names of Wilkie, and Raeburn, and Haydon, and Turner, and Harvey, and Danby, and Stothard, and Martin, and Scott. We single out the two last mentioned for a few remarks. John Martin is, in our opinion, the most original genius of the present day. He sees all things through his own medium. He has created over his own head a dark, frowning, but magnificent world. He has cut out for himself a lonely and dangerous path, in which he had no predecessor, and shall have no follower. In his every picture there is a flash of lightning, now illumining some scene of desolation, now garlanding the head of a fiend, and now guiding the invaders through the breach of a city. We have sometimes called it 'John Martin, his mark.' Who can forget his Belshazzar's Feast, with those letters on the wall, dipped in lightning -or rather in the Shekinah-and blazing out dismay and ruin upon the dazzled eye of the inmates of that gorgeous hall? Or who can forget his Deluge, the waters of which a comet appears to be lashing into fury with its fiery tail? There is a large folio edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, of the finest type, with illustrations by Martin. It is a beautiful book, and seems a trial of strength on the part of poetry, printing, and painting, to do their best, and form between them a magnificent whole. And nobly does Martin cope with the grandeur of the subject, and follow the steps of that awful pilgrim, who, as he went alone through the fighting elements of chaos to the ruin of a world, so alone did he return to the halls of pandemonium, to find his seat on its burning throne hotter than before. Martin is a man of great simplicity of character. Hogg met him, and describes him as humble and simple as a shepherd's boy. He has encountered many struggles in the early part of his career. On one occasion he was reduced to his last shilling. He had kept it, out of a heap, from a partiality to its appearance. It was very bright. He was compelled at last to part with it. He went out to a baker's shop to purchase a loaf with his favourite shilling. He had got the loaf in his hands, when the baker discovered that the shilling was a bad one, and poor Martin had to give up the loaf, and take back his dear, bright, bad shilling once more. We hope he has kept it as a memorial of the struggles and sufferings of his early days. great picture of Vasco di Gama. Behind you is King Richard receiving his ill-fated nephews. In front rises a figure of Ossian, listening to the harp of Malvina, with bare breast, sinewy arm, and long grey locks, like a frozen meteor, streaming in the wind. In a dim corner of the room you see a dark shadowy something in the shape of a picture, and you ask the artist what it is, and you almost shudder, as he replies, in his slow, solemn, sepulchral tones-'It is from Homer, and represents Sleep and Death carrying Sarpedon to his grave.' Returning to the house, he shows you the sketches of a series of illustrations of Bunyan; and you now shrink at a hideous figure of Apollyon, and now smile on the Three Fair Virgins in the house called Beautiful, or at the figure of the mild maiden Mercy. And your impression on going away is, 'this is a strange and great spirit.' BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. ARISTOTLE. ARISTOTLE—the greatest name in philosophy—was born at Stagira, a town of Thrace, B.C. 384. His birth-place has caused him to be distinguished as the Stagirite. Nicomachus and Phæstis, his parents, who belonged to Chalcis, were both of noble extraction; but of the latter nothing is known excepting what has now been intimated. Enough, she was the mother of Aristotle, a son who, in lieu of the life she gave him, made her name at least a sharer in the immortality of his own. Nicomachus, his father, was physician to King Amyntas, grandfather of Alexander the Great; and claimed descent from Esculapius himself, in whose family the profession was hereditary. Neither of the parents lived to witness the celebrity of their offspring. Having lost them both while yet in his boyhood, Aristotle went to live with one Proxenus, a citizen of Atarnea, and a friend of his family, who appears to have been to him half-tutor half-guardian. For his early preceptor he ever cherished sincere respect and affection; though, while under his care, the conduct of the philosopher seems to have been marked by the waywardness incident to his years. His patrimony, which was considerable, he squandered; he is even said, like Coleridge, to have been a soldier for a short time, and then, quitting that employment in disgust, and availing himself of the rudimental knowledge of medicine which his father had imparted to him, to have become a seller of drugs. These stories, however, are somewhat apocryphal. We are ignorant of the regiment in which he enlisted, nor do classical antiquaries point out the Athenian doorway over which was suspended the signboard of Aristotle, apothecary.' in David Scott is a fine specimen of