had found a new Alfred or Charlemagne. . . . Unfortunately for the Church, institutions may be restored in theory, but theory, be it ever so perfect, will not give them back their life.

If, however, there were no longer saints among the clergy, there could still arise among them a remarkable man; and in Cardinal Wolsey the King found an adviser who was able to retain him longer than would otherwise have been possible in the course which he had entered upon; who, holding a middle place between an English statesman and a Catholic of the old order, was essentially a transition minister; who was qualified above all men then living, by a combination of talent, honesty, and arrogance, to open questions which could not again be closed when they had escaped the grasp of their originator. . . . Under Wolsey's influence, Henry made war with Louis of France, in the Pope's quarrel, entered the polemic lists with Luther, and persecuted the English Protestants. But Wolsey could not blind himself to the true condition of the Church.

He was too wise to be deceived with outward prosperity; he knew well that there lay before it, on the Continent and at home, the alternative of ruin or amendment; and therefore he familiarised Henry with the sense that a reformation was inevitable; and, dreaming that it could be effected from within, by the Church itself, inspired with a wiser spirit, he himself fell the first victim of a convulsion which he had assisted to create, and which he attempted too late to stay.

His intended measures were approaching maturity, when all Europe was startled by the news that Rome had been stormed by the Imperial army, that the Pope was imprisoned, the churches pillaged, the cardinals insulted, and all holiest things polluted and profaned. . A spectator, judging only by outward symptoms, would have seen, at .that strange crisis, in Charles V. the worst patron of heresy and the most dangerous enemy of the Holy See; while the indignation with which the news of these outrages was received at the English court would have taught him to look on Henry as the one sovereign in Europe on whom that See might calculate most surely for support in its hour of danger. . . . If he could have pierced below the surface, he would have found that the Pope's best friend was the prince who held him prisoner; that Henry was but doubtfully acquiescing in the policy of an unpopular minister; and

that the English nation would have looked on with stoical indignation if Pope and Papacy had been wrecked together. They were not inclined to heresy; but the ecclesiastical system was not the Catholic faith; and this system, ruined by prosperity, was fast pressing its excesses to the extreme limit, beyond which it could not be endured. . . . Wolsey talked of reformation, but delayed its coming; and in the meantime, the persons to be reformed showed no fear that it would come at all. The monasteries grew worse and worse, The people were taught only what they could teach themselves. The consistory courts became more oppressive. Pluralities multiplied, and non-residence and profligacy. ... Favoured parish clergy held as many as eight benefices. Bishops accumulated sees, and unable to attend to all, attended to none. Wolsey himself, the church reformer (so little did he really know what a reformation meant), was at once Archbishop of York, Bishop of Winchester, of Bath, and of Durham, and Abbot of St. Albans.-Froude.

9. LIVINGSTONE.

Returning nearly worn out, we proceeded up the bank of the Chobe, till we came to the point of departure of the branch Sanshureh; we then went in the opposite direction, or down the Chobe, though from the highest tree we could see nothing but one vast expanse of reed, with here and there a tree on the islands. . . . This was a hard day's work, and when we came to a deserted Bayeiye hut on an anthill, not a bit of wood or anything else could be got for a fire, except the grass and sticks of the dwelling itself. I dreaded the snakes so common in all old huts; but outside of it we had thousands of mosquitoes, and cold dew began to be deposited, so we were fain to crawl beneath its shelter.

could listen to the strange By day I had seen waterswimming about. There

We were close to the reeds, and sounds which are often heard there. snakes putting up their heads and were great numbers of otters, which had made little spoors all over the plains in search of the fishes, among the tall grass of these flooded prairies; curious birds, too, jerked among these reedy masses, and we heard human-like voices and unearthly

...

sounds, with splashing, as if rare fun were going on in their uncouth haunts. . . . At one time, something came near us, making a splashing like that of a canoe or hippopotamus; thinking it to be the Makololo, we got up, listened and shouted, then discharged a gun several times, but the noise continued, without intermission, for an hour. After a damp cold night, we began, early in the morning, our work of exploring again, but left the pontoon in order to lighten our labour. . . . The anthills are here very high, some thirty feet, and of a base so broad that trees grow on them; while the lands, annually flooded, bear nothing but grass. From one of these anthills, we discovered an inlet to the Chobe; and having gone back to the pontoon, we launched ourselves on a deep river, here from eighty to one hundred yards wide. . . . I gave my companion strict injunctions to stick by the pontoon in case a hippopotamus should look at us; nor was this caution unnecessary, for one came up at our side and made a desperate plunge. We had passed over him. The way he made caused the pontoon to glide quickly away from him.

