of eighty-one, in the midst of the confusion of a removal which included a library of several thousand volumes. It was of course a removal to the grave. His last letter from Okeover was dated 4th March, 1846; he died on the 13th August following.

Mr. Phipps's book, like the life of his subject, is divisible into two distinct parts: that which treats of Mr. Ward's life as a politician, and that which relates to his life as an author. In reference to the former, which is certainly the least interesting portion of Mr. Ward's life, the book is the most valuable. As a public man, Mr. Ward himself was comparatively insignificant, but he moved as a satellite around persons whose names and actions give an interest to every thing in which they are mentioned; the last acts of the life of Pitt; the administration of Perceval; the quarrels of Canning and Castlereagh; the government of Lord Liverpool; and the rise of Peel-these are the subjects of the political portion of the book; and by virtue of them these memoirs will take their stand with the Malmesbury Papers, the Lives of Eldon and Sidmouth, and other collections of invaluable materials for the history of the last fifty years. And the work will be rendered still more valuable when completed by the publication of the remainder of the diary. The portion which relates to Mr. Ward as an author is exceedingly incomplete. The public would like to know a great deal mere about him, and his works and studies and manner of composition. Even the list of his publications is difficult to be made out from the volumes before us. We doubt whether it could be completed from them? Did he not write "Chatsworth," which is not mentioned here at all? Nor is there the slightest endeavour to give an impres

sion of his character, either as an author or as a man; nor any account of his connections. In many respects, and in spite of a few unavoidable mistakes, more is to be gathered upon several of these subjects from our own Obituary notice, to which we have already referred, than from the two capacious volumes before us.

The impression produced by Mr. Ward's diary, and his work upon the Revolution of 1688, is not favourable to his discrimination. They read like the productions of a hot, uncandid partisan. Whenever he sits in judgment upon the actions of men who have really lived and moved upon the face of the world, he is either blindly partial or severely harsh, illiberal, and unjust. Nothing can be worse in this respect than his treatment of Canning in his diary, and his treatment of all Whigs in his writings everywhere. But change we the arena from the fields of actual party contest to those of the imagination; give him as subjects to be dealt with, not Fox, or Sheridan, or Canning, but the men and women of his own creation, and nothing can be more delightful than the mildness of his censures, the extent of his charity, and the ample toleration of his capacious benevolence. The former exhibits the politician excited by the struggles of office and party; his temper heated by the warmth and doubtfulness of the contests in which he was engaged; and his judgment so far blinded as to be unable to discern that what he wished to be true was not always the actual fact.

The latter we are ready to believe exhibits the man himself: kind, amiable, good-tempered, hearty; a warm and constant friend; a cheerful companion, and, in one word, a courteous, upright, honourable gentleman.

good book and is well edited; the Chronicle relates to a period of our history which is as interesting as it is

important, and it is put before its readers in a most complete and satisfactory manner. The MS. of the Chronicle, which is No. 194 of the Harleian collection in the British Museum, was formerly in the possession of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, and before his time belonged to John Stowe the chronicler. The former published one passage from it in his long-forgotten pamphlet entitled "The Primitive Practice of Preserving Truth." 1645. 4to.; and the latter used it in the compilation of his Chronicle, but much of its contents now sees the light for the first time. Stowe seems in one place to attribute the composition of the MS. to a person of the name of "Row. Lea," which is the only approach towards an identification of the author which the editor has been able to obtain. Whoever he was, he wrote in the Tower of London, and will probably be one day discovered to have held some office in that fortress.

Edward VI. died at Greenwich on the 6th July, 1553. His death was kept secret until the 8th, when the lord mayor and eighteen of the principal citizens were summoned to the palace at Greenwich. The tidings of the death of the sovereign were communicated to them, and they were informed that the young king had disposed of the succession by certain letters patent, under which lady Jane Grey had become entitled to the vacant throne. The citizens were sworn to adhere to the royal settlement of the succession, and charged to keep its provisions secret for the present. Two days afterwards Lady Jane was conveyed by water to the Tower. She arrived there at three in the afternoon and was received as queen; at five in the same afternoon her accession and the nature of her title were publicly proclaimed. Mr. J. G. Nichols has printed Edward VI.'s own devise for limiting the succession, the letters patent by which his intentions were put into legal form, an engagement entered into by the council with the king to abide by his will in respect of the descent of the crown, and the king's minutes for his last will. These papers are all, except the second, Petyt MSS. preserved in the Inner Temple library, This publication will direct attention to their singular constitutional and his

torical importance, and will no doubt induce the learned body which has the charge of them to preserve them more carefully than they have done for some years past.

