PROUDE.]

ENGLISH LITERATURE.

however, was very limited; and under such a system of statutory restriction or protection as then prevailed, no nation could ever have advanced. In many passages of his history-as the account of the death of Rizzio and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots-Mr. Froude has sacrificed strict accuracy in order to produce more complete dramatic effects and arrest the attention of the reader. And his work is one of enchaining interest. In 1872 Mr. Froude published The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth century,' volume first, the narrative being brought down to the year 1767. Two more volumes were added in 1874, and the work was read with great avidity. It is in some respects a vindication, or at least a palliation, of the conduct of the English government towards Ireland, written in a strong Anglo Saxon spirit.

Markets and Wages in the Reign of Henry VIII.

Whert, the price of which necessarily varied, averaged in the middle of the fourteenth century tenpence the bushel; barley averaging at the same time three With wheat the fluctuations were excessive; a table of its shillings the quarter. possible variations describes it as ranging from eighteenpence the quarter to twenty When the price was shillings; the average, however, being six-and-eight pence.

above this sum, the merchants might import to bring it down; when it was below this price, the farmers were allowed to export to the foreign markets; and the same average continued to hold, with no perceptible tendency to rise, till the close of the reign of Elizabeth.

Stowe

But this act was Beef and pork were a halfpenny a pound-mutton was three-farthings. They were fixed at these prices by the 3d of the 24th of Henry VIII. unpopular hoth with buyers and with sellers. The old practice had been to sell in the gross, and under that arrangement the rates had been generally lower. says: 'It was this year enacted that butchers should sell their beef and mutton by weight-beef for a halfpenny the pound, and mutton for three-farthings; which being devised for the great coinmodity of the realm-as it was thought-hath proved far otherwise: for at that time fat oxen were sold for six-and-twenty shillings and eightpence the piece; fat wethers for three shillings and fourpence the piece; fat calves at a like price; and fat lambs for twelvepence. The butchers of London sold penny pieces of beef for the relief of the poor-every piece two pounds and a half, sometimes three pounds for a penny; and thi.teen and sometimes fourteen of these pieces for twelvepence; mutton, eightpence the quarter; and an hundredweight of The act was repealed in consequence of beef for four shillings and eightpence.' the complaints against it, but the prices never fell again to what they had been, although beef, sold in the gross, could still be had for a halfpenny a pound in 1570. Strong beer, such as we now buy for eighteenpence a gallon, was then a penny a gallon; and table-beer less than a halfpenny. French and German wines were Spanish and Portuguese wines, a shilling. eightpence the gallon. highest price at which the best wines might be sold; and if there was any fault in quality or quantity, the dealers forfeited four times the amount. Rent, another important consideration, cannot be fixed so accurately, for parliament did not interfere with it. Here however, we are not without very tolerable information. father,' says Latimer, was a yeoman, and had no land of his own; only he had a farm of three or four pounds by the year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother much as kept half-a-dozen men milked thirty kine. He was able. and did find the king a harness, with himself and his horse. rinember that I buckled on his harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the He married my sisters with five pounds, or twenty nobles, king's majesty now. each, having brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and som alms he gave to the poor; and all this he did off the said farm.' If three or four pounds at the uttermost' was the rent of a farm yield

E.L.V.8-2

This was

'My

ing such results, the rent of labourers' cottages is not likely to have been considerable.

I am below the truth, therefore, with this scale of prices in assuming the penny In terms of a labourer's necessities to have been equal in the reign of Henry VIII. to the present shilling. For a penny, at the time of which I write, the labourer could buy more bread, beef, beer, and wins-he could do more towards finding lodging for himself and his family-than the labourer of the nineteenth century can for a shilling. I do not see that this admits of question. Turning, then, to the table of wages, it will be easy to ascertain his position. By the 3d of the 6th of Henry VIII, it was enacted that master carpenters, masons, bricklayers, tylers, plumbers, glaziers, joiners, and other employers of such skilled workmen, should give to each of their journeymen, if no meat or drink was allowed, sixpence a day for half a year, fivepence a day for the other half; or fivepence halfpenny for the yearly average. The common labourers were to receive fourpence a day for half the year, for the remaining half, threepence. In the harvest months they were allowed to work by the piece, and might earn considerably more; so that, in fact-and this was the rats at which their wages were usual y estimated-the day labourer received, on an average, fourpence a day for the whole year. Nor was he in danger, except by his own fault or by unusual accident, of being thrown out of employ; for he was engaged by contract for not less than a year, and could not be dismissed before his term had expired, unless some gross misconduct could be proved against him before two magistrates. Allowing a deduction of one day in the week for a saint's day or a holiday, he received, therefore, steadily and regularly, if well conducted, an equivalent of twenty shillings a week; twenty shillings a week and a holiday; and this is far from being a full account of his advantages. In most parishes, if not in all, there were large ranges of common and uninclosed forest-land, which furnished his fuel to him gratis, where pigs might range, and ducks and geese; where, if he could afford a cow, he was in no danger of being unable to feed it; and so important was this privilege considered, that when the commons began to be largely inclosed, parliament insisted that the working-man should not be without some piece of ground on which he could employ his own and his fami y's industry. By the 7th of the 31st of Elizabeth. it was ordered that no cottage should be built for residence without four acres of land at lowest being attached to it for the sole use of the occupants of such cottage.

