Read Ebook: Knowledge for the Time A Manual of Reading Reference and Conversation on Subjects of Living Interest Useful Curiosity and Amusing Research by Timbs John

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It matters little whether it be a pleasing tradition or an historical fact, but it was commonly said that after the Peace, which crowned the immortal services of the Duke of Wellington, that great general, on seeing the playing-fields at Eton, said, there had been won the crowning victory of Waterloo.

"Contemporaries saw that many small States were crushed by the arrangements of Vienna, and that one or two of the larger monarchies, especially that of Russia, were sensibly strengthened. Therefore they concluded that the aim and end of the Congress of Vienna was to aggrandise the greater monarchies, and that the English Minister, biassed by political prejudices or dazzled by royal condescension, had unworthily lent himself to the accomplishment of that object. As the confidential correspondence of that period makes its appearance bit by bit, we are learning to form a juster estimate of what Lord Castlereagh effected at the Congress. It is hard to set limits to the evils which would have been the result of greater facility or less caution on the part of the English plenipotentiary. That Alexander would, but for Lord Castlereagh's obstinate resistance, have absorbed the whole of Poland into the Russian empire, and that Prussia would have indemnified herself by the annexation of the whole of Saxony, appears certain; and that France and Austria would have plunged Europe back into war, in their efforts to resist, seems not improbable. The greediness of the Powers who had met to divide the spoil threatened incessantly to bring them into collision; and it was on Lord Castlereagh that the ungracious task of moderating their extravagant pretensions fell. If he had failed, and the Congress had come to the abrupt and angry close which seemed more than once inevitable, Napoleon's return would have been safe and easy. It was hard, but it was unavoidable, that those who only saw the result in a considerable accession to Alexander's frontier, should have accused Lord Castlereagh of being his tool, when he had been, in reality, resisting Alexander's pretensions up to the very brink of war."

This late justice to the eminent diplomatic services of Lord Castlereagh, reaches us some forty years after his death; thus giving the lie to the coarse and unfeeling ribaldry of the so-called "Liberal," upon the awful termination of the statesman's life.

Early in the year 1820--a period of popular discontent--a set of desperate men banded themselves together with a view to effect a revolution by sanguinary means, almost as complete in its plan of extermination as the Gunpowder Plot. The leader was one Arthur Thistlewood, who had been a soldier, had been involved in a trial for sedition, but acquitted, and had afterwards suffered a year's imprisonment for sending a challenge to the minister, Lord Sidmouth. Thistlewood was joined by several other Radicals, and their meetings in Gray's-Inn-lane were known to the spies Oliver and Edwards, employed by the Government. Their first design was to assassinate the Ministers, each in his own house; but their plot was changed, and Thistlewood and his fellow conspirators arranged to meet at Cato-street, Edgeware-road, and to proceed from thence to butcher the Ministers assembled at a Cabinet dinner, on Feb. 23rd, at Lord Harrowby's, 39, Grosvenor-square, where Thistlewood proposed, as "a rare haul, to murder them all together." Some of the conspirators were to watch Lord Harrowby's house; one was to call and deliver a despatch-box at the door, the others were then to rush in and murder the Ministers as they sat at dinner; and, as special trophies, to bring away with them the heads of Lords Sidmouth and Castlereagh, in two bags provided for the purpose! They were then to fire the cavalry-barracks; and the Bank and Tower were to be taken by the people, who, it was hoped, would rise upon the spread of the news.

Southey relates this touching anecdote of Thistlewood's last hours:--

TO STOP THE DUKE, GO FOR GOLD.

"Whilst agriculture can boast almost as many associations as there are British counties, whilst every city in the kingdom contains its botanical, phrenological, or mechanical institutions, and these again possess their periodical journals --we possess no association of traders, united together, for the common object of enlightening the world upon a question so little understood, and so loaded with obloquy, as free-trade.

"We have our Banksian, our Linnaean, our Hunterian Societies, and why should not at least our greatest commercial and manufacturing towns possess their Smithian Societies, devoted to the purpose of promulgating the beneficent truths of the 'Wealth of Nations'? Such institutions, by promoting a correspondence with similar societies that would probably be organized abroad , might contribute to the spread of liberal and just views of political science, and thus tend to ameliorate the restrictive policy of foreign governments through the legitimate influence of the opinions of its people.

