they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity. "I can't get out," said the starling. "God help thee!" said I, "but I'll let thee out, cost what it will;" so I turned about the cage to get the door: it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands to it.

The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it as if impatient. "I fear, poor creature!" said I, "I cannot set thee at liberty." "No," said the starling, "I can't get out-I can't get out.'

I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble (ie. which had carried away my reason), were so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked up stairs unsaying every word I had said in going down them.

"Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery!" said I, "still thou art a bitter draught! and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess (addressing myself to Liberty), whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till nature herself shall change. No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, nor chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron. With thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven!" cried I, kneeling down upon the last step but one in my ascent, "grant me but health, thou great bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion, and shower down the mitres, if it seem good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them."

66

The bird in the cage pursued me into my room. I sat down close by my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me, -I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his

dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of "sickness of the heart" it was which arises from "hope deferred." Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood-he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time-nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. His children!

But here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait.

He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed. A little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there. He had one of those little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down-shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh. I saw the iron enter into his soul! I burst into tears. I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn.

2. A FRENCH PEASANT'S SUPPER.

(FROM THE SAME WORK.)

THE family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with five or six sons and sons-in-law and their several wives, and a joyous genealogy out of them. They were all sitting down together to their lentil soup; a large wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and a flagon of wine at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast; 'twas a feast of love. The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down (i.e. had sat down) the moment I entered the room, so I sat down at once like a son of the family; and to invest my

(1) Etching, properly a technical word used to denote that which is done with the edge or point, as here.

(2) Genealogy, freakishly used here for "offspring" or "brood."

self in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and taking up the loaf cut myself a hearty luncheon' (slice); and as I did it I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a welcome mixed with thanks, that I had not seemed to doubt it. Was it this, or tell me, nature, what else it was, that made this morsel so sweet; and to what magic I owe it that the draught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain on my palate to this hour? If the supper was to my taste, the grace which followed it was much more so.

When supper was over the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran all together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots (wooden shoes); and in three minutes every soul was ready, upon a little esplanade before the house, to begin. The old man and his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door. The old man had, some fifty years ago, been no mean performer upon the vielle (fiddle), and at the age he was then of, touched it well enough for the purpose. His wife sang now and then a little to the tune, then intermitted, and joined her old man again as their children and grandchildren danced before them.

(1) Luncheon evidently means here à slice, and not, as we use the word now, an intermediate meal. Gay uses the word in the former sense ("Shepherd's Week")

"When hungry thou stoodst staring, like an oaf,

I slic'd the luncheon from the barley-loaf."

Luncheon is supposed by some to be a corruption of the older word nuncheon, or noon-shun, the meal taken by the labourer at noon.

(2) Intermitted. This is a case in which the Latin word sounds harsh; in the midst of the pure English style of the sentence, "left off awhile" would have been better.

WILLIAM ROBERTSON.

1. THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V.

(FROM "HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.,” PUBLISHED IN 1769.)

CHARLES resolved to resign his kingdoms to his son, with a solemnity suitable to the importance of the transaction; and to perform this last act of sovereignty with such formal pomp, as might leave an indelible impression on the minds, not only of his subjects, but of his successor. With this view, he called Philip out of England, where the peevish temper of his queen (Mary I.), which increased with her despair of having issue, rendered him extremely unhappy; and the jealousy of the English left him no hopes of obtaining the direction of their affairs. Having assembled the states of the Low Countries, at Brussels, on the 25th of October, 1555, Charles seated himself, for the last time, in the chair of state; on one side of which was placed his son, and on the other his sister, the Queen of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands; with a splendid retinue of the grandees of Spain, and princes of the empire, standing behind him. The president of the council of Flanders, by his command, explained in a few words his intention in calling this extraordinary meeting of the states. He then read the instrument of resignation, by which Charles surrendered to his son Philip all his territories, jurisdiction, and authority in the Low Countries (or Netherlands); absolving his subjects there from their oath of allegiance to him, which he required them to transfer to Philip, his lawful heir, and to serve him with the same loyalty and zeal which they had manifested, during so long a course of years, in support of his government.

(1) "Robertson's style of narration, lucid, equable, and soberly embellished, took the popular ear and taste from the first."--Craik, English Literature and Language, ii. 357.

It is much more correct and elaborate than Hume's; but is considered by many good judges to be less interesting.

(2) Allegiance, fr. Lat. alligare, to bind or attach to. "Alliance," fr. Fr. allier Lat. alligare, is of analogous formation, but of different signification.

(3) Loyalty, allegiance. "Allegiance is a principle of action; loyalty a sentiment." The latter is the personal attachment of a subject to an individual sovereign or ruler; the former, fidelity to the actual government to which we have sworn obedience.-Miss Whately.

Charles then rose from his seat, and leaning on the shoulder of the Prince of Orange, because he was unable to stand without support, he addressed himself to the audience, and from a paper which he held in his hand, in order to assist his memory, he recounted with dignity, but without ostentation, all the great things which he had undertaken and performed since the commencement of his administration. He observed that, from the seventeenth year of his age, he had dedicated all his thoughts and attention to public objects; reserving no portion of his time for the indulgence of his ease, and very little for the enjoyment of private pleasure: that, either in a pacific or hostile manner, he had visited Germany nine times, Spain six times, France four times, Italy seven times, the Low Countries ten times, England twice, Africa as often, and had made eleven voyages by sea; that while his health permitted him to discharge his duty, and the vigour of his constitution was equal, in any degree, to the arduous office of governing such extensive dominions, he had never shunned labour, nor repined under fatigue: that now, when his health was broken, and his vigour exhausted by the rage of an incurable distemper, his growing infirmities admonished him to retire: nor was he so fond of reigning, as to retain the sceptre in an impotent hand, which was no longer able to protect his subjects, or to render them happy that, instead of a sovereign worn out with diseases, and scarcely half alive, he gave them one in the prime of life, accustomed already to govern, and who added to the vigour of youth, all the attention and sagacity of maturer years: and if, during the course of a long administration, he had committed any material error in government; or if, under the pressure of so many and great affairs, and amidst the attention which he had been obliged to give to them, he had either neglected or injured any of his subjects, he now implored their forgiveness: that for his part, he should ever retain a grateful sense of their fidelity and attachment, and would carry the remembrance of it along with him to the place of his retreat, as his sweetest consolation, as well as the best reward for all his services; and, in his last prayer to Almighty God, would pour forth his ardent wishes for their welfare.

Then turning towards Philip, who fell on his knees and kissed his father's hand, "If," says he, "I had left you by my death this rich inheritance, to which I have made such large additions, some regard would have been justly due to my

(1) Attention, i.e. the power or habit of sustained attention.