er honest nor delicate; but, in this cruel difficulty, he was at a loss what else to do, in order to calm the impa tience and cupidity of the soldiers.

The corruption of the corpses, abandoned, withou burial, in the public squares, the infectious odor of the sewers, the incessant changes of temperature, and the want of suitable nourishment, had engendered the pestilence, which we have already mentioned. This malady had carried off a great many soldiers, among whom were observed several of those who had most contributed t the devastation of the convents.

As soon as the soldiers had been paid, news was re ceived of the advantages gained by Lautrec, general of the French army. The German and Spanish troops, whose ranks were found much thinned, by death, showed now much more inclination to peace, and allowed themselves to be persuaded by their chiefs to return under their authority, and to follow them, wherever the service of the Emperor should require.

The Pope, desirous of proving his good disposition respecting the army, and the attachment which he had always retained for the Emperor, engaged himself to place in their power, five cardinals of their own selec tion, as hostages. They chose three, of Venice, Milan, and Florence, whose relations were attached to the opposite party; Cardinal Pompey selected two of Rome. He carried them to one of his country residences, where he treated them with the greatest respect and perfect courtesy. He made earnest endeavors to keep the pledge which he had given to the Holy Father to strive to regulate the conventions with the agents of the Emperor, relative to the total evacuation of the territory of Rome. The Pope had completely succeeded in drawing him into his own interests, by means of brilliant promises. Pompey used his whole influence with the Imperial ministers, to induce them not to exact the rigorous conditions, dictated by the Emperor, to their whole extent. They did not immediately yield; nevertheless, they at last complied. This negotiation was conducted with much ability by the Cardinal, because Don Hugh,

a man without faith and of sinister views, had retired to Naples with his troops, and the Prince of Orange had quartered his, in the barracks.

Clement was enlarged, after a siege of seven months, as soon as the peace was concluded. He had announced his resolution to leave the castle St. Angelo within three days; yet he succeeded in escaping, during the night, without the knowledge of the sentinels. He took the precaution of covering his head with a slouched hat, of putting on a common dress, and disguising his face with a long beard. Thus disguised, he passed as one of the servants belonging to the department of the grand-master of the Papal household. He carried a basket under his arm, and a dorsel and some empty sacks on his back. To the inquiries of the sentinels he answered, that he was sent in advance, to prepare lodgings on the route, which the Pope was to take, in travelling with the cardinals to Viterbo, and that he was to procure provisions for them. Thus he succeeded in leaving the castle, and escaping out of Rome, through a secret gate, made in the corner of the wall which encloses the garden of St. Peter, and the keys of which he had obtained, the evening before, from the chief gardener. Here, he stepped into a carriage kept ready for him, by Lewis de Gonzagua, before mentioned, whose younger brother the Pope had made cardinal. Accompanied by a single peasant, he passed, by night, through Celano, and the forest of Boccano, took some refreshment at Capranica, and arrived, by a road cut through the rocks, at Orvieto, a fortified place.

The next morning, some colonels went to the castle, to pay their court to the Pope. They knew that he heard mass, every morning, in the chapel, and therefore waited some time for him. Part of the day had already elapsed, yet he did not make his appearance. They then inquired of the body-servants, whether His Holiness did not mean to rise; that the day was far advanced, and that, for the journey he meant to undertake, it would be convenient to start in time, because the road was bad and the Winter days very short. The lackeys knew

nothing. However, this long delay began to appear somewhat suspicious to the colonels; and, at length, they learned that the Pope had deceived them. Indeed, in these disastrous events, he had become acquainted with their character, and had come to the conclusion, that it was best to trust them as little as possible. The Pope, arriving at Orvieto, at the moment when he was least expected, was perfectly well received by the inhabitants, and received visits from a multitude of distinguished persons, who went to congratulate him upon the recovery of his liberty. He remained here, until he had concluded the peace with his majesty the Emperor, Charles the Fifth.