The pamphlet from which the preceding extract is taken, was published in the early part of the year 1835, about four years before the formation of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and at a time when, owing to the very low price of grain, and the prosperity of the manufacturing districts, the question of the Corn-laws scarcely attracted the slightest attention, either in Manchester or in any other part of the country.

Much misconception exists with respect to the military administration of the Duke of Wellington, who was, at the close of his life, commander-in-chief of the army. He is said to have been wedded to "Brown Bess," but he is known to have encouraged the introduction of the Mini?; and several of the reforms executed by Lord Herbert had been discussed by the Duke with approval. The celebrated letter of 1847 shows what were the thoughts of this great man in reference to our national defences, and they are not perhaps the least valuable legacy which Wellington has bequeathed to England. The following scheme of defence by the Duke, which Mr. Gleig for the first time published, is not perhaps the less interesting because it has been in part accomplished:--

If we read Volunteers for Militia, we shall see that Wellington's plan of defence is nearly that contemplated in 1863.

In a paper contributed to the Royal Society of Literature, Dr. Hermann has traced the eventful history of the Swedish monarch with great skill, from the period when he ascended the throne, in 1771, to his assassination by Ankerstr?m at the masked ball in 1792. Dr. Hermann shows that Gustavus united in his own person and character most of those qualities, intellectual and moral, which distinguished the latter half of the eighteenth century. Thus, like Catherine of Russia and Frederick the Great, though not to the same extent, he was a believer in those doctrines whose chief expositors were Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists; while, in the government of his country, he was ever striving after a system of optimism, which, however beautiful in theory, is wholly impracticable. The reign of Gustavus is chiefly remarkable for the spirit with which he broke down a tyranny of certain noble families, which had long usurped nearly the whole of the royal prerogative, and had thrown the monarch into the background; for the zeal with which he carried out many reforms of the greatest benefit to the more indigent classes of his people; for the remarkable rashness with which, unsupported by a single other European power, he rushed madly into a war with the Russian Empress; and for the extraordinary victory in which, at the close of his second campaign, in July, 1791, he destroyed the entire Russian fleet, in the Bay of Sw?borg, and captured no less than 1412 Russian cannon.

The assassin, Ankerstr?m, was discovered and executed: in his character and in his last moments, a striking similarity may be traced to Bellingham, who assassinated Mr. Perceval in 1812: both expressed the same fanatical satisfaction at the perpetration of the crime, and the same presumptuous confidence of pardon from the Almighty.

The Chartists' Petition was presented to the Commons, on the above day, signed, it was stated, by 5,706,000 persons. The principal points of the Charter were universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, the division of the country into equal electoral districts, the abolition of property qualification in members, and paying them for their services. Chartism and the People's Charter grew out of the shortcomings of the Reform Act. The Chartists then divided into the Physical Force and the Moral Force Chartists; and then arose the Complete Suffragists; the latter principally from the Middle Classes, the former from the working-classes; though their objects were very similar.

Sir Bulwer Lytton, in an eloquent lecture upon the historical and intellectual associations of Hertfordshire, pays this willing tribute to the character of Viscount Melbourne; referring to "the fair park of Brocket, which our posterity will find historical as the favourite residence of one who, if not among the greatest Ministers who have swayed this country, was one of the most accomplished and honourable men who ever attained to the summit of constitutional ambition. And it is a striking anecdote of Lord Melbourne, that he once said in my own hearing--'He rejoiced to have been Prime Minister, for he had thus learnt that men were much better, much more swayed by conscience and honour, than he had before supposed;' a saying honourable to the Minister, and honourable still more to the public virtue of Englishmen."

Lord Melbourne was proverbially a good-natured man; but in his preferences he acted with a sense of duty more stringent than might have been expected. It appears that Lord John Russell had applied to Lord Melbourne for some provision for one of the sons of the poet Moore; and here is the Premier's very judicious reply:--

"MY DEAR JOHN;--I return you Moore's letter. I shall be ready to do what you like about it when we have the means. I think whatever is done should be done for Moore himself. This is more distinct, direct, and intelligible. Making a small provision for young men is hardly justifiable; and it is of all things the most prejudicial to themselves. They think what they have much larger than it really is; and they make no exertion. The young should never hear any language but this: 'You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your own exertions whether you starve or not.'--Believe me, &c.

"MELBOURNE."

At the bottom of the Convention signed on the 17th Feb., 1772, we read this declaration of the Empress Queen Maria-Theresa of Austria, dated the 4th March, 1772: "Placet, since so many learned personages will that it should be so; but long after my death it will be seen what will be the result of having thus trampled under foot all that has been hitherto held to be just and sacred."