the pictorial talent of the present day. We are not blind to his acknowledged defects of colour, but, notwithstanding this, there is a force, a grandeur, an originality, and a gravity, about his style, which are very remarkable. His great picture is Vasco di Gama passing the Cape. This renowned explorer is standing with folded arms in the midst of a scene of the most varied and sublime confusion. The ship is reeling in a tempest. The crew have been mutiny ing, for you see two mutineers, savage-looking figures, bound To Athens, notwithstanding, while yet a stripling of on the deck, one of whom is lifting up his arms, in impo- seventeen or eighteen, he certainly went. Here he betent fury, behind his commander. In front appears the came a pupil in the school of Plato, himself a disciple of Demon of the Cape, a vast shadowy form, who has come the equally celebrated Socrates—a trio in philosophy, to arrest the farther progress of the hardy sailor. The might a passing quaintness be allowed, reminding us, crew are in a state of uncontrollable terror. Some of them some sort, of the patriarchal-Socrates its practical Abraare clinging for safety to the skirts of a Dominican friar, ham, Plato its meditative Isaac, Aristotle its acute and whose own terror has thrown him into a swoon. And inventive Jacob. The extraordinary parts of the new in the midst of all this tempest, mutiny, and fear, stands student soon attracted the notice of his master. The latup serene, and firm, and calm, with folded arms, the in- ter bestowed on him the most flattering encomiums, obdomitable hero, whose strong spirit confronts, defies, serving that, whereas others required the spur, he redwindles, even the gigantic demon of the Cape. Another quired the rein; calling him habitually the mind of the nice little thing of his is entitled 'Puck fleeing before the school;' and remarking, in his absence, 'intellect is not Dawn.' It represents the fairy, a curious, fat, roll-about, here.' boyish figure, with a world of waggery in his eye, decamping at full speed, but with reverted glance, before the chariot of the sun, which is rising on the left side of the picture. The studio of David Scott, who resides in Edinburgh, is well worthy of a visit. On entering his painting-room, or his chapel, as he calls it, you find it crowded with the creations of his pencil. The subjects you see are nearly all of a solemn kind, and you almost tremble as you look around. On your left hand leans, like a wearied giant, his Aristotle continued to attach himself to the Academy till the death of Plato, under whom he studied in all about twenty years. For the genius of his master he had the highest veneration, and yet, as the conscious possessór of an understanding of an order the most vigorous and original, resolved to give scope to his own. Perhaps this impulse gathered strength from a disappointment. Even in the lifetime of Plato, he had taught rhetoric publicly in opposition to Isocrates; at his death he expected to fill his place in the Academy. Relationship, however, out the chair. weighed the claims of capacity; a nephew of Plato's succeeded him; and the mind of the school' withdrew from Athens in disgust. A transaction this not without its parallels in modern times! Aristotle the philosopher the rejected candidate, Speusippus the nonentity has filled The next three years of his life were spent by Aristotle at the court of Hermias, sovereign of Atarnea, the city in which he had formerly resided. This potentate, who was, it seems, an old friend and fellow-pupil of his, gave the philosopher a cordial welcome; but at the end of the term just mentioned, his patron was taken prisoner and put to death by the Persians. On this Aristotle betook himself to Mitylene, where he stayed two years. Here he received an invitation from Philip, king of Macedon, to become the preceptor of Alexander the Great. The royal epistle ran as follows: 'Philip of Macedon to Aristotle, greeting. Know that there has been born to me a son. I thank the gods less that they have given me one, than that they have fixed his birth in the time of Aristotle. I hope you will make him a king worthy to be the successor of Philip, and ruler of the Macedonians.' the shape of conversations than of lectures. He taught walking, and hence his disciples have been distinguished as peripatetics, from the Greek word to walk about. The pupils at the Lyceum were divided into two classes: to the more advanced and select portion the philosopher de voted his mornings; his evening discourses were open to all; and this distinction in the style and matter of his spoken instructions is impressed on his works, which are still to be discriminated as esoteric or abstruse, and exoteric or simple. Aristotle continued to teach in the Lyceum during a period of thirteen years. His royal pupil did not forget him. A correspondence was maintained between them, and Alexander, for a time, persevered in a liberal and effective patronage of the illustrious Stagirite. At length his zeal cooled, from what precise causes it is not easy to ascertain. It seems that he felt annoyed at the publication of certain works which made the knowledge of which he was the original recipient, the property of the many. A letter still extant gives curious indication that the man who succeeded in constituting himself the monopolist of power, felt galled at his inability to be the monopolist of science. 