Portrait of Henry VIII.

Nature had been prodiral to him of her rarest gifts. In person he is said to have resembled his grandis her, Edward IV., who was the handsomest man in Europe. His form and bearing were princely; and am:ds: the easy freedom of his address. his manner remained majestic. No knight in England could match him in the tourna ment, except the Duke of Suffolk; he drew with ease as strong a bow as was borne by any yeoman of his guard; and these powers were sustained in unfailing vigour by a temperate habit and by constant exercise. Of his intellectual ability we are not left to judge from the suspicious panegyrics of his contemporaries. His state-papers and letters may be placed by the side of those of Wolsey or of Cromwell, and they lose nothing in the comparison. Though they are broadly different, the perception is equally clear, the expression equally powerful, and they breathe throughout an irresIRtible vigour of purpose. In addition to this, he had a fine musical taste, carefully cultivated; he spoke and wrote in four languages; and his knowledge of a multitude of other subjects, with which his versatile ability made him conversant, would have formed the reputation of any ordinary man. He was among the best physicians of his age; he was his own engineer, inventing improvements in artillery, and new constructions in ship-building; and this not with the condescending incapacity of a royal amateur, but with thorough workmanlike understanding. His reading was vast, especially in theology, which has been ridiculously ascribed by Lord Herbert to his father's intention of educating him for the archbishopric of Canterbury-as if the scientific mastery of such a subject could have been acquired by a boy of twelve years of age, for he was no more when he became Prince of Wales. He must have studied theology with the full maturity of his understanding; and he had a fixed, aud perhaps unfortunate, interest in the subject itself.

In all directions of human activity, Henry displayed natural powers of the highest order, at the highest stretch of industrious culture. He was attentive,' as it is called,

to his 'religious duties,' being present at the services in the chapel two or three times a day with unfailing regularity, and shewing to outward appearance a real sense of religious obligation in the energy and purity of his life. In private, he was goodhumoured and good-natured. His letters to his secretaries, though never undignified, are simple, easy and unrestrained; and the letters written by them to him are similarly plain and business-like, as if the writers knew that the person whom they were addressing disliked compliments, and chose to be treated as a man. Again, from their correspondence with one another, when they describe interviews with him, we gather the same pleasant impression. He seems to have been always kind, always considerate; inquiring into their private concerns with genuine interest, and winning, as a consequence, their warm and unaffected attachment.

As a ruler, he had been eminently popular. All his wars had been successful. He had the splendid tastes in which the English people most delighted, and he had substantially acted out his own theory of his duty, which was expressed in the following words:

Scripture taketh princes to be, as it were, fathers and nurses to their subjects, and by Scripture it appeareth that it appertaineth unto the office of princes to see that right religion and true doctrine be maintained and taught, and that their subjects may be well ruled and governed by good and just laws; and to provide and care for them that all things necessary for them may be plenteous; and that the people and commonweal may increase; and to defend them from oppression and invasion, as well within the realm as without; and to see that justice be administered unto them indifferently; and to hear benignly all their complaints; and to shew towards them, although they offend, fatherly pity."

These principles do really appear to have determined Henry's conduct in his earlier years. He had more than once been tried with insurrection, which he had soothed down without bloodshed, and extinguished in forgiveness; and London long recollected the great scene which followed 'evil May-day,' 1517, when the apprentices were brought down to Westminster Hall to receive their pardons. There had been a dangerous riot in the streets, which might have provoked a mild government to severity; but the king contented himself with punishing the five ringleaders, and four hundred other pri-oners, aft: r being paraded down the streets in white shirts with halters round their necks, were dismissed with an admonition, Wolsey weeping as he pronounced it.

