlyto be worn during their ceremonies, these, as proud of their coats, didwear them all day till night, and then rode in the park with them on. Nay,he tells me he did see my Lord Oxford and Duke of Monmouth in a hackneycoach with two footmen in the park, with their robes on, which is a mostscandalous thing, so as all gravity may be said to be lost among us.

V.--The End of the Diary

November 30, 1668. My wife after dinner went the first timeabroad in her coach, calling on Roger Pepys, and visiting Mrs. Creed and mycousin Turner. Thus endeth this month with very good content, but mostexpenseful to my purse on things of pleasure, having furnished my wife'scloset and the best chamber, and a coach and horses that ever I knew in theworld; and I am put into the greatest condition of outward state that everI was in, or hoped ever to be. But my eyes are come to that condition thatI am not able to work. God do His will in it!

December 2. Abroad with my wife, the first time that ever I rodein my own coach, which do make my heart rejoice and praise God. So she andI to the king's playhouse, and there saw "The Usurper," a pretty good play.Then we to White Hall; where my wife stayed while I up to the duch*ess, tospeak with the Duke of York; and here saw all the ladies, and heard thesilly discourse of the king with his people about him.

December 21. To the Duke's playhouse, and saw "Macbeth." The kingand court there, and we sat just under them and my Lady Castlemaine. And mywife, by my troth, appeared, I think, as pretty as any of them; I neverthought so much before, and so did Talbot and W. Hewer. The king and Dukeof York minded me, and smiled upon me; but it vexed me to see Moll Davis inthe box over the king and my Lady Castlemaine, look down upon the king, andhe up to her. And so did my Lady Castlemaine once; but when she saw MollDavis she looked like fire, which troubled me.

May 31, 1669. Up very betimes, and continued all the morningexamining my accounts, in order to the fitting myself to go abroad beyondsea, which the ill-condition of my eyes and my neglect hath kept mebehindhand in. Had another meeting with the Duke of York at White Hall onyesterday's work, and made a good advance; and so being called by my wife,we to the park, Mary Batelier and a Dutch gentleman, a friend of hers,being with us. Thence to "The World's End," a drinking house by the park;and there merry, and so home late.

And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my owneyes in the keeping of my journal, having done now so long as to undo myeyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand; and therefore resolve,from this time forward to have it kept by my people in longhand, and mustbe contented to set down no more than is fit for them and all the world toknow. And so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as tosee myself go into my grave; for which, and all the discomforts that willaccompany my being blind, the good God prepare me! S. P.

Letters

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, or Pliny the Younger, wasborn in 62 A.D. at Novum Comum, in the neighbourhood of Lake Como, in thenorth of Italy. His family was honourable, wealthy, and able, and hisuncle, Pliny the Elder, was the encyclopaedic student and author of thefamous "Natural History." On his father's death, young Pliny, a boy ofnine, was adopted by the elder Pliny, educated in literary studies and asan advocate, and was a notable pleader before his twentieth year. Through asuccession of offices he rose to the consulship in the year 100, andafterwards continued to hold important appointments. He was twice married,but left no children. The date of his death is unknown. The "Letters ofPliny the Younger" are valuable as throwing light upon the life of theRoman people; but they are also models of Latin style, and have all thecharm of their author's upright, urbane, and tolerant character. Hisepistle to the Emperor Trajan with regard to the Christians is of peculiarinterest.

To Cornelius Tacitus

You will certainly laugh, and well may you laugh, when I tell you thatyour old friend has turned sportsman, and has captured three magnificentboars. "What," you say, "Pliny?" Yes, I myself, though without giving up mymuch loved inactivity. While I sat at the nets, you might have found meholding, not a spear, but my pen. I was resolved, if I returned with myhands empty, at least to bring home my tablets full. This open-air way ofstudying is not at all to be despised. The activity and the scene stimulatethe imagination; and there is something in the solemnity and solitude ofthe woods, and in the expectant silence of the chase, that greatly promotesmeditation. I advise you whenever you hunt in future to take your tabletswith you as well as your basket and flask. You will find that Minerva, aswell as Diana, haunts these hills.

To Minucius Fundanus

When I consider how the days pass with us at Rome, I am surprised tofind that any single day taken by itself is spent reasonably enough, or atleast seems to be so, and yet when I add up many days together theimpression is quite otherwise. If you ask anyone what he has been doingto-day, he will tell you perhaps that he has been attending the ceremony ofa youth's coming of age; he has assisted at a wedding, been present at thehearing of a lawsuit, witnessed a will, or taken part in a consultation.These occupations seem very necessary while one is engaged in them; andyet, looking back at leisure upon the many hours we have thus employed, wecannot but consider them mere frivolities. Looking back especially on townlife from a country retreat, one is inclined to regret how much of life hasbeen spent in these wretched trifles.

This reflection is one which often occurs to me at my place atLaurentum, when I am immersed in studies or invigorating my bodily health.In that peaceful home I neither hear nor say anything which needs to berepented of. There is no one there who speaks evil of anyone; and I havenot to complain of any man, except sometimes of myself when I amdissatisfied with my work. There I live undisturbed by rumours, free fromthe vicissitudes of hope and fear, conversing only with myself and mybooks. What a true and genuine life it is; what a delightful and honestrepose--surely more to be desired than the highest employments. O sea andsolitary shore, secret haunt of the Muses, with how many noble thoughtshave you inspired me! Do you then, my friend, take the first opportunity ofleaving the noisy town with all its empty pursuits, and devote your days tostudy or leisure. For, as Attilius well says, it is better to have nothingto do than to be doing of nothing.

To Septicius Clarus

How did it happen, my friend, that you failed to keep your engagement todine with me? I shall expect you to repay me what I spent on thefestival--no small sum, I can assure you. I had prepared for each of us,you must know, a lettuce, three snails, two eggs, and a barley cake servedwith sweet wine and snow; the snow most certainly I shall charge to youraccount, as it melted away. There were olives, beetroots, gourds, onions,and a hundred other dainties. You would also have heard a comedian, or thereading of a poem or a lute-player, or even if you had liked, all three,such was my liberality. But luxurious delicacies and Spanish dancing girlsat some other house were more to your taste. I shall have my revenge ofyou, depend upon it, but I won't say how. Indeed, it was not kind thus tomortify your friend--I had almost said yourself; for how delightfully weshould have passed the evening in jests and laughter, and in deeper talk!It is true you may dine at many houses more sumptuously than at mine butnowhere will you find more unconstrained gaiety, simplicity and freedom.Only make the experiment, and if you do not ever afterwards prefer my tableto any other, never favour me with your company again.

To Avitus

It would be a long story, and of no great importance, if I were to tellyou by what accident I dined lately with a man who, in his own opinion,entertained us with great splendour and economy, but in my opinion withmeanness combined with extravagance. He and a few of his guests enjoyedsome very excellent dishes indeed, but the fare placed before the rest ofthe company was of the most inferior kind. There were three kinds of winein small bottles, but it was not intended that the guests should take theirchoice at all. The best was for himself and for us; another vintage was forhis friends of a lower order--for you must know he divides his friends intoclasses--and the third kind was for his own and his guests freed-men. Myneighbor noticed this, and asked me if I approved of it. "Not at all," Isaid.

"What then," said he, "is your custom in entertaining?"

"Mine," said I, "is to offer the same fare to everybody. I invite myfriends to dinner without separating them into classes. Everyone who comesto my table is equal, and even my freed-men are then my guests just as muchas anyone else."

He asked me if I did not find this very expensive. I assured him that itwas not so at all, and that the whole secret lay in drinking no better winemyself that I gave to others. If a man is wise enough to moderate his ownluxury, he will not find it very expensive to entertain all his visitors onequal terms. Restrain your own tastes if you would really economise. Thisis a better way of saving expense than making these insulting distinctionsbetween guests.

It would be a pity if a man of your excellent disposition should beimposed upon by the immoderate ostentation which prevails at some tablesunder the guise of frugality. I tell you of this as an example of what youought to shun. Nothing is to be more avoided than this preposterousassociation of extravagance and meanness--defects which are unpleasantenough when found separately, but are particularly detestable whencombined.

To Baebius Macer

I am glad to hear that you are so great an admirer of my Uncle Pliny'sworks as to wish to have a complete collection of them. You will wonder howa man so much occupied as he was could find time to write so many books,some of them upon very difficult subjects. You will be still more surprisedwhen you hear that for a considerable time he practised at the bar, that hedied in his fifty-sixth year, and that from the time of his retirement fromthe bar to his death he was employed in some of the highest offices ofstate, and in the immediate service of the emperors. But he had a veryquick intelligence, an incredible power of application, and an unusualfaculty of doing without sleep. In summer he used to begin to work atmidnight; in winter, generally at one in the morning, or two at the latest,and often at midnight. But he would often, without leaving his studies,refresh himself by a short sleep. Before daybreak he used to wait upon theEmperor Vespasian, who also was a night worker, and after that attended tohis official duties. Having taken a light meal at noon, after the custom ofour ancestors, he would in summer, if unoccupied, lie down in the sun,while a book was read to him from which he made extracts and notes. Indeedhe never read without making extracts; he used to say that no book was sobad as not to teach one at least something. After this reading he usuallytook a cold bath, then a light refreshment, and went to sleep for a littlewhile. Then, as if beginning a new day, he resumed his studies untildinner, when a book was again read to him, upon which he would make passingcomments. I remember once, when his reader had pronounced a word wrongly,someone at the table made him repeat it again; upon which my uncle askedhis friend if he had not understood it. He admitted that the word was clearenough. "Why did you stop him then?" asked my uncle; "we have lost morethan ten lines by this interruption of yours." Even so parsimonious was heof every moment of time! In summer he always rose from dinner by daylight,and in winter as soon as it was dark; this was an invariable law withhim.

Such was his life amidst the noise and bustle of the city; but when hewas in the country his whole time, without exception, was given to studyexcept when he bathed. And by this exception I mean only the time when hewas actually in the bath, for all the time when he was being rubbed anddried he was read to, or was himself dictating. Again, when travelling hegave his whole time to study; a secretary constantly attended him withbooks and tablets, and in winter wore very warm gloves so that the coldweather might not interrupt my uncle's work; and, for the same reason, whenin Rome, he was always carried in a chair. I remember he once reproved mefor going for a walk, saying that I might have used the hours to greateradvantage; for he thought all time was lost which was not given to study.It was by this extraordinary application that he found time to write somany volumes, besides a hundred and sixty books of extracts which he leftme, written on both sides in an extremely small hand, so that their numbermight be reckoned considerably greater.

To Cornelius Tacitus

I understand you wish to hear about the earthquake at Misenum. After myuncle had left us on that day, I went on with my studies until it was timeto bathe; then I had supper and went to bed. But my sleep was broken anddisturbed. There had been many slight shocks, which were very frequent inCampania, but on this night they were so violent that it seemed as thougheverything must be overthrown. My mother ran into my room, and we went outinto a small court which separated our house from the sea. I do not knowwhether to call it courage or rashness on my part, as I was only eighteenyears old; but I took up Livy and read and made extracts from him. Whenmorning came the light was faint and sickly; the buildings around us weretottering to their fall, and there was great and unavoidable danger inremaining where we were. We resolved to leave the town. The people followedus in consternation, and pressed in great crowds about us on our way out.Having gone a good distance from the house, we stood still in the midst ofa dreadful scene. The carriages for which we had sent, though standing uponlevel ground, were being thrown from side to side, and could not be keptstill even when supported by large stones. The sea appeared to roll backupon itself, driven from its shores by the convulsive movements of theearth; a large portion of the sea-bottom was uncovered, and many marineanimals were left exposed. Landward, a black and dreadful cloud was rollingdown, broken by great flashes of forked lightning, and divided by longtrains of flame which resembled lightning but were much larger.

Soon afterwards the clouds seemed to descend and cover the whole surfaceof the ocean, hiding the island of Capri altogether and blotting out thepromontory of Misenum. My mother implored me earnestly to make my escape,saying that her age and frame made it impossible for her to get away, butthat she would willingly meet her death if she could know that she had notbeen the cause of mine. But I absolutely refused to forsake her, andseizing her hand I led her on. The ashes now began to fall upon us, thoughas yet in no great quantity. I looked back and saw behind us a dense cloudwhich came rolling after us like a torrent. I proposed that while we stillhad life we should turn out of the high road, lest she should be trampledto death in the dark by the crowd.

We had scarcely sat down when darkness closed in upon us, not like thedarkness of a moonless night, or of a night obscured by clouds, but thedarkness of a closed room where all the lights have been put out. We heardthe shrieks of women, the cries of children, and the shouts of men; somewere calling for their children, others for their parents, others for theirhusbands or wives, and recognising one another through the darkness bytheir voices. Some were calling for death through very fear of death;others raised their hands to the gods; but most imagined that the lasteternal night had come, and that the gods and the world were beingdestroyed together. Among these were some who added imaginary terrors tothe real danger, and persuaded the terror-stricken multitude that Misenumwas in flames. At last a glimmer of light appeared which we imagined to bea sign of approaching flames, as in truth it was; but the fire fell at aconsiderable distance from us, and again we were immersed in darkness. Aheavy shower of ashes now rained upon us, so that we were obliged from timeto time to shake them off, or we should have been crushed and buried in theheap. I might congratulate myself that during all this horror not a sigh orexpression of fear escaped me, if it had not been that I then believedmyself to be perishing with the world itself, and that all mankind wereinvolved in the same calamity--a miserable consolation indeed, but apowerful one.

At last this dreadful darkness was dissipated by degrees like a cloud ofsmoke; real day returned, and even the sun appeared, though very faintly ashe appears during an eclipse. Everything before our trembling eyes waschanged, being covered over with white ashes as with deep snow. We returnedto Misenum, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we could and passed ananxious night between hope and fear. There was more fear than hope,however; for the earthquake still continued and many crazy people wererunning about predicting awful horrors.

You must read my story without any view of writing about it in yourhistory, of which it is quite unworthy; indeed, my only excuse for writingit in a letter is that you have asked for it.

To Calpurnia, His Wife

It is incredible how impatiently I wish for your return, such is thetenderness of my love for you, and so unaccustomed are we to separation. Ilie awake great part of the nights thinking of you; and in the day my feetcarry me of their own accord to your room at the hours when I used to seeyou, but not finding you there I go away as sorrowful and disappointed asan excluded lover. The only time when I am free from this distress is whenI am in the forum busy with the lawsuits of my friends. You may judge howwretched my life is when I find my repose only in labour and my consolationin miseries and cares.

To Germinius

You must very well know the kind of people who, though themselves slavesto every passion, are mightily indignant at the vices of others, and mostsevere against those whom they most closely resemble. Surely leniency isthe most becoming of all virtues, even in persons who have least need ofanyone's indulgence. The highest of all characters, in my estimation, isthat of a man who is as ready to pardon human errors as though he wereevery day himself guilty of them, and who yet abstains from faults asthough he never forgave them. Let us observe this rule, both in our publicand in our private relations--to be inexorable to ourselves, but to treatthe rest of the world with tenderness, including even those who forgiveonly themselves. Let us always remember the saying of that most humane andtherefore very great Thrasea: "He who hates vices, hates mankind."

Perhaps you will ask who it is that has moved me to these reflections?There was a certain person lately--But I will tell you of that when wemeet. No; on second thoughts I will not tell you even then, lest bycondemning him and exposing his conduct I should be violating the principlewhich I have just condemned. So, whoever he is, and whatever he may be, thematter shall remain unspoken; since to expose him would be of no advantagefor the purpose of example; but to hide his fault will be of greatadvantage to good nature.

To the Emperor Trajan

It is my rule, to refer to you all matters about which I have any doubt.For who can be more capable of removing my scruples or of instructing myignorance?

I have never been present at any trials of Christians, and am,therefore, ignorant of the reasons for which punishment is inflicted, aswell as of the examinations which it is proper to make of their guilt. Asto whether any difference is usually made with respect to the ages of theguilty, or whether no distinction is to be observed between the young andthe old; whether repentance entitles them to a pardon, or whether it is ofno advantage to a man who has once been a Christian that he has ceased tobe one; whether the very profession of Christianity unattended by anycriminal act, or only the crimes that are inherent in the profession arepunishable--in all these points I am very doubtful.

In the meantime, the method which I have observed towards those who havebeen brought before me as Christians is this. I have interrogated them asto whether they were Christians; if they confessed I repeated the questiontwice again, adding threats at the same time; and if they still perseveredI ordered them to execution. For I was persuaded that whatever the natureof their opinions might be, their pertinacity and inflexible obstinacyought certainly to be punished. Others also were brought before mepossessed by the same madness, but as they were Roman citizens I orderedthem to be sent to Rome. As this crime spread while it was actually underprosecution, many fresh cases were brought up. An anonymous paper was givenme containing a charge against many persons. Those who denied that theywere Christians, or that they had ever been so, repeated after me aninvocation to the gods, offered wine and incense before your statue, whichfor this purpose I had ordered to be placed among the statues of the gods,and even reviled the name of Christ; and so, as it is impossible to forcethose who are really Christians to do any of these things, I thought itproper to dismiss them. Others who had been accused confessed themselves atfirst to be Christians, but immediately afterwards denied it; and othersowned that they had formerly been of that number, but had now forsakentheir error. All these worshipped your statue and the images of the gods,at the same time reviling the name of Christ.

They affirmed that the whole of their guilt, or their error, had been asfollows. They met on a stated day before sunrise and addressed a form ofinvocation to Christ as to a God; they also bound themselves by an oath,not for any wicked purpose but never to commit thefts, robberies, oradulteries, never to break their word, nor to deny a trust when they shouldbe called upon to deliver it up. After this had been done they used toseparate, and then reassemble to partake in common of an innocent meal.They had desisted, however, from this custom, after the publication of myedict, by which, in accordance with your orders, I had forbiddenfraternities to exist. Having received this account I thought it all themore necessary to make sure of the real truth by putting two slave-girls,who were said to have taken part in their religious functions, to thetorture; but I could discover nothing more than an absurd and extravagantsuperstition.

I have, therefore, adjourned all further proceedings in the affair inorder to consult with you. It appears to be a matter highly deserving yourconsideration, especially as very many persons are involved in the dangerof these prosecutions; for the inquiry has already extended and is likelyfurther to extend to persons of all ranks and ages, and of both sexes. Thiscontagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has spreadits infection among the villages and country districts as well; and itseems impossible to cure this evil or to restrain its progress. It is truethat the temples which were once almost deserted have lately beenfrequented, and that the religious rites which had been interrupted areagain revived; and there is a general demand for animals for sacrificialvictims, which for some time past have met with few purchasers. From allthis it is easy to imagine what numbers might be reclaimed from this errorif pardon were granted to those who may repent of it.

Political Testament

Armand Jean du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, the great Frenchcardinal-statesman, was born in Paris on September 5, 1585, of a noblefamily, and was at first educated for the profession of arms, but enteredthe Church in order to become Bishop of Luçon in 1606. Having comeup to Paris to make his way in the world, he was appointed almoner to theyoung queen Anne of Austria, and rose in 1616 to be Secretary of State forWar and for Foreign Affairs. He received the cardinal's hat in 1622, andfor a period of eighteen years, from 1624 to 1642, he was, in everythingbut name, the Majesty of France. His mind was bold, unscrupulous,remorseless, and inscrutable. Yet it was always noble--the minister whosent so many to the scaffold could truly say that in his vast labours hehad but one pleasure, to know that so many honest folk slept in securitywhile he watched night after night. He was a friend to literature, wasfounder of the Academy, and was himself a considerable author in historyand theology. His greatest work, "Testament Politique du Cardinal deRichelieu," which was published in 1764, and in which is embodied hiscounsel in statecraft, is a literary achievement of no small importance,exhibiting as it does not only a political acumen of a very high order butan acute faculty for literary expression. Richelieu died on December 4,1642.

Retrospect

At the time when your majesty admitted me to your counsels and confidedto me the direction of public affairs I may say with truth that theHuguenots divided the state with your majesty, the great families behavedas though they had no sovereign, and the governor of provinces as if theyhad been sovereigns themselves. Every man took his own audacity to be themeasure of his merit, so that the most presumptious were considered thewisest, and proved often the most fortunate. Abroad the friendship ofFrance was despised. At home private interests were preferred to thegeneral advantage. The dignity of the throne had so far declined, throughthe fault of my predecessors in office, that it was almost unrecognisable.To have continued to entrust to their hands the helm of the state wouldhave led to irremediable disaster; yet, on the other hand, too swift andtoo great a change would have been fraught with dangers of its own. In thatemergency the wisest considered that it was hardly possible to pass withoutshipwreck through the reefs and shoals, and there were many who hadforetold my fall even before your majesty had raised me to power.

Yet, knowing what kings may do when they make good use of their power, Iwas able to promise your majesty that your prudence and firmness, with theblessing of God, would give new health to this kingdom. I promised todevote all my labours, and all the authority with which I might be clothed,to procuring the ruin of the Huguenot party, to humbling the pride of thegreat, to reducing all your subjects to their duty, and to elevating yourmajesty's name among foreign nations to its rightful reputation.

I asked, to that end, your majesty's entire confidence, and assured youthat my policy would be the direct contrary of that of my predecessors,inasmuch as, instead of removing the queen, your mother, from yourmajesty's counsels, I would leave nothing undone to promote the closestunion between you, to the great advantage and honour of the kingdom.

The success which has followed the good intentions which it has pleasedGod to give me for the administration of this state will justify, to theages to come, the constancy with which I have pursued this design--that theunion which exists between your majesties in nature, may be completed alsobetween you in grace. And if, after many years, this purpose by the maliceof your enemies, has been defeated, it is my consolation to remember howoften your majesty has been heard to say that when I was working most forthe honour of the queen, your mother, she was conspiring for my ruin.

Of Education

Letters are one of the greatest ornaments of states, and theircultivation is necessary to the commonwealth. Yet it is certain that theyshould not be taught indiscriminately to every one. A nation whose everysubject should be educated would be as monstrous as a body having eyes inevery part; pride and presumption would be general, and obedience almostdisappear.

Unrestrained trade in knowledge must banish that trade in merchandise towhich states owe their wealth; ruin husbandry, the true mother and nurse ofpeoples; and destroy our source of soldiery, which springs up in rusticignorance rather than from the forcing-ground of culture and the sciences.It would fill France with half-taught fellows, minds formed only tochicane, men who might ruin families and trouble public peace, butcould not be of any service to the state. There would be more peoplecapable of doubts than capable of resolving them; more intelligences fittedto oppose than to defend the truth.

Indeed, when I consider the great number who make a profession ofteaching, and the crowds of children who are taught, I seem to see aninfinite multitude of weaklings and diseased, who, having no other desirethan to drink pure water for their healing, are urged by an inordinatethirst to drink all that is offered them, though it is mostly impure andoften poisoned, whereby their thirst and their malady are equallyaggravated.

Two principal evils arise from the great number of colleges establishedin every district: there are not sufficient worthy teachers to supply them;and many children of little aptitude are compelled by their parents tostudy. In the result, almost all the pupils leave with but a smattering oflearning, some because they have been badly taught, others because theyhave been incapable of more. The remedy that I propose is this. Let thecolleges in all towns which are not of metropolitan rank be reduced to twoor three classes, sufficient to raise the young out of gross ignorance,such as is harmful even to those who are destined for military service orfor trade. Then, before the children are determined to any special line oflife, two are three years will reveal their dispositions and theircapacities; and the more promising children, who will then be sent on tothe metropolitan colleges, will succeed far better; for they will haveminds suited for education and will be placed in the hands of the bestteachers.

Finally, let care be taken that the colleges shall not all come underthe same hands. The universities, on the one hand, the Jesuits on theother, tend towards a monopoly of education. Let their emulation increasetheir virtues and efficiency; but let neither party be deprived of theinstruction of youth; let neither secure a monopoly.

Of the Nobility

The nobility, which is one of the principal nerves of the state, maycontribute much to its consolidation and power, but it has been for sometime past greatly depreciated by the large number of officials whom themisfortunes of our age have raised up to its prejudice. It must besupported against the enterprises of people of that kind, whose wealth andpride overwhelmed the nobles, who are rich only in courage.

But as the nobility must be defended from their oppressors, so also mustthey be strictly prevented from oppressing those who are below them, whomGod has armed to labour but not to self-defence. Uncompromisingly justicemust ensure security, under shelter of your laws, to the least and feeblestof your subjects.

Those nobles who do not serve the state are a charge upon it; and, likea paralysed limb, are a burden where they should be a defence and acomfort. As men of gentle birth should be well treated so long as theydeserve it, so they should be checked severely when they are found wantingto the obligations of their birth; and I have no hesitation in advisingthat those who have so degenerated from the virtues of their fathers as toavoid the service of the crown with their swords and with their lives,deserve to be degraded from their hereditary honours and advantages, andshould be reduced to take part in bearing the burdens of the people.

Of the Disorders of Justice

It is much easier to recognise the defects of justice than to prescribethe remedy. Certain it is that they have arrived at such a point that theycould hardly be graver; yet I know that it is your majesty's desire thatthe administration of justice should be as pure as the imperfections andcorruptions of mankind will permit.

In the opinion of the great majority of the people, the sovereign remedyconsists in suppressing venality, in doing away with the hereditaryprinciple in judicial offices, and in giving their positions gratuitouslyto men of such well-known probity and capacity that not even envy itselfcan contest their merit. But as it would be difficult to follow thiscounsel at any time, and is quite impossible to follow it here and now, itis useless to propose means calculated to secure that end.

Although it is always dangerous to hold a view which others do notshare, I must boldly say that in my opinion, in the present state ofaffairs and in any that one can foresee, it is better to suffer venalityand hereditary offices to continue than to change, from top to bottom, yourmajesty's judicial establishment. The present abuses are great; but Ibelieve that a system under which the offices of justice should beappointed by nomination by the king would lead to even greater abuses. Thedistribution of these important charges would, in effect, depend on thefavour and intrigue of the courtiers who might at the time have most powerwith the king, or on whose reports he must base his nominations.

Certainly venality and heredity in this matter are evils, but they areevils of long standing. We have only to look back to the reigns of St.Louis, when offices were already paid for, and of the great Francis, who*rected the principle into a regular traffic, to see that so inveterate acustom is not easily to be eradicated. Our aim should be to turn the mindsof men gently and continuously to better ways, and not to pass suddenlyfrom one extreme to the other. The architect whose skill is able to correctthe weakness of an ancient building, and to bring it into some degree ofsymmetry without first pulling it down, deserves far greater praise thanthe man who must throw it into ruins in order to construct somethingentirely new. It is difficult to change the established order withoutchanging the hearts of those who possess it, and it is often prudent toweaken one's remedies in order that they may have the greater effect.

To the Officers of Finance

These form a class of men who are prejudicial to the state, yet arenecessary to and we can only hope to reduce their power within tolerablelimits. At present, their excesses and irregularities are intolerable; andit is impossible that they should further increase their wealth and theirpower without ruining the state, and themselves with it.

I do not advise the general confiscation of their gains, although theexcessive wealth which they amass in a short time, easily proved by thedifference between their possessions on entering office and what they ownat present, must often be the result of thefts and extortions. Confiscationmay be made, in its turn, the greatest of injustice and violence. Yet I donot think that anyone could complain if the more flagrant offenders werechastised. Otherwise, they will, as I have said, ruin the kingdom, whichbears on its face the marks of their frauds.

The gold with which they have gorged themselves has opened to themalliances with the most ancient families, whose blood and character arethereby so far debased that their representatives resemble their ancestorsno more in the generosity of their motives than they do in the purity oftheir features.

I can advise nothing but a great reduction in the number of theseofficials, a reform which might be easily accomplished; and theappointment, in times to come, only of substantial men, of character andposition suitable to this responsibility. As for the plan of squeezingthese financiers like a sponge, or of making treaties and compositions withthem, it is a remedy worse than the disorder; it is as much as to teachthem that peculation is their business and their right.

Of the People

All statesmen agree that if the people were in too easy a condition itwould be impossible to restrain them within the limits of their duty.Having less knowledge and cultivation than those in other ranks of thestate, they would not easily follow the rules prescribed by reason and bylaw, unless bound thereto by a certain degree of necessity.

Reason does not permit us to exempt them from all taxation, lest, havinglost the symbol of their subjection, they should forget their legitimatecondition, and, being free from tribute, should think themselves free fromobedience also.

Mules accustomed to a load suffer more from a long rest than they dofrom work; but, on the other hand, their work must be moderate and the loadproportionate to their strength. So it is with the taxation of the people,which becomes unjust if it is not moderated at the point at which it isuseful to the public.

There is a sense in which the tribute which kings draw from the peoplereturns to the people again, in the enjoyment of peace and in the securityof their life and possessions; for these cannot be safeguarded unlesscontribution be made to the state. I know of several princes who have losttheir kingdoms and their subjects by letting their strength decay throughfear of taxing them; and subjects have before now fallen into servitude totheir enemies, through wishing too much liberty under their naturalsovereign. The proportion between the burden and the strength of those whohave to support it ought to be even religiously observed; a prince cannotbe considered good if he draws more than he ought from his subjects; yetthe best princes are not always those who never levy more than isnecessary.

Reason and Government

Man, having been made a rational creature, ought to do nothing except byreason; for, otherwise he acts against nature, and so against the Author ofnature. Again, the greater a man is, and the higher his position, the morestrictly is he bound to follow reason. It follows that if he is sovereignlyrational, he is bound to make reason reign; that is to say, it is his dutyto make all those who are under his authority revere and obey reasonreligiously. Love is the most potent motive for obedience; and it isimpossible that subjects should not love their prince if they know thatreason is the guide of all his actions.

Since reason should be the guide of princes, passion, which is of allthings the most incompatible with reason, should be allowed no influence ontheir actions. Passion can only blind them; make them take the shadow forthe substance; and win for them odium in the place of affection.

Government requires a masculine virtue and an immovable firmness; forsoftness exposes those in whom it is found to the machinations of theirenemies. Though there have been notable exceptions, their softness andtheir passions have generally made women unfit for rule.

Public Interests First

The public advantage should be the single object of the king and hiscounsellors, or should at least be preferred to every private interest. Itis impossible to estimate the good which a prince and his ministers may doif they religiously follow this principle, or to estimate the disasterswhich must fall upon the state whose public interests are ruled by privateconsiderations. True philosophy, the Christian law, and the art ofstatesmanship, unite to teach this truth.

The prosperity which Spain has enjoyed for several centuries has beendue to no other cause than that her council has consistently preferred theinterests of the state to all others, and most of the calamities which havevisited France have been due to the preference of private advantage.

It is easy for princes to consent to the general regulations of theirstate, because in making them they have only reason and justice beforetheir eyes, and men willingly embrace reason and justice when there are noobstacles to turn them from the right path. But when occasions arise forputting these regulations into practice, we do not find that princes alwaysshow the same firmness, for then the interests of factions and ofminorities are pressed upon them; pity, sympathy, favour, and importunitiessolicit them and oppose their just designs; and they have not alwaysstrength enough to conquer themselves and to despise these partialconsiderations, which ought to have no weight at all in the affairs of thecommonwealth.

It is on these occasions that they must gather up all their strengthagainst their weakness, and remember that God has placed them there tosafeguard the public interest.

The Power of Kingship

Power is one of the most necessary conditions of the greatness of kingsand of the happiness of their government, and those who have to do with theconduct of a state should omit nothing which may enhance the authority oftheir master and the respect in which he is held by all the world.

As goodness is the object of love, power is the cause of fear; and fear,founded in esteem and reverence, makes dutiful conduct the interest ofevery subject, and warns all foreigners not to offend a prince who can harmthem if he will.

I have said that the power of which I speak must be founded on esteem,and I will add that if it be otherwise founded it is dangerous in theextreme. Princes are never in a more perilous position than when they arethe objects of hatred or aversion rather than of a reasonable fear.

That kingly power which causes princes to be feared with esteem andlove, includes within it different elements of power; it is a tree withseveral branches, which draw their nourishment from common Stock. Thus, theprince must be powerful by his reputation. Secondly, by a reasonable numberof soldiers, continually maintained. Thirdly, by a notable reserve, ingold, in his coffers, ready for the unforeseen occasions which arise whenleast expected. And, lastly, by the possession of the hearts of his people.If the finances be considerately adjusted on the principles which I haveadvised the people will find entire relief, and the king will base hispower on the possession of the hearts of his subjects. They will know thatthey are his care, and their own interests will lead them to love him.

The kings of old thought so highly of this foundation of kingship thatsome of them held it worthier to be King of the French than King of France.Indeed, this nation was in old time illustrious for passionate attachmentto its princes; and under the earlier kings, until Philip the Fair, thetreasure of hearts was the sole public treasure that was maintained in thiskingdom.

