finger of scorn was pointed at the only friends he had-notwithstanding that he was reproached with being a foreigner and a Socinian-notwithstanding that within a few hours' sail of his own dominions there was a king, backed by the most powerful enemy Protestantism had, ever plotting to win back the crown of which he was deservedly deprived-William remained true to his principles and the people of England, and brought to our assistance the character of a constitutional king. In this he was successful. Thus were developed the germ of principles which, so far as they have been developed, have placed England foremost among the nations of the earth. The great practical benefits of the Revolution were numerous. It gave us an Act of Toleration, which, imperfect as it was, (for the clergy and the Tories were stronger than the Whigs and the king,) allayed a mass of suffering and injustice, by which, before that, honest men had been degraded and wronged. It stopped the frightful system by which in Scotland, Episcopalianism had been demonstrating for thirty years, by the banishment and death of upwards of eighteen thousand honest men, its divine right, and suffered the Presbyterian Kirk to repose in peace. It exalted the House of Commons to its rightful place as paramount power in the state, by settling on the king a sufficient sum for his own support, and enacting as a law that the expenses of the army, the navy, and the ordnance, should be defrayed by an annual specific vote. It put an end to the atrocious system by which the earlier volumes of our "State Trials" have become "the most frightful record of baseness and depravity that is extant in the world." It gained for England what the mighty genius of Milton was unable to effect, the liberty of unlicensed printing. It gave power for seventy years to men, who with all their faults, and the Whigs had them, and have them still, maintained that power is a trust for the people, that it is held by magistrates not for private but public ends-that when abused it may be withdrawn, while men were living who had seen books burnt by the University of Oxford, for declaring the damnable doctrine, that our monarchy is limited and mixed; for these great benefits without which we never could have become what we arewithout which we should have sunk lower and lower beneath the withering sway of the despot and the priest-on which our very salvation as a nation depends, we owe eternal gratitude to William and the Revolution of 1688. Miss Strickland writes as if none of these things had taken place, as if William were the worst and James the best of men. As if that were an evil hour which broke the oppressor's yoke, which stayed the torrents of blood persecution for conscience sake had caused to flow-which sent the last of the Stuart kings to die an exile and a beggar in a foreign land. Miss Strickland's last volumes may do for milliners and

shopboys. Young England may learn from them how Mary dressed, what jewels she wore, whether her royal brow was encirled with a crown or no, whether she had black hair or brown; but, the student of history, the generous admirer of great principles and great men, in sorrow will lay them down.

I. E. R.

FACI MARGUERITE;

OR,

THE PEARL OF FRANCE.

BY MRS. CRAWFORD.

"Twas midnight, and no glittering star
Shone in the blue expanse,

While she, the bride of brave Navarre,
The "
pearl of la belle France,"

Sate watchful by the bed of death,

And gazed with grieving heart,

To mark the last faint flutt'ring breath,
And see the soul depart.*

The dying fav'rite lay serene,

Hope lit her fading eye;

She whispered to the weeping queen,

I do not fear to die;

Faith gives me strength to bear the shock:
This wrench from life and love,

That seems a mother's hopes to mock,

My crowning joy will prove."

• See Note.

DD 2

NOTE.. "The beautiful Marguerite, queen of Navarre, 'the pearl (marguerite) of the French crown,' increased the lustre of her birth by the splendour of her genius. With extraordinary beauty, and the fairest female virtues, she united a highly cultivated mind, and an energy of soul not often to be found, even in the greatest men.

The important part which Francis I. and his mother suffered the queen of Navarre to take in the government of the kingdom, did not in the least distract her attention from the sciences and from literary avocations. No one was more happy than she in the invention of elegant mottoes or devices, which were embroidered or wrought in tapestry or bed-furniture. Or these she composed an incredible number, in Latin, French, and other languages. She likewise wrote many plays, then denominated pastorals, and caused them to be performed by the young ladies of her court. numerous poems were collected and published by her courtiers, under the

Her

title of Marguerite des Marguerites.' But she acquired her greatest fame as a writer, by her Decameron, ou les Cent Nouvelles de la Reine de Navarre," which, during her lifetime were more highly esteemed than the tales of Bocaccio, and which are still preferred to the model which she adopted. Most of these novels were written while travelling in her litter, and with the same facility as though they had been dictated by another.

"But one of the most prominent virtues of the beautiful queen of Navarre was her undissembled piety. She carried her religion, not upon her lips, but in her heart, and seriously reflected upon its solemn truths. It is not improbable that among all those truths, none was concealed from the pious and contemplative queen with such an impenetrable veil as the important doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the eternal duration of the rewards of virtue after death. On this subject Brantôme relates some anecdotes which are extremely interesting in various points of view. The queen being once informed that one of the ladies of her bed-chamber, to whom she was greatly attached, was at the point of death, she seated herself by the bedside of the expiring favourite, and never took her eyes from her till she breathed her last. Her attendants could not forbear asking their mistress why she had fixed her eyes so immoveably on an object so disagreeable as a dying person. The queen replied that she had done it to ascertain the truth of an opinion maintained by certain philosophers, that at the moment of death the soul is separated from the body. She had therefore watched, to discover whether the spirit of a dying person quitted its mortal habitation in a manner perceptible to the organs of sight or hearing. She had not, however, perceived any thing of the kind, and she should therefore be at a loss what to think of the presumed separation of the soul and body, if she were not firmly established in the faith, and did not know that it was her duty to embrace the truths of religion, even though she could not explore and satisfactorily account for them." (What finite being can account for the works of the infinite Creator ? )

Whenever the queen of Navarre heard any one speaking of death and the happiness of a future state, she would reply, All that is very true: but oh! how long must we slumber in the bosom of the earth, till we attain the enjoyment of that bliss!" "