In contemplating the possibility of an Invasion, we have some right to count upon the changes which modern civilization has introduced into the methods of warfare. It is not improbable that, if it entered into the French Emperor's plans to invade England, he would make the attempt upon several points at once. The campaign which he sketched out for the use of the allied generals in the Crimea, and which they rejected as impracticable, was based upon this principle. His forces were to be distributed at various points on the circumference of a circle, of which the enemy was to occupy the centre. The enemy was to have all the advantage of concentration; he and his allies were to have all the weakness of division. It is a mode of fighting which is rather at variance with the old Napoleonic ideas, and which would require an overwhelming force to give it effect. As in military numeration the rule of addition is somewhat at fault,--two and two do not always make four, and 200,000 men cannot be computed as ten times stronger than 20,000--we may rest assured that for the successful invasion of England, whether the attack be made by a single armament or by several, a tremendous force must be necessary; and preparations, which will prevent us from being taken altogether by surprise, must be some time in progress.

We shall have a little time to prepare. There is no necessity for our arming to the teeth, and standing to our guns, as if the Philistines were upon us; for there is no need to play the fire-engines before the fire breaks out; but, on the other hand, if we delay our defences on the plea of saving our money till the danger actually comes, when we shall be able to spend it without stint, "it is as if, for a security against fire, you laid by your money at interest, to be expended in making engines and organizing a proper fire brigade as soon as the conflagration commences." Sir John Burgoyne adds, by way of practical illustration, that 10,000 additional British infantry would have taken Sebastopol before the month of December, 1854, and saved all the sufferings of the winter campaign; "but not all the boasted wealth of England could supply the British infantry required."--

Lord Macaulay, in his epitome of the arguments that were used in the year 1697, against the maintenance of a standing army in England, says, illustratively:--

"Some people, indeed, talked as if a militia could achieve nothing great. But that base doctrine was refuted by all ancient and modern history. What was the Lacedaemonian phalanx in the best days of Lacedaemon? What was the Roman Legion in the best days of Rome? What were the armies that conquered at Cressy, at Poictiers, at Agincourt, at Halidon, or at Flodden? What was that mighty array which Elizabeth reviewed at Tilbury? In the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries Englishmen who did not live by the trade of war had made war with success and glory. Were the English of the 17th century so degenerate that they could not be trusted to play the men for their own homesteads and parish churches?"

Gibbon, the historian, who at one part of his life was a captain in the Hampshire regiment of militia, remained ever after sensible of a benefit from it, which he testifies as follows:

It having been stated, in a leading article of a journal, April 14, 1862, that the Liberal party forced upon the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel that concession to the cause of Catholic emancipation "which Sir Robert Peel declares he entirely disapproved to the latest day of his life," drew from the present Sir Robert Peel the following corrective reply:

"I do not know upon what authority that statement is made, but, so far from disapproving the measure, Sir Robert Peel has distinctly stated that in passing Catholic Emancipation he acted on a deep conviction that the measure was not only conducive to the general welfare, but imperatively necessary to avert from the Church, and from the interest of institutions connected with the Church, an imminent and increasing danger."

Some fifty years ago, a young prince of a then obscure German House was serving under the Emperor Alexander in the great war against Napoleon. He was brave, handsome, clever, and, as events have proved, possessed of prudence beyond the ordinary lot of princes or private men. In 1814 he accompanied the Allied Sovereigns to England, and there his accomplishments attracted the attention and engaged the affection of the heiress to the English throne, the Princess Charlotte of Wales. They were married, and though an untimely death was destined soon to sever the union, yet from that time the star of the successful young officer and of the House of Coburg has been in the ascendant. From the vantage-ground of a near connexion with the British Royal Family they have been able to advance to a position in Europe almost beyond the dreams of German ambition. The Coburgs have spread far and wide, and filled the lands with their race.

They have created a new Royal House in England. The Queen is a daughter of Leopold's sister; her children are the children of Leopold's nephew. The Coburgs reign in Portugal; they are connected with the royal though fallen House of Orleans, and more or less closely related to the principal families of their own country. Prince Leopold himself has for thirty years governed one of the most important of the minor States of Europe, and his eldest son is wedded to an Archduchess of the Imperial House of Austria. Jealousy and detraction have followed these remarkable successes, but the Coburgs can afford to smile when their rivals sneer, for they have the solid rewards of skill, prudence, and that adaptability to all countries and positions which has distinguished the more able members of their family. It may be added, as the last memorable events in their annals, that two of them have successively had the refusal of the Crown of Greece.