I know that we cannot judge of the present altogether by the past, andthat what was good in one century is not always possible in another. Yet,though the treasure of hearts may not suffice to-day, it is quite certainthat without it the treasure of gold is almost worthless; without thattreasure of hearts we shall be bankrupt in the midst of abundance.

The Whole Duty of Princes

In conclusion, as kings are obliged to do many more things as sovereignsthan they do in their private capacity, they are liable to be guilty of farmore faults by omission than those of which a private person could beguilty by commission. Considered as men, they are subject to the samefaults as all other men; but considered as charged with the welfare of thepublic, they are subject also to many duties which they cannot omit withoutsin.

If princes neglect to do all that they can to rule the various orders oftheir state; if they are careless in the choice of good advisers, ordespise their salutary counsels; if they fail to make their own example aspeaking voice; if they are idle in the establishment of the reign of God,and of reason, and of justice; if they fail to protect the innocent, toreward public services, and to chastise the guilty and disobedient; if theyare not solicitous to foresee and to provide for the troubles which mayarise, or to turn aside, by careful diplomacy, the storms which darken thehorizon; if favour rather than merit dictates their choice of ministers forthe high offices of the kingdom; if they do not immovably establish thestate in its rightful power; if they do not on all occasions prefer publicinterests to private interests; then, however upright their life mayotherwise be, they will be found far more guilty than those who activelytransgress the commandments and the laws of God. And if kings ormagistrates make use of their power to commit any injustice or violencewhich they cannot commit as private persons, they commit a king's or amagistrate's sin, which has its source in their authority, and one forwhich the King of Kings will doubtless demand a searching account on theday of judgement.

Confessions

Rousseau's "Confessions" were written in England atWootton, in Staffordshire, where he had taken refuge after hisrevolutionary ideas incurred the displeasure of the authorities in France.They were first published in 1782. From this refuge he was pursued fromplace to place by his delusions through miserable years, until he died,near Paris, on July 2, 1778. In no circ*mstances or relation of his lifewas Rousseau a pleasant spectacle. The "Confessions," unexpurgated, areoften revolting to any sane mind, and have been proved to be untrustworthyeven as a record of fact. But almost incredible baseness was coupled withextraordinary gifts, and it is impossible to overestimate Rousseau'sinfluence upon the modern world, and upon its literature and its wholepoint of view and way of thinking. (Rousseau, biography: see FICTION.)

I am undertaking a task for which there is no example, and one whichwill find no imitator. It is to exhibit a man in the whole truth of nature;and the man whom I shall reveal is myself. Myself alone; for I verilybelieve I am like no other living man. In this book I have hidden nothingevil and added nothing good; and I challenge any man to say, havingunveiled his heart with equal sincerity, "I am better than he."

I was born at Geneva in 1712, son of Isaac Rousseau, watchmaker, and ofSusanne, his wife. My birth, the first of my misfortunes, cost my motherher life, and I came into the world so weakly that I was not expected tolive. My father's sister lavished on me the tenderest care, and he,disconsolate, loved me with extreme affection.

Like all children, but even more than others, I felt before I thought;and my consciousness was first awakened by reading stories with my father.Sometimes we read together until the birds were singing in the morninglight. These tales gave me a most precocious insight into human passions,and the confused emotions which swept through me brought with them thequeerest and most romantic views of life. But when I was seven we came tothe end of my mother's old stock of romances, and we fell back on Bossuet,Molière, Plutarch, Ovid, and the like. Plutarch went far to cure meof novels; indeed, his "Lives" were the means of forming that free andrepublican spirit, intolerant of servitude, which has been my torment. Tomy aunt, who knew endless songs, and used to chant them with a sweet, tinythread of a voice, I owe my passion for music.

These, then, were my first affections. These formed that heart of mine,so proud yet so tender; they fashioned that effeminate yet untamablecharacter, which has ever drifted between weakness and virtue. For I havebeen in contradiction with myself, in such a way that abstinence andfruition, pleasure and wisdom, have escaped me equally.

My father having left Geneva, I remained under the care of my uncleBernard, and was placed, with his son of my own age, in the house of M.Lambercier, protestant minister at Bossey, to learn all the trivialitiesthat are called education. Here I gained my keen love of country pleasures,and tasted, with my cousin, the delights of simple friendship. But a cruelpunishment for a fault which I had not committed, put an end to my childishsimplicity, and soon I left Bossey without regret. There followed two orthree years of indolence at Geneva.

After a brief and luckless trial of a notary's office I was apprenticedto an engraver, a petty tyrant, whose injustice taught me to lie and tosteal. Restless, dissatisfied, and in perpetual terror of my master'ssavagery, I here reached my sixteenth year. But one day, finding the citygates closed on my return from a country excursion, I determined, ratherthan face the inevitable thrashing, to seek my fortune in the unknownworld.

Madame de Warens

How fair were the illusions of freedom and of the future! I askedlittle--only a manor where I should be the favourite of the lord of theland, his daughter's lover, her brother's friend, and protector of theneighbourhood. I roamed the countryside, sleeping at nights in hospitablecottages, and on arriving at Confignon I called, out of curiosity, on M. dePonteverre, the parish priest. He gave me a dinner which convinced me, evenmore than his arguments, of the advantages of the catholic faith; and I waswilling enough to set off, with his introduction, to Annecy. Here I was toseek Mme. de Warens, a recent convert, who was in receipt of a pension fromthe King of Sardinia. I was assured that her benevolence would support mefor the present. Three days later I was at Annecy.

This introduction fixed my character and destiny. I was now in mysixteenth year, doubtless of engaging though not striking appearance; I hadthe timidity of a loving nature, always afraid of giving offence; and I wasquite without knowledge of the world or of manners. I arrived on PalmSunday, 1728. Mme. de Warens had left the house for church; I ran afterher, saw her, spoke to her--how well do I remember the place, so often inlater days wet with my tears and covered with kisses!

I saw an enchanting form, a countenance full of graciousness, a dazzlingcolour, blue eyes beaming kindness; you may imagine that my conversion wasfrom that moment decided. Smiling, she read the good priest's letter, andsent me back to the house for breakfast.

Louise Éléonore de Warens, daughter of a noble family ofVevai, in the Vaud country, had early married M. de Warens, of Lausanne.The marriage was childless and otherwise unfortunate; and the young wife,exasperated by some domestic difficulty, had abandoned her husband and hercountry, and crossing the lake, had thrown herself at the feet of the king.He took her under his protection, gave her a moderate pension, and for fearof scandal sent her to Annecy, where she renounced her errors at theConvent of the Visitation.

She had been six years at Annecy when I met her, and was nowtwenty-eight years of age. Her beauty was still in its first radiance, andher smile was angelic. She was short of stature, but it was impossible toimagine more beautiful features or hands. Her education had been verydesultory; she had learned more from lovers than from teachers. She had astrong taste for empirical medicine and for alchemy, and was alwayscompounding elixirs, tinctures and balms, some of which she regarded asvaluable secrets. So it was that charlatans, trading on her weakness, madeher consume, amid drugs and furnaces, a talent and a spirit which mighthave distinguished her in the highest societies. Yet her loving and sweetcharacter, her compassion for the unhappy, her inexhaustible goodness andher open and gay humour never changed; and even when old age was coming on,in the midst of poverty and varied misfortunes, her inward serenitypreserved to the end the charming gaiety of her youth. All her mistakesarose from a restless activity which demanded incessant occupation. Shethirsted, not for intrigues, but for enterprises.

Well, the first sight of Mme. de Warens inspired me not only with theliveliest attachment, but with an entire trust which was neverdisappointed. Her presence filled my whole being with peace andconfidence.

Three Years in Turin

My situation was discussed with the Bishop, and it was decided that Ishould go to Turin and remain for a time at an institution devoted to theinstruction of catechumens. Thither I went, regarding myself as the pupil,the friend, and almost the lover, of Mme. de Warens. The great doors closedupon me, and here I was instructed for several weeks in very indifferentcompany. At length, having been received into the church, I found myself inthe street with twenty francs in my pocket, and the counsel that I shouldbe a good Christian.

I took a lodging in Turin, and was presently introduced, by the kindnessof my hostess, to the service of a countess. But this lady died shortlyafterwards, and I left her house bearing with me lasting remorse for anatrocious action: I had accused a fellow-servant of a theft which I hadmyself committed, and thus may very well have caused the poor child'sruin.

Returning to my old lodging, I spent my days in wandering about town,often offending the public by my depravities. But I had kept certainacquaintances made during my situation with the countess, and one of these,a M. Gaime, whom I sometimes visited, gave me most valuable instructions inthe principles of morals. He was a priest, and one of the most honest men Ihave known. I had cherished false ideas of life; he gave me a true pictureof it, and showed me that happiness depends only on wisdom, and that wisdomis to be found in every rank. He used to say that if everyone could readthe hearts of others, most would wish to descend in the social scale. ThisM. Gaime is the original, in large part, of my vicar of Savoy.

Then followed a new situation in the house of the Count de Gouvon,where, nominally a footman, I was soon treated more as a pupil or even as afavourite. His son, a priest, did his best to teach me Latin, and I havesince realised that it was the purpose of this noble family, who hadconsiderable political ambition, to train a talented dependent who mightserve them in offices of great responsibility. But my fatal inconstancyfrustrated this good fortune, my flagrant disobediences led to mydismissal, and presently I was on the road to Geneva with a gay lad fromthence who had found me out in Turin.

I happened to own a mechanical toy, a little fountain, and our madproject was nothing less than to pay our way throughout the world byshowing its performances in every village. We started in the highestspirits, but the fountain was never remunerative, and soon its works wentwrong. This threw no gloom over our merry, fantastic journey, and it wasonly when Annecy was near that I became a little thoughtful, for mybenefactress supposed that my last place had established me for life.

We entered the little town and parted, and I came trembling to her door.The adorable woman showed little surprise, and no sorrow. I told her mystory, and was forgiven. Henceforth her home was mine.

Seeking a Career

The house was an old one, but spacious and comfortable, and the windowof my room looked out, over garden and stream, to the open country. Theménage was by no means magnificent, but was abundant in apatriarchal way; Madame de Warens had no idea of economy, and with herhospitalities and speculations was ever running more deeply into debt. Thehousehold, besides herself and me, consisted of housemaid, cook, and afootman named Claude Anet.

From the first day, the sweetest familiarity reigned our intercourse.She called me "Little one," I called her my little mother, and these namesexpress the relation of our hearts. She sought always my good, never herown pleasure; she was deeply attached to me, and lavished on me hermaternal caresses. I was now about nineteen years old, but was onlyoccupied about the house in writing for her, or in helping her in herpharmaceutical experiments.

But madame was thinking of my future, and sent me on some pretext to seeM. d'Aubonne, a relative of hers, to find out what might be made of me. Hisreport of me was, that I was a poor-spirited creature, narrow, ignorant,and clownish, and that the career of village priest was the best that couldbe hoped for. Once more, therefore, I was set to Latin at the seminary; butafter some months I was returned by the bishop and the rector as incapableof learning, though a passably well-conducted youth. In the meantime I hadbeen taken with a strong taste for music, and it was arranged that I shouldspend the winter at the house of M. le Maitre, director of music at thecathedral; he was a young man of great talent and of high spirits, andlived only twenty paces from my little mother. There I spent one of themost pleasant times of my life. But it was cut short by a quarrel betweenLe Maitre and the cathedral chapter, who had, as he thought, put a slightupon him. His revenge was to desert his post on the eve of the elaborateEaster services, and madame desired me to assist him in his flight. I wasto attend him to Lyons, and remain with him as long as he should need me.Her purpose was, as I have since learned, to detach me from a plausibleadventurer, M. Venture, a man of great musical talent who had turned up atAnnecy, and had engaged my fancy. Our flight was successful. But on thesecond day after our arrival at Lyons Le Maitre fell ill with a suddenseizure in the street, and I, after telling the bystanders the name of hisinn, and begging them to carry him thither, slipped round the nearestcorner and disappeared. Le Maitre was deserted at his worst need by theonly friend on whom he had to count. I returned at once to Annecy, only tofind that madame had left for Paris.

M. Venture, however, was still there, and had turned the heads of allthe ladies in the place, and for a time I shared his lodging. Then, aftertravelling with Merceret, the housemaid, as far as her home at Fribourg-forshe had to return thither and could find no other attendant--I turned asideto Lausanne, with the idea of seeing the lake. I arrived here without apenny, and it occurred to me to play Venture's game on my own account. Itook a false name, called myself a Parisian, and having secured a lodging,set up as a teacher of music, though I knew next to nothing of the art.There was a professor of law in the town who was an amateur of music, andheld concert parties in his house; to this man I had the effrontry topropose a symphony of my own. I worked a fortnight at this production,wrote out the instrumental parts, and on the appointed evening stood upbefore the orchestra and audience, tapped my desk, raised by baton,and--never since music began has there been such an orgy of discords. Themusicians could hardly sit in their chairs for laughing, yet played evenlouder and louder as the fun took hold of them; the audience sought to stoptheir ears; and I, sweat pouring down my face, conducted this atrocity tothe end. But the end was a little minuet which Venture had taught me; I hadappended it to my symphony, calling it my own work. Its magic put the wholeroom in good humour, and I was feliciated on my taste in melody. Next dayone of my orchestra came to see me, and in my despair and broken spirit Itold him my whole story. By nightfall it was known to all Lausanne. But atNeufchâtel, through the next winter, I gradually learned music byteaching it.

My next occupation was that of interpreter to a Greek prelate andarchimandrite of Jerusalem, whom I met when dining in a little restaurant.He was collecting money throughout Europe for the restoration of the HolySepulchre; and accompanying him from city to city, I was of much service tohim, even addressing the Senate at Berne on behalf of his project.Unfortunately for my employer, he addressed himself to the Marquis deBonac, who had been ambassador to the Porte, and knew all about the HolySepulchre. I don't know what passed at their interview, but thearchimandrite disappeared and I was detained. In my desolation I told themarquis the history of my life, and by him was sent to Paris, with plentyof money in my pocket, to enter the service of a young friend of his in thearmy. My first sight of the city was a disappointment which I have nevergot over, and the proposed engagement fell through. Coming to the end of myresources, I set out by way of Lyons, where I suffered the extremity ofpoverty, to find Mme. de Warens, who was now, as I learned, atChambéri. I came to her house and found the intendant-general withher. Without addressing me, she said, "Here, sir, he is; protect him aslong as he deserves it, and his future is assured." And to me, "My child,you belong to the king." And thus I became a secretary in the ordnancesurvey. After five years of follies and sufferings since I had left Geneva,I began to earn an honest living.

Our Little Circle

It was in 1732, and I was nearly twenty-one years old, when I began thelife of the office. I lived with the little mother in a dismal house, whichshe rented because it belonged to the financial secretary who controlledher pension. The faithful Claude Anet was still with her, and shortly aftermy return I learned accidentally that their relation was closer than I hadever dreamed of. In a fit of temper his mistress had taunted himoutrageously. The poor fellow, in despair, had taken laudanum; and madame,in her terror and distress, told me the whole story. We brought him round,and things went on as before, but it was hard to me to know that anyone wasmore intimate with her than myself.

My passion for music increased this year until I could hardly takeinterest in anything else, and at last the work at the office grew sointolerable to me that I determined to resign my place. I extorted anunwilling permission from madame, said good-bye to my chief, and threwmyself into the teaching of music.

I soon had as many pupils as I needed, and the constant intercourse withthese ladies was very pleasant to me. But from the stories which I carriedhome of our interviews the little mother apprehended dangers of which I wasnot at that time conscious. The course which she took was a singular one.She had rented a little garden outside the town, and here she invited me tospend the day with her. Thither we went, and from the drift of herconversation, which was full of good sense and kindliest warnings, Igradually perceived the degree of her goodness towards me. The compactinvolved conditions, and my answer was to be given on that day week.

Thus was established among the three of us a society to which there isperhaps no parallel. All our wishes, our cares, our interests were incommon. If one of us was missing from the dinner-table, or a fourth waspresent, all seemed out of order. But our little circle was broken all toosoon. Claude Anet, on a botanical excursion, fell a victim to pleurisy, anddied, notwithstanding all her care. He had been a most watchful economistof her pension and a restraint on her enterprises, and his loss was feltnot only in our diminished party, but also in the wasting of her resources.For the next three years these went from bad to worse. Unfortunately, thelife to which I had taken, of drifting from one interest to another--nowliterature, now chess, now a journey, now music--brought in nothing andcost a good deal; and to complete our anxieties, I fell ill nearly todeath. Her care and utter devotion saved me, and from that time our veryexistence was in common.

Les Charmettes

I was ordered to the country. We found near Chambéri a littlehouse, Les Charmettes, set in a garden among trees, as retired and solitarya home as if it had been a hundred miles from the town. There we took up anew life towards the autumn of 1736; there began the brief happiness of myexistence. We were all in all to one another; together we roamed thecountry, worked in the garden, gathered fruit and flowers, lay under thetrees and listened to the birds. Golden hours, your memory is my onlytreasure!

Even a sudden illness, which affected my heart so that its pulse hasfrom that time incessantly throbbed like a drum in my ears, and has made mea constant sufferer from insomnia, turned out to be a heavenly blessing.Thinking myself a dead man, I only then began to live, and applied myselfvery eagerly to learning. With my little mother as my teacher, I turned tothe study of religion. I sought books, and philosophy, the sciences, andLatin followed in their turn. Nature, learning, leisure, and our ineffablysweet companionship--I thought, poor fool, that these joys would be with meto the end. It was otherwise decreed.

My bodily condition has become pitiable, and it was determined that Ishould go to Montpellier to consult a physician. I fell in, on the waythither, with the Marquis de Torignan and his party, who were travelling inthe same direction. We struck up acquaintance, and I joined them, taking anassumed name, and giving myself out for an Englishman. Becoming intimatewith a Madame de Larnage, who was among them, I continued to travel withher day by day, after the others had reached their destination. She was awoman of infinite charm. Mme. de Warens was forgotten utterly, and Iwillingly agreed to settle down in her vicinity, after fulfilling thepurpose of my journey to Montpellier. However, after two pleasurable monthsin that city, when I found myself at the stage where the road divided--oneroad going to Mme. de Larnage, the other to Les Charmettes--I balanced loveagainst pleasure, and finding an equipoise, I decided by reason.

The little mother knew by my letter at what hour I should arrive. I cameto the garden; no one came out to meet me. I entered; the servants seemedsurprised to see me. I ran upstairs and found her; her welcome wasrestrained and cold. The truth burst upon me. My place was taken!

Darkness flooded my soul, and from that moment onward my sensibilitieshave been but half-alive. I took a situation as tutor in a private family,but all my thoughts were of Charmettes and of our innocent life together,now gone for ever. O dreadful illusion of human destiny!

The Gathering Gloom

I take up my pen again, after an interval of two years, to add a sequelto my confessions. How different is the picture now! For thirty years fatehad favoured my inclinations, but for the second thirty, which I must tryto sketch, she has ground me in the mortar of the most appallingafflictions.

This second part must inevitably be inferior, in every respect, to thefirst. For I wrote, before, with pleasure and at ease; but now my decayingmemory and enfeebled brain have made me almost incapable of work, and Ihave nothing to tell of but treacheries, perfidies, and torturing memories.The walls around me have ears; I am encompassed by spies and vigilantenemies. Racked with anxiety and fear, I scribble page after page withoutrevising them. An immense conspiracy surrounds me....

[These delusions of suspicion are perhaps the most characteristicsymptoms of insanity. They colour so deeply the entire texture ofRousseau's prolix second part as to make it not only unreliable, but almostunreadable. Only its human interest gives value to the first part; from thesecond part human interest is totally absent. The unhappy creature,besotted with intellectual pride, was already insane, inhuman; and thismorbid condition had been aggravated by years of brooding rancour before hewrote this miserable indictment of men who had done their best to befriendhim.--ED.]

Memoirs

Francois, Duc de la Rochefoucauld, was born in Paris onSeptember 15, 1613. Sprung from one of the noblest families of France,handsome, winning, and brave to recklessness, he intrigued and foughtagainst Richelieu and Mazarin, and was one of the leaders in the civil warof La Fronde. But though marked by birth and talent for a high position inthe state, he failed in nearly everything he undertook, owing to hisextraordinary indolence of mind, and in the prime of his life he became arather embittered spectator of a world in which he was not able to make hisway. The "Memoirs," with their studied tone of historical coldness, presenta striking contrast to the brilliant vivacity of the "Maxims." This, in allprobability, is due to the fact that while the latter were frequently addedto and edited during their author's lifetime, no such fate befell the"Memoirs," of which the first edition, published without La Rochefoucauld'sauthority, appeared in 1662. Barely a third of them could be attributed totheir reputed author, the work being compiled mainly from variouscommonplace books. In spite of La Rochefoucauld's protests, the pirated"Memoirs" continued to be printed, and it was not until very many yearsafter his death, in 1817, that an authentic edition made its appearance.The "Memoirs" are of great literary value, yielding in interest to nomemoirs of the time. La Rochefoucauld died in Paris on March 17, 1680.

Court Intrigues

King Louis XIII. was of feeble constitution, further impaired byover-exertion in hunting. His temperament was severe and solitary; hewished to be governed, but was sometimes impatient of government. His mindtook note only of details, and his knowledge of war was fit rather for asubordinate officer than for a king. Cardinal Richelieu, who owed all hiselevation to the queen-mother, Marie de Médicis, was ruler of thestate. His vast and penetrating mind formed projects as bold as he waspersonally timid. His policy was to establish the king's authority and hisown, by the ruin of the Huguenots and of the great houses of the kingdom,and then to attack the house of Austria, a power most redoubtable toFrance. He stuck at nothing, either to advance his satellites or to destroyhis enemies. The passion which he had long cherished for the queen hadchanged to dislike, and she had an aversion for Richelieu. The king wasembittered against her by jealousy and by the sterility of their marriage.The queen was an amiable woman, without falsity of any kind, and with manyvirtues; her intimate friend was Madame de Chevreuse, who was of her ownage and of kindred sentiments.

But Madame de Chevreuse almost always brought misfortune to those whomshe interested in her projects. She had much spirit, ambition, and beauty,and made full use of her charms to forward these enterprises of hers.Already Cardinal Richelieu had accused the queen and her of complicity inChalais's plot against the king's life--for Chalais had been her warmadmirer--and the king believed in their guilt to the end of his days.Again, when the young and handsome Lord Holland came to France to arrangethe marriage of the King of England to the sister of the King of France,and quickly won the affection of Madame de Chevreuse, the two loversthought fit to celebrate their attachment by inspiring a similar intriguebetween the French queen and the Duke of Buckingham, who had not so much asmet one another. This astonishing undertaking was successful. Buckinghamcame over to wed madame in the name of his master, and his ardent love forthe queen, which she fully returned, deeply wounded both the king andRichelieu. The cardinal sought his revenge through Lady Carlisle. Thathaughty and jealous woman, to whom Buckingham had long been attached,noticed one night at a ball in England that he was wearing diamonds whichshe had not seen before, and contrived, unobserved, to detach them, inorder that she might send them to Richelieu. These diamonds had been thegift of the King of France to his queen, and it was intended that thecardinal, by showing them to the king, should prove the queen's weakness.But the Duke of Buckingham discovered his loss the same night, and at oncesuspected Lady Carlisle's design. He issued an immediate order that theEnglish ports should be closed, and that no one should be permitted, underwhatever pretext, to leave the country; and then, having had exactlysimilar jewels prepared, he sent them to the Queen of France, with anaccount of the whole matter.

It was at this time that the cardinal formed the project of thedestruction of the Huguenot party, and of laying siege to La Rochelle. TheDuke of Buckingham came with a powerful fleet to aid La Rochelle, but invain; the fortress was taken, and the duke was assassinated in England.This murder gave the cardinal an inhuman joy; he jested at the queen'ssorrows, and began to hope again.

After the ruin of the Huguenots I returned from the army to court, beingnow seventeen years old, and began to notice the state of affairs. Thequeen-mother and the cardinal were at enmity, and though everyone saw thatsomething would come of it, no one could foretell what would happen. Thecardinal's situation was precarious, the king had learned of his love forthe queen, and was quite ready to disgrace him, and even asked thequeen-mother to nominate someone to replace him. She hesitated, and thathesitation was her ruin and saved the cardinal.

The reversal of the situation took place on the famous "day of dupes,"on which the queen-mother, presuming too much on her power, challenged thecardinal, in the king's presence, with his ingratitude and treacheries. Noone doubted but that Richelieu's day was over, and the whole court crowdedto the queen-mother to share her imaginary triumph. But the king went thesame day to Versailles, and the cardinal followed him; the queen, fearingthat she would find Versailles dull and uncomfortable, remained behind; andthe wily statesman made such good use of his opportunity that the king'sconsent was won to the downfall of his mother. She was soon arrested, andher sorrows lasted as long as her life.

Many were implicated in her ruin, and were exiled or thrown into theBastille, or brought to the scaffold; and so much bloodshed and so manyfortunes reversed brought odium on the name of Richelieu. The mild regencyof Marie de Médicis was remembered, and all the great familieslamented that liberty was a thing of the past.

For my part, I thought that the queen's cause was the only one, which anhonourable man could follow. She was unhappy; the cardinal was rather hertyrant than her lover; she had been good to me, and had trusted me;Mademoiselle d'Hautefort, with whom I had great friendship, was her friend,too--sufficient reasons, these, to dazzle a youth who had seen almostnothing of the world, and to turn his steps in a direction quite contraryto his interests. King and cardinal alike soon came to detest me, and mylife thenceforth was troubled by the visitations of their displeasure. Inrecording the scenes in which I have had a part, I have no intention ofwriting history, but only of touching on a few personal episodes.

Richelieu's Death

War was declared in 1635 against the King of Spain, and I accompaniedthe French army of twenty thousand men which marched to the support of thePrince of Orange in Flanders. During neither this nor the following winterwas I allowed at court. Madame de Chevreuse, who had been sent to Tours onthe occasion of Richelieu's triumph had heard a good account of me from thequeen, and invited me to see her; we soon struck up a very greatfriendship, and I came to be a confidential intermediary between the queenand her, and was often entrusted by one or other of them with most perilouscommissions.

When I was at last readmitted to court in 1637, I found the queen ingreat trouble. She had been accused of a crime against the state, atreasonable understanding with the Spanish minister; some of her servantswere arrested; the chancellor examined her like a criminal; it was evenproposed to seclude her at Havre, annul her marriage, and repudiate heraltogether. In this extremity, abandoned by all the world, she proposedthat I should kidnap her and Mademoiselle d'Hautefort and carry them off toBrussels. Difficult and dangerous as this project was, it gave me greaterjoy than any I had known, for I was at an age when a man likes to engage indashing and heroic feats. Happily, however, the chancellor's investigationsproved her majesty not guilty.

But an unfortunate series of accidents led to my imprisonment for a weekin the Bastille. A signal had been agreed upon between the queen and Madamede Chevreuse during the recent trouble. If all went well, Madame deChevreuse was to receive a prayer-book bound in green, but a red bindingwas to indicate disaster. I never knew which of the two ladies made themistake, but when the queen was acquitted Madame de Chevreuse received whatshe took to be the signal of misfortune; concluded that both she and thequeen were undone, and disguising herself as a man, she fled to Spain. Thisescapade, so surprising at the very moment when the Queen's troubles hadcome to an end, inspired the king and the cardinal with the gravestsuspicions that they had not, after all, fathomed her majesty's treachery.The cardinal summoned me to Paris, and hinted at unpleasant consequences ifI did not reveal all I knew. I knew nothing; and as my manner seemed morereserved and dry than he was accustomed to, I was sent to the Bastille.

The little time that I spent there showed me more vividly than anythingI had yet seen the picture of vengeance. I saw there men of great names andof great merits, an infinite number of men and women of all ranks in life,all unhappy in the affliction of long and cruel incarceration. The sight ofso many pitiable creatures did much to increase my natural hatred forCardinal Richelieu's administration. I was released in eight days, andthought myself very fortunate to escape at a period when none others wereset at liberty.

But my disgrace was well repaid. The queen showed herself gratefullyaware of all that I had suffered in her service; Mademoiselle d'Hautefortgave full expression to her esteem and friendship; and Madame de Chevreusewas not less gracious. I enjoyed not only the favour of those to whom I wasattached, but also a certain approval which the world is not slow to giveto the unfortunate whose conduct has not really been disgraceful. Underthese conditions an exile of two or three years from court was notintolerable. I was young; the king and the cardinal were failing in health;I had everything to hope for from a change. I was happy in my family, andenjoyed all the pleasures of country life, and the neighbouring provinceswere full of other exiles.

Cardinal Richelieu died on December 4, 1642. Although his enemies couldonly rejoice at finding themselves free at last from so many persecutions,the event has shown that the state could ill spare him. He had made so manychanges in public affairs that he alone was able to direct them safely. Noone before Richelieu had known all the power of the kingdom, or had beenable to gather it all up into the hands of the sovereign. The severity ofhis adminstration had cost many lives; the nobility had been humbled, andthe common people had been loaded with taxes; but the grandeur of hispolitical designs, such as the taking of La Rochelle, the destruction ofthe Huguenot party, and the weakening of the house of Austria, no less thanhis intrepidity in carrying them out, have secured for his memory ajustly-merited fame.

Under Mazarin's Rule

I returned to Paris immediately after the death of Richelieu, thinkingthat I might have occasion to serve the queen. In accordance with the latecardinal's will, Cardinal Mazarin succeeded to his powers. The king's stateof health went from bad to worse, and the court was filled with intrigueswith regard to the regency which must so soon be appointed. His death tookplace on May 14, 1643. The queen at once brought her little son, LouisXIV., to Paris; two days later she was declared regent in parliament; andthe same evening, to the amazement of his enemies, she appointed CardinalMazarin chief of the council.

Mazarin's mind was great, industrious, insinuating, and artful, and hischaracter was so supple that he could become as many different men as hehad occasion to personate. But he was shortsighted even in his grandestprojects; and, unlike his predecessor, whose mind was bold but histemperature timid, Mazarin was bolder in temper than in conception. Apretended moderation veiled his ambition and his avarice; he said he wantednothing for himself.

The court was now divided between the Duke of Beaufort and the cardinal,and it was expected that the return of Madame de Chevreuse would inclinethe queen to the former party. But the queen was in no hurry for thatlady's return, knowing well what turmoils she was apt to bring in hertrain. Perhaps I urged her recall more boldly than was wise; at any rate, Iwon my point, and her majesty sent me to form Madame de Chevreuse for herappearance at court under the new conditions.

I represented to her how indispensable Cardinal Mazarin was to thestate; that he was accused of no crime, and was guiltless of Richelieu'soppressions; and that the most fatal course she could take would be toattempt to govern the queen. Madame de Chevreuse promised to follow myadvice, and came up to court, but her old instincts of domination were toomuch for her, and she soon declared herself openly against the minister whoenjoyed all the queen's confidence. She even attempted his overthrow, andfor that purpose united herself to the party known as the"Importans," which was led by the Duke of Beaufort.

After various manoeuvres on the part of the cardinal and of Madame deChevreuse to get the upper hand, Mazarin discovered a plot against hislife, in which the Duke of Beaufort was implicated, and had the dukearrested and imprisoned. At the same time Madame de Chevreuse was sent awayto Tours, and as I was unwilling to promise that I would have no more to dowith her, I lost the favour of the queen, provoked the cardinal'sdispleasure, and soon found that Madame de Chevreuse herself was forgetfulof all I had done for her.

Kept in idleness, tantalised by promises of office which were neverfulfilled, and forbidden even to follow the wars, my wretched position ledme at last to seek some way of showing my resentment at the treatment I hadreceived from the queen and cardinal. The means were at hand. Like manyothers, I had come under the spell of the beauty and charm of Madame deLongueville, and thus come gradually into association with the party of theFronde. I followed the Duke of Enghien, her brother, to the attack onCourtray, then to Mardick, where I was wounded; and this time of militaryservice united me more closely to his later interests.

By the year 1647 everyone was weary of Mazarin's rule. His bad faith,his weakness, and his trickiness were becoming known, provinces and townsalike were groaning under taxation, and the citizens of Paris were reducedto mere despair. Parliament tried respectful remonstrances in vain; thecardinal thought himself safe in the servility of the nation. But the greatmajority in France desired a change, and then smouldering discontent soonburst into a flame.

