who had nursed me; she was questioned by the doctor, and replied with a quiet clearness, showing how carefully the details of my illness had been observed by her. Then she left the room, when I was suddenly prompted to open my eyes, and ask in the best German I could muster, what day of the month it was. The doctor replied in tolerable English, to my great surprise, 'It is the 29th of September, my dear Sir.'

3. PEASANTS' AMUSEMENTS.

When supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran all together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul was ready, upon a little esplanade before the house, to begin. The old man and his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door. The old man had, some fifty years ago, been no mean performer upon the vielle; and at the age he was then of, touched it well enough for the purpose. His wife sang, then intermitted, and joined her old man again, as their children and grandchildren danced before them.

The old man, as soon as the dance ended, said that this was their constant way; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to Heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay.

4. QUEEN ELIZABETH.

There are few great personages in history who have been more exposed to the calumny of enemies, and the adulation of friends, than Queen Elizabeth; and yet there scarcely is any whose reputation has been more certainly determined

by the unanimous consent of posterity. The unusual length of her administration, and the strong features of her character, were able to overcome all prejudices; and, obliging her detractors to abate much of their invectives, and her admirers somewhat of their panegyrics, have at last, in spite of political factions, and, what is more, of religious animosities, produced a uniform judgment with regard to her conduct. Her vigour, her constancy, her magnanimity, her penetration, vigilance, address, are allowed to merit the highest praises, and appear not to have been surpassed by any person that ever filled a throne. A conduct less rigorous, less imperious, more sincere, more indulgent to her people, would have been requisite to form a perfect character. By the force of her mind, she controlled all her stronger more active and qualities, and prevented them from running into excess. Her heroism was exempt from temerity, her frugality from avarice, her friendship from partiality, her active temper from turbulency and a vain ambition. She guarded not herself with equal care or equal success from lesser infirmities -the rivalship of beauty, the desire of admiration, the jealousy of love, and the sallies of anger.

5. LETTER RELATING TO THE ELECTION AT RUGBY.

Laleham, December 28, 1827.

Your kind little note ought not to have remained thus long unanswered, especially as you have a most particular claim on my thanks for your active kindness in the whole business, and for your character of me to Sir H. Halford, that I was likely to improve generally the system of public education, a statement which Sir H. Halford told me had weighed most strongly in my favour. You would not, I am sure, have recommended me, if you had supposed that I should alter things violently, or for the pleasure of altering; but as I have at different times expressed in conversation my disapprobation of much of the existing system, I find that some people expect that I am going to sweep away root

and branch, 'quod absit!' I need not tell you how wholly unexpected this result has been to us, and I hope I need not say also what a solemn and almost overwhelming responsibility I feel is imposed on me. Yet, if my health and strength continue as they have been for the last eight years, I do not fear the labour, and really enjoy the prospect of it. I am glad that we are likely to meet soon in Oxford.

6. ARABIA THE HAPPY.

Enchanted with this picture of pastoral felicity, he departed from the tents of his companions, and having journeyed during five days, on the sixth, as the sun was just rising in all the splendours of the East, he lifted up his eyes and beheld extended before him, in smiling luxuriance, the fertile regions of Arabia the Happy. Gently swelling hills, tufted with blooming groves, swept down into luxuriant vales, enamelled with flowers of never-withering beauty. The sun, no longer darting his rays with torrid fervour, beamed with a genial warmth that gladdened and enriched the landscape. A pure and temperate serenity, an air of voluptuous repose, a smile of contented abundance, pervaded the face of nature, and every zephyr breathed a thousand delicious odours. The soul of the youthful wanderer expanded with delight; he raised his eyes to heaven, and almost mingled, with his tribute of gratitude, a sigh of regret that he had lingered so long amid the sterile solitudes of the desert.

7. SCHILLER AND GOETHE.

Mr. Carlyle has quoted with some approval a pert phrase, that readers till their twenty-fifth year usually prefer Schiller, after their twenty-fifth year Goethe. If Herder and Novalis are right in their belief that the true elements of wisdom and poetry are found freshest and purest in the young, this is no disparagement to Schiller. It is, certainly, in proportion as the glow for all that is noble in thought and heroic in

character fades from the weaker order of mind, amidst cavils, disgusts, and the scepticism of later life, that the halo around the genius of Schiller, which is but a reflection of all that is noble and heroic, wanes also into feebler lustre. For the stronger nature, which still 'feels as the enthusiast, while it learns to see as the world-wise' (Schiller, Licht und Wärme), there is no conceivable reason why Schiller should charm less in maturity than youth. Goethe may please a reader more in proportion as his mind can embrace a wider circumference in life; but unless his mind loses in elevation what it gains in expansion, his eye will still turn with as fond a worship to the lofty star, which is not less holy than the sun-light, though it less fills the atmosphere immediately around us.

8. THE TRIAL BY THE PEERS.

The feudal system, which for the sake of military subordination, pursued an aristocratical plan in all its arrangements of property, had been intolerable in times of peace, had it not been wisely counterpoised by that privilege, so universally diffused through every part of it, the trial by the feudal peers. And in every country on the continent, as the trial by the peers has been gradually disused, so the nobles have increased in power, till the State has been torn to pieces by rival factions, and oligarchy in effect has been established, though under the shadow of regal government; unless where the miserable commons have taken shelter under absolute monarchy, as the lighter evil of the two. It is therefore, upon the whole, a duty which every man owes to his country, his friends, his posterity, and himself, to maintain to the utmost of his power this valuable constitution in all its rights; to restore it to its ancient dignity, if at all impaired by the different value of property, or otherwise deviated from its first institution; to amend it, wherever it is defective; and, above all, to guard with the most jealous circumspection against the introduction of new and arbitrary methods of trial, which, under a variety of plausible pretences, may in

time imperceptibly undermine this best preservative of English liberty.

9. THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII.

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Frequently, by the momentary light of their torches, parties of fugitives encountered each other, some hurrying towards the sea, others flying from the sea back to the land; for the ocean had retreated rapidly from the shore utter darkness lay over it, and, upon its groaning and tossing waves the storm of cinders and rock fell without the protection which the streets and roofs afforded to the land. Wild, haggard, ghastly with supernatural fears, these groups encountered each other, but without the leisure to speak, to consult, to advise; for the showers fell now frequently, though not continuously, extinguishing the lights, which showed to each band the deathlike faces of the other, and hurrying all to seek refuge beneath the nearest shelter. The whole elements of civilization were broken up. Ever and anon, by the flickering lights, you saw the thief hastening by the most solemn authorities of the law, laden with, and fearfully chuckling over, the produce of his sudden gains. If in the darkness wife was separated from husband, or parent from child, vain was the hope of reunion. Each hurried blindly and confusedly on. Nothing in all the various and complicated machinery of social life was left save the primal law of self-preservation!

10. SUPERIORITY AND INFERIORITY.

When two countries, or sections of countries, stand geographically so related to one another that their union under a common government will conduce to the advantage of one of them, such countries will continue separate as long only as there is equality of force between them, or as long as the country which desires to preserve its independence possesses a power of resistance so vigorous that the effort to overcome it is too exhausting to be permanently maintained.

A natural right to liberty, irrespective of the ability to