and the besieged succeeded in setting one of the rams on fire. From an early hour in the morning till darkness closed upon the scene, the conflict raged without abatement. The Crusaders all this time did not relax their efforts in the least, though the stones and darts descended on them like a shower of hail, and though the ground was thickly strewn with the dead and dying.

The night was a time of great anxiety to all. The rest which the Crusaders so much needed after the labors of the day they scarcely took, being occupied in repairing the damage the towers had sustained, and in watching against any nocturnal sally. The beseiged were also on the alert, and their patrols incessantly perambulated the walls.

At the first break of day the conflict was renewed with even greater vigour than before. The same efforts were made, and with nearly the same success as on the preceding day. About an hour after noon, wearied with their apparently fruitless toil, the Crusaders rather relaxed their efforts, and the tower began to totter with the blows which it received. Now we meet with one of those semi-miraculous narrations which remind us of the credulity of the times of which we read. A soldier, how he came there is not known, was seen standing on the summit of Mount Olivet, and there waving in the air a bright and fiery shield, and encouraging his disheartened comrades to persist in their endeavors. The Crusaders thought this a miraculous intimation of divine favor, and with renewed vigour rushed to the attack. The soldiers, half-dead with thirst, were refreshed with water brought them by the women. Within an hour's time the ditch was filled up, and the towers brought within a spear's length from the walls.

With much difficulty, Godfrey and his companions in the towers, succeeded with burning arrows in setting fire to the sacks of straw and chaff which had been lowered from the wall to break the blows of the ram. The wind was in the north, and the smoke was consequently driven full in the faces of the Saracens. It blinded them, and drove them for a few moments from their posts. Taking advantage of this interval, the Crusaders threw their moveable bridge and other beams on to the walls from the tower, and a knight, Letald by name, was the first to leap on the walls, and raise there the banner

of the cross. He was instantly followed by Godfrey, Eustace and a multitude of others. The Moslems seeing the ramparts in the possession of the enemy, made no attempt to recover them, but fled in confusion and dismay. The city, the Sacred city, was taken. A shout of triumph rose. Through the tower pressed a swarming crowd of chiefs and soldiers-TancredBaldwin-the two Roberts—were soon upon the walls. Thousands climbed through a breach the ram had made. The victors descended and opened St. Stephen's gate, through which poured an unending horde of savage warriors, in haste, lest they should lose their share of plunder and of death. In their eagerness many were trodden to death in the narrow passage. At three o'clock, on a Friday, the standard of Godfrey of Bouillon floated on the ramparts of Jerusalem.

All this time, Raimund, who was at the southern extremity of the city, was in ignorance of what was taking place upon the north. They first discovered it by the increased clamour, and by finding the defenders beginning to desert their posts. Applying their moveable bridge to the walls, they entered and opened the southern or Zion gate.

The city was now completely in the possession of the Crusaders, and a most savage and ruthless slaughter began. The Franks ferociously pursued the unresisting Saracens—it was a massacre rather than a fight. Godfrey himself, to his honor be it spoken, did not join in the slaughter, but endeavored rather to restrain his followers from their excesses, but in vain. Raimund from the south, and the others from the north, enclosed the multitude between them, and they spared neither age, sex, nor condition. Ere long there was not a street but was completely paved with corpses, and the blood was up to the pasterns of the horses.

The site of the Temple, now occupied by the Mosque of Omar, was separately fortified. Thither a vast multitude had fled in the hope of safety, but in vain, for Tancred and his followers violently forcing in their way, committed a most frightful havoc, and bore thence a vast treasure of jewels and of the precious metals, computed at six camel loads, which they tore from the columns and the walls.

The sight was most terrible to behold. Every spot-the whole space of the Temple area was deeply covered with

corpses and dissevered and mangled limbs; they waded in blood to the ancles, and were reeking with it from head to foot. Many of the women and others fled to the domed roofs of their houses, but there they found no refuge from their merciless pursuers. Ten thousand are computed to have perished in the Temple and its courts, and an equal number in the city, before the first fury of the conquerors was glutted. Then, at length from weariness more than any other cause, the slaughter slackened. The rapacious soldiery stripped from private dwellings an immense booty, in gold and silver, in rare and precious silken fabrics from the eastern looms; with horses, mules, and food, each supplied himself to his full pleasure. The leaders secured the gates, and provided against a surprise or a recapture.

A few hours only after the capture of the city, was seen a sight unparalleled in the history of war.