The Duke of Enghien, who had become, by the death of his father, Princeof Condé, had gained in 1648 a great victory in Flanders, and asolemn thanksgiving was held in Notre Dame to celebrate it. Mazarin chosethis moment for the arrest of Broussel and other members of parliament whohad voiced most urgently the public distress. The action roused Paris to afury which astonished him; the people sought him to tear him to pieces;barricades were erected in the streets, and the king and queen werebesieged in the royal palace. Resistance to the parliament's demands wereat the moment impossible; the prisoners had to be released.

I was at this time absent from Paris, having been sent down by the queento my government at Poitou, which I had purchased; the province was almostin insurrection and I had to pacify it. I happened to be deeply wounded bya new slight which Cardinal Mazarin had put upon me, when Madame deLongueville sent for me to come to Paris, informing me that the whole planfor a civil war had been drawn up, and asking for my counsel in the matter.The news delighted me, and I arrived at the capital eager for my revenge onthe queen and the cardinal.

Mazarin, on the other hand, had formed his plan. Realising that Pariswas unsafe, he determined to leave it, to place the king at Saint-Germain,and to lay siege to the city, which would soon be reduced to famine anddissensions. Their escape was made at midnight on the eve of Epiphany,1649, all the court following in great disorder.

The city was for a time in much perplexity, but the arrival of the Dukeof Beaufort, who had broken prison at Vincennes, put heart into the people,who took him for their liberator. Other great personages threw in their lotwith the popular cause; a large war-chest was quickly raised and troopswere levied, and the parliament of Paris put itself into communication withthe other parliaments of the kingdom. All preparations were made for acivil war, the real basis of which was a general hatred of CardinalMazarin, which was common to both parties. In an early engagement outsidethe city I was so gravely wounded as to see no more of this war, the eventsof which are hardly worth narrating. On April 1, 1649, the Parliamentreceived an amnesty from the king. Neither party had vanquished the other;the cardinal and the parliament were each as strong as before, but everyonewas glad to be rid, for the time, of the horrors of civil war.

Wars of the Fronde

The Prince of Condé, who had great influence in the council,showed himself so contemptuous to Mazarin, and became so inconvenient tothe queen by his arrogance that she decided to arrest him, and to involveMadame de Longueville, the duke, her husband, and the Prince of Conti inthe same disgrace. Accordingly, on January 18, 1650, the Prince ofCondé, the Duke of Longueville, and the Prince of Conti were seizedand imprisoned at Vincennes, and the order was given at the same time toarrest Madame de Longueville and myself. But we succeeded in escapingtogether to Dieppe, where we were forced to separate; Madame de Longuevillefound refuge at Stenay, where she met with Turenne, and I returned to mygovernment of Poitou and formed an alliance there with the Duke ofBouillon, Turenne's brother. Together the duke and I matured designs whichled to the civil war in the south.

My father having died at Verteuil in March, 1650, I succeeded to thetitle of Duke of La Rochefoucauld. I invited a large number of nobles andgentlemen of that region to the funeral ceremonies; our plans were putbefore them; though some of them held back, most were favourable; and Isoon found myself at the head of a force of two thousand horse and eighthundred foot. The Duke of Bouillon and I were joined by the young Princessof Condé, with her son the Duke of Enghien; we gathered more troopsat Turenne, and marched upon Bordeaux. After overcoming some opposition,the princess entered that city in triumph on May 31, 1650, and we joinedher a few days later.

The grievance of the princess and the presence of her son excited theliveliest enthusiasm, and the party opposed to Mazarin had entire masteryof the town. The revolt of Bordeaux carried with it almost all Guienne, andMazarin determined to crush it before it should extend to the neighbouringprovinces. A royal army of veterans was sent down, Bordeaux was closelyinvested, an obstinate defence was made, but the town had to capitulate onSeptember 28, on the condition of an amnesty to the princess and heradherents.

Meanwhile Turenne, with a Spanish force, had made a vain attempt torescue the captive princes, and Mazarin had removed them to Havre, wherethe government was devoted to him. There was now such general dread andhatred of the cardinal, that people were willing to unite with those whomthey had considered their mortal enemies in order to secure his ruin. Inthe early days of 1651 I was summoned to Paris by the Princess Palatine,who united a taste for gallantry with a remarkable talent for intrigue, andremained for some time hidden in her house, where I was witness to manyconsultations for the removal of Mazarin from power. I even made a lastattempt to persuade the cardinal himself to release the princes; in fournocturnal interviews I tried to show him how all parties were uniting tocompass his ruin, but was unable to convince him without betraying secretswhich were not my own. Mazarin gave me no hope of their liberation.

Then arose a general storm against the minister, and he made his escapeon the night of February 7. The queen would have followed him with her son,but the Frondeurs and the partisans of the princes kept her prisoner in herpalace. Without any hope of assistance, and daunted day and night by aninfuriated populate, she sent for me and gave me an order to the governorof Havre to release the princes immediately. I warned the leaders of theFronde that her sincerity was not above suspicion, and that all dependedupon her close imprisonment, and so set out along the northern road upon mymission. But the cardinal had been beforehand with me, the princes were atliberty, and on February 16 they entered Paris in triumph.

Mazarin, who had fled to Cologne, whence he continued to direct thequeen's cabinet, returned to France at the head of a small army in January,1652, and arrived at Poitiers without meeting any resistance. The partyopposed to him was rent by faction and strife, but the Prince ofCondé united it, and fought an indecisive engagement with the royaltroops on April 8. On the 11th the prince and I were well received inParis, but it was evident that the citizens were weary of all thesetroubles, desired nothing so much as the king's return, and detested theambition of the leaders of faction. Indeed, the magistrates werenegotiating with Mazarin, and declared the city neutral. On July 2 thePrince of Condé was marching his force from Saint-Cloud to Charentonwhen he was attacked by Turenne; and in the sanguinary combat whichfollowed, and in which I was fighting beside the prince, I received a woundin the head which prevented my taking any further part in thesedisturbances.

Shortly afterwards, the Prince of Condé, his popularity whollygone, took service under the King of Spain; King Louis XIV., amid generalacclamations, returned to Paris on October 21; and Cardinal Mazarin, havingovercome all his enemies, entered the capital in a veritable triumph, inFebruary, 1653.

Letters

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, who became Madame deSévigné, was born at Paris on February 6, 1626. Her fatherand mother died during her childhood and Marie was left to the care of heruncle, priest of Coulanges; she received an admirable education and becamea great lover of history and of classical literature. At eighteen years ofa*ge she married the Marquis Henri de Sévigné, who was killedin a duel in 1651, and thenceforth Madame de Sévigné gaveherself up altogether to the care of her two children. Her wit, herkindliness, and happiness, her charity and fidelity, and especially acertain rare genius for friendship, won for her the warm devotion of manygreat people of that brilliant age. Her daughter was married in 1669 to theComte de Grignan, a great official, lieutenant-general of Languedoc andthen of Provence, a man of honour, but accustomed to the most lavishexpenditure, which burdened his life with enormous debts. The famous"Letters" of Madame de Sévigné numbering over 1,000 werewritten over a period of twenty-five years, chiefly to this daughter,Madame de Grignan. They are valued for their vivacious and graceful style,the light which they throw upon the thoughts and movements of her time, butespecially for their revelation of a wonderfully sweet and graciouspersonality. Madame de Sévigné died on April 18, 169696.

Love for her Daughter

My dear child: I have been here but three hours, and already take my pento talk to you. I left Paris with the Abbé, Hélène,Hébert and Marphise, so that I might get away from the noise andbustle of the town until Thursday evening. I want to have perfectquietness, in which to reflect. I intend to fast for many good reasons, andto walk much to make up for the long time I have spent in my room; andabove all, I want to discipline myself for the love of God.

But, my dear daughter, what I shall do more than all this, will be tothink of you. I have not ceased to do so since I arrived here; and beingquite unable to restrain my feelings, I have betaken myself to the littleshady walk you so loved, to write to you, and am sitting on the mossy bankwhere you so often used to lie. But, my dear, where in this place have Inot seen you? Do not thoughts of you haunt my heart everywhere I turn?--inthe house, in the church, in the field, in the garden--every spot speaks tome of you. You are in my thoughts all the time, and my heart cries out foryou again and again. I search in vain for the dear, dear child I love sopassionately; but she is 600 miles away, and I cannot call her to my side.My tears fall, and I cannot stop them. I know it is weak, but thistenderness for you is right and natural and I cannot be strong.

I wonder what your mood will be when you receive this letter; perhaps atthat moment you will not be touched with the emotions I now feel sopoignantly, and then you may not read it in the spirit in which it waswritten. But against that I cannot guard, and the act of writing relievesmy feelings at the moment--that is at least what I ask of it. You would notbelieve the condition into which this place has thrown me.

Do not refer to my weakness, I beg of you; but you must love me, andhave respect for my tears, since they flow from a heart which is full ofyou.

The Brinvilliers Affair

The Brinvilliers affair is still the only thing talked of in Paris. TheMarquise confessed to having poisoned her father, her brothers, and one ofher children. The Chevalier Duget had been one of those who had partaken ofa poisoned dish of pigeon-pie; and when the Brinvilliers was told threeyears later that he was still alive, her only remark was "that man surelyhas an excellent constitution." It seems she fell deeply in love withSainte Croix, an officer in the regiment of her husband, the Marquis, wholived in their house. Believing that Sainte Croix would marry her if shewere free, she attempted to poison her husband. Sainte Croix, notreciprocating her desire, administered an antidote, and thus saved the poorMarquis's life.

And now, all is over. The Brinvilliers is no more. Judgment was givenyesterday and this morning her sentence was read to her--she was to make apublic confession in front of Notre Dame, after which she was to beexecuted, her body burnt and her ashes scattered to the winds. She wasthreatened with torture, but said it was unnecessary and that she wouldtell all. Accordingly she recounted the history of her whole life, whichwas even more horrible than anyone had imagined, and I could not hear of itwithout shuddering.

At six in the morning she was led out, barefoot, and clad only in oneloose garment, with a halter round her neck. From Notre Dame she wascarried back in the same Tumbril, in which I saw her lying on straw, withthe Doctor on one side of her and the executioner on the other; the sightof her struck me with horror. I am told that she mounted the scaffold witha firm step, and died as she had lived, resolutely, and without fear oremotion.

She asked her confessor to place the executioner so that she need notgaze on Degrais, who, you will remember, tracked her to England, andultimately arrested her at Liège. After she had mounted the ladderto the scaffold she was exposed to the public for a quarter of an hour,while the executioner arranged her for execution. This raised a murmur ofdisapproval among the people, and it was a great cruelty. It seems thatsome say she was a saint; and after her body had been burned, the peoplecrowded near to search for bones as relics, but little was to be found, asher ashes were thrown into the fire. And, it may be supposed, that we nowinhale what remains of her. It is to be hoped that we shall not inhale hermurderous instincts also.

She had two confessors, of whom one counselled her to tell everything,the other nothing. She laughed, and said, "I may in conscience do whatpleases me best."

I was pleased to hear what you think of this horrible woman; it is notpossible that she should be in Paradise; her vile soul must be separatedfrom others.

Devotion

You ask me if I am devout. Alas! No, which is a sorrow to me; but I amin a way detached from what is called the world. Old age, and a littlesickness give one time to reflect. But, my dear child, what I do not giveto the world, I give to you; so that I hardly advance in the region ofdetachment; and you know the true way towards a devout life lies in somedegree of effacement, first of all, of that which our heart holdsdearest.

One of my great desires is to become devout. Every day I am tormented bythis idea. I do not belong to God, neither do I belong to the Devil; thisindecision is a perpetual torment to me, although between ourselves, Ibelieve this state to be a most natural one. One does not belong to theDevil, because one fears God: also, one does not belong to God, because Hislaw is hard, and one does not like to renounce oneself. These are theluke-warm, and their great number does not surprise me at all; I can enterinto their reasonings; but God hates them; therefore we must cease to servein this state--and there is the difficulty.

I am overwhelmed by the death of M. du Mans; I had never thought ofdeath in connection with him. Yet he has died of a trifling fever, withouthaving had time to think either of heaven or of earth. Providence sometimesshows its authority by sudden visitations, from which we should profit.

What you say as to the anxieties which we so often and so naturally feelabout the future, and as to how our inclinations are insensibly changed bynecessity, is a subject worthy of a book like Pascal's; nothing is sosatisfying, nothing so useful as meditations of this kind. But how manypeople of your age think this? I know of none; and I honour your soundreasoning and courage. With me it is not so, especially when my heartafflicts me; my words are indifferently good; I write as those who speakwell; but the depth of my feeling kills me. This I feel when I write to youof the pain of separation. I have not myself found the proverb true, "Tocloak oneself according to the cold." I have no cloak against cold likethis. Yet I manage to find occupation, and the time passes somehow. But ingeneral it is true that our thoughts and inclinations turn into otherchannels, and our sorrows cease to be such.

Love of Life

You ask me, dear child, if I am still in love with life. I must confessthat I find its sorrows grievous, but my distaste for death is evenstronger. It is sad to think I must finish my life with death, and if itwere possible I would retrace my steps. I find myself embarked on lifewithout my consent, and am in a perplexing situation. I shall have to takeleave of life, and the fact overwhelms me: for how, or by what gate, shallI pass away? When will death come, and in what disposition will it find me?Shall I suffer a thousand pains which will make me die in despair? Shall Idie in a transport of joy? Shall I die of an accident? How shall I standbefore God? What shall I have to offer Him? Shall I return to Him in fearand necessity, and be conscious of no other feeling but terror? What can Ihope for? Am I worthy of Paradise? Or worthy only of Hell? What analternative! What perplexity! Nothing is so mad as to leave one's safetythus in uncertainty; but nothing is more natural; and the foolish life Ilead is perfectly easy to understand. I plunge myself into these thoughts;and I find death so terrible, that I hate life more because it leads todeath, than because it leads me through troublesome places. You will say Iwish to live for ever. Not at all; but if I had been asked, I wouldwillingly have died in my nurse's arms, for I should thus have avoided manysorrows and would have secured heaven with certainty and ease.

The Order of God

Providence wills order; but if order is nothing other than the will ofGod, almost all that occurs is done against His will: all the persecutions,for instance, against St. Athanasius; all the prosperity of ill-doers andtyrants--all this is against order and therefore against the will of God.We must surely hold to what St. Augustine says, that God permits all thesethings so that he may manifest His glory by means that are unknown to us.St. Augustine knows no rule nor order but the will of God. If we did notfollow this doctrine, we should be forced to conclude that almosteverything is contrary to the will of Him who made it, and this seems to mea dreadful conclusion.

I should like to complain to Father Malebranche about the mice which eateverything here; is that in order? Sugar, fruit, preserves, everything isdevoured by them. And was it order last year, that miserable caterpillarsdestroyed the leaves of our forest-trees and gardens, and all the fruit inthe country-side? Father Payen, most peaceable of men, has his head broken;is that order? Yes, Father, all that is doubtless good. God knows how todispose of it to His glory, though we know not how. We must take it astrue, for if we do not regard the will of God as equivalent to all law andorder, we fall into great difficulties.

You are such a philosopher, my very dear child, that there is no way ofbeing happy with you. Your mind runs on beyond our hopes to picture toitself the loss of all we hope for; and you see, in our meetings, theinevitable separation that is to follow. Surely that is not the way to dealwith the good things Providence prepares for us; we should rather husbandand enjoy them. But after having made this little reproach, I must confessin all honesty that I deserve it just as much as you. No one can be moredaunted than I am by the flight of time, nor feel more keenly beforehandthe griefs which ordinarily follow pleasures. Indeed, my daughter, lifemingles its good and ill: when one has what one desires, one is all thenearer to losing it; when it is further from us, we dream of finding it. Sowe must just take things as God sends them. For my part, I would cherishthe hope of seeing you without mixing in with other feelings; and lookforward to holding you in my arms next month. I wish to believe God willallow us this perfect joy, although it would be the easiest thing in theworld to mix it with bitterness, if we so desired. All that remains, myvery dear one, is to breathe and to live.

The Prince of Orange and England

The Prince of Orange has declared himself protector of the religion ofEngland, and has asked to have charge of the education of the young Prince.It is a bold step, and several of the English nobility have joined him. Weare all hoping that the Prince of Orange has made a mistake, and that KingJames II. will give him a good beating. He has received the Milords,confirmed the attachment of those most devoted to him, and has declaredentire liberty of conscience. But we understand that the King of Englandhas united all his people round him, by affording a greater degree ofreligious liberty.

What shall we say of this English nation? Its customs and manners gofrom bad to worse. The King of England has escaped from London, apparentlyby kind permission of the Prince of Orange; the Queen will arrive at St.Germain in a day or two. It is quite certain that war will be declaredagainst us soon, if indeed we are not the first to declare it. We aresending the Abbé Testu to St. Germain to help in establishing therethe King and Queen of England and the Prince of Wales. Our King of Francehas behaved quite divinely to these Majesties of England; for to comfortand sustain, as he has done, a betrayed and abandoned king, is to act inthe image of the Almighty.

It is good news that the King of England has left this morning forIreland, where they are anxiously awaiting him. He will be better therethan here. He is travelling through Brittany like lightning, and at Bresthe will find Marshall d'Estrée with transport and frigates ready. Hecarries large treasure, and the King has given him arms for ten thousandmen; as his Majesty of England was saying good-bye, he said, laughing, thathe had forgotten arms for himself, and our King gave him his own. Ourheroes of romance have done nothing more gallant. What will not this braveand unfortunate King accomplish with these ever victorious weapons? He goesforth with the helmet and cuirass of Renaud, Amadis, and our mostillustrious paladins, supported by unexampled generosity andmagnanimity.

Old Age

So you have been struck by Madame de la Fayette's words, inspired by somuch friendliness. I never let myself forget the fact that I am growingold; but I must confess that I was simply astonished at what she said,because I do not yet feel any infirmity to keep me in mind of my advancingyears. I think of them, however, and find that life offers us hardconditions: here have I been led, in spite of myself, to the fatal periodat which one must die--old age. I see it; old age has stolen upon me; andmy only desire is to go no further. I do not want to travel along that roadof infirmities, pains, the loss of memory, the disfigurements to which Ilook forward as an outrage; yet I hear a voice saying in my ear--"You mustpass down that road, whether you like it or not, or else you must die"; andthis second alternative is as repugnant to nature as the first. This is theinevitable lot of whoever advances too far along the course of life. Yet, areturn to God's will, and submission to that universal law which hascondemned us all to death, is enough to seat reason again on her throne,and to give us patience. Do you too have patience, my darling; don't letyour love, too tender, cause you tears which your reason must condemn.

Your brother has come under the Empire of Ninon de Lenclos; I fear itwill bring evil; she ruined his father. We must recommend him to God.Christian women, or at least who wish to be so, cannot see disorder likehis without sorrow.

But what a dangerous person this Ninon is! She finds that your brotherhas the simplicity of a dove, and is like his mother; it is Madame deGrignan who has all the salt of the family, and is not so simple as to beruled. Someone, meaning to take your part, tried to correct her notion ofyou, but Ninon contradicted him and said she knew you better. What acorrupt creature! Because you are beautiful and spirited she must needs addto you another quality without which, on her principles, you cannot beperfect. I have been deeply troubled by the harm she is doing to my son.But do not speak of the matter to him; Madame de la Fayette and I are doingour best to extricate him from his perilous attachment.

We have been reading for our amusem*nt those little Provincial Letters.Heavens, what charm they have! How eagerly my son reads them! I alwaysthink of my daughter, and how worthy of her is the incomparable justice oftheir reasoning; but your brother says that you complain that the writer isalways saying the same thing. Well, well; all the better! Is it possiblethat there should be a more perfect style, or a finer, more delicate ormore natural raillery? Could anything be more worthy of comparison withPlato's "Dialogues"? But after the first ten letters, what earnestness,solidity, force and eloquence! What love for God and for truth, whatexquisite skill in maintaining it and making it understood, characterisethese eight last letters with their so different tone! I understand thatyou have read them only hurriedly, enjoying the more amusing passages; butthat is not how one reads them at leisure.

The Life of Nelson

Robert Southey, man of letters and poet-laureate, was bornat Bristol on August 12, 1774, and received at various schools a desultoryeducation, which he completed by an idle year at Oxford. Here he becameacquainted with Coleridge; and Southey, who had practised verse from earlyboyhood, and acquired a strong taste for the drama, being also an ardentrepublican and romanticist, was easily enlisted by the elder poet in hisscheme for a model republic, or "Pantisocracy," in the wilds of America.They married two sisters, the Misses Fricker, and a third sister marriedRobert Lovel, also a poet. The experiment of pantisocracy was fortunatelynever carried out, and Southey's career for the next eight years wasexceedingly fragmentary; but in 1803 there was a reunion of the threesisters at Keswick, though one of the husbands, Lovel, was dead. HereSouthey entered steadily and industriously on the life of an author forlivelihood; it was by no means unremunerative. Southey's output of work,both prose and verse, was very voluminous, and its quality could not butsuffer. He was appointed poet-laureate in 1813; and received a governmentpension of £160 a year from 1807, which was increased by £300 ayear in 1835. He died on March 21, 1843. In a prefatory note to thatpeerless model of short biographies, the "Life of Nelson," which appearedin 1813, and is considered his most important work, Southey describes it as"clear and concise enough to become a manual for the young sailor, which hemay carry about with him till he has treasured up the example in his memoryand in his heart."

I.--A Captain at Twenty

Horatio, son of Edmund and Catherine Nelson, was born on September 29,1758, in the parsonage of Burnham Thorpe, a Norfolk village, where hisfather was rector. His mother's maiden name was Suckling; her grandmotherwas an elder sister of Sir Robert Walpole, and this child was named afterhis godfather, the first Lord Walpole. Mrs. Nelson died in 1767, leavingeight children, and her brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, R.N., visitedthe widower, and promised to take care of one of the boys.

Three years later, when Horatio was twelve years old, he read in thenewspaper that his uncle was appointed to the Raisonnable, and urged hisfather to let him go to sea with his Uncle Maurice.

The boy was never strong, but he had already given proofs of a resoluteheart and a noble mind. Captain Suckling took an interest in him, and senthim on a first voyage in a merchant ship to the West Indies, and then, ascoxswain, with the Arctic expedition of 1773, when Horatio showed hiscourage by attacking a Polar bear.

A voyage to the East Indies followed, and gave him the rank ofmidshipman. But the tropical climate reduced him almost to a skeleton; helost for a time the use of his limbs, and was sent home as his only chanceof life. He returned under great depression of spirits. In later years herelated how the despair was cleared away by a glow of patriotism, in whichhis king and country came vividly before his mind. "Well, then," heexclaimed, "I will be a hero, and, confiding in Providence, I will braveevery danger!"

On April 8, 1777, he passed his examination for a lieutenancy, and wasappointed to the Lowestoft frigate, Captain Locker, then fitting out forJamaica. Privateers under American colours were harassing British trade inthe West Indies, and Nelson saw much active service. He was removed to theBristol flagship, then to the command of the Badger, then to theHinchinbrook, and before the age of twenty-one he had gained a rank whichbrought all the honours of the service within his reach.

An expedition was at this time projected to seize the region of LakeNicaragua, and thus to cut the communication of the Spaniards between theirnorthern and southern possessions; and in pursuit of this policy Nelson wassent with a small force, early in 1780, to Honduras. Here, after deeds ofgreat gallantry, his command was almost annihilated by the deadly climate,and he himself was so reduced by dysentery that he was compelled to returnto England.

His next ship was the Albemarle, twenty-eight guns, in which he waskept, to his great annoyance, in the North Sea for the whole winter of1781-2, and was sent in the spring to Quebec. The Albemarle then served onthe West Indian station until tidings came that the preliminaries of peacehad been signed, and she returned to England, and was paid off in 1783.

"I have closed the war," said Nelson, in one of his letters, "without afortune; but there is not a speck on my character. True honour, I hope,predominated in my mind far above riches." He did not apply for a ship,because he was not wealthy enough to live on board in the manner which wasthen customary.

But, after living for a time in lodgings in St. Omer's in France, he wasappointed to the Boreas, going to the Leeward Islands, and on his arrivalin the West Indies in 1784, found himself senior captain, and thereforesecond in command on that station.

The Americans were at this time trading with our islands, takingadvantage of the register of their ships, which had been issued while theywere British subjects. Nelson knew that, by the Navigation Act, noforeigners, directly or indirectly, were permitted to carry on any tradewith these possessions; and also that the Americans had made themselvesforeigners with regard to England.

Contrary to the orders both of the admiral and of the governor, heinsisted that our ships of war were not sent abroad to make a show of, andseized four American vessels at Nevis; and when the matter was brought intocourt at that place he pleaded his own cause, and the ships werecondemned.

While the lawsuit was proceeding, Nelson formed an attachment to a youngwidow, Mrs. Nisbet, niece of the President of Nevis, and was married to heron March 11, 1787. She was then in her eighteenth year, and had one child,a son, Josiah, who was three years old. They returned together to Englandand took up their abode at the old parsonage, where Nelson amused himselfwith farming and country sports, and continued a relentless campaignagainst the speculators and fraudulent contractors attached to the navalservice in the West Indies. After many vain attempts to secure a ship, hewas at last appointed, on January 30, 1793, to the Agamemnon, sixty-fourguns.

II.--In the Mediterranean

The Agamemnon was ordered to the Mediterranean under Lord Hood, andNelson was sent with despatches to Sir William Hamilton, our envoy to thecourt of Naples. Sir William, after his first interview with him, told LadyHamilton that he was about to introduce a little man to her who could notboast of being very handsome, but who would one day astonish the world.Thus that acquaintance began which ended in the destruction of Nelson'sdomestic happiness, though it threatened no such consequences then. Herealso began that acquaintance with the Neapolitan court which led to theonly blot on Nelson's public character.

Having accomplished this mission, Nelson was sent to join CommodoreLinzee at Tunis, and shortly afterwards to co-operate with General Paoliand the Anti-Gallican party in Corsica. At this time, 1794, Nelson was ableto say, "My seamen are now what British seamen ought to be, almostinvincible. They really mind shot no more than peas." And again, aftercapturing Bastia, "I am all astonishment when I reflect on what we haveachieved! I was always of opinion, have ever acted up to it, and never hadany reason to repent it, that one Englishman was equal to three Frenchmen."The Agamemnon was then dispatched to co-operate in the siege of Calvi withGeneral Sir Charles Stuart, at which Nelson lost the sight of one eye; andlater played a glorious part in the attack by Admiral Hotham's squadron onthe French fleet. This action saved Corsica for the time.

Nelson was made colonel of marines in 1795, a mark of approbation whichhe had long wished for; and the Agamemnon was ordered to Genoa, toco-operate with the Austrian and Sardinian forces. The incapacity andmisconduct of the Austrian General de Vins, however, gave the enemypossession of the Genoese coast. The Agamemnon, therefore, could no longerbe useful on this station, and Nelson sailed for Leghorn to refit, and thenjoined the Mediterranean fleet under Sir John Jervis.

England at that time depended too much on the rotten governments of theContinent, and too little upon itself. Corsica was therefore abandoned byBritain, and Nelson, after superintending the evacuation of Corsica, wasordered to hoist his broad pennant on board the Minerva frigate. He thensailed for Gibraltar, and proceeded westward in search of the admiral.

III.--St. Vincent and the Nile

Off the mouth of the Straits of Gilbraltar he fell in with the Spanishfleet; and on February 13, 1797, reaching the station off Cape St. Vincent,he communicated this intelligence to Sir John Jervis, and was directed toshift his broad pennant on board the Captain. On the following morning wasfought the battle of Cape St. Vincent. The British had only fifteen shipsof the line against twenty-seven Spanish ships, but Britain, largelythrough Nelson's intrepidity, secured an overwhelming victory. Thecommander-in-chief was rewarded with the title of Earl St. Vincent, andNelson was advanced to the rank of rear-admiral and received the Order ofthe Bath.

Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson was now removed to the Theseus, and wasemployed in the blockade of Cadiz, where he went through the most perilousaction in which he was ever engaged. Making a night attack upon the Spanishgunboats, his barge, carrying twelve men, was attacked by an armed launchcarrying twenty-six men; the admiral was only saved by the heroic devotionof his coxswain; but eighteen of the enemy were killed, the rest wounded,and their launch taken.

Twelve days later Nelson sailed at the head of an expedition againstTeneriffe, and on the night of July 24, 1797, made a boat attack on theport of Santa Cruz. On this occasion he was wounded in the right elbow, andthe arm had to be amputated. The small force, which had made its way intothe town, capitulated on honourable terms, and the Spanish governordistinguished himself by the most humane and generous conduct to hisenemies. There is no doubt that Nelson's life was saved by the carefulattentions of his stepson, Nisbet, who was with him in the boat.

Nisbet was immediately promoted, and honours awaited Nelson in England.The freedom of the cities of Bristol and London were conferred on him, andhe received a pension of £1,000 a year. He had performed anextraordinary series of services during the war; including four actionswith the fleets of the enemy, three actions with boats employed in cuttingout of harbour, and in taking three towns; he had commanded the batteriesat the sieges of Bastia and Calvi, he had assisted at the capture oftwenty-eight ships of war, and had taken and destroyed nearly fiftymerchant vessels; and had been engaged against the enemy upwards of ahundred and twenty times, in which service he had lost his right eye andright arm.

Early in 1789, Sir Horatio Nelson hoisted his flag in the Vanguard, andleft England to rejoin Earl St. Vincent. He was dispatched to theMediterranean, to ascertain the object of Bonaparte's great expedition,then fitting out at Toulon; and sailed from Gibraltar on May 9 with threeships of the line, four frigates, and a sloop. The Vanguard was dismantledin a storm, but was refitted in the Sardinian harbour of St. Pietro, andwas joined by a reinforcement of eleven ships from Earl St. Vincent.

The first news of the enemy's armament was that it had surprised Malta,but Nelson soon heard that they had left that island on June 16, and judgedthat Egypt was their destination. He arrived off Alexandria on the 28th,but did not find them; returned by a circuitous course to Sicily, thensailed to the Morea, where he gained news of the French, and on August Icame in sight of Alexandria and the French fleet. "Before this timeto-morrow," he said to his officers, "I shall have gained a peerage orWestminster Abbey."

Bonaparte's ships of war, under Admiral Brueys, were moored in AboukirBay in a strong line of battle; and the advantage of numbers, both inships, guns, and men, was in favour of the French. Yet only four Frenchships out of seventeen escaped, and the victory was the most complete andglorious in the annals of naval history.

Nelson was now at the summit of his glory; and congratulations, rewards,and honours were showered upon him by all the states, princes, and powersto whom his victory had given respite. He was created Baron Nelson of theNile and of Burnham Thorpe, with a pension of £2,000 a year for hisown life, and those of his successors; a grant of £10,000 was votedto him by the East India Company; and the King of Naples made him Duke ofBronte.

IV.--Lady Hamilton

As soon as his shattered frame had sufficiently recovered, Nelson wascalled to services of greater importance than any one in which he had beenhitherto employed.

The kindest attentions and warmest affection were awaiting him atNaples; the king, the queen, and Lady Hamilton, who was the queen'sconstant favourite, welcomed their hero and deliverer with the mostsplendid festivities. General Mack, with whom Nelson was to co-operate, wasat the head of the Neapolitan troops; and while he marched with 32,000 meninto the Roman state, 5,000 Neapolitans were embarked on the British andPortuguese squadron to take possession of Leghorn.

Nelson's fears of the result were soon verified. "The Neapolitanofficers," he said, "did not lose much honour, for God knows they had notmuch to lose--but they lost all they had." The French in the Roman Staterouted the cowardly Neapolitans. There was a strong revolutionary party inNaples itself; and it was agreed that the royal family must seek safety inflight. Their secret escape, with much treasure, on board the Vanguard, wasconducted with the greatest address by Lady Hamilton, and Nelson conveyedthem through a wild storm to Palermo.

He had by this time formed an infatuated attachment for Lady Hamilton,which totally weaned his affections from his wife. He was dissatisfied withhimself and weary of the world. But, in accordance with his principle ofduty "to assist in driving the French to the devil and in restoring peaceand happiness to mankind," he at length expelled the French from Naples andrestored Ferdinand to his throne. Weak in health, dispirited, and smartingunder a censure from the Admiralty for a disobedience to orders, Nelsonresigned his command, and reached England in November 1800, havingtravelled with Sir William and Lady Hamilton.

The great admiral was welcomed to England with every mark of popularhonour; but he had forfeited domestic happiness for ever. Before he hadbeen three months at home, he separated from Lady Nelson, vowing that therewas nothing in her or in her conduct that he could have wishedotherwise.

