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two sovereigns. Mary was, in fact, a mere tool in the hands of the most crafty politician of that age. Probably she never doubted that Charles had been prepared to support her cause with arms. She certainly never suspected that the secrecy enjoined upon her had for its object to enable Philip, in case the obstacles to his marriage with her should, on a closer view, appear insurmountable, to resume his negotiations with Portugal. She knew that such an alliance would meet with great opposition from her people; but she consulted no one; she asked advice only of the party that was chiefly interested in the accomplishment of the project. It must be allowed, that she had some reason for distrusting many of the members of her Council; for they had been the ministers of Edward, and had participated, though reluctantly, in the plot for raising Lady Jane Grey to the throne. But this was not the case with Gardiner, the ablest of her ministers, on whom she bestowed her confidence in this matter as little as on the rest. And mere considerations of policy should have led her, instead of isolating herself from those who were most influential in the state, to strive, by every means, to secure their confidence and attachment. At all events, she should have respected those strong national feelings, in which she had found her best support. Far from pursuing this course, Mary tolerated her ministers only because she was unable to change them; and plotted against her people, while the acclamations with which they had proclaimed her were still ringing in her ears. We have seen that she not only acceded to a plan of which her proper advisers were entirely ignorant, but received from her fellow-conspirators the details of her own share in its execution. In her secret conferences with Renard, the English ministers and the English people were spoken of as inimical parties, whom it was an object to outwit and defeat. "Your Majesty," said the envoy, "is well acquainted with the capricious character of the English. Whether as the consequence of their being an insular people, or because their addiction to maritime pursuits has introduced a general corruption of manners, they are turbulent, eager for novelty, inconstant, and vindictive. Their sovereigns, in past times, were compelled to treat them with rigor, and to shed the blood

even of the noblest among them, so as to have acquired the reputation of being cruel and tyrannical princes." It was in this tone that a low-born Burgundian, the envoy of a foreign court, presumed to address the Queen of England.

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The scheme was consummated. But little reason had either party to be satisfied with the result. It has been truly said, that the hostility to Spain, engendered by this alliance in the minds of the English people, supplanted their ancient enmity to France. The support which Philip extorted from them in his war with the latter power, which occasioned the loss of the last relic of their Continental possessions, tended to increase their resentment. A struggle ensued between the two countries, in which the Netherlands obtained their independence, which could not have happened without the assistance they received from England, — and in which Spain lost her naval superiority, and that predominance which, under Charles V., she had maintained among the nations of Europe. Thus shorn of her external splendor, she rapidly sank under the action of those internal causes of decay which had been at work throughout the period of her short-lived greatness.

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As for Mary, the bright hopes, to which she had sacrificed so much, were bitterly disappointed. She lost her people's love, but did not gain her husband's. Her nature was not one that easily yielded itself to emotions of tenderness. So much the stronger was this, the single, passion of her life. Its violence was increased by all that had made the completion of her wishes difficult, and by all that made the return, which her love demanded, improbable; by the opposition of her subjects; by the loss of her popularity; by the coldness of Philip's disposition, and the incompatibility of their ages.† Her desire *Papiers d'Etat de Granvelle, iv., 129.

↑ It has been stated by respectable writers, that Philip was forced into this marriage by his father, and that he besought Charles to give him a bride who was younger than himself, and not one who was eleven years older. This story may be easily disproved. Philip's position, at this period, was not such that it would have been possible to constrain his inclinations; nor could he have been very reluctant to marry a woman whose age was greater than his own, since the Princess of Portugal, to whom he had just before made an offer of his hand, was six years older than himself. The fact is, that Charles did not venture to move in the affair until he had consulted his son, who at once expressed the strongest desire for the accomplishment of the match. See Ibid. 80, 103, et al.

for children, which Miss Strickland thinks fit to designate as monomania, - proceeded, perhaps, from the idea that, if Philip should have a son by her, to inherit England and the Low Countries, this would secure for her some place in his affections. But this hope, too, was doomed to be unfulfilled. She had embarked her all in a single venture, and all was lost.

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1.- Six Months in Italy. By GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields, 1853. 2 vols. 16mo.

LITTLE that is new remains to be told about Italy. Her life is in the past, and her history is written. Politically speaking, or with any reference to the events and interests of the present hour, Rome, Florence, and Naples are the most insignificant capitals in Europe. The interest which attaches to them is like that which covers Thebes and Nineveh with a mysterious charm; no one expects those solitudes to be peopled again, or their ancient glory to return. Italy, indeed, has exhausted her destiny. Twice has she been placed at the culminating point of power and renown, once as the political mistress, and once as the home of the arts, of the civilized world. Whatever her future may be, it must be dwarfed by the remembrance of the glory that has passed away. Rome, it is true, still claims to be the head of Catholic Christendom; but her power, even in this respect, is only the lingering twilight of a sun that has set. The popedom is but a shadow of what it was; its spiritual thunders cannot disturb the repose of the feeblest prince in Europe; and in temporal matters, it is so rickety that it cannot stand without foreign aid. Every effort made to retrieve its fallen fortunes seems only to depress it still farther. Only six years ago, the world was called upon to admire that strange phenomenon, a reforming Pope, who was to cleanse the political sty and to regenerate Rome. A period of feverish excitement followed; but the difficulties were too great; one disappointment followed another, and, after a succession of disasters, the Pope became once more the tamest, the most conservative, and the pettiest of sovereigns. The people have shown themselves as unworthy of freedom, as they are incapable of achieving it by their

own efforts.