'Alexander to Aristotle, greeting. You have done wrong in publishing your works on the speculative sciences. How am I to excel others, if you impart to all what you first imparted to me? You are aware that I would rather surpass mankind in the higher branches of learning than in power. Farewell.' A requisition from such a quarter, and couched in such flattering terms, was of course accepted. At the court of Macedon, with which, as we have seen, his father had been professionally connected, he enjoyed the highest consideration and exercised no slight influence. At his intercession, Stagira was rebuilt, and his fellow-citizens reinstated in their ancient immunities, who, in grati- Notwithstanding this growing dislike, which Aristotle, tude for these favours, instituted an annual festival called incensed at the execution of a friend and kinsman, seems after him Aristotelia. Athens also had in him a friend to have reciprocated, the name and protection of Alexat court. Although, however, the philosopher mingled ander availed, during the lifetime of the latter, to shield to some extent in public business, and exerted, as in these him from his enemies. For enemies he had, whose hoscases, a salutary influence on state affairs, his attention tility was ready to break out at the first opportunity. No was mainly directed to his royal pupil. Alexander, when sooner was he who had turned the world upside down' intrusted to his care, was only turned of thirteen; and for in his grave, than his instructor became the object of a seven subsequent years he was carefully instructed in such persecution, partly religious, partly political. The leaders branches of learning as politics, rhetoric, physics, and of the Athenian mob denounced him as the antagonist of poetry. It was from Aristotle that he imbibed that love liberty, and the abettor of arbitrary power; while one of Homer which fomented his passion for military renown, Eurymedon, a priest, held him up as the advocate of imwhile his preceptor also imparted to him those higher piety, the impugner of religion, and the enemy of the speculations which as yet were not given to the world. gods. The Stagirite retired before the storm, observing, The gratitude of Alexander was unbounded; and although, in allusion to the fate of Socrates, that he would spare towards the close of his career, he became completely the Athenians a second crime against philosophy.' He alienated from the philosopher, he had previously con- went, attended by a few of his disciples, to Chalcis, to ferred on him the most munificent tokens of attachment which, as we have seen, his parents belonged. His eneand esteem. Besides 800 talents in money, a sum equiva-mies, however, unappeased by his exile, still thirsted for lent to £150,000, there were placed at his disposal the his blood. That thirst was at length satiated. Soon after services of several thousands of persons, who were to fur- his flight he died-some say from the effects of age, rennish him, by means of fishing and hunting, with materials dered prematurely feeble from severe study and mental for his history of animals-a work in fifty volumes or anxiety. According to others, he destroyed himself by parts, of which only ten are extant. A correspondence poison, under an impending summons from the Areopawas long kept up between the pupil and master, while gus, from which tribunal he despaired of final escape. A the former was prosecuting his conquests; and Alexander still more romantic, though glaringly improbable, account is reported to have said of Aristotle, that to him he owed of his death, ascribes it to his having drowned himself in as much as to his father, for if to the one he was indebted the river Euripus, because he could not discover the reafor life, to the other he was indebted for the art of living.' son why (as was alleged) it should ebb and flow seven After the death of King Philip, and the consequent ac- times a-day. Aristotle died at the age of sixty-three, cession of his son, the philosopher remained for a year or B.C. 322. The place of his birth was that also of his two at the court of Macedonia. It is conjectured that he burial. Stagira received reverently back her illustrious afterwards accompanied the conqueror in some of his son. An altar and a tomb were reared-this the monuearlier campaigns, occupied the while in collecting obser- ment of his corporeal mortality, that the symbol of his vations for his grand work on zoology. What a contrast imperishable genius. between the respective enterprises of the