In January 1801 he was sent to the Baltic as second in command under SirHyde Parker. Russia, Denmark, and Sweden had founded a confederacy formaking England resign her naval rights, and the British Cabinet decidedinstantly to crush it. The fleet sailed on March 12; Nelson represented toSir Hyde Parker the necessity of attacking Copenhagen; and on April 2 theBritish vessels opened fire on the Danish fleet and land batteries. TheDanes, in return, fought their guns manfully, and at one o'clock, afterthree hours' endurance, Sir Hyde Parker gave the signal for discontinuingaction. Nelson ordered that signal to be acknowledged, but continued to flythe signal for close action. "You know, Foley," he said, turning to thecaptain of the ship, "I have only one eye; I have a right to be blindsometimes!" Then, putting the glass to his blind eye, in the mood thatsports with bitterness, he exclaimed, "I really do not see the signal. Keepmine for closer battle flying! That's the way I answer such signals. Nailmine to that mast!" Admiral Graves disobeyed in like manner, and the otherships of the line also continued the action. The victory was soon complete,and Sir Hyde Parker heartily expressed his satisfaction and gratitude.

For the battle of Copenhagen, Nelson was raised to the rank of viscount.Had he lived long enough, he would have fought his way up to a dukedom.

After holding a command in the English Channel, to watch thepreparations which were being made at Boulogne for an invasion of England,Nelson retired on the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens to his estate atMerton, in Surrey, meaning to pass his days there in the society of SirWilliam and Lady Hamilton. Sir William died early in 1803, and, as thegovernment would do nothing for her, Nelson settled on Lady Hamilton a sumequal to the pension of £1,200 a year which her husband had enjoyed.A few weeks after this event the war was renewed, and the day after hismajesty's message to parliament, Nelson departed to take command of theMediterranean fleet.

He took his station immediately off Toulon, and there, with incessantvigilance, waited for the coming out of the enemy. From May 1803 to August1805 he left the Victory only three times, each time upon the king'sservice, and on no occasion for more than an hour.

War having been declared between England and Spain, the Toulon fleet,having the Spaniards to co-operate with them, put to sea on January 18,1804. Nelson, who was off Sardinia when he heard the news the next day,sought them in vain through the Mediterranean, until he heard that they hadbeen dispersed by a gale, and had returned to Toulon. On March 31 theyemerged again, and passed out of the Straits of Gibraltar, but the Britishfleet was kept by adverse winds from reaching the Atlantic till April5.

The enemy had thirty-five days start on their run to the West Indies,and Nelson, misled by false information, sought them among the islands,until he learned at Antigua on June 9 that they had sailed again forEurope. He made all speed across the Atlantic, and again sought the enemyvainly, until he joined Admiral Cornwallis off Ushant on August 15. Thesame evening he was ordered to proceed with the Victory and Superb toPortsmouth.

V.--Trafalgar

Here, at last, he heard news of the combined fleets; Sir Robert Calderhad fallen in with them near Finisterre and had fought an indecisiveengagement.

On September 14, 1805, he passed through the crowds at Portsmouth, manyof whom were in tears, many kneeling and blessing him as he passed. Hearrived off Cadiz on September 29 with twenty-three ships, and on October 9he sent Collingwood his plan of attack--what he called "the Nelson-touch."These tactics consisted in cutting through the line of the enemy in threeplaces.

On the morning of the 19th the enemy came out of the port of Cadiz, andall that day and night, and the next day, the British pursued them. Atdaybreak of the 21st, the combined fleets were distinctly seen from theVictory, about twelve miles to leeward. Signal was made to bear down on theenemy in two lines, and all sail was set, the Victory leading.

Nelson now retired to his cabin and wrote in his diary a prayercommitting himself and the British cause to Heaven, and then wrote amemorial setting forth Lady Hamilton's services to Britain, and leaving herand her daughter Horatia as a legacy to his country.

Villeneuve, commanding the enemy, was a skilful seaman, and his plan ofdefence was as original as the plan of attack. He formed the fleet in adouble line, every alternate ship being a cable's length to windward of hersecond ahead and astern. Nelson, certain of triumph, issued his lastsignal: "England expects every man to do his duty," which was receivedthroughout the fleet with acclamations.

The English lines, led by Nelson and by Collingwood, swept down upon thehostile fleet, the Victory steering for the bow of the Santissima Trinidad.At four minutes after twelve she opened fire, and almost immediately ranagainst the Redoubtable. Four ships, two British and two French, formed ascompact a tier as if they had been moored together, their heads all lyingthe same way.

At a quarter past one, a ball fired from the mizzen-top of theRedoubtable struck Nelson on the left shoulder, and he fell on his face."They have done for me at last, Hardy," he said; "my backbone is shotthrough." He was carried below, laid on a pallet in the midshipmen's berth,and insisted that the surgeon should leave him--"for you can do nothing forme." He was in great pain, and expressed much anxiety for the event of theaction, until Captain Hardy was able to tell him that fifteen of the enemyhad been taken. Repeating that he left Lady Hamilton and Horatia as alegacy to his country, and exclaiming, "Thank God, I have done my duty!"Nelson expired.

He cannot be said to have fallen prematurely whose work was done.

Memoirs

Marguerite Jeanne de Launay, Baronne de Staal, was born inParis on May 30, 1684. Her father was a painter of the name of Cordier whowas in England when his daughter was born; and the name by which she wasknown, de Launay, was that of her mother's family. Her story is told byherself, with admirable sincerity, in these Memoirs, which follow her lifeuntil the year 1735, when, at the age of fifty-one, she married Baron deStaal, a widower and an officer in the Guard. Her death took place in Parison June 16, 1750. Her Memoirs, first published in 1755, are among the mostinteresting records of that period, and though their historical accuracyhas been doubted, her portraits of persons are vivid and convincing. Herstyle has been highly commended by Sainte-Beuve and other French literarycritics.

A Convent Child

If I write the record of my life, it is not because it deservesattention, but in order to amuse myself by my recollections. My story isjust the opposite of the ordinary romance, wherein a girl brought up as apeasant becomes an illustrious princess; for I was treated in childhood asa person of distinction, and had to find out later that I was a nobody andowned nothing in the world. And so, not having been trained from the firstto ill fortune, my spirit has always rebelled against the servitude inwhich I have had to live.

My father, for some reason that I never knew, had to leave France andlive in England; and my mother, alone in Paris and without resources, tookme with her as an infant to find a refuge in the abbey of Saint-Sauveurd'Evreux in Normandy, where Madame de La Rochefoucauld, the abbess,received us free of charge.

There was at that time a lengthy disagreement between King Louis XIV.and the Pope with regard to the nomination of abbesses, in consequence ofwhich two ladies Mesdames de Grieu, having been disappointed of an expectedestablishment, retired to Saint-Sauveur, where they formed a greatfriendship with my mother, and became devoted to her two-year-old child. Iwas naturally very popular in the convent, and having a bright dispositionI was educated with the utmost care.

Chiefly with a view to giving me greater advantage, the elder Madame deGrieu sought and at length obtained the Priory of Saint-Louis at Rouen, andtook me thither with the consent of my mother. Saint-Louis was like alittle kingdom, where I reigned as a sovereign; the abbess and her sisterhad no thought but to satisfy my every fancy, and the whole convent wasforced to pay court to me. All that was done for me cost me so little thatit seemed a matter of course that I should be flattered and served, and atan early age I had contracted all the defects which I have since had toallow for in the great.

This extreme indulgence would have turned my defects into vices, ifdevotion had not ruled my passions from the first. Religion was the onegreat object before my eyes; I had been well instructed in it; I readcontinually the devotional books in the convent library, and passed much ofmy time in prayer and meditation. Yet my early desire to become a nunpassed gradually away, until I thought of it no more.

Mademoiselle de Silly, an amiable and cultivated young lady whoseactions were ruled by principles rather than by feelings, came to live atSaint-Louis, and I was soon attached to her with all the ardour of a girl'saffection; her tastes became mine, and I used to read all day beside her.She was then studying the philosophy of Descartes, and I became absorbed inquestions of that kind to the neglect of everything else, until, fearinglest they might disturb my faith, I resolutely banished them from mymind.

I was about fourteen years old when the convent of Saint-Louis fell intogreat poverty owing to a famine which was desolating France, and thedisaffection of the nuns was centred on me as a chief cause of unnecessaryexpense. Their complaints came to the archbishop of Rouen, and abbess haddifficulty in keeping me with her. My helpless condition began to forceitself on my attention; and I realised that if the abbess were to die I wasalone and without support in the world.

An unexpected event now drew me closer to Mademoiselle de Silly. Hermother, having come to Rouen, took her home to Silly, and invited me toaccompany her. I accepted joyfully, and spent several months in thesolitary and melancholy old castle. The Marquis was extremely economical,the Marquise very devout, and we saw few people. One visitor from theneighborhood, however, attracted me strongly; and as he came often andstayed long, my friend and I agreed that one of us had pleased him. When hehad declared his affection, and it was not for me, I learned what jealousyis--a kind of horror like that of falling down through a fathomlessabyss.

During the next visit to Silly in the following year the son of thehouse arrived, and at first kept very much to himself and to his books. Buthaving heard his sister and myself complaining of these unsociable ways, hefrankly confessed his fault and amended it, and from that day we spentevery hour together. His mind and his manner was infinitely agreeable; andin my successive visits to Silly we formed a delightful friendship whichwas never interrupted by more ardent feelings.

Thrown on the World

At length my dear abbess fell so dangerously ill that I saw I was aboutto lose her; and I became desolately aware that I owed her all, and thather death would not only leave me absolutely helpless, but would alsodeprive me of my best friend. I never knew anyone else so abundant ingoodness, with so much sweetness, attention for others and forgetfulness ofself, nor with such exact regard for every duty. Her death came soon, andit was evident that neither her sister nor I could remain at the convent.Several generous helpers came forward with offers of support, but in myuncertain position I judged it better to refuse them all. I was resolved tosuffer any misery and servitude rather than sacrifice my independence, andonly accepted a small loan sufficient to take me to Paris.

I was soon in the great city, looking out for a situation as children'sgoverness; fortunately, I had a taste for that occupation, and imaginedthat taste for it meant talent. I had a sister, in the household of theduch*ess de La Ferté, and found her very amiable and helpful. Withher assistance I went to board at a cheap rate in the convent of thePresentation, and she succeeded in inspiring her mistress with so elevatedan idea of my attainments that the duch*ess soon afterwards sent for me.After showing me off as a prodigy of learning to all her friends, theduch*ess de La Ferté, a voluble and enthusiastic woman, conceived aviolent affection for me, and projected innumerable schemes for myadvancement, which ended in my being received into her own household as hersecretary.

I should have been delighted with this position if I had not rememberedhow my sister, who had gone there as her favourite, had fallen to thesituation of chambermaid, and if I had not realised that my mistress'saffection would probably be as short-lived as it was intemperate. It provedto be so indeed; it was succeeded by a hatred as violent as her attachmenthad been; and after subjecting me to every indignity she finally disposedof me by placing me in the household of the duch*ess of Maine, atSceaux.

Here I inhabited a tiny room, without windows or fireplace, and so lowthat it was impossible to stand upright. I was given sewing to do, but myfirst piece of work proved my incapacity, and my extremely short-sight mademe equally helpless in waiting on the duch*ess. I was astonished at thepatience with which she bore my awkwardness, but my fellow-servants, withwhom I was most unpopular, were less merciful. The hard and thanklessexistence, so different from anything which I had been accustomed, threw meinto a profound depression, until I began to cherish the idea of takingleave of life.

But gradually my situation altered for the better. Her Serene Highnessthe duch*ess began to take notice of me, and became accustomed to speak tome and to take interest and pleasure in my replies. She had now succeededin raising her family to rank equal to her own, and by a famous edict herchildren and their descendants had been brought within the succession tothe crown. Her delight in amusem*nts and in pageants was now at itshighest, and it happened that the Abbé de Vaubrun, designing aspectacular piece in honor of Night, confided to me the task of writing anddelivering an epilogue in that character. My stage-fright spoiled myelocution, but from that day I was entrusted with the organisation of thesemagnificent entertainments, and the last of them was entirely designed andwritten by myself. By this means I came to take a quite different place inthe household.

Political Intrigues

King Louis XIV. had been failing for some time, though every onepretended not to notice it; and the duch*ess of Maine, ever anxious for thegreatness of her family, was very eager to know his testamentaryintentions. Enough was ascertained, by the help of Madame de Maintenon, toshow that the King's dispositions were in favour of the Duke of Orleans,and the mistake was made of confiding to the Duke his future advantage. Asthe illness progressed, a council of regency was formed with the Duke ofOrleans at its head, and when the King died the Duke was appointed Regentby Parliament, and the Duke of Maine was entrusted with the education ofthe young King.

The duch*ess of Maine, who had come up to Paris for this anxious time,suffered a good deal from insomnia, and now called me in to read to herevery night. But there was more conversation than reading, and she pouredout to me in entire confidence all her secrets, projects, complaints andregrets. This touching confidence made me very deeply attached to her; andwhen she and her husband removed to the Tuilleries to superintend theKing's education, they took me with them.

In defence of the interests of her family in the succession to theCrown, which were threatened by the Duke of Orleans, Cardinal Polignac andothers undertook the preparation of a very learned memoir, based on a greatmass of historical and legal precedents; the duch*ess threw herself into themost laborious researches to assist them, and I was set to study ancientvolumes and to correspond with all kinds of authorities. The great work wasfinished at last; it was a fine, well-written production; but it did notrepay the trouble it had cost. The question was decided against the familyof Maine, the edict conferring on them the succession to the Crown wasrevoked, and the rank of princes of the blood was taken from them.

It is impossible to describe the sorrow of my mistress at this suddenoverthrow of the fortunes of her family. She was wholly unable to acquiescein it, and her illtreatment in France suggested to her the idea of seekinghelp from the King of Spain. The Baron de Walef, who was going to thatcourt, undertook to represent her case there, and the duch*ess of Maine heldsecret interviews with the Spanish ambassador in Paris. Several otherpersons became implicated in these intrigues; the duch*ess became moredeeply compromised than she had at first intended; and her interests becameinterwoven with other chimerical projects, including the restoration of thePretender in England. These movements became known to the Duke of Orleans,and my mistress's intrigues were soon brought to an end.

On December 9, 1718, we were informed that the house of the SpanishAmbassador was surrounded by troops, and a day or two later we learned thatour arrest, on the charge of inciting to revolution, might be expected atany moment. On the 29th, we were awakened early in the morning to find thehouse full of soldiers; the duch*ess was carried off to imprisonment atDijon, and the Duke of Maine was immured in the citadel of Dourlans inPicardy.

In the Bastille

I was taken in a carriage with three musketeers, to a little bridgebefore a wall, and delivered to the governor of the Bastille, who sent meto a large empty room, the walls of which were covered with charcoaldrawings executed by former prisoners. A little chair was brought me, abundle of wood was lighted on the hearth, one small candle was fixed to thewall, and I heard half a dozen locks and bolts closing the door that shutme off from mankind. The first hour, which I spent gazing at my cracklingfire, was the most desolate of all my imprisonment.

Then the governor appeared, with my attendant Mademoiselle Rondel; I wasrejoiced to find that she was to relieve my solitude, and to hear from herthat she had managed to hide all my papers after my capture. Our room waspresently furnished with beds, table and chairs; on the following day wewere given books and a pack of cards; our meals were tolerable, and exceptfor our captivity we were comfortable enough.

The two judges charged with the interrogation of the prisoners in ouraffair, of whom there seemed to be a considerable number, came daily, andheld their interviews in a room immediately below ours; so that Rondelcould see through the window one of our acquaintances after another beingbrought across the court to be examined. My time did not come for manydays, and I spent long hours racking my brain for the answers which I oughtto give. The fear of the questions by torture began to force itself on mymind; and though I thought I could face pain or even death I was doubtfulwhether I should be able to keep silence under that dreadful ordeal.

After these weeks of suspense I was called before the judges, and wasasked whether the duch*ess of Maine had not great confidence in me andwhether I had not been aware of her treasonable correspondence andintrigues. The line I took was to represent my services to my mistress ashaving been of a very humble nature; I insisted that I knew nothing of herprivate affairs, and had seen and heard nothing that could at allcompromise her loyalty to the Government. This appeared to satisfy them forthe present, and after enquiring whether I was well treated in prison theydismissed me.

I did not suffer from ennui in the Bastille; I devised for myself manylittle occupations; and soon a surreptitious correspondence with theChevalier de Menil, who had been imprisoned for participation in ouraffair, gave interest to the days. We were even permitted occasionalinterviews by favour of one of the subordinate officials, and before weregained our liberty I had promised to be his wife.

The Regent at last became anxious to bring to an end the whole episodeof the duch*ess of Maine's intrigue; but he wished first to secure a fulladmission of guilt from the principal actors in it. The duch*ess waspromised her complete liberty if she would send him a frank confession inwriting, which should be seen by no one but himself. Finding herself in aposition to secure the freedom of all those whom she had imperilled, shesent the Duke of Orleans the required paper, in which she disclosedeverything in detail and with entire sincerity.

I was examined again without making any disclosure, but after receivingthe written command of the duch*ess I wrote out a declaration of all that Iknew and was a few days later set at liberty, after two years of captivity.I went down at once to Sceaux, where I was affectionately received by mymistress.

Returning to Paris two days later, to fetch my things from the Bastille,I called at the Convent of the Presentation, and found in the parlour theChevalier de Menil. I was astonished at his manner, no less than by what hesaid; it was evidently that his only desire was to break his engagementwith me. I realised that the man was without honour or kindness, and yet itwas difficult to detach my affections from him.

It was about a year later that M. Dacier was introduced to me, after thedeath of his wife, by the duch*ess de La Ferté, and an ardent desirefor liberty from my condition of servitude led me to accept his proposal ofmarriage, subject only to be the permission of my duch*ess. This she wasreluctant to give, and the matter was still under discussion when we heardof M. Dacier's sudden death.

The rest of my life, though it has been a long one, contains little ofinterest. I found myself without any object to live for, and a strangedeadness of feeling came over me, harder to bear than illness or death. Ihad a distaste for existence and a horror of the world, and desired nothingmore than to hide myself away. A little pension had been secured for me; mymistress had fallen dangerously ill; I wished to leave Sceaux in order torun away from a new attachment which was gaining power over me; and thethought of entering a Carmelite house became a settled project. But I wasrefused even this last refuge; the prioress deciding that I had no vocationfor the religious life.

I spent several years without coming to any harmony either with myselfor with fortune. Several offers of marriage were made to me, but I couldnot bring myself to accept any of them, until a sudden fancy for the sweetsimplicities of country life led me to agree to a marriage with M. deStaal.

A few days after my marriage I heard of the death of the duch*ess ofMaine. I never knew a more perfectly reasonable woman. She was all feeling;even her thoughts were really sentiments; she was lively without moodiness,impassioned without violence, always animated; sweet and sensible. Therewas a vivid warmth about her, that made her a perfectly graciousfriend.

Life of William Pitt

The biographer of Pitt was a grandson of the Lord Mahon,afterwards Earl of Stanhope, who married, in 1774, the great statesman'seldest sister. Philip Henry Stanhope was born at Walmer on January 30,1805, and entered the House of Commons as Lord Mahon in 1831. He took aprominent part in the foundation of the National Portrait Gallery, and theHistorical Manuscripts Commission, and the promotion of successfularchaeological investigations on the site of Troy. His literary labourswere considerable and important. Chief among them were the "History ofEngland from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles," the "Historyof Queen Anne's Reign," and the "Life of the Right Honourable WilliamPitt." The last named, published in 1861-2, is one of the mostauthoritative of political biographies, compiled with a gravity and carecharacteristic of its author, and of abiding value as a standard book ofreference for one of the greatest personalities and one of the moststirring periods of English history. Earl Stanhope died on December 24,1875.

I.--The Boy Statesman

William Pitt, the elder, afterwards Earl of Chatham, married in 1754Lady Hester Grenville. William Pitt, their second son, was born on May 28,1759, at Hayes, near Bromley, in Kent.

In his boyhood, from the earliest years, William Pitt evinced to allaround him many tokens of intellectual promise and ambition; but hisparents were frequently distressed by his delicate health. It was no doubton this account that he was not sent to any public or private school. LordChatham was extremely careful of the education of his family; and, withoutany disparagement to young William's tutor, it was certainly from hisfather that he profited most.

William was at fourteen so forward in his studies that he was sent toCambridge, commencing his residence at Pembroke Hall in October 1773. Hishealth at this period gave cause for great alarm. A serious illness atCambridge, however, proved a turning-point; for long afterwards he enjoyedfairly good health. Early hours, daily exercise on horseback, and liberalpotations of port wine--his elixir of strength at this time, although ithelped in later years to undermine his constitution--made him far strongerafter his illness than before it.

In 1778, after the death of his father, he was entered at Lincoln's Inn,and was called to the Bar in 1780. But he had little opportunity ofpractising as a barrister, for his parliamentary ambitions were soonfulfilled. In the autumn of 1780 he was an unsuccessful candidate forCambridge University; but through the influence of Sir James Lowther he wasreturned in the same year for Appleby, and took his seat in the Commons onJanuary 23, 1781.

Lord North was still at the head of affairs, and the Oppositionconsisted of two parties: the aristocratic Whigs, whose leader was theMarquis of Rockingham, but whose true guiding spirit was Charles James Fox;and a smaller band of the old adherents of Lord Chatham, under LordShelburne. To this party Pitt, as a matter of course, attached himself. Hisfirst speech was made on February 26, in support of Burke's bill foreconomical reform. He completely fulfilled the high expectations that hadbeen formed of the son of so illustrious a father. Not only did he please,it may be said that he astonished the House.

Two speeches later in the session confirmed the distinction of the youngorator. In 1782, after a long series of Opposition attacks, Lord Northresigned; but in the new arrangements Pitt was not included. He haddetermined that he would serve his sovereign as a cabinet minister, or notat all. For a time he devoted his efforts, without success, to the reformof the representation of the House of Commons. But in July 1782 LordRockingham died; there was a cabinet split, due to a quarrel between Foxand Shelburne; the latter became First Lord of the Treasury, and Pitt, atthe age of twenty-three, was offered and accepted the post of Chancellor ofthe Exchequer.

The newly-formed ministry was soon exposed to hot attacks by thecoalition of the parties of Fox and North, and Pitt, in attacking this"baneful alliance," made one of the greatest speeches of his career. Butthe ministry was defeated; Lord Shelburne resigned; and the king, advisedby Shelburne, invited Pitt to become Prime Minister. After anxiousconsideration he refused.

The Fox and North coalition now assumed office. This union of extremeswas unpopular in the country, although powerful in parliamentary strength.Pitt tried once more to pass a measure of parliamentary reform; and duringthe recess he paid a visit to France--the one foreign journey of hislife.

When parliament resumed its sittings, in the autumn of 1783, Fox's IndiaBill was passed by the Commons, but rejected by the Lords. The king, whowas vehemently opposed to the bill, demanded the resignation of Fox andNorth, and on December 19 invited Pitt, now aged twenty-four, to becomePrime Minister. This time the invitation was not refused.

Pitt had great difficulty in forming a cabinet, and was the only cabinetminister in the Commons. His main support in that house was Henry Dundas,treasurer of the navy--his life-long friend. On facing parliament at theopening of 1784, Pitt's purpose was to delay a dissolution until thecoalition's unpopularity in the country had reached its height, and withthis end he patiently endured defeat after defeat. In March he deemed thatthe right moment had come, and his judgement was rewarded at the GeneralElection by a triumphant majority.

Pitt was Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as First Lord of theTreasury, and during the years of peace that followed, his successes werelargely financial. He established a series of financial reforms that notonly increased the favour in which his ministry was held, but undoubtedlyenabled the country to bear the terrible strain that was afterwards to beplaced upon it. In his attempt to adjust commercial relations with Irelandhe was less successful; he was obliged, besides, to abandon his schemes ofparliamentary reform, and his exertions, in concert with his friendWilberforce, to destroy the slave traffic ended in disappointment--evenalthough in this he had the hearty support of his rival, Fox.

Young as he was, and victorious as he had become, he was never temptedto presume upon his genius, or relax in his application. He allowed himselfbut little holiday. He spent a good deal of such time as he could spare atHolwood, a property he had bought near Bromley; and occasional visits toBrighton, and to his mother's residence at Burton Pynsent, inSomersetshire, made up the greater part of his travels.

II.--The Regency Problem

Not only had Pitt's administration rehabilitated English finances; ithad gained for England a strong measure of European support. In 1788 therewas concluded what was virtually a triple defensive alliance with Prussiaand Holland; and with France herself, should she be willing to remain atpeace, there was a treaty of commerce to engage her in more friendlyrelations.

But towards the end of the year Pitt was confronted with what seemed acertainty of loss of office. King George III., after a long period of illhealth, was found to be definitely suffering from mental alienation. Aregency became necessary, and the person clearly marked out for the officewas the Prince of Wales. But the prince was the political associate of Fox,and there was no doubt that his first step on accession to power would bethe dismissal of Pitt.

Pitt saw the prospect before him, and did not attempt to shirk it. Buthe did propose certain restrictions on the regency in order that the king,should he recover his reason, might without difficulty resume hispower.

When parliament assembled in December, Fox declared boldly that theprince had as much right to assume sovereignty during the king's incapacityas he would have in the event of the king's death. Pitt, exulting in hisrival's indiscreet departure from Whig principles, retorted that theassertion of such a right, independent of the decision of the two houses,was little less than treason to the constitution. Fox's attitude wasunpopular, and Pitt's resolutions, and the Regency Bill that followed, werecarried through the Commons.

Towards the end of February, the third reading of the Regency Bill wasimpending in the Lords. Pitt had proposed that the difficulty aboutprocuring the royal assent to the measure should be overcome by empoweringthe chancellor by a joint vote of both houses to put the Great Seal to acommission for giving the assent. But this expedient was unnecessary. ByFebruary 22 the king was completely recovered. The Regency Bill fell to theground, and all the hopes which the Opposition had reared upon it.

The day of thanksgiving for the king's recovery is regarded by LordMacaulay as the zenith in Pitt's political life. "To such a height of powerand glory," he says, "had this extraordinary man risen at twenty-nine yearsof age. And now," he adds, perhaps less justly, "the tide was on theturn."

III.--The Struggle with France

Pitt was able to declare, in the session that preceded the dissolutionof 1790, that "we are adding daily to our strength, wealth, andprosperity," and, as a result of the elections, his parliamentary majoritywas more than confirmed.

But symptoms of the coming stress were already manifest. The ministerwas anxiously watching the course of the revolution in France; and, whilefar from sharing the enthusiasm of Fox for the new principles, he did notendorse the fierce hostility of Burke.

"I cannot regard with envious eyes," he said, "any approximation inneighbouring states to those sentiments which are the characteristics ofevery British subject."

But the development of events soon made it clear that the new France hadbecome a danger to the peace of Europe. As long as possible Pitt avoidedwar, which was ultimately forced upon him in 1793 by France's attack uponHolland, to which we were bound by treaty obligations.

From that time, until the peace in 1802, English naval enterprises weregenerally successful, and English military enterprises generally failed.Pitt has often been blamed for the faults of his country's generals; but itis assuredly true that he did all that a civilian could do to securesuccess in the field.

The heavy cost of the war, increased as it was by the subsidies paid toAustria, and afterwards to Russia, compelled an entire departure fromPitt's old financial methods. Each year brought an increase of taxation andan increase of debt; and at the beginning of 1797 the directors of the Bankof England, in dire perplexity, told Pitt that the state, for all hisexpedients, was threatened with insolvency. Pitt did not falter. An orderin council was issued, suspending cash payments at the bank. Thus wasestablished a gigantic system of paper credit, giving us power to cope withno less gigantic foes. Cash payments were not resumed until 1819.

Pitt had not only to cope with enemies without, but with seditionwithin. Societies formed for propagating the principles of the revolutionadvocated the subversion of the constitution under the pretence ofparliamentary reform; the populace, angered by the privations caused by theclearness of food, listened readily to the agitators; riots were frequent,but the most mischievous form taken by sedition was that of armedconspiracy. Against these evils Pitt contended by royal proclamations,prosecutions, and, above all, by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act.In his firm suppression of disorder Pitt was loyally supported by largemajorities in both houses, and the country generally was on his side. Buthis domestic policy, his foreign policy, and his finance were unsparinglyattacked by Fox and a small band of devoted followers--followers who didnot abate in their resolution when their leader, weary of the unequalconflict, retired for a time from public life.

In the busy and anxious year 1796, there was a report that Pitt was onthe point of marriage. During his short intervals of leisure at Holwood, heoften visited his neighbour, Lord Auckland, at Beckenham, and was muchattracted by Lord Auckland's eldest daughter, the Hon. Eleanor Eden. Thisstrong attachment did not proceed to a proposal and a marriage. Pitt wroteto Lord Auckland avowing his affection, but explaining that in thecirc*mstances of pecuniary difficulty in which he was involved, he wouldnot presume to make the lady an offer. Lord Auckland acknowledged theexplanation as adequate, and thus honourably ended the only "love-passage"in the life of Pitt.

Considering that Pitt's income as minister was £6,000 a year, andthat he derived an additional £3,000 a year from the Lord Wardenshipof the Cinque Ports, his pecuniary troubles may seem hard to explain. Hehad no family, and no expensive tastes. But he was so intent upon thenational exchequer that he neglected his private accounts, with theconsequence that he was plundered by his domestics. His expenses were notchecked, and his debts continued to grow.

IV.--Resignation

In the year 1800 Pitt was able to achieve a momentous change in theaffairs of Ireland. The chronic discontent of that country, largely due tothe resentment of the Catholics at their exclusion from the rights ofcitizenship, had been fanned by the importation of revolutionary ideas; andthere were hopes, once or twice on the point of realisation, of a Frenchinvasion of the island. In 1798 a rebellion broke out, but was suppressedwith promptness, and, it must be added, in many instances with cruelty. Butto Pitt the suppression of the insurrection was only the first part of hisduty. He thought that to revert to the old system would be a most shallowpolicy. A new, and comprehensive, and healing method must be tried--an Actof Union, which should raise the minds of Irishmen from local to imperialaims--which should blend the two legislatures, and, if possible, also thetwo nations, in one.

In 1800 the project was fulfilled--not without fierce resistance in theIrish Parliament, and not without a certain distribution of favours tothose for whose support the government was anxious; although theallegations made on this subject seem to be exaggerated. Havingaccomplished the union, Pitt laid plans for a further reform which led,early in the following year, to his retirement from office.

He proposed the emancipation of the Catholics by the substitution of apolitical for the religious test of fitness for citizenship. Although theAnglican bishops and clergy and many laymen were strongly opposed toCatholic emancipation, Pitt would probably have been able to carry hisscheme had it not been for royal antagonism. The king believed, erroneouslybut passionately, that by consenting to such a measure he would violate hiscoronation oath.

His majesty expressed his opinions on the subject so publicly and sovehemently that on January 31, 1801, Pitt felt compelled to ask leave toresign unless he were allowed to pursue his course on the Catholicquestion. The king required the abandonment of the scheme, and on February3 Pitt resigned office. Thus abruptly ended his renowned administration ofmore than seventeen years.

The new Prime Minister was Mr. Addington, formerly Speaker of theCommons. Several of Pitt's colleagues remained in the ministry, althoughothers withdrew from it; and Pitt himself gave general support to thegovernment--support which was offered with especial warmth, and possessedespecial value, during the hotly criticised peace negotiations with theFirst Consul Bonaparte in 1801 and 1802. Although Pitt had been obligedwhen in office to refuse several inadequate offers of peace, he had alwaysbeen prepared to end the war under honourable conditions. The distinctionof ending the war did not fall to his share; but his services were notforgotten. On May 7, 1802, the House of Commons carried by overwhelmingnumbers a motion, "That the Right Hon. William Pitt has rendered great andimportant services to his country, and especially deserves the gratitude ofthis house." And on May 28, 1802, Pitt's birthday, more than 800 personsassembled at a memorable banquet in honour of "the pilot that weathered thestorm."

Until the renewal of war in 1803 Pitt took little-part in publicaffairs. Most of his time was spent at Walmer Castle, with occasionalvisits to Bath for the sake of his health, which had been uncertain sincean attack of serious illness in 1797. He remained in constant communicationwith his political friends, and sometimes during the earlier part of hisretirement aided the ministry with his advice. But with the progress oftime he found himself less and less able to support Addington and hiscolleagues.

