Edward VI., to reign in his stead. He died in a short time, and his elder sister, Mary, succeeded to the throne. The reformation, as it is called, had begun in the time of Henry VIII., and he, with a violent hand, put down the Roman Catholic religion in his dominions; but Mary was a Catholic, and she revived it, imitating, and perhaps exceeding the bigotry and intolerance of her father in repressing it. In speaking of this period, an English historian says, "The cruelties, indeed, which were perpetrated for several years, under the pretext of advancing true religion, would almost surpass belief, did not their record depend upon authority which there is no gainsaying. Men, women, and even children, died a death of which the bare contemplation causes the blood

to curdle."

Among the persons who suffered martyrdom at this period, were three celebrated bishops, Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer. The characters of Ridley and Latimer, both as scholars and divines, presented at least as many points of contrariety as of agreement. The first was moderate, learned, and reflective; the last, bold, simple, frank, and thoroughly uncompromising. Having been tried and convicted of heresy, they were ordered to suffer death by burning, and Oxford was named as the city in which the execution should take place. They were accordingly led out into a wide street, and tied to the stake; the executioners, probably with the humane desire of lessening their sufferings, having fastened round the middle of each a bag of gunpowder. During the interval when the fagots were in the act of being lighted, Ridley addressed some words of pious consolation to his companion. The undaunted Latimer scarcely heard him out: "Fear not, good brother," replied he, "but be of good cheer. We shall this day kindle such a torch in

Rid

England, as I trust in God shall never be extinguished." Soon after he had spoken, the flames reached the gunpowder, and he was blown to atoms. ley suffered longer and more intensely; but after his frame had been consumed to ashes, it is said that his heart was found entire, an emblem, as his contemporaries declare, of the firmness with which he gave his body to be burned for the truth's sake.

The fate of Cranmer was, in many. respects, more melancholy, perhaps more instructive, than that of his brothers in suffering. He was first convicted of high-treason, but obtained, on his earnest supplication for mercy, the queen's pardon. Hating the man, both on public and on private grounds, she desired to destroy his character as well as his life; and it must be confessed that she had well-nigh succeeded. Being transferred from the Tower to Oxford, he was arraigned on a charge of heresy, before a court constituted with a marked attention to form, and by a commission obtained direct from Rome. He defended himself with great modesty as well as talent; but from such a court only one verdict was to be anticipated;

he was found guilty. The fear of death seems to have operated with extraordinary force upon Cranmer. Again he implored the queen's mercy, in terms partaking too much of the abject; and being beset by many temptations,—by the terrors of the stake on one hand, by promises of favor and protection on the other, in an evil hour his constancy gave way, and he signed a recantation. The triumph of his enemy was now complete. Notwithstanding this humiliating act, the sentence of death was confirmed; and he was carried, as custom required, into the church of St. Mary, where an appropriate sermon was preached.

During the whole time of divine ser

vice Cranmer kept his eyes rivetted on the ground, while the tears chased one another, in rapid course, over his cheeks. The audience attributed his emotion to remorse; and it was expected, when he indicated a desire to address the populace, that he would before them acknowledge the enormity of his transgressions, and ask their prayers. But the persons who harbored this idea had deluded themselves. After running over a sort of history of his past career, he came at length to the period of his trial, which he summed up the narrative in the following words:- "Now I am come to the great thing which troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that I ever said or did in my life, and that is, the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth; which here now I renounce and refuse as things written with my hand, contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and writ for fear of death, and to save my life if might be, and that is all such papers as I have written or signed since my degradation, wherein I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand, when I come to the fire, shall be first burned." The penitent was as good as his word. As soon as the flames began to arise, he thrust his right hand into them, and held it there till it was consumed. His end resembled, in other respects, those of his fellows in affliction.

During more than three years, these dreadful scenes continued to be acted, till there had perished at the stake not fewer than two hundred and ninety individuals, among whom were five bishops, twenty-one clergymen, eight lay gentlemen, fifty-five women, and four children. Elizabeth herself narrowly escaped the same fate, inasmuch as Gardiner, though weary of the slaughter of minor offenders, ventured, more than

once, to hint to Mary that "to cut down the leaves, while the root was permitted to flourish, was at once discreditable and impolitic."