pupil and the preceptor; the one intent on founding, at the sacrifice of innumerable lives, an empire of ferocity and force; the other eager to enlarge the peaceful sway of science! Had the moral or even the intellectual perceptions of mankind come near the truth, the epithet bestowed on the former would have been affixed to the latter, and we should read, not of Alexander, but of Aristotle the Great. On his return from this semi-martial semi-philosophical tour, Aristotle settled, for the second time, at Athens. Here he began to teach at the Lyceum, a grove near the city which had formerly been used as a place for military exercises. His instructions seem rather to have assumed AMERICAN WOLVES. Their courage ceases with the gaze of a man-a fact of which the Indians are quite aware, and frequently turn to a good use. I am not only convinced that a courageous man, unless he becomes the aggressor, with very few exceptions, is perfectly secure from the attack of the brute creation in a wild state; but that they will invariably shun him, if there is only space enough to admit of their escape. I have frequently, for experiment's sake, approached the rein-deer with closed eyes, without alarming them; when a single glance made them bound again with fear.-King's Narrative. SKETCHES OF MODERN HISTORY.* BEGINNING OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY- THE period we have specified at the head of this article approaching, and of which the proceedings at the Council of Constance afforded an early and momentous indication. Whatever may be said of the errors and even crimes of the popedom, it is impossible to deny it the credit of having been the main instrument of planting and consolidating the religious element in the public mind of Europe. It had the mission, and it accomplished it, of subjecting the rude minds of the northern barbarians to the restraints of civil and religious obligation. But this task once finished, the monstrous assumptions of the ecclesiastical power came into fatal conflict with the awakening intelligence of the people and the ambition of their rulers. Thus, while the thirteenth century beheld the papacy in its noontide splendour, and Rome once more the mistress of the world; the fourteenth witnessed the gathering of those clouds which were destined to overwhelm her with a terrible eclipse. Then the ambition which no height of power could satiate, assuming even the right to depose sovereigns at will and absolve subjects from their allegiance the scandalous violations of good morals and common decency by the papal court and the From the issue of events, the religious movements of higher ecclesiastics-the vexatious assumptions of the the period assume an importance above all others; and it canon law, whereby the spiritual was declared superior to is to one of the most significant of these that we intend the temporal authority-the rapid ascendency of the at present to direct attention. Yet it will not be im- mendicant orders, endangering the influence of the regu proper to glance at the condition of Europe at and prior lar clergy, and a variety of other causes, had awakened a to the time in question. Here a most striking feature wide spread disaffection to the papal court. Even in the may be observed in the increased authority and considera- zenith of their power, the popes had failed in their object tion of the great sovereignties, and in the rise of a spirit of of fully subjecting the temporal to the spiritual authority; nationality among the people. The decay of chivalry, and the empty assertion of the principle by Boniface VIII.. and of that insane fervour which wasted itself in the cru- in 1302, met with a rebuff almost ludicrous in that course of sades, naturally left the nations of Europe greater leisure events, which, beginning in an unsuccessful contest with to attend to objects of interest and ambition nearer home. Philip the Fair of France, and Edward I. of England The commerce of the Italian cities, and of the Hanse shortly after led to what has been called the Babylonish towns, gradually extended in all directions, had arisen captivity, transferring the court of Clement V. from Rome to minister to the growing love of luxury and refine- to Avignon. Literature, too long the handmaid of spiment; and learning, policy, and wealth, came in for some ritual despotism, began also to assert her legitimate birthshare of that consideration, formerly given to merely right of ministering to liberty and truth; and in the physical qualities. In the Peninsula, the Portuguese, writings of Dante, Ockham, and Marsilius of Padua, the under John I., and his illustrious son Henry, began whole edifice of the pope's temporal power was questioned a career of maritime discovery, destined before the close and opposed. But it was not till 1378, on the restoration of the century to pour into the lap of Europe the trea- of the pontifical chair to Rome, followed by the decease of sures of the east and west. Spain, then