In May 1803 the uneasy peace came to an end. The constant aggressions ofBonaparte and his dominating tone made friendly relations impossible. Therewas a widespread feeling in the country that now that the storm hadrecommenced the old pilot should be called to the helm. Pitt returned tothe Commons after the declaration of war, and forcibly criticised some ofthe financial and defensive measures of the ministry.

In 1804 the ministry showed itself wholly unequal to the strain upon it;and the situation was complicated by a temporary return of the king'smalady. Pitt not only renewed his opposition to Addington, but made itplain that he was prepared to take part in a strong and comprehensiveadministration, including even Fox, that should be formed to rescue thecrown and country from the dangers to which they were exposed under theAddington ministry.

A series of combined attacks was directed against the government duringthe month of April. Although Addington was not defeated in the Commons, hesaw his majority steadily diminish; and on April 26 he resolved to resign.On the 30th, the Lord Chancellor intimated to Pitt his majesty's desire toreceive the plan of a new administration.

V.--The Last Ministry

The king's opposition made the inclusion of Fox in the new ministryimpossible. His hostility to Fox, however, was not simply on politicalgrounds; he believed him to be responsible for the excesses of the Princeof Wales. Pitt was in consequence obliged to be content with a restrictedchoice of ministers, and had to face a powerful opposition in parliament.Addington was persuaded to join the ministry early in 1805.

During the summer of 1804 Bonaparte and his host lay menacingly atBoulogne, awaiting that command of the channel "for six hours," which thegreat warrior recognised as essential to his plans. Meanwhile, Pittlaboured to form another coalition, and, at the cost of heavy subsidies,was successful. Russia, Austria, and Sweden joined in the league againstNapoleon; Prussia still hesitated.

In the summer of 1805 Napoleon was again at Boulogne, but his plan ofinvasion was wrecked by the failure of the French fleet to reach theChannel. When Napoleon learned that the fleet had gone south, and that theattack upon England had been thwarted, he straightway marched his army tomid-Europe. Pitt had staked everything on the new coalition, and thesurrender of the Austrians at Ulm was news of the utmost bitterness to him.But a splendid corrective came soon afterwards in the crowning navalvictory of Trafalgar. Although the nation's feelings were divided betweenjoy at the triumph and grief at the death of the illustrious victor, Pitt'spopularity, which had been somewhat uncertain, was enormously enhanced bythe event. The Lord Mayor proposed his health as "the saviour ofEurope."

Pitt's reply was nearly as follows: "I return you many thanks for thehonour you have done me, but Europe is not to be saved by any single man.England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, I trust, save Europeby her example." With only these two sentences the minister sat down. Theywere the last words that Pitt ever spoke in public.

He was suffering much at this time from gout, and his general health wasundermined by anxiety. In December he journeyed to Bath, and at Bath therereached him the news of the destruction of his coalition at Austerlitz. Thebattle was the cause of his death. He was struck down by a severe internalmalady and he was in a state of extreme debility when on January 11, 1806,he returned home to the house he had taken on Putney Heath. It is said thatas he passed along to his bedroom, he observed a map of Europe hanging onthe wall, upon which he turned to his niece and mournfully said: "Roll upthat map. It will not be wanted these ten years."

For a few days the doctors had hopes that he might recover, but on the22nd it became evident that he could not live for twenty-four hours. Earlyin the morning of the 23rd he died.

"At about half-past two," wrote the Hon. James Hamilton Stanhope, whowas at his bedside, "Mr. Pitt ceased moaning, and did not make theslightest sound for some time. Shortly afterwards, in a tone I never shallforget, he exclaimed: 'Oh, my country! How I love my country!' From thattime he never spoke or moved, and at half-past four expired without a groanor struggle. His strength being quite exhausted, his life departed like acandle burning out."

The Life of Thomas Arnold,D.D.

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley was born at Alderley Rectory,Cheshire, on December 13, 1815. He was educated at Rugby under Arnold, andat Oxford, where Tait, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, was his tutor.Entering holy orders, he was appointed select preacher in 1845; becameCanon of Canterbury in 1851; and in 1863 succeeded Trench as Dean ofWestminster. He died on July 18, 1881, and by Queen Victoria's commands hisremains were laid beside those of his wife, Lady Augusta Bruce, in HenryVII.'s Chapel, Westminster. Of all his works, perhaps his most importantcontribution to English literature is the "Life of Arnold," which waspublished two years after the death of the famous master of Rugby. To thetask of writing the book Stanley devoted all his energies, steering clear,however, of any attempt to form an opinion of his own upon Arnold's lifeand character, while achieving a result that not only assured his ownposition at Oxford, but brought him well into the front rank ofcontemporary writers. The religious animosity at Oxford was uncongenial toStanley, and it was only the prospect of Dr. Arnold occupying the Chair ofModern History that reconciled him to his surroundings.

I.--Youth and Early Manhood

Thomas Arnold, seventh child and youngest son of William and MarthaArnold, was born June 13, 1795, at East Cowes, Isle of Wight, where hisfather was collector of customs. His early education was undertaken by asister; and in 1803 he was sent to Warminister School, in Wiltshire. In1807 he went to Winchester, where, having entered as a commoner andafterwards become a scholar of the college, he remained till 1811. In afterlife he always cherished a strong Wykehamist feeling, and, during hisheadmastership at Rugby, often recurred to his knowledge there firstacquired, of the peculiar constitution of a public school.

He was then, as always, of a shy and retiring disposition; but hismanner as a child, and till his entrance at Oxford, was marked by astiffness and formality, the very reverse of the joyousness and simplicityof his later years. He was unlike those of his own age, with pursuitspeculiar to himself; and the tone and style of his early letters are suchas might have been produced by living chiefly with his elders, and reading,or hearing read, books suited to a more advanced age. Both as boy and youngman he was remarkable for a difficulty in early rising amounting almost toa constitutional infirmity; and though in after life this was overcome byhabit, he often said that early rising was a daily effort to him.

The beginning of some of his later interests may be traced in hisearlier amusem*nts and occupations. He never lost the recollection of theimpression produced upon him by the excitement of naval and militaryaffairs, of which he naturally saw and heard much by living at Cowes in thetime of the Napoleonic war; and with his playmates he would sail rival toyfleets or act the battles of the Homeric heroes with improvised spears andshields. He was extremely fond of ballad poetry, and his earliestcompositions all ran in that direction. At Winchester he was noted for hisforwardness in history and geography; and there also he gave indications ofthat mnemonic faculty which in later years showed itself in minute details,extending to the exact state of the weather on particular days, or theexact words or passages he had not seen for twenty years. The period of hishome and school education was too short to exercise much influence on hisafter life, but he always looked back upon it with tenderness.

In 1811 he was elected a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford; in1814 he took a first class in classics; in 1815 he was made a Fellow ofOriel; and he gained the Chancellor's prizes for the Latin and Englishessays in 1815 and 1817. During his later time at Oxford he took privatepupils and read extensively in the libraries. Meanwhile, he had been ledgradually to fix on his future life course. In December, 1818, he wasordained deacon and next year settled at Laleham, where, in August, 1820,he married Mary Penrose, daughter of the rector of Fledborough, Notts.

At Laleham he remained for nine years, coaching private pupils for theuniversities. Here were born six of his nine children; the youngest three,besides one who died in infancy, were born at Rugby. During this period anessential change and growth of Arnold's character became manifest. The warmfeelings of his youth gave place to the fixed earnestness and devotionwhich henceforth took possession of him. His former indolent habits, hismorbid restlessness and occasional weariness of duty, indulgence of vagueschemes without definite purpose, intellectual doubts as to acceptedreligious beliefs--all seem to have vanished for ever.

It was now that the religious aspect of his character came to beemphasised. In common acts of life, public and private, the depths of hisreligious convictions very visibly appeared. And while it is impossible tounderstand his religious belief except through the knowledge of his lifeand writings on ordinary subjects, it is impossible on the other hand, tounderstand his life and writings without bearing in mind how vivid was hisrealisation of those truths of religion on which he most habitually dwelt.It was this which enabled him to undertake labours which, without such apower, must have crushed or enfeebled the spiritual growth which in himthey seemed only to foster. His letters at this time show better thananything else how he was, though unconsciously to himself, maturing for thearduous duties he afterwards undertook. It was now, too, that he firstbecame acquainted with Niebuhr's "History of Rome," which revolutionisedhis views of history, and, later, served as a model for his own "History ofRome."

II.--Headmaster of Rugby

Arnold was not without his visions of ambition and extensive influencefrom the first, but he liked Laleham, and always looked back with fondregret to his time there. "I have always thought," he wrote in 1823, "withregard to ambition, that I should like to be aut Caesar aut nullus;and as it is pretty well settled for me that I shall not be Caesar, I amquite content to live in peace as nullus." But the fates had orderedit otherwise. Friends had long been urging him to seek a larger sphere ofusefulness; and when, in August, 1827, the headmastership of Rugby becamevacant, he applied for the post.

He had himself little hope of success. The testimonials he sent in werefew, but all spoke strongly of his qualifications. Among them was a letterfrom Dr. Hawkins, the future Provost of Oriel, in which the prediction wasmade that if Arnold were elected he would change the face of educationthroughout the public schools of England. The impression produced upon thetrustees by this letter and by the other testimonials was such that Arnoldwas immediately appointed. In June, 1828, he received priest's orders; inApril and November of the same year took his degrees of B.D. and D.D., andin August entered on his new office.

The post was in many respects suited to his natural tastes--to his loveof tuition, which had now grown so strongly upon him that he declaredsometimes that he could hardly live without such employment; to the vigourand spirits which fitted him rather to deal with the young than the old; tothe desire of carrying out his favourite ideas of uniting things secularwith things spiritual, and of introducing the highest principles of actioninto regions comparatively uncongenial to their reception. He had not,however, accepted it without grave doubts about his fitness. In a privateletter he says:

I confess that I should very much object to undertake acharge in which I was not invested with pretty full discretion. Accordingto my notions of what large schools are, founded on all I know and all Ihave ever heard of them, expulsion should be practised much oftener than itis. Now, I know that trustees, in general, are averse to this plan, becauseit has a tendency to lessen the numbers of the school, and they regardquantity more than quality. In fact, my opinions on this point might,perhaps, generally be considered as disqualifying me for the situation ofmaster of a great school; yet I could not consent to tolerate much that Iknow is tolerated generally, and, therefore, I should not like to enter onan office which I could not discharge according to my own views of what isright.

At Rugby, Arnold from the first maintained that in the actual working ofthe school he must be completely independent, and that the remedy of thetrustees, if they were dissatisfied, was not interference, but dismissal.It was on this condition that he took the post; and any attempt to controleither the administration of the school or his own private occupations hefelt bound to resist as a duty not only to himself but the master of everyfoundation school in England. The remonstrances which he encountered,particularly from his fixed determination always to get rid of unpromisingsubjects, were vehement and numerous; but he repeatedly declared that on noother conditions could he hold his appointment, or justify the existence ofthe public school system in a Christian country.

"My object," he wrote, just before taking up duty, "will be, ifpossible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely hope tomake; I mean that, from the natural imperfect state of boyhood, they arenot susceptible of Christian principles in their full development upontheir practice, and I suspect that a low standard of morals in manyrespects must be tolerated amongst them, as it was on a larger scale inwhat I consider the boyhood of the human race."

This is the keynote of his whole system. As he put it, what he lookedfor in the school was, first, religious and moral principles; second,gentlemanly conduct; and third, intellectual ability. Intellectual trainingwas never for a moment underrated, but he always thought first of hischarges as schoolboys who must grow up to be Christian men. His education,in short, "was not based upon religion, but was itself religious."For cleverness as such, Arnold had no regard. "Mere intellectualacuteness," he used to say, "divested as it is, in too many cases, of allthat is comprehensive and great and good, is to me more revolting than themost helpless imbecility, seeming to be almost like the spirit ofMephistopheles." Often when this intellectual cleverness was seen in unionwith moral depravity, he would be inclined to deny its existencealtogether.

A mere plodding boy was, above all others, encouraged by him. At Lalehamhe had once got out of patience, and spoken sharply to a pupil of thiskind, when the pupil looked up in his face and said, "Why do you speakangrily, sir? Indeed, I am doing the best that I can." Years afterwards heused to tell the story to his children, and said, "I never felt so muchashamed in my life--that look and that speech I have never forgotten." Andthough it would, of course, happen that clever boys, from a greatersympathy with his understanding, would be brought into closer intercoursewith him, this did not affect his feeling of respect, and even ofreverence, for those who, without ability, were distinguished for highprinciple and industry. "If there be one thing on earth which is trulyadmirable, it is to see God's wisdom blessing an inferiority of naturalpowers where they have been honestly, truly and zealously cultivated."

III.--As Teacher and Preacher

Arnold had always been painfully impressed by the evils of the publicschool system, according to which a number of boys are left to form anindependent society of their own, in which the influence they exert overeach other is far greater than that exerted by the masters. He writes, in1837:

Of all the painful things connected with my employment,nothing is equal to the grief of seeing a boy come to school innocent andpromising, and tracing the corruption of his character from the influenceof the temptations around him, in the very place which ought to havestrengthened and improved it. But in most cases those who come with acharacter of positive good are benefited; it is the neutral and indecisivecharacters which are apt to be decided for evil by schools, as they wouldbe, in fact, by any other temptation.

This very feeling led him to catch with eagerness at every means bywhich the trial might be shortened or alleviated. He believed that thechange from childhood to manhood might be hastened without prematurelyexhausting the faculties of body and mind; and it was on this principlethat he chiefly acted. He desired the boys to cultivate true manliness asthe only step to something higher. He treated them as gentlemen, andappealed and trusted to their common sense and conscience.

Lying to the masters he made a grave offence. He placed implicitconfidence in a boy's assertion, and then, if a falsehood were discovered,punished it severely. In the higher forms any attempt at further proof ofan assertion was immediately checked. "If you say so, that is quite enough;of course, I believe your word"; and there grew up in consequence a generalfeeling that "it was a shame to tell Arnold a lie: he always believed you."Few scenes can be recorded more characteristic of him than when, inconsequence of a disturbance, he had been obliged to send away severalboys, and when, in the midst of the general spirit of discontent which thisexcited, he stood in his place before the assembled school and said, "It isnot necessary that this should be a school of three hundred, or onehundred, or of fifty boys; but it is necessary that it should be a schoolof Christian gentlemen."

Arnold's method of teaching was founded on the principle of awakeningthe intellect of every individual boy. Hence it was his practice to teachby questioning. As a general rule, he never gave information, except as akind of reward for an answer, and often withheld it altogether, or checkedhimself in the very act of uttering it, from a sense that those whom he wasaddressing had not sufficient interest or sympathy to receive it. Hisexplanations were at short as possible--enough to dispose of the difficultyand no more; and his questions were of a kind to call the attention of theboys to the real point of every subject and to disclose to them the exactboundaries of what they knew or did not know. With regard to the youngerboys, he said: "It is a great mistake to think that they shouldunderstand all they learn; for God has ordered that in youth thememory should act vigorously, independent of the understanding--whereas aman cannot usually recollect a thing unless he understands it."

At Rugby he made it an essential part of the headmaster's office topreach a sermon every Sunday in the school chapel. "The veriest stranger,"he said, "who ever attends service in this chapel does well to feelsomething more than common interest in the sight of the congregation hereassembled. But if the sight so interests a mere stranger, what should it beto ourselves, both to you and to me?" More than either matter or manner ofhis preaching was the impression of himself. Even the mere readers of hissermons will derive from them the history of his whole mind, and of hiswhole management of the school. But to his hearers it was more than this.It was the man himself, there more than in any other place, concentratingall his various faculties and feelings on one sole object, combating faceto face the evil which, directly or indirectly, he was elsewhereperpetually struggling.

His personal interest in the boys was always strong. "Do you see," he onone occasion said to an assistant-master who had recently come, "those twoboys walking together? I never saw them together before; you should make anespecial point of observing the company they keep; nothing so tells thechanges in a boy's character."

IV.--Influence of the Great Teacher

But the impression which Arnold produced upon the boys was derived notso much from any immediate intercourse or conversation with them as fromthe general influence of his whole character, displayed consistentlywhenever he appeared before them. This influence, with its consequenteffects, was gradually on the increase during the whole of his stay. Fromthe earliest period, indeed, the boys were conscious of something unlikewhat they had been taught to imagine of a schoolmaster, and by many alasting regard was contracted for him. In the higher forms, at least, itbecame the fashion, so to speak, to think and talk of him with pride andaffection. As regards the permanent effects of his whole system, it may besaid that not so much among his own pupils, or in the scene of his actuallabours, as in every public school throughout England is to be sought thechief and enduring monument of Arnold's headmastership at Rugby.

Of Arnold's general life at Rugby there is no need to say much; foralthough the school did not occupy his whole energies, it is almost solelyby his school work that he is remembered. He took a not unimportant part inthe political and theological discussions of his time, and various literaryenterprises also engaged his attention. In theology he entertained verybroad views. One great principle he advocated with intense earnestness wasthat a Christian people and a Christian Church should be synonymous. Thatuse of the word "Church" which limits it to the clergy, or which implies inthe clergy any particular sacredness, he entirely repudiated.

He was convinced that the founders of our constitution in Church andState did truly consider them to be identical; the Christian nation ofEngland to be the Church of England; the head of that nation to be, forthat very reason, the head of the Church. This view placed him inantagonism to the High Church party; but, as a matter of fact, he neitherbelonged, nor felt himself to belong, to any section of the English clergy.Politically, he held himself to be a strong Whig; but that he was not, inthe common sense of the word, a member of any party is shown by thereadiness with which all parties alike, according to the fashion of thetime, claimed or renounced him as an associate.

Arnold did not like the flat scenery of Warwickshire He describedhimself as "in it like a plant sunk in the ground in a pot." His holidayswere always spent away from Rugby, either on the Continent, or, in lateryears, at his Westmoreland home, Fox How, a small estate between Rydal andAmbleside, which he purchased in 1832. He was just about to leave Rugby forFox How when his life was mournfully and suddenly ended by an attack ofangina pectoris, on June 12, 1842. Only the year before he had beenappointed by Lord Melbourne Regius Professor of Modern History atOxford.

Arnold's principal works are six volumes of sermons, a three-volumeedition of Thucydides, the Oxford "Lectures on Modern History," and thethree-volume "History of Rome," which, by his unfortunate death, was brokenoff at the Second Punic War. To the last-named he looked as the chiefmonument of his historical fame.

Life of Queen Elizabeth

Agnes Strickland, born in London on August 19, 1796, withher sister Elizabeth began in 1840 the publication of the immense series ofhistorical biographies of which the "Lives of the Queens of England" formedthe first and most important group. In that group the "Elizabeth" isrecognised as holding the highest rank. It is an essentially feminine studyof one of the most remarkable of women; not a history, for historicalevents are treated as of infinitely less importance than picturesquepersonal details and miscellaneous gossip, but presenting altogether anadmirable picture of the outward seeming of those spacious days, and adiscriminating and judicious portrait of the maiden queen herself. Theauthor's views, however, would not always be endorsed by a masculinecritic. Agnes Strickland died on July 13, 1874. The literature relating tothe life and times of Queen Elizabeth would form a library of contemporaryrecords. Many volumes of state papers have been published: Camden's "Annalsof Elizabeth" is the classical account of her. Creighton's "QueenElizabeth" and volumes VII. to XII. of Froude's "History of England" arethe leading modern works; and no one who wishes to know anything of thegreat queen can afford to neglect Hume's "Courtships of Queen Elizabeth,"which will also be found in these pages (see Hume).

I.--The Lady Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth first saw the light at Greenwich Palace, where, saysHeywood, "she was born on the eve of the Virgin's nativity, and died on theeve of the Virgin's annunciation." The christening ceremony was gorgeousand elaborate, but, with the downfall of her mother, Anne Boleyn, sheceased to be treated as a princess. She seems to have owed much to thejudicious training of Lady Margaret Bryan, in whose charge she was. Later,she was associated with Prince Edward, four years her junior; bothdisplayed an extraordinary precocity and capacity for learning.

On Henry's death, she resided with his widow, Catharine Parr, whomarried the Lord Admiral, Thomas Seymour. That ambitious nobleman, brotherof the Protector, certainly designed, when Catharine died, to marryElizabeth; an intention which was among the causes of his execution underattainder. His relations with her had already been unduly familiar, butthere was no warrant for the scandalous stories that were repeated; andalthough Elizabeth all her life was naturally disposed to an excessivefreedom of manners, she now became a pattern of decorum. But she wasprobably more in love with Seymour, as a girl of fifteen, than with anyoneelse in after life; though, on his death, she called him "a man of much witand very little judgement."

Ascham is full of praises of her learning and her wide reading, both inGreek and Latin, which is displayed somewhat pedantically in her letters;her propriety and simplicity of apparel in these days is in curiouscontrast to the extravagances of her wardrobe in later life.

Mary treated her conspicuously as a sister; she refused, however, toabjure her Protestantism. Her position became extremely difficult, as theFrench, the Spaniards, and the Protestant party each sought to involve herin plots for their own ends. These culminated in Wyat's rebellion. Theinevitable suspicions attaching to her caused her to be lodged in theTower; but, in spite of the machinations of the Spanish party and thedistrust of Mary, the evidence produced failed to warrant hercondemnation.

Yet she was kept in rigorous confinement, her life continuing to be indanger for a month after Wyat himself had been executed. She was thenremoved to Richmond, but refused to purchase liberty at the price ofmarriage to a foreign prince, Philibert of Savoy--a scheme intended as acover for Mary's determination to marry Philip, the Prince of Spain.Finally, she was transferred to Woodstock, where she was held a closeprisoner.

Policy now led her to profess acceptance of the Roman religion, but invery ambiguous fashion. Probably it was through the intercession ofPhilip--now her brother-in-law, whose policy at this time was to conciliatethe English people--that she was set at liberty and readmitted to court atChristmas.

At the end of the next year Elizabeth was at Hatfield, under the gentlesurveillance of Sir Thomas Pope. She continued to be involved in gravedangers by perpetual plots, in which she was far too shrewd to let herselfbe implicated; and she guarded herself by a continued profession ofRomanism to the hour of her accession on her sister's death.

As the hour of Mary's death approached, there was no doubt ofElizabeth's succession, though there was alarm as to possiblecomplications. On November 17, 1558, the Chancellor announced to Parliamentthat Mary was dead, and Elizabeth queen. She held her first council atHatfield two days later, when William Cecil took his place as her chiefcounsellor; on her entry into London, the position which was to be occupiedby Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, was alreadyconspicuous.

The coronation, which took place in January, was a magnificent pageant,in which Elizabeth openly courted the favour and affection of her subjects;and it became at once apparent that the breach with Rome was reopened. Thesupremacy of the crown was reasserted, the all but empty bench of bishopswas filled up with reformers; and, in answer to the Commons, Elizabeth veryclearly implied her intention of reigning a virgin queen. She had alreadydeclined Philip of Spain's offer of his widowed hand; and now the fact thatMary Stuart stood next in the succession--with a better title thanElizabeth's own, if her legitimacy were challenged--became of immenseimportance.

Accordingly, an express declaration of her legitimate right to thethrone was procured from Parliament. For some time pageants and populardisplays were the order of the day. But, in spite of Elizabeth's owndeclarations, all her council were convinced that the safety of the realmdemanded her marriage; and suitors began to abound. Arran appears--who nowstood very near the throne of Scotland. Pickering, Arundel, Dudley, allseemed possible aspirants. The Austrian Archduke Charles, cousin of Philipof Spain, and Eric of Norway, were candidates. She played with them all,and the play was made more grim by the tragic death of Dudley's wife, AmyRobsart.

II.--Mary Stuart and Saint Bartholomew

The proposals for Elizabeth's own hand were now diversified by herinterest in those for the hand of the Queen of Scots; for it was of immenseimportance to the Queen of England that Mary should not wed a foreignprince who might support her claim to the English throne. Mary professedwillingness to be guided by her "sister," but was insulted by Elizabeth'soffer of her own favourite, Dudley, who was made Earl of Leicester.Melville, the courtly Scots ambassador, had much ado to answer Elizabeth'squestions about his mistress's beauty and accomplishments in a manneragreeable to the English queen. Mary solved her own problem, only to createa new one, by marrying her cousin, Lord Darnley. Elizabeth was bitterlyaggrieved when a son--afterwards James I.--was born to them. She herselfcontinued to agitate Cecil and the council by the favours she lavished onLeicester. But the renewed entreaties of Parliament, that steps might betaken to secure the succession, led to what threatened to be a seriousquarrel.

Amongst these high matters, the records of her majesty's wardrobe, andthe interests of Cecil in capturing for her service a tailor employed byCatherine de Medici, form an entertaining interlude. But tragedy was athand; the murder of Darnley, Mary's marriage to the murderer Bothwell, herimprisonment at Loch Leven, Elizabeth's perturbation--for she was sincerein her fear of encouraging subjects to control monarchs by force ofarms--was diversified by a last negotiation for her marriage with theArchduke Charles, which broke down over his refusal to abjure hisreligion.

Then came a turn of the wheel; Mary escaped from Loch Leven, herfollowers were dispersed at Langside, and she fled across the Solway tothrow herself on Elizabeth's protection and find herself Elizabeth'sprisoner.

The Scottish queen was consigned to Bolton; an investigation was held atYork, when Mary's accusers were allowed to produce, and Mary's friends werenot allowed to test, their evidence of her complicity in Darnley's murder.At that stage the investigations were stopped; but the Duke of Norfolk, thehead of the commission, was not deterred from pressing the design ofmarrying Mary himself. Mary was placed in the charge of Shrewsbury and histermagant spouse, Bess of Hardwick.

From this time for fifteen years, Elizabeth was perpetually playing atproposals for her own marriage with one or other of the French King'sbrothers, to keep the French court from a rapprochement with Spain.Suspicions of Norfolk's intentions led to his arrest, and this precipitatedthe rising in favour of Mary under the Catholic northern earls ofNorthumberland and Westmoreland; an insurrection promptly and cruellycrushed. In the spring of 1570 the Pope issued a bull of deposition; andthe plots on behalf of Mary as Catholic claimant to the thronethickened.

In 1571 it appeared that Elizabeth was set on the marriage with Henry ofAnjou, nineteen years her junior, the brother who stood next in successionto the throne of Charles IX. of France--a marriage not at all approved byher council, and very little to Henry's own taste. It was at this time thatthe conduct of negotiations in Paris was entrusted to FrancisWalsingham.

The relations between the queen and the Commons were exemplified by herattempt to exclude an obnoxious member, Strickland, met by the successfulassertion of their privileges on the part of the House.

In this year the plot known as Ridolfi's was discovered, and it is to benoted that Elizabeth herself ordered the rack to be used to extortinformation. The result was condemnation of Norfolk to the block. Therecalcitrance of Henry of Anjou led to his definitely withdrawing from hiscourtship, while the young Alençon became the new subject ofmatrimonial negotiation.

Elizabeth played with the new proposal, as usual, relying always on herability to back out of the negotiations, as in previous cases, by demandingof her suitor a more uncompromising acceptance of Protestantism than couldbe admitted. The whole affair, however, was apparently brought to a checkby the massacre of St. Bartholomew, with the perpetration of which itseemed impossible for the most powerful of Protestant monarchs to associateherself.

Cecil--now Lord Burleigh--would have used the occasion for thedestruction of Mary Stuart; but the device for doing so irreproachably byhanding her over to her own rebels, was frustrated--though Elizabethconcurred--by the refusal of the Scots lords to play the part which wasassigned to them. The Alençon affair was soon in full swing again,the young prince writing love-letters to the lady whom he had not seen.

III.--The Hour of Mary's Doom

Elizabeth's fondness for pageantry--partly out of a personal delight init, partly from a politic appreciation of its value in making herpopular--especially pageantry at some one else's expense, was illustratedin the gorgeous doings at Kenilworth, depicted (with sundry anachronisms)in Scott's novel.

These gaieties were the embroidery on more serious matters, for theNetherlands had for some time been engaged in their apparently desperatestruggle with the power of Spain, and now actually invited the Queen ofEngland to assume sovereignty over them--an offer which she was too acuteto accept.

Yet we cannot pass over a highly characteristic incident. When thequeen's majesty had a bad toothache, the protestations of her whole councilfailed to persuade her to face the extraction of the tooth, till the Bishopof London invited the surgeon to operate first on him in her presence, withsatisfactory results. We must also record how the ugly littleAlençon, or Anjou as he was now called, arrived unexpectedly to wooher in person, charmed her by his chivalrous audacity in doing so, and wonfrom her the appropriate name of "Little Frog."

Whether she really wished to marry her "frog" is extremely doubtful. Shemade all the more parade of her desire to do so, since the extremeantipathy of the council and the nation to the project would secure her aretreat to the last. The expectation of the marriage caused theNetherlanders to offer Anjou the sovereignty which she had rejected; withthe idea of thus securing the united support of England and France. Butwhen matters reached the point of negotiation for an Anglo-French league,with the marriage as one of the articles, Elizabeth, of course, could notbe brought to a definite answer, and after long delay Anjou found himselfobliged to return to the Netherlands, neither accepted nor rejected. Hissubsequent death put an end to this, her last, matrimonial comedy.

At last an English force was actually sent to help the Netherlanders,under the command of Leicester. His conduct there led to his recall.Another favourite stood high in the queen's good graces--Walter Raleigh.Probably it was with a view to ousting this rival that Leicester broughthis stepson Essex into the queen's notice.

But now the hour of Mary's doom was approaching. A plot was set on footfor the assassination of Elizabeth, into which Anthony Babington, whosename it bears, was drawn. Walsingham, possessed of complete informationfrom the beginning, through his spies, nursed the plot carefully; lettersfrom Mary were systematically intercepted and copied till the moment camefor striking; the conspirators were arrested, and suffered the extremepenalty of the treason laws; and Elizabeth consented to have Mary herselfat last brought to trial. She was refused counsel; the commission condemnedher. Parliament demanded the execution of the death sentence. Elizabeth hadher own misgivings.

She was afraid of the responsibility. Leicester suggested poison, butBurleigh and Walsingham stood by the law. A special embassy of remonstrancecame from France; Mary wrote a dignified letter, not an appeal for herlife, which moved the queen to tears; protests from the King of Scotlandonly aroused indignation; Elizabeth was frightened by rumours of freshplots and of a French invasion.

At last she signed the death warrant, brought to her by SecretaryDavison; the Chancellor's seal was attached, and the council, fearing someevasion on Elizabeth's part, issued the commission for Mary's executionwithout further reference to the queen; she was kept in ignorance of thefact till the tragedy was completed. She was furious with the council, butpowerless against their unanimity. She could venture to make a scapegoat ofDavison, and made a vain attempt to clear herself of responsibility in aletter to James, which failed to soothe the burst of indignation with whichthe news was received in Scotland. But the one thing she feared--acoalition of France, Spain, and Scotland--was made impossible by theantagonisms of the former and the weakness of the last.

Another crisis was at hand. Philip of Spain, claiming the throne ofEngland as a descendant of John of Gaunt, was preparing the great Armada;Pope Sixtus V. was proclaiming a crusade against the heretic queen. Drakesailed into Cadiz harbour, and "singed the don's whiskers," but the vastpreparations went on. A lofty spirit animated the queen and the people.London undertook to provide double the number of ships and men demandedfrom her. The militia was gathered at Tilbury, under Leicester. Howard ofEffingham was Lord Admiral, with Drake as vice-admiral; in the enthusiasmof the moment, Elizabeth bestowed knighthood on a valorous lady, Mary, thewife of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley.

A report that the Armada had been destroyed by a gale, which actuallydrove it into Corunna for repairs, caused Elizabeth, with her usualparsimony, to order four great vessels to be dismantled; Howard retainedthem instead, at his own charges. On July 19, 1588, the Armada was sightedoff the Lizard, and for eighteen days the naval heroes were grappling withthat "invincible" fleet. Elizabeth herself visited the camp at Tilbury,rode through the lines, wearing a corselet and a farthingale of amazingdimensions, while a page bore her helmet, and addressed her soldiers instirring words.

The victory was celebrated by medals bearing the device of a fleet infull sail, with the words Venit, vidit, fugit ("it came, it saw, itfled"), and of the dispersal by fireships with the words, Dux feminafacti ("a woman led the movement").

IV.--Elizabeth's Closing Years

The defeat of the Armada was followed by an expedition to Lisbon, towrest Portugal from Spain; owing to inadequate equipment it failed, after apromising beginning, the Portuguese lending no help. Essex managed toescape from court and join the expedition, messengers ordering him toreturn being too late. For this he was forgiven; but when he secretlymarried the widow of Sidney, and daughter of Walsingham, Elizabeth wasfuriously angry.

