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that does not allow a wounded conscience to be curable by some means. Nature will work out its rights and its kindness some way or other, through the worst sophistications; and this is one of the instances in which she seems to raise herself above all contingencies. The conscience may have been wounded by artificial or by real guilt; but then she will tell it in those extremities, that even the real guilt may have been produced by circumstances. It is her kindness alone, which nothing can pull down from its predominance.

See fair play between cares and pastimes. Diminish your artificial wants as much as possible, whether you are rich or poor; for the rich man's, increas ing by indulgence, are apt to outweigh even the abundance of his means; and the poor man's diminution of them renders his means the greater. On the other hand, increase all your natural and healthy enjoyments. Cultivate your afternoon fire-side, the society of your friends, the company of agreeable children, music, theatres, amusing books, an urbane and generous gallantry. He who thinks any innocent pastime foolish, has either to grow wiser or is past the ability to do so. In the one case, his notion of being childish is itself a childish notion. In the other, his importance is of so feeble and hollow a cast, that it dare not move for fear of tumbling to pieces.

A friend of ours, who knows as well as any man how to unite industry with enjoyment, has set an

excellent example to those who can afford the leisure, by taking two Sabbaths every week instead of one,— not Methodistical Sabbaths, but days of rest which pay true homage to the Supreme Being by enjoying his creation.

One of the best pieces of advice for an ailing spirit is to go to no sudden extremes-to adopt no great and extreme changes in diet or other habits. They may make a man look very great and philosophic to his own mind; but they are not fit for a being, to whom custom has been truly said to be a second nature. Dr. Cheyne may tell us that a drowning man cannot too quickly get himself out of the water; but the analogy is not good. If the water has become a second habit, he might almost as well say that a fish could not get too quickly out of it.

Upon this point, Bacon says that we should discontinue what we think hurtful by little and little. And he quotes with admiration the advice of Celsus: -that "a man do vary and interchange contraries, but rather with an inclination to the more benign extreme." "Use fasting," he says, " and full eating, but rather full eating; watching and sleep, but rather sleep; sitting and exercise, but rather exercise, and the like; so shall nature be cherished, and yet taught masteries."

We cannot do better than conclude with one or two other passages out of the same Essay, full of his usual calm wisdom. "If you fly physic in health altogether, it will be too strange for your body when

you need it." (He means that a general state of health should not make us over-confident and contemptuous of physic; but that we should use it moderately if required, that it may not be too strange to us when required most.) "If you make it too familiar, it will have no extraordinary effect when sickness cometh. I commend rather some diet for certain seasons, than frequent use of physic, except it be grown into a custom; for those diets alter the body more, and trouble it less."

"As for the passions and studies of the mind," says he, "avoid envy, anxious fears, anger fretting inwards, subtle and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhilarations in excess, sadness not communicated" (for as he says finely, somewhere else, they who keep their griefs to themselves, are "cannibals of their own hearts"). "Entertain hopes; mirth rather than joy;" (that is to say, cheerfulness rather than boisterous merriment;)" variety of delights rather than surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and therefore novelties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature."

VIII.-CHARLES BRANDON, AND MARY QUEEN OF FRANCE.

THE fortune of Charles Brandon was remarkable.

He was an honest man, yet the favourite of a despot.

He was brave, handsome, accomplished, possessed even delicacy of sentiment; yet he retained the despot's favour to the last. He even had the perilous honour of being beloved by his master's sister, without having the least claim to it by birth; and yet instead of its destroying them both, he was allowed to be her husband.

Charles Brandon was the son of Sir William Brandon, whose skull was cleaved at Bosworth by Richard the Third, while bearing the standard of the Duke of Richmond. Richard dashed at the standard, and appears to have been thrown from his horse by Sir William, whose strength and courage however could not save him from the angry desperation of the king.

But Time, whose wheeles with various motion runne,
Repayes this service fully to his sonne,

Who marries Richmond's daughter, born betweene
Two royal parents, and endowed a queene.

Sir John Beaumont's Bosworth Field.

The father's fate must have had its effect in securing the fortunes of the son. Young Brandon grew up with Henry the Seventh's children, and was the playmate of his future king and bride. The prince, as he increased in years, seems to have carried the idea of Brandon with him like that of a second self; and the princess, whose affection was not hindered from becoming personal by any thing sisterly, nor on the other hand allowed to waste itself in too equal a familiarity, may have felt a double impulse given to it by the improbability of her ever being suffered to

become his wife. Royal females in most countries have certainly none of the advantages of their rank, whatever the males may have. Mary was destined to taste the usual bitterness of their lot; but she was repaid. At the conclusion of the war with France, she was married to the old king Louis the Twelfth, who witnessed from a couch the exploits of her future husband at the tournaments. The doings of Charles Brandon that time were long remembered. The love between him and the young queen was suspected by the French court; and he had just seen her enter Paris in the midst of a gorgeous procession, like Aurora come to marry Tithonus. Brandon dealt his chivalry about him accordingly with such irresistible vigour, that the Dauphin, in a fit of jealousy, secretly introduced into the contest a huge German, who was thought to be of a strength incomparable. But Brandon grappled with him, and with seeming disdain and detection so pummelled him about the head with the hilt of his sword, that the blood burst through the vizor. Imagine the feelings of the queen, when he came and made her an offering of the German's shield. Drayton, in his Heroical Epistles, we know not on what authority, tells us, that on one occasion during the combats, perhaps this particular one, she could not help crying out, "Hurt not my sweet Charles," or words to that effect. He then pleasantly represents her as doing away suspicion by falling to commendations of the Dauphin, and affecting not to know who the conquering knight

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