Such was the end of the sack, which the unhappy city of Rome had to sustain. After the departure of the Pope, the officers and soldiers, laden with booty, took the road for Naples, whither they were sent by diverse routes, in order to arrest the rapid progress daily making by Lautrec, general of the King of France.

23*

HENRY VIII., KING OF ENGLAND, AND CATHARINE OF ARRAGON, HIS QUEEN, BEFORE THE LEGATINE COURT, CONSISTING OF CARDINALS WOLSEY AND CAMPEGGIO, IN 1527.

BY GEORGE CAVENDISH.

GEORGE CAVENDISH was gentleman usher* to Cardinal Wolsey. He was a faithful attendant to this princely prelate, not only in the days of triumphant fortune, but also in his master's banishment and adversity, until the hour when he performed for his once powerful patron the last sad offices of humanity. After that, he sat down, in his retirement, to write a faithful picture, as he, no doubt, believed it was, of the man who so long wielded, in the name of Henry VIII., the highest power over England. Cavendish seems to have written his life of Wolsey, with great regard to truth, frequently stating facts, which leave upon the reader an impression, very different from the spirit in which the author gives them. Among these latter, I count the relation of the closing scenes of Wolsey's life. This, Cavendish plainly gives, as an evidence of the meekness of that fallen man; but it can hardly fail to leave upon our minds, at this distance of time, and disconnected, as we now are, from all personal interest, a Jifferent, and a most painful impression. For we see a man, highly endowed by Nature, utterly wretched and despairing, because he had lost one solitary thing, in which he had bound up his whole existence, and which was the very breath of his life,-the sunshine of royal avor. Without fortitude, without the dignity and consciousness of worth, we see him, like a drowning man, whom a buoyant wave lifts once more above his destined grave, catching at every straw which the fatal element chances to carry near him, or which his eager fancy imagines to be floating before his eyes. We cannot withhold our commiseration from the victim of a monarch like Henry; and this, the rather, perhaps, that we see him still more the victim of his own unhappy error. He has

* An officer who has the care of a court, hall, chamber, or the like. and introduces visiters.

placed his whole dependence upon something, over which he has no final control, and which has now failed him, not upon that, which is within him, and of which he cannot be robbed, even by the mightiest. Shakspeare, in his Henry VIII., does not allow the Cardinal to sink so low. And he is right; for it is the duty of the poet, to restore the hearer's mind to a calmness, though tinged with melancholy, yet superior to the thrilling pains and anxious interest, which may have been excited in the course of the play. This necessary object of poetry would not, it seems, have been attained, had Shakspeare allowed the proud prelate not only to fall from his towering height, but to sink within himself, so wretchedly low, stripped of all dignity of mind, a writhing insect, in which we see nothing but unalleviated pain. On the other hand, it is well known, that this greatest of poets has, in that drama, embodied, almost literally, several passages contained in Cavendish's Life of Wolsey. This composition was first printed in 1641. A corrected edition, from an autograph manuscript, was published in 1825, under the title, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, by George Cavendish, his Gentleman Usher. And Metrical Visions, from the original autograph Manuscript, &c. By Samuel Weller Singer.' From this edition, pages 144 to 166, the subjoined extract is taken.

Henry VIII., born in the year 1491, succeeded his father, in 1509. A few months after, he married Catharine, daughter of Ferdinand of Arragon and Isabella of Castile. Catharine was the widow of Prince Arthur, the elder brother of Henry. Pope Julius II. had granted a dispensation, for the marriage of Henry with his brother's widow, which dispensation had been in England six years, before it was used. Henry VIII. was a tyrant of the worst kind. There are two classes of tyrants ;-some, filled, indeed, with, and not hesitating to demand any sacrifice to, a grasping ambition, do still, in their own hearts, acknowledge the idea of the State, as the sovereign idea of their lives. They consider themselves, it is true, as having so close a personal connexion with the State, that they are ready to demand any sacrifice to themselves, as a sacrifice to the State; but they are likewise ready to

*Or exemption from the law of the Church, which prohibited a man rom marrying the widow of his brother.