After an uneasy reign of five years, and weighed down with a broken heart with a husband who loved her not, and a people who hated her-Queen Mary died, in 1558, and was succeeded by Elizabeth. Being a Protestant, Elizabeth had been looked upon with hatred and suspicion by her gloomy sister, and was for a long period kept in prison. Trained in the school of adversity, she had learned to exercise great command over herself, and at the very outset of her public career showed that skill and discretion in government for which she was so much distinguished.

It is not my purpose now to detail the events of her reign, but only to draw a portrait of her character. She understood the interests of England, and pursued them with courage, energy and skill. She belonged to a period when anything and everything was deemed fair by politicians and statesmen. Elizabeth did not hesitate, therefore, to employ deception, falsehood, and bad-faith, to accomplish her ends. She, however, did more to lay the foundation of English greatness than any other sovereign that has swayed the British sceptre.

As a woman, Elizabeth's character was detestable. Being herself handsome, she was still inordinately fond of admiration, and jealous of those who might be rivals of her beauty. She caused Mary, queen of Scotland, who had come to England and claimed her protection, to be tried, unjustly condemned, and at last executed—a feeling of hatred toward her, on account of her great personal beauty, being one of the motives for this official murder.

Among those upon whom Elizabeth bestowed her smiles, was the handsome Earl of Essex. He was very popular,

into a lethargic slumber, she expired without a groan, on the 24th of March, 1603, in the seventieth year of her age, and forty-fifth of her reign.

If Elizabeth governed her people well, she still exerted a bad influence in many respects. Great extravagance in dress was the prevailing foible of the day,-a foible in which the queen herself set the example; for she is stated to have left, at her decease, upwards of three thousand different robes, all of them fit for use, and all occasionally worn. This is the more remarkable, as during the preceding reign frugality seems to have been a characteristic of the age. In those days, the yearly rent of a mansion in London, fit for the occupation of a great officer of state, amounted to thirty shillings sterling money: the halls of the nobility, as well as the floors of the peasantry, were strewed with rushes; and even in considerable towns there were few houses to which a chimney was attached, the fires being kindled by the side of the wall, and the smoke permitted to escape as it best could, through the windows. In general, the people slept on straw pallets, and they used round logs of timber for pillows, and had almost all their utensils and furniture made of wood.

vision through the dusty and cloudy glass of time upon those departed scenes, I find that many of them are blurred and indistinct in my memorythat many of them are well-nigh blotted out forever from my remembrance. Yet will I try to revive them from the dust and forgetfulness that time has cast over them, even as one carefully removes the dust that has gathered over an ancient picture, first bringing out to light one bright feature and then another, till at length the whole sweet face, in all its bloom and loveliness, is revealed to sight. The mind is much like an old lumber garret in some ancient country house. Dust, and cobwebs, and oblivion gather deeply upon its miscellaneous contents, and year after year continues to add to the mixed assemblage. Old books and old pictures, time-wrecked furniture, dismantled articles of husbandry, and crip- · pled instruments of housewifery, cumber the place in admired confusion. Nothing is in its place, nothing can be found when sought for and most wanted. Everything lies hidden and forgotten, like the body of the sweet bride in the ballad, whose lost figure rested undiscovered in the old baronial garret, through so many long years after their living entombment. So the thoughts of youth are laid away in the chambers of the mind and the hidden nooks of the memory, there to rest, till haply some accidental association of after years brings them forth to

Sweet youth, happy childhood! the greenest spot of life, the only verdant oasis on the desert of life! We never enough prize thy happy-heartedness, thy warni affections, thy warm-springing feelings, until their freshness and bloom have departed. Truly it is an oasis in the desert-a spot all bright, and green, and blooming! As the oasis springs up with its verdurous bloom, and its spicy grove and palm-trees, lift