Not Essex, but Norris was sent to command a force dispatched to the aidof Henry of Navarre, who was now fighting for the crown of France. Essex,however, was subsequently sent, at Henry's own request. His absence wasutilised by Burleigh to secure the advancement of his own astute son,Robert Cecil, who secured the royal favour by the ingenuity of hisflattery.

When Essex finally returned from France, he was received with the utmostfavour; but in the interval he had been transformed into an intriguingpolitician. Parliament, which had not been called for four years, met in1593, and there was an immediate collision with the Crown. Elizabeth's tonewas much more despotic than of old. Petitions for the settlement of thesuccession were met by the arbitrary imprisonment of Wentworth and othermembers.

Essex favoured the popular party, but had not the courage to head it; hewas moved not by patriotism, but by jealousy of the Cecil ascendancy. Thequeen, when she had passed the age of sixty, was as determined as ever topose as a youthful beauty, and her courtiers had no reluctance in assumingthe tone of despairing lovers. No one played this part more persistentlythan Raleigh, who, when relegated to the Tower for marrying, proclaimed hismisery, not at being separated from his bride, but at being shut out of theradiant presence of the queen.

Essex and Raleigh were associated in two expeditions, one directed withcomplete success against Cadiz, the other being a complete failure. TheBurleigh faction succeeded in getting for Raleigh whatever credit there wasin both cases, though Essex was better entitled to it.

But it was Ireland that wrought the ruin of Essex. A dispute in thecouncil on the subject caused the queen to box the favourite's ears, whichcaused him to retire in resentment for many months. Soon after his returnto court, he brought upon himself his own appointment to thelord-deputyship of Ireland. His conduct there displeased her; from herscolding letters, he concluded that his enemies in the council wereundermining his position in his absence. He deserted his post, hurried toLondon, and burst, travel-stained as he was, into Elizabeth's chamber. Forthe moment she appeared disposed to forgive him, but was not long indeciding that his insolence must be punished, and he was placed inconfinement.

So he continued for about a year, in spite of appeals to the queen. Theadverse party in the council had the predominance. At last, however, he wasgranted a degree of liberty, and Francis Bacon tried to conciliateElizabeth towards her former favourite. But the unfortunate man allowed hisresentment to carry him into dangerous courses. His house became arendezvous of the discontented. Finally, a futile attempt on his part toraise the citizens of London in his favour consummated his ruin. He wassoon a prisoner; his condemnation was now a foregone conclusion; Elizabethsigned the warrant with fingers which did not tremble; and, to theuniversal astonishment, the favourite was executed.

Elizabeth's meeting with her last parliament displays in a marked degreethe tact which never deserted her when she thought fit to employ it. Theirprotest against the practice of monopolies, instead of rousing her ire,brought from her a notably gracious promise to redress the grievancescomplained of. This was in 1601. In the next year, when she becamesixty-nine, there was no relaxation in her gaieties; but under the surface,Elizabeth was old and sad.

Her popularity had never been the same since the death of Essex; and thememory of the man she had cherished and finally sent to his doom,well-deserved as that was, was a perpetual source of grief to her. In March1603, she was stricken with her last fatal illness. Yet she would not go tobed. At last she gave in; she knew herself dying long before she admittedit.

It was uncertain whether even in her last moments she would acknowledgethe right of any successor to her throne, but a gesture was interpreted asfavouring the King of Scots. Finally, she sank into a sleep from which shenever awoke. So passed away England's Elizabeth.

Journal to Stella

The "Journal to Stella," which extends over the years 1710to 1713, was first published in 1766 and has often been republished since.The manuscripts are preserved in the British Museum. It was at Sir WilliamTemple's home, Moor Park in Surrey, that Swift came to know Esther Johnson,or "Stella," who was fourteen years younger than himself. In 1699 Templedied, and Stella, with her friend, Rebecca Dingley, came to Ireland atSwift's request. Their relation has been made a great mystery. It willperhaps always be doubtful whether he was nominally married to hersecretly; the evidence is on the whole against the existence of such abond. But to the further question--why did he not take her to live as hiswife--a sufficient reply may be found in his abnormal nature. In the"Journal" the word "Presto" refers to Swift himself (see FICTION); "MD" toStella.

LONDON, Sept. 9, 1710.

I got here last Thursday, after five days' travelling, weary the first,almost dead the second, tolerable the third, and well enough the rest; andam now glad of the fatigue, which has served for exercise; and I am atpresent well enough. The Whigs were ravished to see me, and would lay holdon me as a twig while they are drowning, and the great men making me theirclumsy apologies, etc. But my Lord Treasurer received me with a great dealof coldness, which has enraged me so, I am almost vowing revenge. I havenot yet gone half my circle; but I find all my acquaintance just as I leftthem. Everything is turning upside down; every Whig in great office will,to a man, be infallibly put out; and we shall have such a winter as hathnot been seen in England.

The Tatler expects every day to be turned out of his employment; and theDuke of Ormond, they say, will be Lieutenant of Ireland. I hope you are nowpeaceably in Presto's lodgings; but I resolve to turn you out by Christmas;in which time I shall either have done my business, or find it not to bedone. Pray be at Trim by the time this letter comes to you; and ride littleJohnson, who must needs be now in good case. I have begun this letterunusually, on the post-night, and have already written to the Archbishop;and cannot lengthen this. Henceforth I will write something every day toMD, and make it a sort of journal; and when it is full, I will send it,whether MD writes or no; and so that will be pretty: and I shall always bein conversation with MD, and MD with Presto; and so farewell.

LONDON, NOV. 11, 1710.

I dined to-day in the City, and then went to christen Will Frankland'schild; Lady Falconbridge was one of the godmothers; this is a daughter ofOliver Cromwell, and extremely like him by the picture I have seen. Mybusiness in the City was to thank Stratford for a kindness he has done me.I found Bank stock fallen thirty-four to the hundred, and was mightydesirous to buy it. I had three hundred pounds in Ireland, and I desiredStratford to buy me three hundred pounds in Bank stock and that he keep thepapers, and that I would be bound to pay him for them; and, if it shouldrise or fall, I should take my chance and pay him interest in the meantime.I was told money was so hard to get here, and no one would do this for me.However, Stratford, one of the most generous men alive, has done this forme: so that three hundred pounds cost me three hundred pounds and thirtyshillings. This was done a week ago, and I can have five pounds for mybargain already. I writ to your Mother to desire Lady Giffard would do thesame with what she owes me, but she tells your mother she has no money. Iwould to God, all you had in the world was there. Whenever you lend money,take this rule, to have two people bound, who have both visible fortunes;for they will hardly die together; and, when one dies, you fall upon theother, and make him add another security. So, ladies, enough of businessfor one night. Paaaaast twelve o'clock; nite, nite deelest MD. I must onlyadd, that, after a long fit of rainy weather, it has been fair two or threedays, and is this day grown cold and frosty; so you must give poor littlePresto leave to have a fire in his chamber morning and evening too; and hewill do as much for you. Shall I send this to-morrow? Well I will, tooblige MD. 'Tis late, so I bid you good-night.

CHELSEA, June, 1711.

I went at noon to see Mr. Secretary at his office, and there was LordTreasurer; so I killed two birds, etc., and we were glad to see one anotherand so forth. And the Secretary and I dined at Sir William Wyndam's, whomarried Lady Catherine Seymour, your acquaintance, I suppose. There wereten of us at dinner. It seems, in my absence, they had erected a Club, andmade me one; and we made some laws to-day, which I am to digest and add to,against next meeting. Our meetings are to be every Thursday. We are yet buttwelve; Lord Keeper and Lord Treasurer were proposed; but I was againstthem, and so was Mr. Secretary, though their sons are of it, and so theyare excluded; but we design to admit the Duke of Shrewsbury. The end of ourClub is to advance conversation and friendship, and to reward deservingpersons with our interest and recommendation. We take in none but men ofwit or men of interest; and if we go on as we begin, no other Club in thistown will be worth talking of. This letter will come three weeks after thelast, so there is a week lost; but that is owing to my being out oftown.

Well, but I must answer this letter of our MD's. Saturday approaches,and I han't written down this side. Oh, faith, Presto has been a sort oflazy fellow: but Presto will remove to town this day se'night: theSecretary has commanded me to do so: and I believe he and I shall go somedays to Windsor, where he will have leisure to mind some business we havetogether. To-day our Society (it must not be called a Club) dined at Mr.Secretary's: we were but eight. We made some laws, and then I went to takemy leave of Lady Ashburnham, who goes out of town to-morrow.

Steele has had the assurance to write to me that I would engage my LordTreasurer to keep a friend of his in an employment. I believe I told youhow he and Addison served me for my good offices in Steele's behalf; and Ipromised Lord Treasurer never to speak for either of them again.

We have plays acted in our town; and Patrick was at one of them, oh, oh.He was damnably mauled one day when he was drunk, by a brother-footman, whodragged him along the floor on his face, which looked for a week after asif he had the leprosy, and I was glad enough to see it. I have been tentimes sending him back to you; yet now he has new clothes and a laced hat,which the hatter brought by his orders, and he offered to pay for the laceout of his wages.

I must rise now and shave, and walk to town, unless I go with the Deanin his chariot at twelve: and I have not seen that Lord Peterborough yet.The Duke of Shrewsbury is almost well again, but what care you? You do notcare for my friends. Farewell, my dearest lives and delights: I love youbetter than ever, if possible, as hope saved, I do, and ever will. Godalmighty bless you ever, and make us happy together! I pray for this twiceevery day; and I hope God will hear my poor hearty prayers. Remember, if Iam used ill and ungratefully, as I have formerly been, 'tis what I amprepared for, and I shall not wonder at it. Yet I am now envied, andthought in high favour, and have every day numbers of considerable menteasing me to solicit for them. And the Ministry all use me perfectly well;and all that know them say they love me. Yet I can count upon nothing, norwill, but upon MD's love and kindness. They think me useful; they pretendedthey were afraid of none but me, and that they resolved to have me; theyhave often confessed this: yet all this makes little impression on me--Poxof these speculations! They give me the spleen; a disease I was not bornto. Let me alone, sirrahs, and be satisfied: I am, as long as MD and Prestoare well. Little wealth, and much health, and a life by stealth: that isall we want; and so farewell, dearest MD; Stella, Dingley, Presto, alltogether; now and for ever all together. Farewell again and again.

LONDON, July, 1711.

I have just sent my 26th, and have nothing to say, because I have otherletters to write (pshaw, I began too high) but to-morrow I will say more,and fetch up this line to be straight This is enough at present for twodear saucy naughty girls.

Morning. It is a terrible rainy day. Patrick lay out all last night, andis not yet returned: faith, poor Presto is a desolate creature; neitherservant, nor linen, nor anything.

I was at Court and Church to-day: I am acquainted with about thirty inthe drawing-room, and I am so proud I make all the Lords come up to me; onepasses half an hour pleasant enough. We had a dunce to preach before thequeen to-day, which often happens. Windsor is a delicious situation, butthe town is scoundrel. The Duke of Hamilton would needs be witty, and holdup my train as I walked upstairs. It is an ill circ*mstance that on Sundaysmuch company always meet at the great tables. The Secretary showed me hisbill of fare, to encourage me to dine with him. "Poh," said I, "show me abill of company, for I value not your dinner."

In my conscience. I fear I shall have the gout. I sometimes feel painsabout my feet and toes: I never drank till within these two years, and Idid it to cure my head. I often sit evenings with some of these people, anddrink in my turn; but I am resolved to drink ten times less than before;but they advise me to let what I drink be all wine, and not to put water init. Tooke and the printer stayed to-day to finish their affair. Then I wentto see Lord Treasurer, and chid him for not taking notice of me at Windsor.He said he kept a place for me yesterday at dinner, and expected me there;but I was glad I did not go, because the Duke of Buckingham was there, andthat would have made us acquainted; which I have no mind to.

I have sent a noble haunch of venison this afternoon to Mrs. Vanhomrigh;I wish you had it sirrahs. I dined gravely with my landlord, the Secretary.The queen was abroad to-day to hunt; but finding it disposed to rain, shekept in her coach, which she drives herself, and drives furiously, likeJehu, and is a mighty hunter, like Nimrod. Dingley has heard of Nimrod, butnot Stella, for it is in the Bible. Mr. Secretary has given me a warrantfor a buck; I can't sent it to MD. It is a sad thing, faith, consideringhow Presto loves MD, and how MD would love Presto's venison for Presto'ssake. God bless the two dear Wexford girls!

There was a drawing-room to-day at Court; but so few company, that thequeen sent for us into her bedchamber, where we made our bows, and stoodabout twenty of us round the room, while she looked at us round with herfan in her mouth, and once a minute said about three words to some thatwere nearest to her, and then she was told dinner was ready, and wentout.

LONDON, Dec. 1, 1711.

To-morrow is the fatal day for the Parliament meeting, and we are fullof hopes and fears. We reckon we have a majority of ten on our side in theHouse of Lords; yet I observe Mrs. Masham a little uneasy. The Duke ofMarlborough has not seen the queen for some days past; Mrs. Masham is gladof it, because she says he tells a hundred lies to his friends of what shesays to him: he is one day humble, and the next day on the high ropes.

This being the day Parliament was to meet, and the great question to bedetermined, I went with Dr. Freind to dine in the City, on purpose to beout of the way, and we sent our printer to see what was our fate; but hegave us a most melancholy account of things. The Earl of Nottingham beganand spoke against a peace, and desired that in their address they might putin a clause to advise the queen not to make a peace without Spain; whichwas debated, and carried by the Whigs by about six voices: and this hashappened entirely by my Lord Treasurer's neglect, who did not take timelycare to make up his strength, although every one of us gave him cautionenough. Nottingham has certainly been bribed. The question is yet onlycarried in the Committee of the whole House, and we hope when it isreported to the House to-morrow, we shall have a majority.

This is a day that may produce great alterations and hazard the ruin ofEngland. The Whigs are all in triumph; they foretold how all this would be,but we thought it boasting. Nay, they said the Parliament should bedissolved before Christmas, and perhaps it may: this is all your d----dduch*ess of Somerset's doings. I warned them of this nine months ago, and ahundred times since. I told Lord Treasurer I should have the advantage ofhim; for he would lose his head, and I should only be hanged, and so carrymy body entire to the grave.

I was this morning with Mr. Secretary: we are both of opinion that thequeen is false. He gave me reasons to believe the whole matter is settledbetween the queen and the Whigs. Things are now in a crisis, and a day ortwo will determine. I have desired him to engage Lord Treasurer to send, meabroad as Queen's Secretary somewhere or other, where I will remain tillthe new Ministers recall me; and then I will be sick for five or sixmonths, till the storm has spent itself. I hope he will grant me this; forI should hardly trust myself to the mercy of my enemies while their angeris fresh.

Morning. They say the Occasional Bill is brought to-day into the Houseof Lords; but I know not. I will now put an end to my letter, and give itinto the post-house with my own fair hands. This will be a memorableletter, and I shall sigh to see it some years hence. Here are the firststeps towards the ruin of an excellent Ministry; for I look upon them ascertainly ruined; and God knows what may be the consequence.--I now bid mydearest MD farewell; for company is coming, and I must be at LordDartmouth's office by noon. Farewell, dearest MD; I wish you a merryChristmas; I believe you will have this about that time. Love Presto, wholoves MD above all things a thousand times. Farewell again, dearest MD.

LONDON, Dec. 20, 1711.

I was with the Secretary this morning, and, for aught I can see, weshall have a languishing death: I can know nothing, nor themselves neither.I dined, you know, with our Society, and that odious Secretary would makeme President next week; so I must entertain them this day se'night at theThatched House Tavern: it will cost me five or six pounds; yet theSecretary says he will give me wine.

Saturday night. I have broken open my letter, and tore it into thebargain, to let you know that we are all safe: the queen has made no lessthan twelve Lords to have a majority; nine new ones, the other three peers'sons; and has turned out the Duke of Somerset. She is awaked at last, andso is Lord Treasurer: I want nothing now but to see the duch*ess out. But weshall do without her. We are all extremely happy. Give me joy, sirrahs.This is written in a coffee-house.

LONDON, Feb. 26, 1712.

I was again busy with the Secretary. I dined with him, and we were to domore business after dinner; but after dinner is after dinner--an old sayingand a true, "much drinking, little thinking." We had company with us, andnothing could be done, so I am to go there again to-morrow.

To-day in the morning I visited upwards: first I saw the Duke of Ormondbelow stairs, and gave him joy of being declared General in Flanders; thenI went up one pair of stairs, and sat with the duch*ess; then I went upanother pair of stairs, and paid a visit to Lady Betty; and then desiredher woman to go up to the garret, that I might pass half an hour with her,for she was young and handsome, but she would not.

Tell Walls that I spoke to the Duke of Ormond about his friend'saffairs. I likewise mentioned his own affair to Mr. Southwell. But oo mustnot know zees sings, zey are secrets; and we must keep them flom nautydallars. I was with Lord Treasurer to-day, and hat care oo for zat? Mondayis parson's holiday, and oo lost oo money at cards; ze devil's device.Nite, nite, my two deelest logues.

LONDON, April 6, 1713

I was this morning at the rehearsal of Mr. Addison's play, called"Cato," which is to be acted on Friday. There were not above half a scoreof us to see it. We stood on the stage, and it was foolish enough to seethe actors prompted every moment, and the poet directing them; and the drabthat acts Cato's daughter, in the midst of a passionate part, calling out"What's next?" I went back and dined with Mr. Addison.

Nothing new to-day; so I'll seal up this to-night. Pray write soon....Farewell, deelest MD, MD, MD. Love Presto.

Childhood, Boyhood, Youth

Childhood (1852), Boyhood (1854), and Youth(1855-57)--Tolstoy's first literary efforts--may be regarded assemi-autobiographical studies; if not in detail, at least in the widersense that all his books contain pictures more or less accurate of himselfand his own experiences. No plot runs through them; they simply analyse anddescribe with extraordinary minuteness the feelings of a nervous and morbidboy--a male Marie Bashkirtseff. They are tales rather of the developmentsof the thoughts, than of the life of a child, with a pale background of menand events. The distinct charm lies in the sincerity with which thisdevelopment is represented.

I.--Childhood

August 12, 18--, was the third day after my tenth birthday anniversary.Wonderful presents had been given me. My tutor, Karl Ivanitch, roused me atseven by striking at a fly directly over my head with a flapper made ofsugar paper fastened to a stick. He generally spoke in German, and in hiskindly voice exclaimed, "Auf, Kinder, auf; es ist Zeit. Die Mutter istschon im Saal." ("Get up, children, it is time. Your Mother is already inthe drawing-room.")

Dyadka Nikolai, the valet of us children, a neat little man, brought inthe clothes for me and Volodya, who was imitating my sister's governess,Marya Ivanova, in mocking, merry laughter. Somewhat sternly presently KarlIvanitch called from the schoolroom to know if we were nearly ready tobegin our lessons.

In the schoolroom, on one shelf was our promiscuous assortment of books,on another, the still more miscellaneous collection which our dear oldtutor was pleased to call his library. I remember that it included a Germantreatise on cabbage gardens, a history of the Seven Years' War, and a workon hydrostatic. Karl Ivanitch spent all his spare time in reading hisbeloved books, but he never read anything beyond these and the NorthernBee. After early lessons our tutor conducted us downstairs to greetMamma.

She was sitting in the parlour, in front of the samovar, pouring outtea. To the left of the divan was the old English grand piano, on which mydark-complexioned sister, Liubotchka, eleven years old, was painfullypractising Clementi's exercises. Near her Marya Ivanova, with scowls on herface, was loudly counting, and beating time with her foot. She frownedstill more disagreeably at Karl as he entered, but he appeared to ignorethis and kissed my mother's hand with a German salutation. After mutuallyaffectionate greetings Mamma told us to go to our father and to ask him tocome to her before he went to the threshing floor.

We found Papa angrily discussing business affairs with Yakov Mikhailof,the chief concern being apparently about money from Mamma's estate atKhabarovka, her native village. A large sum was due to the council, andYakov pleaded that it would be difficult to raise it from the sale of hayand the proceeds of the mill. "For example," said he, "the miller has beentwice to ask me for delay, swearing by Christ the Lord that he has nomoney. What little cash he had he put into the dam."

Yakov was a serf, and was a most devoted and assiduous man, excessivelyeconomical in managing his master's affairs, and constantly worried himselfover the increase of his master's property at the expense of that of hismistress.

For some days we had been expecting something unusual, from preparationswhich we saw going on for some journey, but an announcement from Papa atlength surprised us terribly. He greeted us one morning with the remarkthat it was time to put an end to our idleness, and that as he was goingthat evening to Moscow, we were to go with him and to live there with ourgrandmother, Mamma remaining on the estate with the girls.

My thoughts were mingled, for I was very grieved for the sake of Mamma,yet I felt pleasure at the idea that we were grown up. For poor KarlIvanitch I was extremely sorry, as he would be discharged. On my wayupstairs I saw Papa's favourite greyhound, Milka, basking in the sunshineon the terrace, and ran out, kissed her on the nose and caressed her,saying, "Farewell, Milotchka. We shall never see each other again." Then,altogether overcome with emotion, I burst into tears.

My father was a chivalrous character of the last century, who regardedwith contempt the people of the present century. His two chief passionswere cards and women. He was tall and commanding, bald, with small eyesever twinkling vivaciously, and a lisping utterance. He knew how toexercise a spell over people of every grade, and in the highest society hewas held in great esteem. He seemed born to shine in his brilliantposition, and was an expert in the management of all things that couldconduce to comfort and pleasure.

A lover of music, he sang to his own piano accompaniment operatic songs,but had no liking for Beethoven's sonatas and other scientificcompositions. His principles grew more fixed as years rolled on; he judgedactions as being good or bad accordingly as they procured him happiness andpleasure, or otherwise; he talked persuasively; and he could represent thesame deed as either an innocent piece of playfulness or of abominablevillainy.

Happy days of childhood that can never be recalled! What memories I yetcherish of them. I see Mamma just as plainly as when she so long since wastalking to some one at the tea-table, while I, in my high chair, grewdrowsy. Presently she stroked my hair with her soft hand, saying, "Get up,my darling, it is time to go to bed. Get up, my angel."

I spring up and embrace her, and exclaim, "Dear, dear Mamma, how I loveyou!" With her sad and fascinating smile she places me on her knees, issilent awhile, and then speaks. "So you love me very much? Love me alwaysand never forget me. If you lose your Mamma, Nikolinka, you will not forgether?"

She kisses me still more lovingly, and I cry with tears of love andrapture flooding my face, "Oh, do not say that, my darling, my preciousone." Will that freshness, that happy carelessness, that thirst for lovewhich made life's only requirements, ever return? Where are those puretears of tenderest emotion? The angel of consolation came and wiped themaway. Do the memories alone abide?

About a month after we had removed to Moscow, Grandmamma received avisit from Princess Kornakova, a woman of forty-five, with disagreeablegray-green eyes, but sweetly curved lips, bright red hair, and insalubriousface. In spite of these peculiarities her aspect was noble. I took adislike to her because I found from her talk that she was given to beatingher own children, and thought that other people's children, especiallyboys, needed to be whipped.

Another visitor was Prince Ivan Ivanitch, distinguished for his noblecharacter, handsome person, splendid bravery and extraordinary goodfortune. He belonged to a powerful family, and lived in accordance withprinciples of the strictest religion and morality. Though somewhat reservedand haughty, in demeanour, he was full of kindly feeling. Prince IvanIvanitch was a highly cultured man of most versatile accomplishments. OurGrandmamma was evidently delighted to see him, and his magnificent aspectand her liking for him inspired me with unbounded admiration andreverence.

He asked why Mamma had not come to Moscow. "Ah," was the reply, "shewould have come if possible, but they have no income this year."

"I do not understand," replied the Prince. "Her Khabarovka is awonderful estate, and it must always bring in a fine revenue."

"I will tell you," said Grandmamma, sadly. "It seems to me that all thepretexts are made simply to enable him to live a gay life here, while she,angel of goodness that she is, suspects nothing. She believes him ineverything."

This conversation should not have been overheard by me, but, havingoverheard it, I crept out of the room.

On the 16th of April, nearly six months later, serious news came fromMamma. She wrote to Papa that she had contracted a chill, which had causeda fever, that this was over, but had left her in such utter weakness thatshe would never rise from her bed again, although those about her were notaware of such a condition. She wished him to come to her at once and tobring her two boys with him. She prayed that God's holy will might bedone.

On April 25th we reached our Petrovskoe home. Papa had been very sad andthoughtful during the journey. We at once learned from the steward thatMamma had not left her room for six days. I shall never forget what I sawwhen we entered Mamma's room. She was unconscious. Her eyes were open, butshe saw nothing. We were led away. Mamma soon passed away.

She was dead, the funeral obsequies took place, and then our life wenton much as before. We rose, had our repasts, and retired to rest at thesame hours. Three days after the funeral the whole household removed toMoscow. Grandmamma only learned what had happened when we arrived, and hergrief was terrible. She lay unconscious for a week, and the doctor fearedfor her life, for she would not eat, speak, or take medicine. When sherecovered somewhat, her first thought was of us children. She cried softly,spoke of Mamma, and tenderly caressed us.

II.--Boyhood

On our arrival in Moscow a change had taken place in my views of things.My sentiment of reverence for Grandmamma had changed to one of sympathy. Asshe covered my cheeks with kisses I realised that each kiss expressed thethought "She is gone; I shall never see her more." Papa had very little todo with us in Moscow, coming to us only at dinner time, and lost much in myeyes, with his ostentatious dress, his stewards, his clerks, and hishunting and business expeditions.

Between us and the girls also an invisible barrier seemed to rise. Wewere proud of our trousers and straps, and they of their petticoats, whichincreased in length. Their showier Sunday dress made it manifest that wewere no longer in the country. But soon commenced a period of my life ofwhich it is difficult to trace a record. Rarely during memories of it do Ifind moments of the genuine warmth of feeling which so frequently illuminedthe earliest years of my life.

Vivid is the recollection of Volodya's entrance at the university. Hewas barely two years my senior in age. The day of his first examinationarrived, and he presented a handsome appearance in his blue uniform withbrass buttons and lacquered boots. The examination lasted ten days, andVolodya, having passed brilliantly, returned on the last day no longer inblue coat and grey cap, but in student uniform, with blue embroideredcollar, three-cornered hat, and a gilt dagger by his side. Joy andexcitement reigned in the whole household. For the first time since Mamma'sdeath, Grandmamma drank champagne, and weeps with joy as she looks atVolodya, who henceforth rode in his own equipage, receives friends in hisown rooms, smokes tobacco, goes to balls.

But soon another incident happened which is engraven on memory. The dearold Grandmamma was growing daily weaker, and one morning the announcementthrilled us that she was dead. Again, the house was full of mourning. In afew months I should be preparing to enter the university. I was by degreesemerging from my boyish moods, with the exception of one--a tendency tometaphysical dreaminess, which was fated to do me much injury in afteryears.

At this period an intimacy commenced between me and a very remarkableman, Prince Dmitri Nekhliudoff. He was a tall and commanding figure, withan extraordinary intellect. Whenever he found me alone, we seated ourselvesin some secluded corner and found mutual delight in metaphysicaldiscussions. With ecstasy in those moments I soared higher and higher intothe realms of thought. This strange friendship grew. We agreed to confesseverything to each other, and thus we should really know each other and notbe ashamed; but, in order that we should not be in any fear of strangers,we vowed never to say anything to anybody else about each other. And wekept the vow. As may be imagined, the influence of my friend over me wasgreater than mine over him. I adopted his fervent ideas, which includedlofty aspirations for the reformation of all mankind.

III.--Youth

I was nearly sixteen, and from that time I date the beginning of youth.Under various professors I studied, though by no means willingly, toprepare for the university. At length, on April 16, I went for the firsttime to the great hall of the university. For the first time in my life Iwore a dress coat. The bright hall was filled with a brilliant crowd ofhundreds of young men in gymnasium costumes and dress coats, statelyprofessors moving freely about among the tables. On that day I was examinedin history and answered questions in Russian history in brilliant style,for I knew the subject well. I received five marks. Similar successrewarded my efforts at the examination in mathematics, for the professortold me I had answered even better than was required, and on this occasionI received five points.

Everything went splendidly till I came to the Latin examination. TheLatin professor was spoken of in accents of terror, for he had thereputation of taking a fierce delight in plucking candidates. My success sofar had made me feel proudly confident, and as I could translate Cicero andHorace without the lexicon and was proficient in Zumpt's Grammar, I thoughtI might equal the rest. But not so. The professor amicably passed one of myyoung acquaintances, although the youth was palpably deficient in hisanswers. I afterwards learned that he was the student's protector.

When my turn came, immediately afterwards, the professor turned on me intruly savage demeanour. "That is not it; that is not it at all," exclaimedhe. "This is not the way to prepare for higher education. You only want towear the uniform and to boast of being first."

The demeanour of this professor so affected me that my confusion wascomplete. I only received two marks, and the injustice so depressed me thatI lost all ambition and allowed the remaining examinations to proceedwithout making any effort. I made up my mind that it was unwise to aim atbeing first, and I resolved to adhere to this sentiment in theuniversity.

My father married again. He was forty-eight when he took AvdotyaEpifanova as his second wife. She was a beautiful woman, whom Mamma used tocall Dunitchka. But I had suspected nothing until Papa actually announcedto us that he was going to marry her. The wedding was to take place in afortnight. I and Volodya returned to Moscow at the beginning of September,and on the following day I went to the university for my first lecture.

It was a magnificent, sunny day, and as I entered the auditorium I feltlost in the throng of gay youths flitting about through the doors and amongthe corridors. Belonging to no particular group I felt isolated, and theneven angry, and I remember in my heart that this first day was a dismaloccasion for me. I looked at the professor with an ironical feeling, for hecommenced his lecture with an introduction which, to my mind, was withoutsense. I decided at this first lecture that there was no need to write downeverything that each professor said, and to this principle I adhered.

Though during my course I made many pleasant acquaintances, and so feltless isolated than at first, I indulged in little real comradeship. Butduring the winter my attention was much engrossed with affairs of theheart, for I was in love three times. Yet I was overwhelmed with shyness,fearing that my love should be discovered by its object. With two of theyoung ladies, indeed, I had already been in love previously. Of one of themI was now enamoured for the third time. But I knew that Volodya alsoregarded her with passionate ecstasy. I felt that it would certainly not beagreeable to him to learn that two brothers were in love with the sameyoung woman.

Therefore I said nothing to him of my love. But great satisfaction wasafforded to my mind by the fact that our love was so pure, and that eachwould be ready, if needful, to make a sacrifice for the sake of the other.But that self-abnegation did not, after all, extend to Volodya, for when heheard that a certain diplomat was to marry the girl, he was disposed toslap his face and to challenge him to a duel. It happened that I had onlyspoken once to the young lady, and my love passed away in a week, as I madeno effort to perpetuate it.

During that winter I was quite disenchanted with the social pleasures towhich I had looked forward when I entered the university, in imitation ofmy brother Volodya. He danced a great deal, and Papa also went with hisyoung wife to balls. But at the first one which I attended I was so shythat I declined the invitation of the Princess Kornakova to dance,declaring that I did not dance, though I had come to her evening party withthe express intention of dancing a great deal. I remained silently in oneplace the whole evening.

Avdotya's passionate love for Papa was evident in every word, look, andaction. We were always hypocritically polite to her, called herchère maman, and noted that at first she was fond of callingherself stepmother, and that she plainly felt the unpleasantness of herposition. Her disposition was very amiable and she was in no wayexacting.

My first examination at length arrived. It was on differential andintegral calculus. I was indifferent and abstracted, but a feeling of somedread passed over me when the same young professor who had questioned me atthe entrance examination looked me in the face. I answered so badly that helooked at me compassionately, and said quietly but firmly that as I shouldnot pass in the second class I had better not present myself forexamination. I went home and remained weeping in my room for three daysover my failure. I even looked out my pistols, in order that they might beat hand if I should feel a wish to shoot myself. Finally, I saw my fatherand begged him to permit me to enter the hussars, or to go to theCaucasus.

Though he was not pleased, yet, when he saw how deep was my grief hesought to comfort me by saying that it was not so very bad, and thatarrangements might be made for a different course of study. After a fewdays I became composed, but did not leave the house till we departed forthe country. I may some day relate the sequel in the happier half of myyouth.

[Tolstoy has never published the continuation, but it is generallyconsidered that he represents himself in Constantine Levin, the hero of thegreatest of his stories, and that thus we gain an insight into his maturethoughts.]