We may supplement the above by the following strange passage in the career of Louis Napoleon, three-and-twenty years since:

The finance accounts for 1862 give, as usual, a rather serious list of Pensions charged upon the Consolidated Fund, and therefore not otherwise stated than in these accounts.

FOOTNOTES:

Progress of Civilization.

Admiral Fitzroy adduces the following striking facts strongly bearing on the great geological inquiry of "Flint Tools," and "Implements in the Drift."

Tierra del Fuego, with its innumerable islands and rocky islets, like mountain ranges half sunk in ocean, combines every variety of aspect--storm-beaten rocky summits, several thousand feet above the sea--glaciers so extensive that the eye cannot trace their limits--densely wooded hillsides--grand cascades and sheltered sandy coves,--altogether such a combination of Swiss, Norwegian, and Greenland scenery as can hardly be realized or believed to exist near Cape Horn. Yet, even there--by lake-like waters, though so near the wildest of oceans--thousands of savages exist, and migrate in bark canoes!

In 1830 four of those aborigines were brought to England. In 1833 three of them were restored to their native places . They had then acquired enough of our language to talk about common things. From their information and our own sight are the following facts:--The natives of Tierra del Fuego use stone tools, flint knives, arrow and spear heads of flint or volcanic glass, for cutting bark for canoes, flesh, blubber, sinews, and spears, knocking shell-fish off rocks, breaking large shells, killing guanacoes , and for weapons. In every sheltered cove where wigwams are placed, heaps of refuse--shells and stones, offal and bones--are invariably found. Often they appear very old, being covered deeply with wind-driven sand, or water-washed soil, on which there is a growth of vegetation. These are like the "kitchen middens" of the so-called "stone age" in Scandinavia.

No human bones would be found in them , because the dead bodies are sunk in deep water with large stones, or burnt. These heaps are from six to ten feet high, and from ten or twenty to more than fifty yards in length. All savages in the present day use stone tools, not only in Tierra del Fuego, but in Australia, Polynesia, Northernmost America, and Arctic Asia. In any former ages of the world, wherever savages spread, as radiating from some centre, similar habits and means of existence must have been prevalent; therefore casual discovery of such traces of human migration, buried in or under masses of water-moved detritus, may seem scarcely sufficient to define a so-called "stone age."

But the origin and application are variously explained among antiquarian writers. The Abb? Cochet states, in a letter to the French journals, 1863, that hatchets are found almost all over Europe. They are common in France, and are generally found in groups. Some of them have been analysed, and found to be composed of fourteen parts of tin and eighty-six of copper. The bronze is the same as that of an antique poniard brought from Egypt and analysed by Vauquelin, from which it would appear that the composition of ancient Gallic bronze came from Egypt. Archaeologists generally attribute hatchets of this kind to the Celts and Gauls, and give them the general name of Celtic.

If the commencement of the Roman rule in England was, say, fifty years before the birth of Christ and each generation lasted on the average thirty years--rather a high rate of vitality probably in the Early and Middle Ages--we find that about sixty-four generations have gone to dust since then. The archaeological information obtained of late years shows that at the time of the Roman invasion there was a larger amount of civilization in Ancient Britain than has been generally supposed: that in addition to the knowledge of the old inhabitants in agriculture, in the training and rearing of horses, cows, and other domestic animals, they were able to work in mines, had skill in the construction of war-chariots and other carriages, and in the manufacture of metals; and there is evidence that cheese and other British manufactures and materials were exported to certain parts of the Continent, probably in British vessels. The ancient coinage of this period is well worthy of attention. To what country may the style of art be traced? To what people do we owe the mysterious circle of Stonehenge? Mr. Fergusson and others say to the Buddhists rather than to the Druids.

In connexion with the Ancient British period, it would seem that probably 2000 years before the Roman times there had been in Great Britain a certain degree of civilization, which from various causes declined in extent. If Stonehenge may be considered as of the same antiquity as similar remains in various parts of the East--which are reckoned by good authorities to be 4000 years old--we had in this country a degree of civilization which was contemporary with the prosperous period of the Egyptian empire; and, in times more immediately preceding the Roman occupation, we know that Britain was the grand source of Druidical illumination to the whole of Continental Europe.