divided into the Gregory XI., that the great schism arose from which the states of Castile, Arragon, Navarre, and Granada, seemed prestige of papal infallibility received its most fatal blow. passing through the process of consolidation, which eighty In that year the college of cardinals, having met to noyears after, when the Christian power became united in minate a successor, were awed by the Roman populace into the hands of Ferdinand and Isabella, led to the expulsion the election of an Italian archbishop, who assumed the of the Moors, and the conquest of the New World. In name of Urban VI. This choice, a few weeks after, they Germany, in 1411, the election of Sigismund, king of thought proper to annul, and anew appointed a FrenchHungary and Elector of Brandenburg, to the imperial man, Clement VII. Whatever posterity may think of dignity, had restored stability to the throne of the the pretensions of these competitors, they then shared Cæsars, and offered to Europe the first example of a civil the obedience of Europe in nearly equal proportions. ruler, who was called on to set limits to the assump- Urban, who remained at Rome, received the adherence tion of the popes. France, harassed by factions and of Italy, the Empire, England, and the North; while distracted by civil wars, presented, beneath the imbecile Clement, who resumed the station of Avignon, gained the rule of Charles VI., a melancholy contrast to its tempo-allegiance of France, Spain, Scotland, and Sicily. Chrisrary prosperity under his predecessor; while in England, tendom was thus called to witness the unseemly spectacle already advancing in industry and wealth, Henry V., the of two heads of the church, each assuming infallibility, second monarch of the house of Lancaster, succeeded in engaged in the task of anathematizing and excommunicat1413 to the crown his father's policy had secured for him, ing each other. Neither party would admit of comproand exchanged a youth of revel for that career of ambition, mise. After the death of Urban, the Roman conclave over which the memorable victory of Agincourt has thrown elected three pontiffs successively, Boniface IX., Innocent such lasting renown. In the East, again, the expiring VI., and Gregory XII.; while the cardinals at Avignon, on shadow of the Greek empire obtained a temporary respite the demise of Clement, in 1394, placed their tiara on the by the invasion of Tamerlane the Tartar, who, having head of Peter de Luna, better known as Benedict XIII. swept like a torrent the whole of Western Asia, led his victorious hordes against the Ottomans, and prostrated the power of Bajazet on the same field where Pompey had overcome the army of Mithridates. But all cotemporary events are lost sight of, or derive their chief significancy from their bearing on the great moral revolution now fast *Under this title it is proposed to give, at intervals, a series of historical views of the most important epochs in the modern his tory of Europe, from the Reformation to our own time. They will follow each other as nearly as possible in consecutive order, so as to exhibit a succinct epitome of the leading events. Such a state of things, which the church evidently possessed within herself no means of terminating, could not fail materially to shake the hold possessed by the papacy on the minds of mankind. Still, however, its influence was too powerful to leave room for any other feeling than a desire to terminate its difficulties by lay interposition. Of the opportunity thus afforded, the secular sovereigns were quite willing to take advantage. Accordingly, in 1409, during the double pontificate of Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII., a general council was called at Pisa, at the instigation of France, which deposed both popes, and elected Alexander V.; but as neither of the two first thought proper to acquiesce in this decision, the only result was the addition of a third claimant for the triple crown. The Emperor Sigismund now resolved to interfere. By far the most accomplished prince of his time, he united to a certain dissimulation or duplicity of character many of those generous and patriotic virtues which add lustre to exalted rank. A brave and skilful soldier, he was at the same time a man of letters, and gloried in being thought a patron of learning and an arbiter in theology. The work of taking order in the affairs of the church was one to which policy, pride, and ambition, alike prompted; while the necessity of uniting the force of Europe against the revived power of the Ottomans, who had lately defeated his army in the battle of Semendria, added the strong impulse of self-preservation. As, therefore, a general council seemed still the only remedy, he instigated, or rather commanded, John XXIII., the successor of Alexander, to summon that memorable convocation, afterwards notorious as the Council of Constance. It was accordingly convened in 1414, and continued sitting till 1418.