Thrice, within the lifetime of one generation, in 1820, in 1832, and again in 1848, the golden prize has been placed within their grasp; and thrice, by their feebleness, their lack of public spirit, and their brawls, they have wasted the fruits of success, and have fallen back paralyzed under the sway of superannuated despotisms.

But to the visitor from foreign lands, and especially to the educated American, Italy remains, and will ever remain, the most fascinating country in the world. Here, we are so accustomed to look forward into an indistinct but glorious future, that it is a relief to find ourselves compelled, by the genius of a different locality, to look back into a richly-storied and glorious past. Though new to the outward sense, the country is not strange to us. It has been made familiar by the studies of our youth, by associations connected with every province of the fine arts, and by much that has been inwrought into the literature of all nations. Even Greece, though it may kindle a warmer glow in the heart of the scholar, does not spread before him so rich and broad a field of interest, or inspire his enthusiasm on so many different subjects. Greece, during the Middle Ages, and, in fact, ever since the promulgation of Christianity, presents nothing more to us than many other countries in Europe. Its peculiar glories are all in the remote past; the voice with which it speaks to us comes only from a far distant antiquity, and is therefore often broken and indistinct. But the true life of Italy was prolonged to a comparatively recent period. There is much in her mediæval history over which the scholar and the man of taste lingers with an abiding thrill of pleasure, and a curiosity that can never be sated. And it is not mere association, or the recollection of what is no longer visible, that chains him to the spot. The past has left substantial and glorious memorials of itself; all Italy is strewed with them. A lifetime may be spent in study and admiration of them, and the feeling will still be that the work is incomplete. From the tower of the Capitol, we look down, on the one hand, into the Roman Forum, and our gaze extends, on the other, to the Vatican and the Castle of St. Angelo. In the museums, the statues of Bernini and Canova stand side by side with the Laocoon and the Apollo Belvidere. We can take in at a glance magnificent structures, that represent the various styles of architecture peculiar to almost every century in a period of over two thousand years. And all these things, as we have said, have the peculiar and tender charm that results from long familiarity with their history. We have read about them, thought of them, dreamed of them, till at last, when we actually see them, they appear to be old acquaintances, and yet have all the zest of novelty.

We can understand the enthusiasm, then, with which Mr. Hillard writes about Italy, and the taste which led him to confine his remarks almost entirely to art and external nature, and to pass hurriedly over all questions respecting the Italians of the present day. If he speaks of them at all, it is to describe their garb, aspect, and physical constitution, to consider them as subjects for the sculptor and the painter. He writes like a scholar, a poet, an artist, and a lover of nature; not as a politician, an economist, or a philosopher. There were reasons, as we have shown, for preserving this limitation in respect to Italy; but the uniform observance of it also shows the prevailing bent of the writer's mind. Mr. Hillard describes admirably; but he does not willingly speculate or theorize. We shall not be considered as underrating the merit of his work, if we place its chief excellence in description. For, how rare the faculty is, adequately to paint in words what has deeply affected the imagination and the senses! How many a young traveller, ambitious of keeping a diary, has vainly endeavored to reproduce on paper, at eve, what has most entranced him during the day! Language seems powerless to convey a tithe of what he has felt; and, in a fit of impatience, the task is abandoned, and the diary is thrown into the grate. Mr. Hillard describes well, because he describes simply; the details are suppressed, or kept in the background; the leading peculiarity is set forth in few but fitly chosen words; and then the emotions kindled in the spectator are pictured with a warmth and breadth of language which brings the scene home to the imagination through the feelings. The mental picture thus formed may not even approximate the truth; for words can never appropriate the painter's art. But words may give us a foretaste of the emotions created by reality; and if the reader himself has seen the object described, they may inspire the fading remembrance of it once more with coloring and life. Mr. Hillard's volumes will be best appreciated by those who have already visited Italy; but they will also be a useful guide to those who have that pleasure yet to come. For our own part, the work brings so vividly before us many happy hours, now long past, that we know not how much of the pleasure which it gives is due to the author, and how much to the recollections that it vivifies only by a casual spark.

Mr. Hillard is a perfect master of soft, musical, and perspicuous diction, which, though often curiously artistic, always seems the natural garb of the thought it so gracefully conveys. It is relieved with a great variety of allusions and a luxuriant fancy, while it is so chastised by a severe taste, that no awkward or incongruous image, no slipshod or strained expression, ever comes to mar the general effect. If one

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