Jane's brief and mimic sovereignty was publicly assumed on the 10th July, 1553, and publicly relinquished on the 19th of the same month. The people in all parts of the country instantly indicated their aversion to any departure from the line of hereditary succession. Crowds of volunteers flocked to the standard of Mary, whilst even the tenants of the noblemen who set up queen Jane refused to serve under them on her behalf. The crews of six ships sent by the council to the coast of Norfolk to prevent Mary's escape no sooner became aware of the service upon which they were to be employed than they revolted to Mary. In town and country, at sea and on land, there was but one feeling. The faction who had proclaimed the puppet queen found themselves almost literally alone. It was the observation of the chief of them, as recorded by the present chronicler, that, although the people pressed around to observe their public ceremonies, no man cried God speed them. Convinced of the folly of their mad attempt, both by what was passing around them, and by the tidings which reached them from all quarters, they did not wait for the approach of Mary and her army, but themselves proclaimed her accession, and left the image of royalty which they had set up to the disastrous fate which they had brought upon her.

"Great was the triumph here in London," is the testimony of an eye-witness to the proclamation of Mary; "for my time I never saw the like, and by the report of others the like was never seen. The number of caps that were thrown up at the proclamation were not to be told. The Earl of Pembroke threw away his capful of angelets. I saw myself money bonfires were without number; and, what was thrown out at windows for joy. The with shouting and crying of the people and ringing of the bells, there could no one hear almost what another said, besides banquetings and singing in the streets for joy." (p. 11.)

Thus joyfully began the reign which turned out to be the most melancholy and the most unpopular in English history.

Lady Jane Grey remained a prisoner in the royal fortress which she entered as queen, and if we could suppose that the selfish faction who selected her for the throne had in any degree regarded her personal qualities, we might say that now, in the time of trial, she fully justified their choice. Whilst the prime leader of the pretended Protestant movement for the exclusion of Mary on account of her faith, went over to the church of Rome with a hypocritical celerity which anticipated solicitation, and treated both the faith which he was quitting and its professors with shameful contumely, the lady Jane, a girl of 17, withstood all the persuasion and all the seductive artifices which could be brought against her. There is a striking passage upon this subject in the present Chronicle. Whilst in the Tower lady Jane was confined in the house of one of the officers of the fortress named Partridge, and it would seem that occasionally she joined Partridge and his family at dinner. On one of these occasionsit was on Tuesday the 29th August, 1553-the writer of the Chronicle was present as a guest. The lady Jane sat "at the board's end," the other persons of the party being Partridge and his wife, lady Jane's gentlewoman, whose name was Jacob, her male attendant, and the writer. Jane was full of a kind of royal courtesy; the chronicler remarks that she "com

manded" Partridge and himself to put on their caps, and at dinner drank to himself, the stranger, once or twice, and bad him heartily welcome. She praised the queen as a merciful princess-which up to that time she had truly been-and wished her long life, and that God would send upon her his bountiful grace. The conversation then fell upon matters of religion. Jane asked who preached at Paul's on the Sunday before, and specially inquired of the writer, "I pray you, have they mass in London?" "Yea, forsooth," was his reply, "in some places." "It may so be," quoth she, "it is not so strange as the sudden conversion of the late duke; for who would have thought that he would have so done!" It was suggested that perchance he thereby hoped to have secured his pardon. "Pardon!" she echoed, "woe worth him! he hath brought me and

our stock in most miserable calamity and misery by his exceeding ambition." She contemned the notion of pardon in such a case as his, he having been in command of an army in the field against the queen in person, and railed against him as odious and evil spoken of by all men. "Like as his life was wicked and full of dissimulation, so was his end thereafter."

"I pray God," she remarked, "I, nor no friend of mine die so. Should I, who am young and in my few years, forsake my faith for the love of life? Nay, God forbid ! Much more should he not whose

fatal course, although he had lived his just number of years, could not have continued. But life was sweet it appeared. So he might have lived, you will say, he

did not care how. Indeed the reason is good; for he that would have lived in chains to have had his life, belike would leave no other mean attempted. But God be merciful to us, for He saith, whoso denieth Him before men, He will not know him in His Father's kingdom.'