* Albigenses, and the terrors of the Inquisition, had failed to repress that spirit of inquiry so much dreaded by the priesthood; and so early as 1380, the preaching of Wikliffe, in England, exposed their vices and corruptions, while his translation of the New Testament gave to the world the germs of those pregnant principles since called the doctrines of the Reformation. These doctrines, soon widely diffused, had found a worthy apostle and an appropriate audience among the primitive Sclavonian race inhabiting the mountain circle of Bohemia. Born in 1370, at the village of Hussinatz, on the border of the Black Forest, JOHN HUSS belonged to a rank of life whence so many lofty spirits have come forth to that work to which not many rich men, not many noble, are called. Uniting the sanctity of the Christian with the zeal of the apostle and the devotedness of the martyr, he has been less distinguished than his great German successor, mainly because Luther lived to plant the standard of the Reformation on the citadel of Popery, while Huss fell fighting in the trench. He passed his early studies in the University of Prague, where his assiduity, talents, and blameless conduct, soon rendered him conspicuous. In The constitution of this assembly, which has been called his thirtieth year he was ordained priest, and appointed the states-general of Christendom, was significant of the confessor to the Queen of Bohemia, who long continued altered temper of the times. Hitherto the bishops had to befriend him. The writings of the English reformer, been considered the sole members of ecclesiastical assem- with which he had become acquainted through his friend blies; but at Constance, there sat and voted, not only Jerome, who had brought them from Oxford, struck him the heads of monasteries, but the ambassadors of all the with the force of revelation. After some short time given Christian princes, the deputies of Universities, with doc- to meditation and forming his resolution, Huss boldly tors of law, and numerous inferior theologians. To coun- proclaimed these views from the pulpit, exposing the proteract the number of the Italian bishops, who were gene-fligate lives of the clergy, and denouncing the infamous rally in the papal interest, its adversaries also carried the traffic in indulgencies. He was soon at the head of a important innovation, that the council should divide itself party. In 1408, under the influence of the German stuinto four nations, the Italian, German, French, and Eng- dents, the heads of the University declared that whoever lish, each with equal rights, and that every proposition, taught the doctrines of Wikliffe should be expelled from after being separately discussed, should be decided by the that body; but the reformer, identifying his cause with majority of the four. This constitution, the triumph of that of his Bohemian countrymen, compelled the withwhat Mr Hallam calls the Whig principles of Catholi- drawal of the Germans from the University, and was himcism, led naturally to that celebrated decree which asserts self elevated to the dignity of rector. From this comthe supremacy of general councils over the pope, and de- manding position he diffused his views with augmented clares any pontiff liable to punishment who should refuse energy; and while the Archbishop of Prague ordered his to obey them. This principle, in effect little better than works to be publicly burned, suspended him from his a transfer of the pope's authority to themselves, and by priestly functions, and held the threat of excommunicawhich the laity gained extremely little, the council were tion over all who adhered to him, he assembled the people not slow to act upon. They confirmed the deposition of in their own houses and in the fields, and preached to them Gregory and Benedict, as decreed at Pisa; John himself, against the pope, against purgatory, and, above all, against who had summoned them together, shared the same fate, indulgencies. Thus invited to examine subjects hitherto after many ineffectual attempts to avert it; and, in the deemed the sole province of the clergy, the humblest soon third session of the council, a new pontiff, under the name became familiar with the great truths of Scripture, and of Martin V., was declared the only legal successor of St convinced of their entire sufficiency as a rule of faith and Peter. In this decision Gregory agreed to acquiesce, life. John was compelled to submit to it by force, but Benedict, who was in Spain, remained as tenacious as ever of his assumed dignity, and excommunicated all his antagonists. Though, therefore, the council assumed the credit of settling all difficulties, it was not till 1429, by the resignation of a dignitary calling himself Clement VIII., a successor of Benedict, that the one Catholic infallible church was again found reposing, without dispute, under her one Catholic infallible head. These transactions, it might be thought, would have opened the eyes of mankind, more