We paddled on from midday till sunset. There was nothing but a wall of reed on each bank, and we saw every prospect of. spending a supperless night on our float; but just as the short twilight of these parts was commencing, we perceived, on the north bank, the village of Moremi, one of the Makololo, whose acquaintaince I had made in our former visit, and who was now located on the island Mahonta. . . . The villagers looked as we may suppose people do who see a ghost, and, in their figurative way of speaking, said, 'He has dropped among us from the clouds, yet came riding on the back of a hippopotamus! We Makololo thought no one could cross the Chobe without our knowledge, but here he drops among us like a bird.'

Next day we returned in canoes across the flooded lands, and found that, in our absence, the men had allowed the cattle to wander into a very small patch of wood to the west, abounding in the insect called the tsetse, so fatally poisonous to cattle; this carelessness cost me ten fine large oxen. . . . . . After remaining a few days, some of the head men of the Makololo came down from Linyanti, with a large party of Barotse, to take us across the river. This they did in fine style, swimming and diving among the oxen more like alligators than men, and

taking the waggons to pieces, and carrying them across on a number of canoes lashed together. . . . We were now among friends; so going about thirty miles to the north, in order to avoid the still flooded lands on the north of the Chobe, we turned westwards towards Linyanti, where we arrived on May 23, 1853.

10. TIMOUR, OR TAMERLANE.

From the Irtish and Volga to the Persian Gulf, and from the Ganges to Damascus and the Archipelago, Asia was in the hand of Timour; his armies were invincible, his ambition was boundless, and his zeal might aspire to conquer and convert the Christian kingdoms of the West, which already trembled at his name. He touched the utmost verge of the land; but an insuperable though narrow sea rolled between the two continents of Europe and Asia, and the lord of so many tomans, or myriads of horse, was not master of a single galley. The two passages of the Bosphorus and Hellespont, of Constantinople and Gallipoli, were possessed, the one by the Christians, the other by the Turks. On this great occasion they forgot the difference of religion, to act with union and firmness in the common cause : the double straits were guarded with ships and fortifications; and they separately withheld the transports, which Timour demanded of either nation, under the pretence of attacking their enemy. At the same time they soothed his pride with tributary gifts and suppliant embassies, and prudently tempted him to retreat with the honours of victory. Soliman, the son of Bajazed, implored his clemency for his father and himself; accepted, by a red patent, the investiture of the kingdom of Romania, which he already held by the sword; and reiterated his ardent wish, of casting himself in person at the feet of the king of the world. The Greek emperor-either John or Manuel-submitted to pay the same tribute which he had stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the treaty by an oath of allegiance, from which he could absolve his conscience so soon as the Mogul arms had retired from Anatolia. But the fears and fancy of nations ascribed to the ambitious Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic compass-a design of subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean, entering

Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote and perhaps imaginary danger was averted by the submission of the sultan of Egypt; the honours of the prayer and the coin attested at Cairo the supremacy of Timour; and a rare gift of a giraffe, or camelopard, and nine ostriches, represented at Samarcand the tribute of the African world. Our imagination is not less astonished by the portrait of a Mogul who, in his camp before Smyrna, meditates and almost accomplishes the invasion of the Chinese empire. Timour was urged to this enterprise by national honour and religious zeal. The torrents which he had shed of Mussulman blood could be expiated only by an equal destruction of the infidels; and as he now stood at the gates of paradise, he might best secure his glorious entrance by demolishing the idols of China, founding mosques in every city, and establishing the profession of faith in one God and his prophet Mohammed.

II. EXTRACTS FROM SIR ROBERT PEEL'S ADDRESS TO GLASGOW STUDENTS.

Do I say that you can command success without difficulty? No; difficulty is the condition of success. 'Difficulty is a severe instructor set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.' These are the memorable words of the first philosophic statesman-the illustrious Mr. Burke. Enter then into the amicable conflict with difficulty. Whenever you encounter it, turn not aside; say not 'there is a lion in the path;' resolve upon mastering it; and every successive triumph will inspire you with that confidence in yourselves, that habit of victory, which will make future conquests easy.