With this and much like talk the dinner passed away; which ended, I thanked her ladyship that she would vouchsafe accept me in her company, and she thanked me likewise, and said I was welcome. She thanked Partridge also for bringing me to dinner. Madam,' said he, we were

somewhat bold, not knowing that your ladyship dined below, until we found your ladyship there.' And so Partridge and I departed." (pp. 24-26).

Mary's popularity was maintained the 4th September for remitting the and increased by a proclamation on payment of a subsidy; our chronicler

notes

"That at the proclamation there was a marvellous noise of rejoicing and giving the queen thanks in Cheapside by the people for the same." (p. 26.)

But this popular favour was shortlived. On the 15th December the mass was re-established by proclamation. This had no doubt some little effect, although not so much as with our modern notions we might at first feel inclined to suppose. Considered as a mere political question, the distinction between Protestantism and Romanism is now well understood. It is broadly exhibited on the wide theatre of the world. Our country, with all its greatness and its benevolence, stands forth as a living illustration of Protestantism-a manifestation of the

blessed results of the activity and expansion of mind which are inseparable from religious freedom and toleration; on the other hand, a slight consideration of the state of Spain, or Italy, or Ireland, will suffice to make us feelingly alive to the superstition and degradation which are inseparable from the opposing system. But this was a contrast not set before our ancestors in Queen Mary's days, and consequently the body of the people, who would never judge such a question on purely religious grounds, were not able, as we are, fully to comprehend the vastness of the change which was involved in the restoration of the mass. It no doubt occasioned a great deal of contention and excitement amongst the more religious, that is, amongst the thinking portion of the community; but, with the bulk of the people, that change, the mere notion of which is now absurd, passed, it is probable, with comparatively little consideration. Many of the older people no doubt went back rejoicingly to the "elevation over the head, the pax giving, blessing and crossing on the crown, breathing, turning about, and all the other rites and accidents of old time appertaining." (p. 18.)

The next public incident was for ever fatal to Mary's popularity. It was the landing of the ambassadors who "came for the knitting up of the marriage of the queen with the king of Spain." Seventy years after that time Protestantism had come to be so justly appreciated, that a Spanish match was hateful to the people solely on religious grounds; in Mary's time it was not religion but patriotism that excited an intense aversion to the contemplated union with Spain. It was believed that the existence of England would be merged in that of her magnificent ally; that she would lose her nationality, sink into a mere satellite, and be tyrannised over by a foreign people, who were regarded as no less cruel and lustful than they were proud. Such, at that time, was the spontaneous feeling of the English people at the mere notion of such an alliance. Our chronicler tells us that the ambassadors were received with distinguished honour by the officers of the court, but that "the people, nothing rejoicing, held down their

heads sorrowfully," whilst the very children in the streets, catching the infection of the general feeling, pelted their retinue with snowballs, "so hateful was the sight of their coming in." When the marriage was authoritatively announced as actually determined upon, our chronicler tells us,

"This news, although before they were not unknown to many and very much misliked, yet being now in this wise pronounced, was not only credited but also heavily taken of sundry men, yea and thereat almost each man was abashed, looking dayly for worse matters to grow shortly after." (p. 35.)

Within a few days three premature rebellions were raised in various parts of the country, all with the intention of resisting the coming of the prince of Spain. The Carews seized Exeter; the duke of Suffolk, Lady Jane Grey's father, took arms in the midland counties, and Sir Thomas Wyat assembled a formidable gathering in Kent. The first and second of these risings were easily suppressed; against Wyat the duke of Norfolk was despatched at the head of a body of the guard and 500 Londoners. The latter no sooner came in sight of the rebels than, under the leadership of one Bret, their captain, and after a short speech from him full of hatred of the Spaniard, they went over in a body to Wyat. The duke left his eight pieces of brass cannon and all his provisions in the hands of the rebels, and fled with a few friends and followers back to the metropolis.

"Ye should have seen some of the guard come home, their coats turned, all ruined, without arrow or string in their bow, or sword, in very strange wise; which discomfiture, like as it was a heartsore and very displeasing to the queen and council, even so it was almost no less joyous to the Londoners, and most part of all others." (p. 39.)

The result is very minutely told in the volume before us. Wyat advanced towards London, but not with the rapidity which is essential to the success of a popular movement. When he reached Deptford the alarm in the metropolis was extreme; the citizens donned their harness, and even the lawyers in Westminster Hall pleaded in gowns thrown over their coatarmour. When Wyat advanced to Southwark the drawbridge on London