she did not participate; and amused herself in a society, whose frivolity she avoided.

The tenor of her faith degraded not the social affections of the heart, by placing them in contradistinction to the duties she owed to a Superior Being. She drew not up in terrible array the Divine will against her enjoyments, but endeavoured gratefully to partake of all the innocent pleasures offered both to our animal and intellectual existence by its benevolent Creator. She lowered not the spirituality of her nature, by clogging it with the language of worldly passion, nor the performance of minute observances. But, with a mind at once exalted and purified by her faith, she looked up from the depths of human suffering, with trembling hope, to the immense mercies, and with unshaken confidence to the consoling promises of an Almighty Being,

"Who must delight in virtue;

"And that, which he delights in, must be happy."

Such was Lady Russell's intimate acquaintance with the sentiments and character of her husband, and such her confidence in the purity of his intentions and conduct, that when she found herself in the dreadful predicament of

separation, by means which even the anxiety of affection could never have deemed possible, the "amazement" on which she dwells so often, and with such peculiar anguish in her subsequent letters, doubled a blow for which nothing could have ever prepared her.

But her mind, instead of being overwhelmed, rises equal to a situation in which she could never have conceived herself liable to be placed. Her quiet domestic spirit immediately assumes an activity, which probably afterwards as much surprised herself, as it called forth the admiration of those who witnessed it.

We have no record from herself of these cruel moments. She was otherwise employed than in giving an account of her feelings; they must have been such as were hardly defined to herself. And when we recollect her previous habits of life, and those of most of her sex and country at that time, we shall appreciate her character and conduct in a very different manner from that of any lively Frenchwoman of the same period, already in the habits of political intrigue, who might, in Lady Russell's circumstances, have found almost as much to gratify her vanity, as to alarm her feelings.

From the manner in which Lord Russell was taken up, there is little doubt that the court, with the dastardly policy which their crooked

measures made necessary, would willingly have connived at his escape. It would have saved them from the odium of his death, and would have allowed them, by vilifying his character, more easily to get rid of others, whose greater activity as well as fewer scruples, made them, in fact, much more dangerous enemies.

Burnet tells us, that the day before Lord Russell was arrested, a messenger was observed waiting for many hours at, or near, his door"A measure that was taken in so open and "careless a manner, (the back door of his "house not being watched,) as led to the sus

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picion that it was intended to frighten him

away." This insidious measure was not unobserved by those whom it was meant to entrap. Lady Russell was sent to consult with their friends, whether or not Lord Russell should withdraw himself.

With what an anxious mind such consultations must have been made, we may easily conceive, but no unworthy weakness, no exaggerated fears for his safety, suggested a wish on her part, contrary to the conduct which his friends, as well as himself, thought consonant with his innocence and his honour.

From this moment, till after her husband's death, we know little of Lady Russell, but what is recorded in the history of her country, where

her name will be embalmed with her lord's' while passive courage, devoted tenderness, and unblemished purity, are honoured in the one sex, or public patriotism, private virtues, and unshaken principles revered in the other.

Lord Russell was so well aware of the virulence of his enemies, and of the character of his real offences towards them, that his innocence of those alleged, was ineffectual in producing in his mind any hope of escape, when once within their power. From the first instant of his arrest, he gave himself up as lost. Such feelings (however little expressed) could not have been concealed from the anxious mind of the being who shared his every thought. But as in him they produced no despondency, so in her they caused no relaxation from every honourable endeavour to rescue him from such mortal danger. During the fortnight that elapsed between his commitment to the Tower, and his (1) trial, she was continually employed in procuring information as to what was likely to be urged against him, and in adopting every measure of precaution. Such was her known intelligence on this occasion, that we find in the report of the trial, the Chief-Justice and Attorney-Gene

(1) Lord Russell was committed to the Tower on the 26th June; tried on the 13th July; and executed in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the 21st July, 1683.

ral (1) seem to think themselves vindicated from every suspicion of neglect, in not previously communicating the pannel of the jury to Lord Russell, by endeavouring to prove that a list of names had been given to his (2) wife. Her appearance in court, at his trial, has been said to have caused a thrill of anguish through the numerous audience. (3) The AttorneyGeneral, to avoid allowing Lord Russell the aid of a legal adviser, anticipated the answer of the Chief-Justice to his request to have a person to take notes for him, by saying he would be allowed to employ a servant, to which the ChiefJustice immediately added: — " Any of your "servants shall assist you in writing any thing "you please."

When Lady Russell rose from her husband's. side, on his replying, My wife is here to do "it," the interesting situation in which she stood, must have recalled with peculiar force to the minds of the spectators, all her father's services, her husband's unsuspected patriotism, the excellence of his private life, and their known

(1) Sir Francis Pemberton was Chief-Justice, and Sir Robert Sawyer, Attorney-General.

(2) See Howell's State Trials, vol. ix. p.

583.

(3) The crowd was so great, that the Counsel complained of not having room to stand. See Howell's State Trials, vol.ix. p. 594.