We have no means of estimating the cost of a mile of Roman road by any audited account of expenses, and it is not easy to make a comparison of labour. Its cost is vaguely calculated as insignificant by the side of that of our leviathan railways. The following is stated to be the average cost of a mile of railway:

If this be multiplied by 5000, which was the aggregate length of British railways in 1851 , and we have the almost fabulous amount of 160 millions, a sum fully equal to ten times the revenue of all the Roman provinces in the time of Augustus.

In boasting of the gigantic steps which the art of road-making has taken in our time, we cannot afford to depreciate either the genius or the magnificence of the ancient Romans in this matter. If we have our railway under the cliffs of Dover, Trajan had his road under 2000 feet of perpendicular cliff along the Ister; if we have our 12,000 miles of rails, the Romans had their 4000 miles of chosen road, reaching from one extremity of the empire to the other; if we have our leviathan bridges and viaducts, the Romans had theirs over greater rivers and wider vales than we have to deal with; and, finally, if we had our glass bazaar, one-third of a mile long, in Hyde Park, they had a golden palace, which reached a whole mile on the Esquiline Hill. If we rise superior and look down upon the works of the Romans, it is not so much that we have gained in unskilful labour, as in science. Without the iron and the science, their works would be as great as ours; it is in mental rather than in any physical energies, that we have the pre-eminence.

The killing of animals for food is, after all, merely the resource of the savage, and domesticated animals and cultivated plants are indispensable to the earliest advances of civilization. It may be safely averred, says Mr. Craufurd, that no people ever attained any great civilization without, for example, the possession of some cereal, and without having domesticated the horse, or the ox, or the buffalo. No evidence exists of a people emerging from barbarism whose food consisted of the cocoa-nut, the banana, the date, the bread-fruit, sago, the potato, the yam, or the batata. Such articles are too easily produced, require too little skill and ingenuity to raise; and when they fail, there is nothing to fall back upon--nothing between the people cultivating them and starvation. The higher, too, the cereal the better, wheat standing at the top of the list in temperate regions, and rice in warm ones. Thus, the cereals of Egypt, nurtured by the mud of the Nile, created a respectable civilization among a very inferior race. It was because the Egyptians, says Mr. Craufurd, besides the date, possessed wheat, barley, pulse, and the ox, and that nature dressed and irrigated their country, that the Egyptians became numerous and civilized.

Dr. Humphry is no friend to Palmistry; for, he observes: "You will estimate the value of the science of Cheiromancy when you hear that equal furrows upon the lower joint of the thumb argue riches and possessions; but a line surrounding the middle joint portends hanging. The nails, also, come in for their share of attention: and we are informed that, when short, they imply goodness; when long and narrow, steadiness but dulness; when curved, rapacity. Black spots upon them are unlucky; white are fortunate. Even at the present day Gipsies practise the art when they can find sufficient credulity to encourage them."

Horace Walpole, who possessed great knowledge of life, though himself disfigured by arrogant conceits, has left this satirical view of the wisdom of the ancient philosophers:

"I thought that philosophers were virtuous, upright men, who loved wisdom, and were above the little passions and foibles of humanity. I thought they assumed that proud title as an earnest to the world, that they intended to be something more than mortal; that they engaged themselves to be patterns of excellence, and would utter no opinion, would pronounce no decision, but what they believed the quintessence of truth; that they always acted without prejudice and respect of persons. Indeed, we know that the ancient philosophers were a ridiculous composition of arrogance, disputation, and contradictions! that some of them acted against all ideas of decency; that others affected to doubt of their own senses; that some, for venting unintelligible nonsense, pretended to think themselves superior to kings; that they gave themselves airs of accounting for all that we do and do not see--and yet, that no two of them agreed in a single hypothesis; that one thought fire, another water, the origin of all things; and that some were even so absurd and impious as to displace God, and enthrone matter in his place. I do not mean to disparage such wise men, for we are really obliged to them: they anticipated and helped us off with an exceeding deal of nonsense, through which we might possibly have passed if they had not prevented us."

