teenth century, "lasted so long, that the ladies durst not appear in public, and were forced to come to Brother Thomas's sermons in disguise, with a linen head-dress as ordinary women. The result was that no more hennins were to be seen wherever he went. This was useful for some time till he left the country. Then the ladies lifted up their horns again, and did like the snails, which, when they hear any noise, pull in their horns, but when the noise is over suddenly raise them higher than before. So did the ladies, for the hennins were never larger, more pompous and magnificent, than after the departure of Brother Thomas. Thus we see what it is to be obstinate against the obstinacy of some brains."

Now, what does the existing and horrified votary of fashion imagine to have been the end of this fierce and remorseless reformer of feminine taste? Lady, he was burnt!

172699B

MARGARET OF ANJOU,

QUEEN OF HENRY VI.

BY MRS. OCTAVIUS FREIRE OWEN.

AGE of Romance! era of soul-stirring and ennobling Chivalry! when infant Science disdained not companionship with Poetry, her fairer sister, and honour, not wealth, was the guerdon of ambition; when the shout of armed lists, or the approving smile of Beauty, supplied the youthful warrior's loftiest triumph, and

Life had yet a leisure hour for love!

-man dreams now no longer, ours is the iron epoch of utility, a self-complacent sneer relaxes the features of the disciple of modern progress as he gazes upon the rusty mail and empty vizor, from beneath which have issued thoughts, of whose language in action centuries have caught the echo; he forgets that pure and lofty principles may have been entombed with their knightly possessors; and that it were wiser, perchance, still willingly to be duped by the visionary enchantment of history's kaleidoscope, than to dissolve the charm by scrutinising too narrowly the transparent elements of the delusion!

The sun shone brightly upon the last days of autumn 1444, and lighted up a pageant, to whose component parts artistic skill lent a scarcely less brilliant effect than the picturesque and variegated landscape of central France, in which the scene was laid. Within the range of hills inclosing rich fields, and valleys deep shaded by trees, clothed in the warm tints of the declining year, the eye wandered over groups of mounted cavaliers, whose pavilions, each

embellished by a blazoned pennon of device, reflected the morning ray, or rested upon painted galleries filled with fair women, their glances bent in sparkling pleasure on the crowd below, or raised in conscious power, and little needing the aid of waving banners, floating plumes, and martial music, to kindle an enthusiasm in the knightly objects of their interest, which, it might be, never slumbered more. It was a tournament in honour of a recent marriage, solemnised in the then prevalent fashion by proxy; and the assembled company, which included the entire royal family of one large realm, and many of the noblest in another, approached the close of festivities somewhat more elaborate than on similar occasions, and which had been already protracted beyond a week's space. But it was not the conclusion of the fête alone that elicited the regrets of the revellers: a parting was at hand, and although it was one which, to most of those present, heralded for its heroine nothing but the inspiring auspices of a new and splendid destiny, yet some there were who sighed at its auguries, and more than one sad heart whose fondest hopes the recent ceremonial had erased - hopes never deemed impossible till now! To the spectator, however, nothing of this was visible, and a lovely and a gallant sight it was, when the throng of chivalry and beauty, defiling through the barriers into the open country, quitted those lists, the scene of the gorgeous tournay which had just closed, and prepared to accompany the slight and graceful girl who rode at their head some leagues upon her journey towards her new country and its hitherto unseen lord.

In the flush of opening womanhood—a womanhood predicted by youthful charms so long the theme of admiration at the court of her aunt, the Queen of France-scarcely fifteen, but possessing the germ of a mental vigour far beyond her years, and awaiting only the breath of circumstance to manifest its ardent energy, Margaret of Anjou, a portionless bride, save in the fatal dower of beauty and