Wading through the torrent of blood the Crusaders assembled. They composed their savage passions-they laid down their arms, and with an appearance of genuine humility, with clean garments and washen hands, with groans and tears, they visited the sites pointed out as those of our Lord's death and burial, and the other places regarded as most sacred. One of them tells us that his pen is unable to describe the immensity of the devotion displayed by the people! Strange infatuation! And did they think that the slaughter of thousands upon thousands was an offering acceptable to him who taught the creed of peace and love.

Thus, after a siege of eight and thirty days, just three years from the starting of the expedition, Jerusalem was taken. The after history of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, our limits and our design forbid us alike to trace. Suffice it to say, that Godfrey was elected king; and that within a month the caliph of Egypt, who had advanced with a huge host for the relief of the Holy City, was defeated with a loss of ninety thousand men. The kingdom of Jerusalem subsisted for but little more than eighty years. Then, not even Coeur de Lion could recover it from the grasp of the redoubted Saladin.

Thus ends the history of the first Crusade-a of religion truly; but therewithal instructive. and profit.

strange phase May we read

S. X.

SIR ROBERT PEEL.

THE decease of a great man demands public notice, especially by those who are taught so to number their days that they may apply their hearts unto wisdom. We have seldom witnessed an event which has created so general or so powerful a sensation as the sudden and affecting death of the late Sir Robert Peel, Bart. On Friday, the 28th June last, he was in his place in the House of Commons, in the full vigour of physical and intellectual health: on Tuesday, the 2nd of July, he had breathed his last. The circumstances of his melancholy end are known to all-a fall from his horse on the afternoon of the 29th having terminated fatally after severe suffering, with partial intervals only of consciousness. So fleeting, so uncertain, is the tenure by which we are here "joined to the living.”

Sir Robert Peel, it must be conceded on all hands, was a wonderful man. There appear to be three elements in his history especially deserving of remark:-his independencehis sudden, unqualified and complete conversion to what he conceived to be his duty; and his unparalleled power of persuasion, amounting apparently to a transfusion of his own convictions into the minds of those with whom he acted.

We believe in Patriotism, without attempting to define exactly what it is, or in any way committing ourselves to one party or another. We regard it only as a love of country superior to all other considerations-sometimes eccentric in its developments-often wrong, and perhaps as often right; but always the same thing in essence. We have ever kept aloof from politics, and our praise or censure of this truly great man must not be interpreted as in any way compromising our creed in this respect. We are to speak of him only as a mastermind, without the slightest reference to the character or consequences of his legislative measures-as a man only, and not as a politician.

Robert Peel was born on the 5th of February, 1788, in a small cottage in the neighbourhood of Chamber Hall, near Bury, Lancashire, the then family mansion, which was at the time under repair. It is said that he received the foundation of his education under the personal superintendence of his father. He was then sent to Harrow, where he was a con

temporary of Byron, who, in after life, thus spoke of their school days: "Peel, the orator and statesman (that was, or is, or ought to be) was my form-fellow, and we were both at the top of our remove. We were both on good terms; but his brother was my intimate friend. There were always great hopes of Peel amongst us all, masters and scholars-and he has not disappointed them. As a scholar, he was greatly my superior; as a declaimer and actor, I was reckoned at least his equal; as a schoolboy out of school, I was always in scrapes, and he never; and in school he always knew his lesson, and I rarely-but when I knew it, I knew it nearly as well. In general information, history, &c. &c., I think I was his superior."

Here are indications at this early age of his future greatness. "Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men." And study, at this period of his life, was young Peel's business. Genius made Byron a poet, a libertine, an infidel: steady diligence, propriety of demeanour, and sound scholarship, made Peel a patriot, a philanthropist, and we trust, a devout Christian. The poet died a stranger in a strange land, not unadmired, but unbeloved: the statesman's name becomes a "household word," and he goes down to the grave honored by a nation's tears, and the honest and undissembled eulogies of men of all grades, and of every shade of political opinion.

After leaving Harrow, Mr. Peel went to Oxford, where he signally distinguished himself. Designed for a statesman from his earliest years, he had no sooner attained his majority than he entered Parliament as member for Cashel, which though dignified with the name of a city, possessed a constituency of twelve persons only. So evident were the tact and talent of our young politician, that before the close of the next year he was appointed Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, and on the 12th September, 1812, was made Chief Secretary for Ireland, having previously attained the signal honor of a seat in the Council. Hated and maligned as he was by the Catholic party in the sister isle, and execrated with characteristic obstinacy and bitterness, his policy towards them is described as eminently statesmanlike, judicious, and