Mr. Arthur Helps writes upon this everyday hindrance to happiness: "I believe if most young persons were to tell us what they had suffered from shyness upon their entrance into society, it would well deserve to be placed next to want of truth as a hindrance to the enjoyment of society. Now, admitting that there is a certain degree of graceful modesty mixed up with this shyness, very becoming in the young, there is at the same time a great deal of needless care about what others think and say. In fact, it proceeds from a painful egotism, sharpened by needless self-examinations and foolish imaginations, in which the shy youth or maiden is tormented by his or her personality, and is haunted by imagining that he or she is the centre of the circle--the observed of all observers. The great cause of this shyness is not sufficiently accustoming children to society, or making them suppose that their conduct in it is a matter of extreme importance, and especially in urging them from their earliest youth by this most injurious of all sayings, 'If you do this or that, what will be said, what will be thought of you?' Thus referring the child not to religion, not to wisdom, not to virtue, not even to the opinion of those whose opinion ought to have weight, but to the opinion of whatever society he may chance to come into. I often think the parent, guardian, or teacher, who has happily omitted to instil this vile prudential consideration, or enabled the child to resist it, even if he, the teacher, has omitted much good advice and guidance, has still done better than that teacher or parent who has filled the child to the brim with good moral considerations, and yet has allowed this one piece of arrant worldliness to creep in."

"Man is by nature a social animal. 'He is more political,' says Aristotle, 'than any bee or ant.' But the existence of society, from a family to a state, supposes a certain harmony of sentiment among its members; and nature has, accordingly, wisely implanted in us a tendency to assimilate in opinions and habits of thought to those with whom we live and act. There is thus, in every society great or small, a certain gravitation of opinions towards a common centre. As in our natural body, every part has a necessary sympathy with every other, and all together form, by their harmonious conspiration, a healthy whole; so, in the social body, there is always a strong predisposition, in each of its members, to act and think in unison with the rest. This universal sympathy, or fellow-feeling, of our social nature, is the principle of the different spirit dominant in different ages, countries, ranks, sexes, and periods of life. It is the cause why fashions, why political and religious enthusiasm, why moral example, either for good or evil, spread so rapidly and exert so powerful an influence. As men are naturally prone to imitate others, they consequently regard, as important or insignificant, as honourable or disgraceful, as true or false, as good or bad, what those around them consider in the same light. They love and hate what they see others desire and eschew. This is not to be regretted; it is natural, and consequently it is right. Indeed, were it otherwise, society could not subsist, for nothing can be more apparent than that mankind in general, destined as they are to occupations incompatible with intellectual cultivation, are wholly incapable of forming opinions for themselves on many of the most important objects of human consideration.

"If such, however, be the intentions of nature with respect to the unenlightened classes, it is manifest that a heavier obligation is thereby laid on those who enjoy the advantages of intellectual cultivation, to examine with diligence and impartiality the foundations of those opinions which have any connexion with the welfare of mankind. If the multitude must be led, it is of consequence that it be led by enlightened conductors. That the great multitude of mankind are by natural disposition only what others are, is a fact at all times so obtrusive that it could not escape observation from the moment a reflective eye was first turned upon man. 'The whole conduct of Cambyses,' says Herodotus, the father of history, 'towards the Egyptian gods, sanctuaries, and priests, convinces me that this king was in the highest degree insane, for otherwise he would not have insulted the worship and holy things of the Egyptians. If any one should accord to all men the permission to make free choice of the best among all customs, undoubtedly each would choose his own. That this would certainly happen can be shown by many examples, and among others by the following. The King Darius once asked the Greeks who were resident in his court, at what price they could be induced to devour their dead parents. The Greeks answered, that to this no price could bribe them. Thereupon the king asked some Indians who were in the habit of eating their dead parents, what they would take not to eat but to burn them; and the Indians answered even as the Greeks had done.' Herodotus concludes this narrative with the observation, that 'Pindar had justly entitled Custom--the Queen of the World.'"

"The Reformation beams from Bullen's eyes."

An instance pregnant with mightier results could not, perhaps, be quoted than the following:--When many Puritans emigrated, or were about to emigrate, to America, in 1637, Cromwell, either despairing of his fortunes at home, or indignant at the rule of government which prevailed, resolved to quit his native country, in search of those civil and religious privileges of which he could freely partake in the New World. Eight ships were lying in the Thames, ready to sail: in one of them, says Hume, were embarked Hazelrig, Hampden, Pym, and Cromwell. A proclamation was issued, and the vessels were detained by Order in Council. The King had, indeed, cause to rue the exercise of his authority. In the same year, Hampden's memorable trial--the great cause of Ship-money--occurred. What events rapidly followed!

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