Death of Mary, Queen of Scots, Feb. 8, 1587..

Briefly, solemnly, and sternly they delivered their awful message. They informed her that they had received a commission under the great seal to see her executed, and she was told that she must prepare to suffer on the following morning. She was dreadfully agitated. For a moment she refused to believe them. Then, as the truth forced itself upon her, tossing her head in disdain, and struggling to control herself, she called her physician, and began to speak to him of money that was owed to her in France. At last it seems that she broke down altogether, and they left her with a fear either that she would destroy herself in the night, or that she would refuse to come to the scaffold, and that it might be necessary to drag her there by violence.

The end had come. She had long professed to expect it, but the clearest expectation is not certainty. The scene for which she had affected to prepare she was to encounter in its dread reality, and all her busy schemes, her dreams of vengeance, her vislons of a revolution, with herself ascending out of the convulsion and seating herself on her rival's throne-all were gone. She had played deep, and the dice had gone against her

Yet in death, if she encountered it bravely, victory was still possible. Could she bat sustain to the last the character of a calumniated suppli nt accepting heroically for God's sake and her creed's the concluding stroke of a long series of wrongs, she might stir a tempest of indignation which, if it could not save herself. might at least overwhelm her enemy. Persisting, as she persisted to the last, in denying all knowledge of Babington, it would be affectation to credit her with a genuine feeling of religion; but the imperfection of her motive exalts the greatness of her fortitude. To an impassioned believer death is comparatively easy.

At eight in the morning the provost-marshal knocked at the outer door which communicated with her suite of apartments. It was locked, and no one answered, and he went back in some trepidation lest the fears might prove true which had been entertained the preceding evening. On his return with the sheriff, however, a few minutes later, the door was open, and they were conf onted with the tall, majestic figure of Mary Stuart standing before them in splendour. The plain gray dress had been exchanged for a robe of black satin; her jacket was of black satin also looped and slashed and trimmed with velvet. Her fals hair was arranged studiously with a coif, &ad over her head and falling down over her back was a white veil of delicate lawn. A crucifix of gold hung from her neck. In her hand she held a crucifix of ivory, and a number of jewelled paternosters was attached to her girdle. Led by two of Pauler's gentlemen, the sheriff walking before her. she passed to the chamber of presence in which she had been tried, where Shrewsbury. Kent Paulet, Drury, and others were waiting to receive her. Andrew Melville, Sir Robert's brother, who had been master of her household, was kneeling in tears. Melville,' she said, you should rather rejoice than weep that the end of my troubles is come. Tell my friends I die a true Catholic. Commend me to my son. Tell him I have done nothing to prejudice his kingdom of Scotlaud, and so, good Melville, farewell.' She kissed him, and turning, asked for her chaplain Du Prean. He was not present. There had been a fear of some religious melodrama which it was thought well to avoid. Her ladies, who had attempted to follow ter had been kept back also. She could not afford to leave the account of her death to be reported by enemies and Puritans, and she required assistance for the scene which she meditated. Missing them, she asked the reason of their absence, and said she wished them to see her die. Kent said he feared they might scream or faint, or attempt perhaps to dip their handkerchiefs in her blood. She undertook that they should be quiet and obedient. The queen,' she said, would never deny her so slight a request;' and when Kent still hesitated, she added, with tears, You know I am cousin to your Queen, of the blood of Henry the Seventh, a married Queen of France, and anointed Queen of Scotland.'

It was impossible to refuse. She was allowed to take six of her own people with her, and select them herself. She chose her physician Burgoyne, Andrew Melville, the apothecary Gorion, and her surgeon, with two ladies, Elizabeth Kennedy and Curle's young wife Barbara Mowbray, whose child she had haptised. Allons donc,' she then said, let us go; and passing out attended by the earls and leaning on the arm of an officer of the guard, she descended the great staircase to the hall. The news had spread far through the country. Thousands of people were collected outside the walls. About three hundred knights and gentlemen of the coun ry had been admitted to witness the execution. The tables and forms had been removed, and a great wood fire was blazing in the chimney. At the upper end of the hall, above the fireplace, but near it, stood the scaffold, twelve feet square, and two feet and a half high. It was covered with black cloth: a low rail ran round it covered with black cloth also, and the sheriff's guard of halberdiers were ranged on the floor below on the four sides, to keep off the crowd. On the scaffold was the block, black like the rest; a square black cushion was placed behind it, and behind the cushion a black chair: on the right were two other chairs for the earls. The axe leant against the rail, and two masked figures stood like mutes on either side at the back. The Queen of Scots, as she swept in, seemed as if coming to take a part in some solemn pageant. Not a muscle of her face could be seen to quiver; she ascended the scaffold with absolute composure, looked round her smiling, and sat down. Shrewsbury and Kent followed, and took their places, the sheriff stood at her left hand, and Beale then mounted a platform and read the warrant aloud.