My Confession

Count Lyof N. Tolstoy in writing this work expressedhimself in such independent terms that it could not be published in Russia,but was issued in Geneva in 1888, by the firm of Elpidine, who had printedin 1886 his "What is my Life," and in 1892 brought out his "Walk in theLight." The books thus issued in the original Russian version outside ofthe famous author's native land are all purely spiritual, and are writtenin the most elevated tone. But Tolstoy's mode of interpreting theScriptures is not approved by the Holy Synod of the Eastern OrthodoxChurch, or Russo-Greek Communion, and thus most of his treatises which comewithin the strictly religious category are classed amongst the "ForbiddenBooks" of modern Russian literature. In this "Confession" Tolstoyemphatically strikes the keynote which is the motif of all hisdidactic writings. It is an affirmation of the principle that the purespirit of religion, apart from external dogma, is the really preciousfactor of life. He follows the same strain in his "What I Believe," and his"Christianity of Christ." The following synopsis is translated andsummarised from the original Russian.

I.--Evil Early Years

Though reared in the faith of the Orthodox Eastern, or Russo-GreekChurch, I had by the time when, at the age of eighteen, I left theuniversity ceased to believe what I had been taught. My faith could neverhave been well grounded in conviction. I not only ceased to pray, but alsoto attend the services and to fast. Without denying the existence of God,yet I cherished no ideas either as to the nature of God or the teaching ofChrist.

I found that my wish to become a good and virtuous man, whenever theaspiration was in any way expressed, simply exposed me to ridicule; while Iinstantly gained praise for any vicious behaviour. Even my excellent auntdeclared that she wished two things for me. One was that I should form aliaison with some married lady; the other that I should become an adjutantto the Tsar.

I look back with horror on the years of my young manhood, for I wasguilty of slaying men in battle, of gambling, of riotous squandering ofsubstance gained by the toil of serfs, of deceit, and of profligacy. Thatcourse of life lasted ten years. Then I took to writing, but the motive wasgrovelling, for I aimed at gaining money and flattery.

My aims were gratified, for, coming to St. Petersburg at the age of 26,I secured the flattering reception I had coveted from the authors most inrepute. The war, about which I had written much from the field of conflict,had just closed. I found that a theory prevailed amongst the"Intelligentia" that the function of writers, thinkers, and poets was toteach; they were to teach not because they knew or understood, butunconsciously and intuitively. Acting on this philosophy, I, as a thinkerand poet, wrote and taught I knew not what, received large remuneration formy efforts with the pen, and lived loosely, gaily, and extravagantly.

Thus I was one of the hierarchs of the literary faith, and for aconsiderable time was undisturbed by any doubts as to its soundness; butwhen three years had been thus spent, serious suspicions entered my mind. Inoted that the devotees of this apparently infallible principle were atvariance amongst themselves, for they disputed, deceived, abused, andswindled each other. And many were grossly selfish, and most immoral.

Disgust supervened, both with myself and with mankind in general. Myerror now was that though my eyes were opened to the vanity and delusion ofthe position, yet I retained it, imagining that I, as thinker, poet,teacher, could teach other men while not at all knowing what to teach. Tomy other faults an inordinate pride had been added by my intercourse withthese litterateurs. That period viewed retrospectively seems to melike one of a kind of madness. Hundreds of us wrote to teach the people,while we all abused and confuted one another. We could teach nothing, yetwe sent millions of pages all over Russia, and we were unspeakably vexedthat we seemed to gain no attention whatever, for nobody appeared to listento us.

II.--Groping in Darkness

I travelled in Europe at this period, before my marriage, stillcherishing in my mind the idea of general perfectibility, which was sopopular at that time with the "Intelligentia." Cultured circles clung tothe theory of what we call "progress," vague though are the notionsattaching to the term. I was horrified with the spectacle of an executionin Paris, and my eyes were opened to the fallacy underlying the theory ofhuman wisdom. The doctrine of "progress" I now felt to be a meresuperstition, and I was further confirmed in my conviction by the sad deathof my brother after a painful illness of a whole year.

My brother was kind, amiable, clever, and serious; but he passed awaywithout ever knowing why he had lived or what his death meant for him. Alltheories were futile in the face of this tragedy. Returning to Russia Isettled in my rural home and began to organise schools for the peasants,feeling real enthusiasm for the enterprise. For I still clung to a greatextent to the idea of progress by development. I thought that though highlycultured men all thought and taught differently and agreed about nothing,yet in the case of the children of the mujiks the difficulty could easilybe surmounted by permitting the children to learn what they liked.

I also tried through my own newspaper to indoctrinate the people, but mymind grew more and more embarrassed. At length I fell sick, rather mentallythan physically. I went off to the Steppes to breathe the pure air and totake mare's milk and to live the simple life. I married soon after myreturn to my estate. As time passed on I became happily absorbed in theinterests of wife and children, largely forgetting during a happy intervalof fifteen years the old anxiety for individual perfection. For this desirewas superseded by that of promoting the welfare of my family.

All this time, however, I was writing busily, and was gaining much moneyas well as winning great applause. And in everything I wrote I persistentlytaught what was for me the sole truth--that our chief object in life shouldbe to secure our own happiness and that of our family. Then, five yearsago, supervened a mood of mental lethargy. I grew despondent; my perplexityincreased, and I was tormented by the constant recurrence of such questionsas--"Why?" and "What afterwards?" And by degrees the questions took a moreconcrete form. "I now possess six thousand 'desyatins' of land in thegovernment of Samara, and three hundred horses--what then?" I could find noanswer. Then came the question, "What if I could excel Shakespeare, andMolière, and Gogol, and become the most celebrated the world hasever seen--what then?" Answer, there was none; yet I felt that I must findone in order to go on living.

Life had now lost its meaning, and was no longer real to me. I was ahealthy and happy man, and yet so empty did life seem to me that I wasafraid of being tempted to commit suicide, even though I had not theslightest intention to perpetrate such a deed. But, fearing lest thetemptation might come upon me I hid a rope away out of my sight, and ceasedcarrying a gun in my walks.

III.--The Spirit of Despair

It was in my 50th year that the question "What is life" had reduced meto utter despair. Various queries clustered round this centralinterrogation. "Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there anysignification in life that can overcome inevitable death?" I found that inhuman knowledge no real answer was forthcoming to such yearnings. None ofthe theories of the philosophers gave any satisfaction. In my search for asolution of life's problem I felt like a traveller lost in a forest, out ofwhich he can find no issue.

I found that not only did Solomon declare that he hated life, for all isvanity and vexation of spirit; but that Sakya Muni, the Indian sage,equally decided that life was a great evil; while Socrates and Schopenhaueragree that annihilation is the only thing to be wished for. But neitherthese testimonies of great minds nor my own reasoning could induce me todestroy myself. For a force within me, combined with an instinctiveconsciousness of life, counteracted the feeling of despair and drew me outof my misery of soul. I felt that I must study life not merely as it wasamongst those like myself, but as it was amongst the millions of the commonpeople. I reflected that knowledge based on reason, the knowledge of thecultured, imparted no meaning to life, but that, on the other hand, amongstthe masses of the common people there was an unreasoning consciousness oflife which gave it a significance.

This unreasoning knowledge was the very faith which I was rejecting. Itwas faith in things I could not understand; in God, one yet three; in thecreation of devils and angels. Such things seemed utterly contrary toreason. So I began to reflect that perhaps what I considered reasonable wasafter all not so, and what appeared unreasonable might not really beso.

I discovered one great error that I had perpetrated. I had beencomparing life with life, that is, the finite with the finite, and theinfinite with the infinite. The process was vain. It was like comparingforce with force, matter with matter, nothing with nothing. It was likesaying in mathematics that A equals A, or O equals O. Thus the only answerwas "identity."

Now I saw that scientific knowledge would give no reply to my questions.I began to comprehend that though faith seemed to give unreasonableanswers, these answers certainly did one important thing. They did at leastbring in the relation of the finite to the infinite. I came to feel that inaddition to the reasoning knowledge which I once reckoned to be the soletrue knowledge, there was in every man also an unreasoning species ofknowledge which makes life possible. That unreasoning knowledge isfaith.

What is this faith? It is not only belief in God and in things unseen,but it is the apprehension of life's meaning. It is the force of life. Ibegan to understand that the deepest source of human wisdom was to be foundin the answers given by faith, that I had no reasonable right to rejectthem, and that they alone solved the problem of life.

IV.--Mistakes Apprehended

Nevertheless my heart was not lightened. I studied the writings ofBuddhism, Islam, and Christianity. I also studied actual religious life byturning to the orthodox, the monks, and the Evangelicals who preachsalvation through faith in a Redeemer. I asked what meaning was given forthem to life by what they believed. But I could not accept the faith of anyof these men, because I saw that it did not explain the meaning of life,but only obscured it. So I felt a return of the terrible feeling ofdespair.

Being unable to believe in the sincerity of men who did not liveconsistently with the doctrines they professed, and feeling that they wereself-deceived, and, like myself, were satisfied with the lusts of theflesh, I began to draw near to the believers amongst the poor, simple, andignorant, the pilgrims, monks, and peasants. I found that though theirfaith was mingled with much superstition, yet with them the whole life wasa confirmation of the meaning of life which their faith gave them.

The more I contemplated the lives of these simple folk, the more deeplywas I convinced of the reality of their faith, which I perceived to be anecessity for them, for it alone gave life a meaning and made it worthliving. This was in direct opposition to what I saw in my own circle, whereI marked the possibility of living without faith, for not one in a thousandprofessed to be a believer, while amongst the poorer classes not one inthousands was an unbeliever. The contradiction was extreme. In my class atranquil death, without terror or despair, is rare; in that lower class, anuneasy death is a rare exception. I found that countless numbers in thatlower mass of humanity had so understood the meaning of life that they wereable both to live bearing contentedly the burdens of life, and to diepeacefully.

The more I learned of these men of faith the more I liked them, and theeasier I felt it so to live. For two years I lived in their fashion. Thenthe life of my own wealthy and cultured class became repellent to me, forit had lost all meaning whatever. It seemed like empty child's play, whilethe life of the working classes appeared to me in its truesignificance.

Now I began to apprehend where I had judged wrongly. My mistake was thatI had applied an answer to my question concerning life which only concernedmy own life, to life in general. My life had been but one long indulgenceof my passions. It was evil and meaningless. Therefore such an answer hadno application to life at large, but only to my individual life.

I understood the truth which the Gospel subsequently taught me morefully, that men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds wereevil. I understood that for the comprehension of life, it was essentialthat life should be something more than an evil and meaningless thingrevealed by reason. Life must be considered as a whole, not merely in itsparasitic excrescences. I felt that to be good was more important than tobelieve. I loved good men. I hated myself. I accepted truth. I understoodthat we were all more or less mad with the love of evil.

I looked at the animals, saw the birds building nests, living only tofly and to subsist. I saw how the goat, hare, and wolf live, but to feedand to nurture their young, and are contented and happy. Their life is areasonable one. And man must gain his living like the animals do, only withthis great difference, that if he should attempt this alone, he willperish. So he must labour for the good of all, not merely for himself.

I had not helped others. My life for thirty years had been that of amere parasite. I had been contented to remain ignorant of the reason why Ilived at all.

There is a supreme will in the universe. Some one makes the universallife his secret care. To know what that supreme will is, we must obey itimplicitly. No reproaches against their masters come from the simpleworkers who do just what is required of them, though we are in the habit ofregarding them as brutes. We, on the contrary, who think ourselves wise,consume the goods of our master while we do nothing willingly that heprescribes. We think that it would be stupid for us to do so.

What does such conduct imply? Simply that our master is stupid, or thatwe have no master.

V.--Feeling Versus Reason

Thus I was led at last to the conclusion that knowledge based on reasonis fallacious, and that the knowledge of truth can be secured only byliving. I had come to feel that I must live a real, not a parasitical life,and that the meaning of life could be perceived only by observation of thecombined lives of the great human community.

The feelings of my mind during all these experiences and observationswere mingled with a heart-torment which I can only describe as a searchingafter God. This search was a feeling rather than a course of reasoning. Forit came from my heart, and was actually opposed to my way of thinking. Kanthad shown the impossibility of proving the existence of God, yet I stillhoped to find Him, and I still addressed Him in prayer. Yet I did not findHim whom I sought.

At times I contended against the reasoning of Kant and Schopenhauer, andargued that causation is not in the same category with thought and spaceand time. I argued that if I existed, there was a cause of my being, andthat cause was the cause of all causes. Then I pondered the idea that thecause of all things is what is called God, and with all my powers I stroveto attain a sense of the presence of this cause.

Directly I became conscious of a power over me I felt a possibility ofliving. Then I asked myself what was this cause, and what was my relationto what I called God? Simply the old familiar answer occurred to me, thatGod is the creator, the giver of all. Yet I was dissatisfied and fearful,and the more I prayed, the more convinced I was that I was not heard. In mydespair I cried aloud for mercy, but no one had mercy on me, and I felt asif life stagnated within me.

Yet the conviction kept recurring that I must have appeared in thisworld with some motive on the part of some one who had sent me into it. IfI had been sent here, who sent me? I had not been like a fledgling flungout of a nest to perish. Some one had cared for me, had loved me. Who wasit? Again came the same answer, God. He knew and saw my fear, my despair,and so I passed from the consideration of the existence of God, which wasproved, on to that of our relation towards him as our Redeemer through HisSon. But I felt this to be a thing apart from me and from the world, andthis God vanished like melting ice from my eyes. Again I was left indespair. I felt there was nothing left but to put an end to my life; yet Iknew that I should never do this.

Thus did moods of joy and despair come and go, till one day, when I waslistening to the sounds in a forest, and was still on that day in the earlyspringtide seeking after God in my thoughts, a flash of joy illumined mysoul. I realised that the conception of God was not God Himself. I feltthat I had only truly lived when I believed in God. God is life. Live toseek God and life will not be without Him. The light that then shone neverleft me. Thus I was saved from self-destruction. Gradually I felt the glowand strength of life return to me. I renounced the life of my own class,because it was unreal, and its luxurious superfluity rendered comprehensionof life impossible. The simple men around me, the working classes, were thereal Russian people. To them I turned. They made the meaning of life clear.It may thus be expressed:--

Each of us is so created by God that he may ruin or save his soul. Tosave his soul, a man must live after God's word by humility, charity, andendurance, while renouncing all the pleasures of life. This is for thecommon people the meaning of the whole system of faith, traditionallydelivered to them from the past and administered to them by the pastors ofthe Church.

The Life of GirolamoSavonarola

Pasquale Villari was born October 3, 1827, at Naples. Atthe age of twenty he produced his first literary effort, a Liberalmanifesto against Neapolitan Bourbonism, which necessitated his flight fromhis native city. He retreated to Florence and there wrote his work on"Savonarola," which at once achieved fame and was translated into French,German, and English. His next great book was his "Macchiavelli." Villarihad been appointed Professor of History at Nice, but left that city for asimilar position at Florence. He entered political life in 1862, and hassat as a Parliamentary Deputy several times. In 1884 he was made senator,and in 1891 he was minister of public instruction in the Rudini Cabinet.Villari's essays on Dante are much esteemed. His treatise on "The First TwoCenturies of Florentine History" is considered a standard work. All hisbooks have been translated into our language by his English wife, LindaVillari, who is herself an accomplished authoress.

I.--1452-1494

The House of Savonarola derived its ancient origin from the city ofPadua. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the family removed toFerrara where, on September 21, 1452, the subject of this biography,Girolamo Savonarola, first saw the light. He was the third of sevenchildren of his parents. The lad became the favourite of his grandfather,Michele, who wished to see him become a great physician, and devoted mostassiduous care on the task of training his intellect. But unfortunately thegrandfather soon passed away, and Girolamo's studies were then directed byhis father, who began to instruct him in philosophy.

The natural sciences were then only branches of philosophy, and thelatter, though employed as preliminary to the study of medicine, was purelyscholastic. The books which came into the hands of the young Savonarolawere the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Arabic commentaries onAristotle. He was specially fascinated with the works of St. Thomas, butbesides literature he studied music. He also composed verses.

All particulars, however, of Savonarola's boyhood are unfortunatelylacking. But we can form a vivid idea of the surroundings which must haveinfluenced him. Ferrara was then the splendid capital of the House of Este,with 100,000 inhabitants and a court which was one of the first in Italy,and was continually visited by princes, emperors, and popes. The lad musthave witnessed gorgeous pageants, like the two which occurred on visits ofPope Pius II., in 1459 and 1460. But during all this period Savonarola wasentirely absorbed in studying the Scriptures and St. Thomas Aquinas,allowing himself no recreation save playing sad music on his lute, orwriting verses expressing, not without force and simplicity, the griefs ofhis heart.

The contrasts that the youth witnessed between the magnificenceostentatiously displayed and the evidences of tyranny in palaces andcastles in whose dungeons were immured numerous victims, clanking theirchains, made indelible impressions on his mind. Conducted once by hisparents to the ducal palace at Ferrara, he firmly refused ever to enter itsdoors again. With singular spiritual fervour in one so young, Savonarolasurrendered his whole heart and soul to religious sentiments and exercises.To him worldly life, as he saw all Ferrara absorbed in its gaieties, becameutterly repellent, and a sermon to which he listened from an Augustinianfriar determined him to adopt the monastic life.

April 24, 1475, when his parents were absent from home attending thefestival of St. George, he ran away to Bologna and presented himself at theMonastery of St. Dominic, begging that he might be admitted for the mostmenial service. He was instantly received, and at once began to prepare forhis novitiate. In this retreat he submitted himself to the severestpenances and discipline and displayed such excessive zeal and devotion asto win the admiration of the monks, who at times believed him to be rapt ina holy trance.

II.--1475-1481

Savonarola's sojourn at Bologna in the Dominican Monastery lasted forseven years, during which his spirit was occupied not only with faith andprayer, but with deep meditation on the miserable condition of the Church.His soul was stirred to wrathful indignation. The shocking corruption ofthe Papacy, dating from the death of Pius II. in 1464, was to reach itsclimax under Alexander VI. The avarice of Paul II. was soon noted by allthe world, and so boundless was the profligacy of his successor, SixtusIV., that no deed was too scandalous for him to commit.

The state of Italy as well as of the Church was miserable, and the soulof the young monk was filled with horror-stricken grief, relieved only bystudy and prayer. He had been much occupied in instructing the novices, butnow he was promoted to the function of preacher. In 1481 he was sent by hissuperiors to preach in Ferrara. Nothing is known of the effect of thesermons he delivered at that time and place. Savonarola had not yetdeveloped his gifts of oratory. He was driven from Ferrara by an outbreakof war with the Venetians, and repaired to Florence, where, in theMonastery of St. Mark the brightest as well as the saddest years of hislife were to be spent. The Monastery contained the first public libraryestablished in Italy, which was kept in excellent order by the monks.

Savonarola was half intoxicated with joy during his first days inFlorence. He was charmed by the soft lines of the Tuscan hills and thebeauty of the Tuscan speech. Lorenzo the Magnificent had been rulingFlorence for many years and was then at the climacteric of his fame. Underhis sway everything appeared to prosper. Enemies had been imprisoned orbanished, and factions had ceased to distract the city. Lorenzo's shamelesslicentiousness was condoned by reason of his brilliancy, his patronage ofart and literature, and his lavish public entertainments.

Greek scholars, driven westward by the fall of Constantinople, soughtrefuge at the Florentine court. The fine arts flourished and a PlatonicAcademy was established. It was even proposed that the Pope should canonisePlato as a saint. In fact that period witnessed the inauguration of modernculture.

III.--1481-1490

After the first few days in Florence, Savonarola again began toexperience the feeling of isolation. For he speedily detected the unbeliefand frivolity under the surface of the intellectual culture of the people.Even in St. Mark's Monastery there was no real religion. Savonarola wassoon invited to preach the Lenten sermons in St. Lorenzo. His discoursesproduced no special effect, for the Florentines preferred preachers whoindulged in Pagan quotations and rhetorical elegancies rather than inexpatiating in the precepts of Christianity. But a stirring event was athand.

Savonarola was sent by his superiors to Reggio to attend a Chapter ofthe Dominicans. During the discussion he was suddenly impelled to rise tohis feet and to plunge into a powerful declamation against the corruptionsof the Church and the clergy which transfixed his hearers withastonishment. This outburst was a revelation of his extraordinary powers.It instantly secured his fame and from that moment many sought hisacquaintance.

Savonarola's mind from that moment became strangely excited and it isnot surprising that he should have seen many visions. He on one occasionsaw the heavens open. A panorama of the calamities of the Church passedbefore him and he heard a voice charging him to proclaim them to thepeople. In that year, 1484, Pope Sixtus died. The election of hissuccessor, Innocent VIII. destroyed the hopes of honest men. For the newPope no longer disguised his children under the appellation of nephews, butopenly acknowledged them as his sons, conferring on them the title ofprinces.

We may imagine the storms of emotion excited in the soul of Savonarola.Fortunately, he was sent to preach Lenten sermons at San Gimignano, the"City of the Grey Towers" in the Siennese hills. Here he found his truevocation. His words flowed freely and were eloquent and effective. Next hewas sent to Brescia, where his predictions of coming terrors and hisexhortations to repentance produced a profound impression. During the sackof that same city in 1512 by the fierce soldiers of Gaston de Foix, when6,000 citizens were slain, the stricken people vividly remembered theApocalyptic denunciations and predictions of the preacher from Ferrara.

Through the wonderful success of these Lenten sermons the name ofSavonarola became known throughout Italy, and he no longer felt uncertainas to his proper mission. Yet, the more popular he became the greater washis humility and the more ardent was his devotion to prayer. He seemed whenengaged in prayer frequently to lapse into a trance, and tradition evenalleges that at such times a bright halo was seen to encircle his head.

IV.--1491

Returning to Florence, Savonarola by his Lenten sermons in 1491 drewimmense crowds to the Duomo. From that moment he became the paramount powerin the pulpit. His vivid imagery and his predictions of coming troublesseemed to produce a magical effect on the minds of the people. But thisgrowing influence was a source of considerable vexation to Lorenzo de'Medici and his friends. Savonarola vehemently denounced the greed of theclergy and their neglect of spiritual life for the sake of mere externalceremonialism, and he with equal insistence inveighed against thecorruption of public manners. As Lorenzo was already considered a tyrant bymany of the citizens, and as he was universally charged with havingcorrupted the magistrates and appropriated the public and private funds, itwas generally inferred that Savonarola had had the audacity to makeallusion to him.

This only enhanced the Friar's reputation and in July, 1491, he waselected Prior of St. Mark's. The office made him both more prominent thanbefore and also more independent. He showed this to be the case by at oncerefusing to go according to custom to do homage to the Magnificent,declaring that he owed his election to God alone, and to God only would hevow obedience. Lorenzo was deeply offended, yet he judged it discreetrather to win the new Prior over by kindness than to wage war with him.

The Seignior only deepened Savonarola's contempt by sending rich giftsto the convent and by sending five of the chief citizens to him in order toinduce him to modify the strain of his preaching. The gifts wereimmediately distributed among the poor, and Savonarola in a pulpit allusionobserved that a faithful dog does not cease barking in his master's defencebecause a bone is flung him. To the five citizens, who hinted to the Priorthat he might be sent into exile, he replied that they should bid Lorenzodo penance for his sins, for God was no respecter of persons and did notspare the princes of the earth.

Wonderful was the effect of Savonarola's preaching on the corrupt andpagan society of Florence. His natural, spontaneous, heart-stirringeloquence, with its exalted imagery and outbursts of righteous indignation,was entirely unprecedented in that era of pedantry and simulation of theclassic and heathen oratory. The scholastic jargon indulged in by thepreachers of the time was utterly unintelligible to the common people.Savonarola's voice was the only one that addressed the multitude infamiliar and fascinating tones and in an accent that evinced true affectionfor the people. They knew that he alone fought for truth and was ferventlydevoted to goodness. Thus he was the one truly eloquent preacher of thetime, who restored pulpit preaching to its pristine honour, and he welldeserves to be styled the first orator of modern times.

V.--1492-1494

A wasting disease from which Lorenzo suffered had by the beginning ofApril, 1492, made such inroads as to end all hopes of his recovery. TheMagnificent turned his thoughts to religion and suddenly asked to confessto Savonarola. Though astonished at the request, the Prior acceded to itand found Lorenzo in great agitation, which he sought to calm by remindingthe sick man of the goodness and mercy of God.

A painful scene ensued. Savonarola added that three things were needful.First, a living faith in God's mercy. Secondly, Lorenzo must restore allhis ill-gotten wealth, or at least command his sons to do it in his name.Lastly, he must restore liberty to the people of Florence. The sick man,collecting all his remaining strength, angrily turned his back on hisConfessor, who at once left his presence. On April 8, 1492, theMagnificent, in an agony of remorse, breathed his last. On July 25 of thesame year Pope Innocent VIII. expired.

The next Pope, Alexander VI., was notorious for his avarice and hisprofligacy. The announcement of his elevation to the papal chair wasreceived throughout Italy with dismay. The worst apprehensions were soonfulfilled, for the Pope proved to be guilty of shocking extortion, theobject of which was to provide more lavishly for his dissolutechildren.

This deplorable state of things caused men to look wistfully toSavonarola. The times he had foretold seemed to be at hand, and theexcitement was intensified by two visions which he declared had beenmanifested to him as celestial revelations. He had seen a sword in the skyand had heard voices proclaiming mercy to the righteous and retribution tothe wicked.

In the other vision a black cross hung over the city of Rome, stretchingits arms over the whole earth. On it was written, "The Cross of God'swrath." But from Jerusalem rose a golden cross, inscribed, "The Cross ofGod's compassion." Discontent was growing in Florence. The insolence andthe rapacity of Pietro de' Medici increased. In the autumn of that yearSavonarola delivered a famous course of sermons on Noah's Ark, warning allto take refuge from the coming flood in the mystical Ark of mercy. Theflood came indeed, for suddenly all Florence was startled as if by athunderclap by the news that a foreign army was pouring over the Alps forthe conquest of Italy. The terror was overwhelming. Italy was unprepared,for the princes had no efficient armies for resistance.

The invader was the new King of France, the young and adventurousCharles VIII. His army was a model to all Europe in the art of war. Itpossessed weapons of the latest invention and its main strength lay in itssplendid infantry. Florence was entered without a blow, and King Charlesdemanded as a ransom a far larger sum than the Republic could pay. Heremained day after day in the city, showing no inclination to depart. Thenwas manifested a proof of the wonderful influence of Savonarola'spersonality.

The Prior being earnestly entreated by the citizens to ask the Frenchking to depart, he readily undertook the mission and presented himself toCharles, who, surrounded by his barons, received him cordially and listenedgraciously to his proposal. Savonarola admonished him not to bring ruin onthe city and the anger of the Lord on himself.

The Prior's overtures were completely successful, for on November 28,the king departed with his army. And now all was changed in Florence. Thepartisans of the Medici had vanished magically and Savonarola ruled thecity at the head of the popular party. He speedily proposed a new form ofgovernment suggesting as the best model, a Grand Council like that ofVenice. The new Government was formed of a Grand Council and a Council ofEighty answering to an Assembly of the People and a Senate. All theproposals of the Prior were adopted, and laws were framed almost in his ownwords.

VI.--1495-1497

Germs of civil discord were not lacking, and these soon developed so asto divide Florence into factions, the two chief of these being the Whites,who were favourable to popular liberty, and the Greys, who were adherentsof the Medici. The latter were dangerous and treacherous enemies ofSavonarola and of the Republic. For a time the Prior's preaching confoundedhis foes, for it completely changed the aspect of the city. The women castoff their jewels and dressed simply; young profligates were transformedinto sober, religious men, the churches were filled with people at prayer,and the Bible was diligently read.

Now came danger from without. The departure of the French had endangeredthe security of Florence. The Pope and Venice desired the reinstatement ofthe fallen tyrant Pietro de' Medici, and he prepared to attack the city.But he was foiled by the energy to which the Prior roused the Florentinesfor measures of defence. Meantime, Savonarola once more displayed his nobleindependence by spurning the offer on the part of the Pope of a Cardinal'shat. And terrible in their vehemence and audacity were his denunciationsagainst the vices of Rome, delivered in his Lenten sermons of 1496.

In his usual strain, but with increasing power, Savonarola graphicallyand vividly described the woes of Italy, as though he were gifted withprophetic vision. One of his sermons was interdicted by the Pope, but thepreacher modified nothing and defied the Vatican. And now, while theenthusiasm of his followers was developing into fanaticism, the hatred ofhis enemies was approaching a climax, and the war was waxing furious.

The fame of this marvellous preacher was now extending throughout theworld by means of his printed sermons. Even the Sultan of Turkey commandedthem to be translated into Turkish for his own study. Of course theindividual aim of Savonarola was simply to be the regenerator of religion.The Florentines, however, adulated him as the real founder of the freeRepublic. Hence they displayed immense ardour in defending him against thePope, seeing that thus they were upholding their own freedom, because thePope was aiming at reinstating the Medici in Florence.

The Pope had hoped that the Prior would moderate his tone, but this wasonly more aggressive than ever, and threatening messages arrived from theVatican. Attempts by his friends, some of them of high and influentialposition, to defend him, only the more enraged Pope Alexander Borgia. Hesummoned a consistory of fourteen Dominican theologians who were ordered toinvestigate Savonarola's conduct and doctrine. The strange issue was he wascharged with having been the cause of all the misfortunes that had befallenPietro de' Medici.

After Lent the Prior went to preach a course of sermons at Prato, and onhis return to Florence he delivered a sermon in the Hall of the GreaterCouncil in the presence of all the magistrates and leading citizens of thecity, in which he openly and courageously defied all the wrath of AlexanderBorgia. Then he once more set himself to the work of serving the Republic,though, as the sequel shows, he was fated to meet with a base reward.

Commerce and industry had been paralysed in Florence by the incessantcommotions of past years. The immense sums paid to the French king hadtogether with sums spent on war drained the public resources and loweredthe credit of the Republic. And now famine was threatened, for the peoplein the rural districts were pinched with hunger. The starving peasantrybegan to flock in great numbers into the city, so that the miseryincreased. Terror was occasioned by a few cases of death from plague.Florence was at war with Pisa, but without success, for many of hermercenary soldiers were deserting and the forces besieging Pisa weredwindling for lack of supplies.

Fresh adversities were in store for the Florentines. Though the rumoursof a second invasion of Italy by King Charles proved unfounded, for herenounced all idea of returning, new enemies arose. The Emperor Maximilianwas marching towards the frontier, and the Pope felt encouraged to enterinto open war with the Florentines. His forces and the troops from Siennaactually attempted an incursion into the territories of the Republic, butthey suffered repeated repulses, and at length were put to flight. But thisconflict weakened still more the forces before Pisa, at which cityMaximilian arrived with 1,000 foot soldiers, receiving a cordial welcomefrom the Pisans.

The Florentines did not quail before the storm. Their courage neverfailed. They collected fresh stores and sent abundant provisions to thecamp. But the hatred of the Pope grew more intense, especially againstSavonarola, who, however, had not returned to the pulpit, being actuated bya wish not to accentuate the situation. For the general misery in Florencedaily increased and the plague was extending its ravages. The hospitalswere full. And the faction against Savonarola, named the Arrabbiati, seemedpositively to regard the distress with glee, for these fanatics went aboutcrying aloud, "At last we can all perceive how we have been deceived! Thisis the happiness that the Friar predicted for Florence!" Moreover theyproclaimed that now was the time to overthrow the Government.

But the Seigniory entreated Savonarola to come forth again from hisretirement. He entered the pulpit on October 28, but only to look on peoplewhose faces were marked by distress and terror. Yet his sermonsadministered such comfort to the citizens who in the majority still adheredto him, though the Arrabbiati mocked at his words. Temporary relief was athand, for suddenly, as if by a miracle, ships arrived from Marseillesbringing long-expected reinforcements and supplies of corn. The people werefrantic with joy and solemn thanksgivings were offered in the churches.

The Pope was now designing measures to entrap the Prior. A newVicar-General was appointed with power which would invest him with suchauthority over Savonarola that the latter would lose his independence. Buthe displayed no disposition to yield to Rome. On the contrary, he deliveredin the Duomo those eight magnificent, fearless, and immortal sermons whichintensified the bitter struggle with Rome, while for the time being theymade the great Reformer's name and authority again ascendant, and renderedthe popular party once more master of the situation, notwithstanding thestrategy of the Pope and the machinations of the factions.