readily than they did, to the real value of such pretensions. Meantime, while the council were thus seeking to heal the deadly wound schism had inflicted on the papacy, by a process which exposed more internal weakness than either its friends or foes had counted on, they had been led to perpetrate, in its defence, a crime that covers all connected with it with imperishable infamy, and which left a fatal example to after times. The cruel extirpation of the Fox gives the following quaint catalogue of the personages assembled at Constance on this occasion:-There were,' says he, archbishops and bishops, 346; abbots and doctors, 564; princes, dukes, earls, knights, and squires, 16,000; common women, 450; barbers, 600; musicians, cooks, and jesters, 320.-Constance is a city of the Grand-duchy of Baden, on the lake of the same name, and now contains about 6000 inhabitants. The priesthood were now thoroughly alarmed. John XXIII. cited Huss to appear before him at Bologna, and as the reformer declined to obey the mandate, he was formally excommunicated. Such a sentence he had now learned to estimate at its true value; but as tumults began to arise in the streets of Prague between his partisans and those who upheld the papal authority, he became unwilling to appear as encouraging these disorders, and withdrew to his native village. There, both with tongue and pen, he continued the work he had begun. Subsequently, on the death of the archbishop, Huss returned to Prague, where, aided by his ingenuous disciple Jerome, he anew denounced the abuses of the papacy in the strongest terms. Fresh tumults now took place; and, after more citations from the pope, which Huss disdained to obey, the Council of Constance at last assembled. The constitution of this convocation has already been explained, and it may be enough to say, in addition, that, besides aiming to terminate the schism, it proposed to itself the task of settling the abuses and disorders of the church. Among the most prominent of these were reckoned the rapid diffusion of Wikliffe's views, which had been solemnly denounced, while his followers, of whom Huss stood most conspicuous, were marked out for signal punishment. He was accordingly summoned to appear before the council; and, having obtained a solemn promise of protection and safety from the "Yet you ought to have been more womanly than most girls, educated as you were by that most precise of all venerable spinsters, Aunt Hetty.' 'Your experience is very different from mine, Mary; I can add ten years to your calendar; for, alas! it is sevenand-twenty years since I was sixteen, but I can remember how I longed to quit school, and have a house and servants of my own.' 'Doubtless such idle wishes often crossed my brain, sister, when my aunt kept me at home, hour after hour, stitching wristbands, or sent me into the kitchen to learn how to cook a dinner; but I repeat, that to the restrictions I then thought severe, I owe many of my present enjoyments.' But the minds of some develop much more rapidly, perhaps; Harriet has long been at the head of her school." 'I thought you intended to leave her with Mrs Bartley another year.' 'So I did; she had only visited home for the Christmas holidays; and, to tell you the truth, her trunk was packed to return to school, the very evening Edward Tracy made proposals to her father.' emperor, he resolved to obey. His progress through Germany to Constance resembled a triumphal procession. The streets, and sometimes even the roads, were lined with people; and at Nuremberg the magistrates and It is to our good aunt Hester's strict notions of clergy waited on him in form, and expressed their con- womanly duties, that I owe much of my present happiviction of his innocence and integrity. These demon-ness, sister Susan; but at that early age I could have constrations, a hundred years before the time of Luther, tributed but little to a husband's domestic comfort.' show the progress Reformation principles had already made in Germany. No sooner, however, had the reformer arrived at his destination, than he was thrown into prison, where, to the eternal disgrace of Sigismund, he was retained for six months, till his trial in June, 1415. He was accused, generally, of advocating the proscribed views of Wikliffe, as well as of sowing sedition among the people and dissension in the church. The trial, on the part of judges predetermined to condemn him, presented a disgraceful scene of disorder, chicanery, and cruelty, contrasting strongly with the calm fortitude and resignation of the reformer. By his unjust imprisonment, the safeconduct of the emperor had already been violated, and the bigotry or irresolution of Sigismund prevented him from interposing now to prevent judicial murder. The sequel need not be dwelt on. Degraded from his priestly office, insulted, and reviled, he was handed over to the secular power, and condemned to the stake. He perished with a fortitude which even his enemies admired. The last