but they considered it a duty to be near their friend. Towards the end of July 1718. Story was at Ruscombe, assisting Mrs. Penn. On the 27th he left on a trip to Bristol; Hannah Penn drove him in her coach to Reading; where she parted from him, with messages to John, her eldest son. When she returned to the house, Penn was no worse than he had been for days past. At noon next day a change occurred; he was seized with fits. She wrote a letter to recall Story; but he had gone too far; and she had to face the trials of the day unaided by a single friend.

Cold shivers quickly followed raging heats. Her doctor thought an intermittent fever was setting in. On the 29th the patient had grown so much worse they could no longer entertain a hope. Hannah then sent a messenger with orders to ride post haste to Bristol, to summon her son John, now a man of three-and-twenty, to his father's bed.

But death rode faster than her messenger. In the first watches of the summer morning, between two and three o'clock, he fell asleep. His widow watched his lips in agony and suspense. They never moved again.

Penn was buried at the village of Jordans, on the 5th of August, 1718, by the side of Guli, his first wife, and Springett his first-born son. A crowd of people followed the bier from Ruscombe to the grave-yard, consisting of the most eminent Friends, from all parts of the country, and the most distinguished of every Christian church near Ruscombe. When the coffin was lowered into the grave, a pause of silence followed; after which the old and intimate friends of the dead spoke a few words to the assembly; and the people went to their several homes subdued and chastened with

the thought that a good man and a great man, who had done his work and earned his rest had been laid that day upon the bosom of his mother earth.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.

In the first edition of Macaulay's 'History of England,' apart from sneers and hesitations,' Penn was charged with five offences touching his character as a public man.

He was represented as becoming such a servile courtier, that his own sect looked coldly on him and requited his services with obloquy. He was represented as extorting money from the schoolgirls of Taunton, for a set of heartless Maids of Honour. He was represented as trying to seduce William Kiffin, a fighting Baptist preacher into the acceptance of an alderman's gown, which gown Kiffin refused. He was represented as going over to the Hague in 1687, and trying to procure the Prince of Orange's support of the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience. He was represented as guilty of simony of a peculiarly disreputable kind in the affairs of Magdalen College.

The third charge has been modified the fourth withdrawn. The other charges stand in the Collected Works with such excuses as Macaulay had hastily put forth in his notes in 1857.

That Macaulay contemplated making further changes in his text may be inferred from several signs. (1) After the year 1857, he ceased his calumnies of Penn. In all the third part of his narrative contained in the fifth volume there is not a single charge, a single sneer though Penn was still before the public eye, as busy with his colony and with his ministry as in the earlier time. (2) His indexes were changed in the direction of a much more favourable view of Penn's

character and conduct. In the first index we read: 'Failure of his attempted mediation with the Fellows of Magdalen ;' in the amended index we read: 'Negotiates with the Fellows of Magdalen'—a very different thing. The first index refers to 'his scandalous Jacobitism;' the amended index drops the 'scandalous' Jacobitism. The first index denounces 'his falsehood;' the amended index substitutes 'held to bail.' The first index says Penn 'takes part in a Jacobite conspiracy;' the amended index says he 'joins the Jacobite conspiracy,' replacing the active by the passive, the particular by the general. In the first index, Penn is 'charged by Preston with treasonable conduct;' in the amended index, he is merely 'informed against by Preston.' In the first index, 'he conceals himself;' in the amended index, he no longer conceals himself. In the first index, Penn's interview with Sydney is 'singular;' in the amended index, it has ceased to be 'singular.' In the first index, Penn 'escapes to France;' in the amended index, there is nothing about an escape to France. In the first index, he 'returns to England and renews his plots;' in the amended index, there is not a word about returning to England and renewing his plots. That all these changes in the index meant a reconsideration of the text, can hardly be denied by any one who knows the principle on which Macaulay worked. (3) It is now no secret, that he was engaged during the last few days of his life, in a review of the evidence produced against his character of Penn.

Macaulay was removed before this portion of his labour was achieved; and thus the duty comes to me again of citing dates and facts in proof that every statement made by the historian to the injury of William Penn is founded on mistakes of

time, of person and of place. It is a painful duty, but I must not shrink from it. The highest fealty of a public writer is to truth.

I. Writing of Penn in 1685, Macaulay had said:

'He was soon surrounded by flatterers and sycophants. He paid dear, however, for this seeming prosperity. Even his own sect looked coldly on him, and requited his services with obloquy.'-Hist. of England, i. 506.

This statement was confronted with the records at Devonshire House, in the City. Penn appears from these records to have been in regular attendance at the Society's Meetings all this year. He was elected to the highest offices in his Society. Strong evidence would be required in face of such facts, that in this year of Penn's court life 'his own sect looked coldly on him, and requited his services with obloquy.' No evidence, either strong or weak, is adduced by Macaulay.

II. Writing in his first edition of the Taunton ransom, Macaulay had said :

'An order was sent to Taunton that all these little girls should be seized and imprisoned. Sir Francis Ware of Hestercombe, the Tory member for Bridgewater, was requested to undertake the office of exacting the ransom. He was charged to declare in strong language that the Maids of Honor would not endure delay, that they were determined to prosecute to outlawry, unless a reasonable sum were forthcoming, and that by a reasonable sum they meant seven thousand pounds. Warre excused himself from taking any part in a transaction so scandalous. The Maids of Honour then requested William Penn to act for them; and Penn accepted the commission. Yet it should seem that a little of the pertinacious