VII.--1497-1498

During Lent, 1497, Savonarola continued his course of sermons onEzekiel, and in these discourses he said much that bore on the conflictwith Rome, now daily growing more virulent. He inveighed against thetemporal wealth of the Church and launched many accusations against Rome.The impression produced was the deeper because of the general presentimentin men's minds of the coming uprising of Christendom against theabominations of Rome.

Savonarola now daily expected to be excommunicated and he was determinedto defy the Pope. The plague increased in Florence and the Seignioryprohibited preaching in the churches for a time, but Savonarola persistedin preaching on Ascension Day. The factions were infuriated. They deniedthe pulpit with filth and draped it with the skin of an ass, and threatenedthe life of the Prior. His friends implored him not to preach at the riskof his life. He refused to yield, but a fearful riot took place in thechurch which was talked of through all Italy.

The storm was now gathering. The fury of the factions increased, as alsodid the wrath of the Pope. At length, on May 13, the excommunicatory briefwas despatched from Rome, directed against a "certain Fra GirolamoSavonarola who had disseminated pernicious doctrines to the scandal andgrief of simple souls." The event threw all Florence into confusion. TheArrabbiati were triumphant. But the city was filled with lamentation anddisorder. The rabble rejoiced. The churches were quickly deserted; thetaverns were filled; immorality returned as if magically; and again womenattired in dazzling finery paraded the streets. In less than a month, sorapid was the transformation, Florence seemed to have relapsed into thedays of the Magnificent, and piety and patriotism were alike forgotten.

Meantime, the Prior was calm and composed and took measures for hisdefence. He wrote an Epistle against surreptitious excommunication,addressed to all Christians beloved of God. He followed it by a secondletter, also breathing courage and defiance. A conflict ensued. TheArrabbiati sent accusations against the Prior to Rome, while the Seigniorysought to vindicate him, most of the members, newly elected, being hisfriends. The plague grew so terrible that on some days there were a hundreddeaths. In the autumn it abated, and gradually disappeared. Savonarola'senergy in fighting the pestilence was unwearied throughout.

The Prior soon commenced to preach again. On Christmas Day he put an endto all suspense as to his policy by thrice performing high mass, afterwardsleading his monks in solemn procession through St. Mark's Square. Hecontinued to issue new tracts and to preach regularly. But on February 26the Pope announced that Savonarola's preaching should be tolerated nolonger. The Prior was conscious that the end was near. His last sermon wasdelivered, after he had preached in Florence for eight years, on March 18,1498. His adherents were terrified, and seemed to vanish.

On April 8, Palm Sunday, the Arrabbiati attacked St. Mark's Convent.Savonarola was seized and bound by a brutal rabble, and he and two of hismonks were lodged in prison. Cruel proceedings followed. For a whole monthhe was brought day after day to examination and he was repeatedly subjectedto torture. The Pope's Commissioners were never able to extract from himany confession of guilt. Savonarola was from first to last unflinchinglyconsistent with himself.

On May 22 sentence of death was passed on Savonarola, on Fra Silvestro,and on Fra Domenico. They prepared to face death firmly and well. Thetragedy was enacted next morning. Three platforms had been erected on thesteps of the Ringhiera, on which sat the Bishop of Vasona, the ApostolicCommissioners, and the Gonfaliero with the Council of Eight. On a gibbet inthe form of a cross hung three chains, and combustibles were piled beneath.Sad and solemn was the silence of the vast throng assembled in the Piazza,excepting where members of the factions were raging like wild beasts andventing indecent blasphemies.

The three friars were publicly stripped of their monkish robes anddegraded. Tranquilly they mounted the scaffold, the dregs of the populaceassailing them with vile words. But silence reigned at the moment of theexecution. As soon as life was extinct the flames were kindled beneath thebodies of the three victims. The tragic and awful spectacle elicited bittergrief amongst the people on the one side, while cries of wild exultationwere raised on the other.

Journal

John Wesley, who was born June 17, 1703, at Epworth, andwho died in London March 2, 1791, was the son of a Lincolnshire rector. Hishistory covers practically the whole of the eighteenth century, of which hewas one of the most typical personalities, as he was certainly the moststrenuous figure. His career was absolutely without parallel, for JohnWesley, as an itinerating clergyman, and as the propagator of that missionof Methodism which he founded, travelled on his preaching tours for fortyyears, mostly on horseback. He paid more turnpike fees than any man thatever bestrode a horse, and 8,000 miles constituted his annual record formany a year, during each of which he preached on the average 5,000 times.John Wesley received a classical education at Charterhouse and ChristChurch, Oxford, and all through his wonderful life of endurance andadventure, of devotion and consecration, remained a scholar and agentleman. His "Journal" is valuable for its pictures of the England of hisday, as well as for his own simple and unpretending record of hisexperiences. Wesley made religion his business and incorporated it into thenational life. Of him Mr. Augustine Birrell says:--"No man lived nearer thecentre than John Wesley. Neither Clive nor Pitt, neither Mansfield norJohnson. You cannot cut him out of our national life. No single figureinfluenced so many minds, no single voice touched so many hearts. No otherman did such a life's work for England."

The Holy Club

In November 1729, at which time I came to reside at Oxford, Mr. Morgan,my brother, myself, and one more, agreed to spend three or four evenings ina week together. Our design was to read over the classics, which we hadbefore read in private, on common nights, and on Sunday some book indivinity. In the summer following, Mr. M. told me he had called at thegaol, to see a man who was condemned for killing his wife; and that, fromthe talk he had with one of the debtors, he verily believed it would domuch good, if any one would be at the pains of now and then speaking withthem.

This he so frequently repeated, that on August 24, 1730, my brother andI walked with him to the castle. We were so well satisfied with ourconversation there, that we agreed to go thither once or twice a week;which we had not done long, before he desired me to go with him to see apoor sick woman in the town.

I next proposed to Mr. Gerard, the Bishop of Oxford's chaplain, who tookcare of any prisoners condemned to die, that I intended to preach in theprison once a month, if the bishop approved. Our design was approved andpermission was granted. Soon after a gentleman of Merton College, who wasone of our little company, now consisting of five persons, acquainted usthat he had been much rallied the day before for being a member of the HolyClub, and that it was become a common topic of mirth at his college, wherethey had found out several of our customs, to which we were ourselves utterstrangers.

I corresponded with my father, and from him received encouragement, sothat we still continued to meet as usual, and to do what service we couldto the prisoners, and to two or three poor families in the town.

A Missioner to Georgia

1735. Oct. 14. Mr. Benjamin Ingham, of Queen's College, Oxford; Mr.Charles Delamotte, son of a London merchant, my brother Charles, andmyself, took boat for Gravesend, in order to embark for Georgia. Our end inleaving our country was singly this, to save our souls; to live wholly tothe glory of God. In the afternoon we found the "Simmonds" off Gravesend,and immediately went on board.

Oct. 17. I began to learn German, in order to converse with the 26Germans on board. On Sunday I preached extempore and then administered theLord's supper to seven communicants.

Oct. 20. Believing the denying ourselves might be helpful, we whollyleft off the use of flesh and wine, and confined ourselves to vegetablefood, chiefly rice and biscuit.

1736. Feb. 5. After a passage in which storms were frequent, between twoand three in the afternoon, God brought us all safe into the Savannahriver. We cast anchor near Tybee Island, where the groves of pines alongthe shore made an agreeable prospect, showing, as it were, the bloom ofspring in the depth of winter.

Sunday, March 7. I entered upon my ministry at Savannah. I do here bearwitness against myself, that when I saw the number of people crowding intothe church, the deep attention with which they received the word, and theseriousness that sat on all their faces, I could hardly believe that thegreater part of them would hereafter trample under foot that word, and sayall manner of evil falsely against him that spake it.

March 30. Mr. Delamotte and I began to try, whether life might not be aswell sustained by one sort as by a variety of food. We chose to make theexperiment with bread, and were never more vigorous and healthy than whilewe tasted nothing else.

June 30. I hoped a door was opened for my main design, which was topreach the gospel to the Indians, and I purposed to go immediately to theChoctaws, the least polished, that is, the least corrupted of the tribes.On my informing Lieutenant-Governor Oglethorpe of our wish, he objected,alleging not only danger from the French, but also the inexpediency ofleaving Savannah without a minister. These objections I related to ourbrethren, who were all of opinion, "We ought not to go yet."

Warrant for Wesley's Arrest

July 3. Preaching at Charlestown, immediately after communion Imentioned to Mrs. Williamson (Mr. Causton's niece) some things I thoughtreprovable in her behaviour. At this she appeared extremely angry.

Aug. 7. I repelled Mrs. Williamson from the holy communion. And next dayMr. Recorder, of Savannah, issued out a warrant for my arrest. Mr. Jones,the constable, served the warrant, and carried me before Mr. Bailiff Parkerand Mr. Recorder. I was told that I must appear at the next court. Mr.Causton came to my house and declared that the affront had been offered tohim; that he espoused the cause of his niece; that he was ill-used, andthat he would have satisfaction if it was to be had in this world.

To many persons Mr. Causton declared that "Mr. Wesley had repelled Sophyfrom holy communion purely out of revenge, because he had made proposals ofmarriage to her which she had rejected, and married Mr. Williamson." Butwhen the case came on the grand jury, having heard the charge, declaredthemselves thoroughly persuaded that it was an artifice of Mr. Causton'sdesigned "rather to blacken the character of Mr. Wesley, than to free thecolony from religious tyranny, as he had been pleased to term it."

Oct. 7. I consulted my friends whether God did not call me to return toEngland. I had found no possibility of instructing the Indians. They wereunanimous that I ought to go, but not yet. But subsequently they agreedwith me that the time was come.

In London Again

1738. Feb. 1. Landed at Deal. It is now two years and almost four monthssince I left my native country. After reading prayers and explaining aportion of Scripture to a large company at the inn, I left Deal, and camein the evening to Feversham. I here read prayers and explained the secondlesson to a few of those who were called Christians, but were indeed moresavage in their behaviour than the wildest Indians I have yet met with.

Feb. 26. Sunday. I preached at six in the morning at St. Lawrence's,London; at ten, in St. Catherine Cree's; and in the afternoon at St.John's, Wapping. I believe it pleased God to bless the first sermon most,because it gave most offence.

March 4. I found my brother at Oxford, and with him Peter Böhler;by whom, in the great hand of God, I was, on Sunday, the 5th, clearlyconvinced of unbelief, of the want of that faith whereby alone we aresaved. Immediately it struck into my mind, "Leave off preaching. How canyou preach to others who have not faith yourself?" I asked Böhlerwhether he thought I should leave it off or not. He answered, "By nomeans." I asked, "But what can I preach?" He said, "Preach faith till youhave it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith."

Accordingly, Monday, 6, I began preaching this new doctrine, though mysoul started back from the work. The first person to whom I offeredsalvation through faith alone, was a prisoner under sentence of death.

On Tuesday 25, I spoke clearly and fully at Blendon to Mr. Delamotte'sfamily of the nature and fruits of faith. Mr. Broughton and my brother werethere. Mr. Broughton's great objection was, he could never think that I hadnot faith, who had done and suffered such things. My brother was veryangry, and told me I did not know what mischief I had done by talking thus.And, indeed, it did please God to kindle a fire which I trust shall neverbe extinguished.

On May 1 our little society began, which afterwards met in Fetter Lane.May 3. My brother had a long and particular conversation with PeterBöhler. And it now pleased God to open his eyes; so that he also sawclearly what was the nature of that one true living faith, thereby alone,"through grace we are saved."

Sunday 7. I preached at St. Lawrence's in the morning; and afterwards atSt. Catherine Cree's. I was enabled to speak strong words at both; and wastherefore the less surprised at being informed I was not to preach any morein either of those churches. I was likewise after preaching the next Sundayat St. Ann's, Aldersgate, and the following Sunday at St. John's, Wappingand at St. Bennett's, Paul's Wharf, that at these churches I must preach nomore.

1739. March 28. A letter from Mr. Whitefield, and another from Mr.Seward, pressed me to come to Bristol. I reached Bristol March 31 and metMr. Whitefield there. I could scarcely at first reconcile myself to thestrange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me the example, forall my life I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin, if ithad not been done in a church; but I now proclaimed in the highways theglad tidings of salvation speaking in the open air to about three thousandpeople.

May 9. We took possession of a piece of ground in the Horse Fair,Bristol, where it was designed to build a room large enough to contain boththe societies of Nicholas and Baldwin Street; and on May 12 the first stonewas laid with thanksgiving. The responsibility of payment I took entirelyon myself. Money I had not, it is true, nor any human prospect of procuringit; but I knew "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof."

Beau Nash Argues with Wesley

June 5. There was great expectation at Bath of what a noted man was todo to me there. Many appeared surprised and were sinking apace intoseriousness when their champion came up to me and asked by what authority Idid these things. I replied, "By the authority of Jesus Christ, conveyed tome by the Archbishop of Canterbury, when he laid his hands on me." He said,"This is contrary to the Act of Parliament; this is a conventicle. Besides,your preaching frightens people out of their wits."

"Give me leave, Sir, to ask, is not your name Nash?" "My name is Nash."An old woman said to him, "You, Mr. Nash, take care of your body; we takecare of our souls; and for the food of our souls we come here." He repliednot a word, but walked away.

"All the World My Parish"

All this time I had many thoughts concerning my manner of ministering;but after frequently laying it before the Lord, I could not but adhere towhat I had some time since written to a friend--"I look on all the world asmy parish; thus far I mean, that, in whatever part I am of it, I judge itmeet to declare to all who are willing to hear, the glad tidings ofsalvation."

June 14. I went with Mr. Whitefield to Blackheath, where were, Ibelieve, 12,000 people. He a little surprised me by desiring me to preachin his stead; and I was greatly moved with compassion for the rich thatwere there, to whom I made a particular application. Some of them seemed toattend, while others drove away their coaches from so uncouth apreacher.

Sunday 24. As I was riding to Rose Green, near Bristol, my horsesuddenly pitched on his head, and rolled over and over. I received no otherhurt than a little bruise on my side; which for the present I felt not, butpreached without pain to seven thousand people.

Sept. 16. I preached at Moorfields to about ten thousand, and atKennington Common to near twenty thousand. At both places I described thereal difference between what is generally called Christianity and the realold Christianity, which under the new name of Methodism is now everywherespoken against.

The Colliers of Kingswood

Nov. 27. Few persons have lived in the west of England who have notheard of the colliers of Kingswood, famous for neither regarding God norman. The scene is changed. Kingswood does not now, as a year ago, resoundwith cursing and blasphemy. Peace and love reign there since the preachingof the Gospel in the spring. Great numbers of the people are gentle, mild,and easy to be entreated.

1745. July 3. At Gwennap, in Cornwall, I was seized for a soldier. As Iwas reading my text a man rode up and cried "Seize the preacher for hisMajesty's service." As the people would not do it, he leaped off his horse,and caught hold of my cassock, crying, "I take you to serve his Majesty."He walked off with me and talked with me for some time, but then let mego.

In Ireland

1748. April 9. I preached in Connaught, a few miles from Athlone. Manyheard, but, I doubt, felt nothing. The Shannon comes within a mile of thehouse where I preached. I think there is not such another river in Europe.It is here ten miles wide, though only thirty miles from its source. Thereare many islands in it, once well inhabited, but now mostly desolate. Inalmost every one is a ruined church; in one, the remains of no fewer thanseven.

1750. May 21. At Bandon the mob burnt me in effigy. Yet, though Dr. B.tried to stir up the people against me more and more, and a clergyman, saidto be in drink, opposed me, and some young gentlemen came on the scene withpistols in their hands, I was enabled to preach. God gave me great peace inBandon, in spite of these efforts against me.

May 31. I rode to Rathcormuck. There being a great burying in theafternoon, to which people came from all parts, I preached after Mr. Lloydhad read the service. I was exceedingly shocked at (what I had only heardof before) the Irish howl which followed. It was not a song, as I supposed,but a dismal, inarticulate yell, set up at the grave by four shrill-voicedwomen, hired for the purpose. But I saw not one that shed a tear; for that,it seems, was not in their bargain.

Clothing French Prisoners

1759. Oct. 1. At Bristol. I had ridden in about seven months not lessthan 2,400 miles. On Monday, Oct. 15, I went to Knowle, a mile fromBristol, to see the French prisoners. About 1,100 were there confined, withonly a little dirty straw to lie on, so that they died like rotten sheep. Iwas much affected, and after I had preached the sum of £18 wascontributed immediately, which next day we made up to £24. With thiswe bought linen and woollen cloth, and this was made up into clothing forthe prisoners. Presently after, the Corporation of Bristol sent a largequantity of mattresses and blankets. And it was not long beforecontributions were set on foot in London, and other parts of the country;so that I believe that from this time they were pretty well provided withthe necessaries of life.

Gwennap's Famous Amphitheatre

1766. Sept. 14. I preached in the natural amphitheatre at Gwennap; farthe finest I know in the kingdom. It is a round, green hollow, gentlyshelving down, about 50 feet deep; but I suppose it is 200 feet across oneway, and nearly 300 the other. I believe there were full 20,000 people;and, the evening being calm, all could hear.

1770. April 21. I rode slowly on this and the following days throughStaffordshire and Cheshire to Manchester. In this journey, as well as inmany others, I observed a mistake that almost universally prevails; and Idesire all travellers to take good notice of it, which may save them fromboth trouble and danger. Near 30 years ago I was thinking, "How is it thatno horse ever stumbles while I am reading?" (History, poetry, andphilosophy I commonly read on horseback, having other employment at othertimes.) No account can possibly be given but this: because then I throw thereins on his neck. I then set myself to observe; and I aver, that in ridingabove 100,000 miles I scarce ever remember my horse (except two, that wouldfall head over heels anyway) to fall, or make a considerable stumble, whileI rode with a slack rein. To fancy, therefore, that a tight rein preventsstumbling, is a capital blunder.

1771. Jan. 23. For what cause I know not to this day, my wife set outfor Newcastle, purposing "never to return." Non eam reliqui: non dimisi:non revocabo. (I did not desert her: I did not send her away: I willnot recall her.)

The American War

1775. In November I published the following letter in Lloyd's "EveningPost":

"Sir--I have been seriously asked from what motive I published myCalm Address to the American Colonies? I seriously answer, Not toget money; not to get preferment; not to please any man living; least ofall to inflame any; just the contrary. I contributed my mite towardsputting out the flame that rages. This I have more opportunity to see thanany man in England. I see with pain to what a height this already rises, inevery part of the nation. And I see many pouring oil into the flame, bycrying out, 'How unjustly, how cruelly, the King is using the poorAmericans; who are only contending for their liberty, and for their legalprivileges.'

"Now there is no possible way to put out this flame, or hinder itsrising higher and higher, but to show that the Americans are not usedeither cruelly or unjustly; that they are not injured at all, seeing theyare not contending for liberty (this they had, even in its full extent,both civil and religious); neither for any legal privileges; for they enjoyall that their charters grant. But what they contend for is, the illegalprivilege of being exempt from parliamentary taxation. A privilege this,which no charter ever gave to any American colony yet; which no charter cangive, unless it be confirmed both by King, Lords, and Commons; which infact our Colonies never had; which they never claimed till the presentreign; and probably they would not have claimed now, had they not beenincited thereto by letters from England. One of these was read, accordingto the desire of the writer, not only at the Continental Congress butlikewise in many congregations throughout the Combined Provinces. Itadvised them to seize upon all the King's officers; and exhorted them,'Stand valiantly, only for six months, and in that time there will be suchcommotions in England that you may have your own terms.' This being thereal state of the question, without any colouring or exaggeration, whatimpartial man can either blame the King, or commend the Americans? Withthis view, to quench the fire, by laying the blame where it was due, the'Calm Address' was written.

Your humble servant,

JOHN WESLEY."

City Road Chapel Begun

1777. April 21. The day appointed for laying the foundation of the newchapel. The rain befriended us much, by keeping away thousands who proposedto be there. But there were still such multitudes, that it was with greatdifficulty I got through them, to lay the first stone. Upon this was aplate of brass (covered with another stone) on which was engraved, "Thiswas laid by Mr. John Wesley, on April 21, 1777." Probably this will be seenno more, by any human eye; but will remain there, till the earth and theworks thereof are burned up.

1778. Dec. 17. Having been many times desired, for near forty years, topublish a magazine, I at length complied, and now began to collectmaterials for it. If it once begin, I incline to think it will not end butwith my life. Just at this time there was a combination among many of thepostchaise drivers on the Bath road, especially those that drove in thenight, to deliver their passengers into each other's hands. One driverstopped at the spot they had appointed, when another waited to attack thechaise. In consequence of this many were robbed; but I had a good Protectorstill. I have travelled all roads, by day and by night, for these fortyyears, and never was interrupted yet.

June 28. I am this day 75 years old; and I do not find myself, blessedbe God, any weaker than I was at 25. This also hath God wrought.

Attended by Felons

1779. July 21. When I came to Coventry, I found notice had been givenfor my preaching in the park; but the heavy rain prevented. I sent to theMayor, desiring the use of the town-hall. He refused; but the same day gavethe use of it to a dancing-master. I then went to the women's market. Manysoon gathered together and listened with all seriousness. I preached thereagain the next morning, and again in the evening. Then I took coach forLondon. I was nobly attended: behind the coach were ten convicted felons,loudly blaspheming and rattling their chains; by my side sat a man with aloaded blunderbuss, and another upon the coach.

1780. May 20. In Scotland. I took one more walk through Holyrood House,the mansion of ancient kings. But how melancholy an appearance does it makenow! The stately rooms are dirty as stables; the colours of the tapestryare quite faded; several of the pictures are cut and defaced. The roof ofthe royal chapel is fallen in; and the bones of James V., and the oncebeautiful Lord Dankley, are scattered about like those of sheep or oxen.Such is human greatness. Is not "a living dog better than a dead lion?"

1782. May 14. Some years ago four factories were set up at Epworth. Inthese a large number of young women and boys and girls were employed. Thewhole conversation of these was profane and loose to the last degree. Butsome of them stumbling in at the prayermeeting were suddenly cut to theheart. These never rested till they had gained their companions. The wholescene was changed. In three of the factories no more lewdness was found:for God had put a new song in their mouth, and blasphemies were turned topraise. Those three I visited to-day, and found religion had taken deeproot in them. No trifling word was heard among them, and they watch overeach other in love.

Enters His 80th Year

June 26. I preached at Thirsk; 27, at York. Friday, 28, I entered my80th year; but, blessed be God, my strength is not "labour and sorrow." Ifind no more pain or bodily infirmities than at 25. This I still impute, 1.To the power of God, fitting me for what He calls me to. 2. To my stilltravelling four or five thousand miles a year. 3. To my still sleeping,night or day, whenever I want it. 4. To my rising at a set hour. And 5. Tomy constant preaching, particularly in the morning.

1783. Dec. 18. I spent two hours with that great man, Dr. Johnson, whois sinking into the grave by a gentle decay.

1784. June 28 (Epworth). To-day I entered on my 82nd year, and foundmyself just as strong to labour, and as fit for any exercise of body andmind, as I was 40 years ago. I am as strong at 81 as I was at 21; butabundantly more healthy, being a stranger to the headache, toothache, andother bodily disorders which attended me in my youth.

1785. Jan. 25. I spent two or three hours in the House of Lords. I hadfrequently heard that this was the most venerable assembly in England. Buthow I was disappointed! What is a lord, but a sinner, born to die!

1786. Jan. 24. I was desired to go and hear the King deliver his speechin the House of Lords. But how agreeably I was surprised. He pronouncedevery word with exact propriety. I doubt whether there be any other King inEurope, that is so just and natural a speaker.

His 86th Christmas

1789. Dec 25. Being Christmas Day, we began the service in the newchapel at four in the morning, as usual, where I preached again in theevening after having officiated in West Street at the common hour. Sunday,27, I preached in St. Luke's, our parish church, to a very numerouscongregation. So are the tables turned that I have now more invitations topreach in churches than I can accept.

Journal

John Woolman, American Quaker evangelist, author of thisautobiography, was born in West Jersey in 1720 and followed the trade of atailor. But all his interests lay in the practice of piety, and in theuncompromising application of religious Principles to the problems ofsocial life. He advocated incessantly two principal reforms--that membersof the Society of Friends should separate utterly from the possession ofslaves, and that they should return to their primitive simplicity andmoderation in the use of worldly things. Like many economists before andafter him, he saw in luxury, extravagance and ostentation, the true causeof all poverty and oppression; and a tract of his entitled "A Word ofRemembrance and Caution to the Rich," first published in 1793, wasrepublished a hundred years later by the Fabian Society. His most importanttreatise, published in 1754, entitled "Some Considerations on the Keepingof Negroes," was one of the earliest indications of the growingAbolitionist feeling in New England. His voyage across the Atlantic in Mayand Tune, 1772, to visit the English Quakers, was followed by his deathfrom small-pox, in the city of York, on October 7 in the same year. The"Journal," which is marked by great simplicity and sincerity, was publishedshortly afterwards and has been issued in many subsequent editions.

I.--The Curse of Slavery

Having reached manhood, I wrought at my trade as a tailor; carefullyattended meetings for worship and discipline; and found an enlargement ofgospel love in my mind, and therein a concern to visit friends in thesettlements of Pennsylvania, Virginia and other parts. I expressed it to mybeloved friend, Isaac Andrews, who then told me that he had drawings to thesame places. I opened the case in our monthly meeting, and friendsexpressing their unity therewith, we obtained certificates to travel ascompanions.

Two things were remarkable to me in this journey. First, in regard to myentertainment; when I ate, drank and lodged free of cost with people wholived in ease on the hard labour of their slaves, I felt uneasy, and thisuneasiness returned upon me, at times, through the whole visit. Secondly,this trade of importing slaves from their native country being muchencouraged among them, and the white people and their children so generallyliving without much labour, was frequently the subject of my seriousthoughts. And I saw in these southern provinces so many vices andcorruptions, increased by this trade and this way of life, that it appearedto me as a dark gloominess hanging over the land; and though now manywillingly run into it, yet in future the consequence will be grievous toposterity.

About this time, believing it good for me to settle, and thinkingseriously about a companion, my heart was turned to the Lord and He waspleased to give me a well-inclined damsel, Sarah Ellis, to whom I wasmarried the 18th day of the 8th month, in the year 1749.

II--Among the Indians

Having many years felt love in my heart towards the natives of thisland, who dwell far back in the wilderness, whose ancestors were the ownersof the land where we dwell, and being at Philadelphia in 1761, I fell incompany with some of those natives who live on the east branch of the riverSusquehannah, at an Indian town called Wehaloosing, 200 miles fromPhiladelphia; and in conversation with them by an interpreter, as also byobservations on their character and conduct, I believed some of them wereacquainted with that divine power which subjects the rough and froward willof the creature.

At times I felt inward drawings toward a visit to that place, and laidit before friends at our monthly and quarterly, and afterwards at ourgeneral spring meeting; and having the unity of friends, I agreed to joincertain Indians, in 1763, on their return to their town. So I took leave ofmy family and neighbours, and with my friend Benjamin Parvin, met theIndians.

About four miles from Fort Allen we met with an Indian trader, latelycome from Wyoming; and in conversation with him I perceived that many whitepeople do often sell rum to the Indians, which is a great evil: first,their being thereby deprived of the use of their reason, and their spiritsbeing violently agitated, quarrels often arise which end in mischief; againtheir skins and furs, gotten through much fatigue in hunting, with whichthey intended to buy clothing, when they become intoxicated, they oftensell at a low rate for more rum, and afterwards are angry with those who,for the sake of gain, took advantage of their weakness. To sell to peoplethat which we know does them harm, manifests a hardened and corruptheart.

We crossed the western branch of the Delaware, having laboured hard overthe mountains called the Blue Ridge, and pitched our tent near the banks ofthe river. Near our tent, on the sides of large trees peeled for thatpurpose, were various representations of men going to, and returning fromthe wars, and of some killed in battle, this being a path used by warriors.As I walked about viewing those Indian histories, painted in red and inblack; and thinking on the innumerable afflictions which the proud, fiercespirit produceth in the world; thinking on the toils and fatigues ofwarriors, travelling over mountains and deserts; and of their restless,unquiet state of mind, who live in this spirit, and of the hatred whichmutually grows up in the minds of the children of those nations engaged inwar; during these meditations, the desire to cherish the spirit of love andpeace among these people arose very fresh in me.

As I rode, day after day, over the barren hills, my thoughts were on thealterations of the circ*mstances of the natives since the coming of theEnglish. The lands near the sea are conveniently situated for fishing; thelands near the rivers are in many places fertile and not mountainous. Thosenatives have, in some places, for trifling considerations, sold theirinheritance so favourably situated; and in other places, have been drivenback by superior force. By the extending of English settlements, and partlyby English hunters, the wild beasts they chiefly depend upon for asubsistence are not so plentiful as they were; and people too often open adoor for them to waste their furs, in purchasing a liquor which tends tothe ruin of them and their families.

III.--Across the Atlantic

Having been for some time under a religious concern to cross the seas,in order to visit friends in England, after weighty consideration I thoughtit expedient to inform friends, at our monthly meeting at Burlington, ofit; who, having unity with me therein, gave me a certificate; and Iafterwards communicated the same to our general meeting, and they likewisesignified their unity by a certificate, dated the 24th day of the thirdmonth, 1772, directed to friends in Great Britain.

I was informed that my beloved friend Samuel Emlen, intended to go toLondon, and had taken a passage in the cabin of the ship called Mary andElizabeth; and I, feeling a draft in my mind towards the steerage of thesame ship, went and opened to Samuel the feeling I had concerning it. Mybeloved friend wept when I spake to him; and he offering to go with me, wewent on board, first into the cabin, a commodious room, and then into thesteerage, where we sat down on a chest and the owner of the ship came andsat down with us. I made no agreement as to a passage in the ship; but onthe next morning I went with Samuel to the house of the owner, to whom Iopened my exercise in relation to a scruple I felt with regard to a passagein the cabin.

I told the owner that on the outside of that part of the ship where thecabin was, I observed sundry sorts of carved work and imagery; and that inthe cabin I observed some superfluity of workmanship of several sorts; andthat the monies received from the passengers are calculated to answer theexpense of these superfluities; and that I felt a scruple with regard topaying my money to defray such expenses. After this, I agreed for a passagein the steerage, and went on board with Samuel Emlen on the first day ofthe fifth month.

My lodging in the steerage afforded me opportunities of seeing, hearingand feeling, with respect to the life and spirit of many poor sailors; andan inward exercise of soul hath attended me, in regard to placing outchildren and youth where they may be exampled and instructed in the fear ofthe Lord. Now, concerning lads being trained up as seamen, I believe acommunication from one part of the world to some other parts of it, by sea,is at times consistent with the will of our heavenly Father; and to educatesome youth in the practice of sailing, I believe may be right. But howlamentable is the present corruption of the world! How impure are thechannels through which trade hath a conveyance! How great is that danger towhich poor lads are now exposed, when placed on shipboard to learn the artof sailing!

IV.--Prices, Wages, and Religion

On landing at London I went straight to the yearly meeting of ministersand elders, which, by adjournments, continued near a week. I then went toquarterly meetings at Hertford, Sherrington, Northampton, Banbury andShipston, and visited other meetings at Birmingham, Coventry, Warwick,Nottingham, Sheffield, Settle, and other places.

On inquiry, I found the price of rye about five shillings, wheat abouteight shillings, per bushel; mutton threepence to fivepence per pound;bacon from sevenpence to ninepence; cheese from fourpence to sixpence;butter from eightpence to tenpence; house-rent, for a poor man, fromtwenty-five shillings to forty shillings per year, to be paid weekly; woodfor fire very scarce and dear; coal in some places two shillings andsixpence per hundredweight but near the pits not a quarter so much. O maythe wealthy consider the poor!

The wages of labouring men, in several counties toward London, istenpence per day in common business; the employer finds small beer and thelabourer finds his own food; but in harvest and hay times wages are aboutone shilling per day and the labourer hath all his diet. In the north ofEngland poor labouring men do rather better than nearer London. Industriouswomen who spin in the factories get some fourpence, some fivepence, and soon to tenpence per day, and find their own house-room and diet. Greatnumbers of poor people live chiefly on bread and water, and there are manypoor children not even taught to read. May those, who have plenty, laythese things to heart!

Stage coaches frequently go upwards of an hundred miles in twenty-fourhours; and I have heard friends say, in several places, that it is commonfor horses to be killed with hard driving. Post-boys pursue their business,each one to his stage, all night through the winter. Some boys, who ridelong stages, suffer greatly on winter nights, and at several places I haveheard of their being frozen to death. So great is the hurry in the spiritin this world, that in aiming to do business quickly, and to gain wealth,the creation, at this day doth loudly groan!