words he addressed to his persecutors were worthy of his life and death :-'I have no errors to retract; I endeavoured to preach Christ with apostolic plainness; and I am now prepared to seal my doctrine with my blood.' This tragedy was perpetrated previously to the deposition of John XXIII., and it was shortly after followed by the martyrdom of the amiable and affectionate Jerome, who followed his master to a better world through the same fiery pathway. The election of Martin V., as already mentioned, in 1417, closed the business of the council, which had thus distinguished itself by acts of cruelty and baseness, unhappily too common in the annals of intolerIt secured a temporary calm to the internal dissensions of the papacy, but it utterly failed in quieting the public mind of Europe, or arresting the progress of the Reformation. In Bohemia, the martyrdom of Huss and Jerome gave rise to a long and bloody war between their adherents and those of Rome, which was only terminated by the concessions of the council of Basle in 1433; and Europe beheld the consequences of its flagitious principle, that no faith is to be kept with heretics, in many a future scene of cruelty and folly. ance. BRILLIANT PROSPECTS. 'Good morning, sister Susan; I suppose you have come to tell me you have decided on Harriet's marriage,' said Mrs Hilton, as the fashionable Mrs Arlington entered her neat but plainly furnished parlour. 'I have, Mary,' was the reply; and if you can spare an hour from your nursery, I want to talk with you about it, and learn your objections.' You have improved upon the usual method, Susan,' said her sister, laughing; most persons ask advice, and then follow their own inclinations; but you decide first, and then ask counsel.' Why, to tell you the truth, Mary, though I was unwilling to mar Harriet's brilliant prospects by your oldfashioned notions, yet I really wish to hear your reasons for not approving of the marriage.' My first objection is so self-evident, Susan, that it cannot be refuted. Harriet is a mere child.' 'She is sixteen.' And pray, what but a child is a girl of sixteen, whose time has been divided between the nursery and the school-room? She may be a good scholar, and possess great skill in music and dancing, but of the actual business of life she can never have even a thought. It is nearly seventeen years since I was at that happy age; and yet I can recollect how totally unfit I must have been for any serious responsibility.' And Edward Tracy's proposals at once completed her education, I suppose,' said Mrs Hilton. Well, sister, hope it is all for the best; but I am no friend to such early marriages.' 'I was married at eighteen, Mary, and I have never repented it, while you——— I know what you would say, Susan; you mean that you at eighteen married a rich merchant, and have lived like a princess ever since; while I waited till twenty-three, only to wed a professional man, whose talents procure him a simple competence. Nay, you need not disclaim my version of your thoughts; we are each happy in our own way. The eclat of fashionable life, the ambition of giving the best dinners, and the most brilliant parties; the triumph of possessing the most stately house, and the richest French furniture, is, to you, a sufficient recompense for the vexations attendant on such a life; while I would not exchange for all your splendour, the quiet, the retirement, the domestic comfort of my humble home.' 'Well, you certainly seem very contented, Mary; and yet I wonder how you can reconcile yourself to such a life; your house is a mere bandbox.' 'It is large enough to contain all my real friends, and I never give parties.' Your furniture is very plain.' 'It is substantial, and as good as our father's house ever boasted.' True, but in our father's time there was no better in use; now every merchant's wife tries to display Brussels carpets, and French chairs.' I am quite content to avoid all such competition, whether with the wives of merchants or mechanics; it gives me no pain to return to my simple apartments, after spending a day in your luxurious ones.' 'But you have so few servants.' 'I have an excellent cook, who does not disdain to assist in the general work of the house; a faithful old nurse to take charge of my children; and my good little Kitty, the orphan whom I took into my family when I was just married. These women are all attached to me by ties of kindness and goodwill, so that my wishes are laws to them. It is true, I have no French cuisinier, to make my kitchen look like the caboose of a steam-boat; I have no whiskered lackey to put my friends out of countenance by his impertinence to the nobodys; no Swiss governess to teach my children bad French, and worse principles; but I have a quiet, well-ordered household; and to our old aunt's notions, I owe the power of obtaining such a desirable acquisition.' You are quite eloquent, Mary; but I believe you are more than half right. Your house always looks comfort |