She laid her crucifix on her chair. The chief executioner took it as a perquisite, but was ordered instantly to lay it down. The lawn veil was lifted carefully off, not to disturb the hair, and was hung upon the rail. The black robe was next removed. Below it was a petticoat of crimson velvet. The black jacket followed, and under the jacket was a body of crimson satin. One of her ladies handed her a pair of crimson sleeves, with which she hastily covered her arms: and thus she stood on the black scaffold with the black figures all around her, blood-red from head to foot. Her reasons for adopting so extraordinary a costume must be left to conjecture. It is only certain that it must have been carefully studied, and that the pictorial effect must have been appalling.

The women, whose firmness had hitherto borne the trial, began now to give way, spasmodic sobs bursting from them which they could not check. 'Ne criez vons,' she said, j'ay promis pour vous' Struggling bravely they crossed their breasts again and again, sue crossing them in turn, and bidding them pray for her. Then she knelt on the cushion. Barbara Mowbray bound her eyes with her handkerchief. Adieu,' she said, smiling for the last time and waving her hand to them; adien, an revoir.' They stepped back from off the scaffold, and left her alone. On her knees she repeat d the psalm, In te. Domine, confido,' In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust. Her shoulders being exposed, two scars became visible one on either side, and the earls being now a little behind her, Kent pointed to them with his white hand, and looked inquiringly at his companion. Shrewsbury whispered that they were the remains of two abscesses from which she had suffered while living with him at Sheffield.

When the psalm was finished she felt for the block, and, laying down her head, muttered: 'lu manus, Domine, tuas, commendo aniniam meam." The hard wood seemed to hurt her, for she placed her hands under her neck. The executioners gently removed them, lest they should deaden the blow, and then one of them holding her slightly, the other rais d the axe and struck The scene had been too trying even for the practised headsman of the tower. His arm wandered. The blow fell on the knot of the handkerchief, and scarcely broke the skin. She neither spoke nor moved. He struck again, this time effectively. The head hung by a shred of skin, which he divid d without withdrawing the axe; and at once a metamorphosis was witnessed. strange as was ever wrought by waud of fabled enchanter. The coif fell off and the false plaits. The laboured illusion vanished. The lady who had knelt before the block was in the maturity of grace and loveliness. The executioner. when he raised the head as usual, to shew to the crowd, exposed the withered features of a grizzled, wrinkled old woman.

A oud

So perish all enemies of the Queen,' said the Dean of Peterborough. amen rose over the hall. Such end,' said the Earl of Kent, rising and standing over the body, to the Queen's and the Gospel's enemies.'

W. H. LECKY.

A series of Irish biographies by an intellectual and studious Irishman, WILLIAM E. II. LECKY, may be considered as supplementary to Mr. Froude's history of The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century.' Mr. Lecky's volume is entitled The Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland: Swift. Flood, Grattan and O'Connell.' Of the four lives, that of Swift is the least valuable, as using only the old familiar materials, and occasionally inaccurate in detail. Flood and Grattan he views more favourably than Mr. Froude, and, like them, he condemns the manner in which the Union was accomplished. The career of O'Connell is carefully traced, and forms an interesting narrative. Mr. Lecky conceives that the great agitator was sincere in his belief that it was possible to carry Repeal. occupation of his life for many years was to throw the repeal arguments into the most fascinating and imposing light; and in doing so his own belief rose to fanaticism.' His support of peaceful agitation, though it did not survive his own defeat, was an honourable characteristic. He proclaimed himself the first apostle of that sect whose first doctrine was, that no political change was worth shedding a drop of blood, and that all might be attained by moral force.'

The

The more I dwell upon the subject, the more I am convinced of the splendour and originality of the genius and of the sterling character of the patriotism of O'Connell, in spite of the calumnies that