The aid oft sought, and oftener given
With full, and prompt, and gentlest hand
(Though I should fail to understand
The wise ways of the Cross and Heaven).

Ah! words are cold to speak of thee,
My mother sweet! God's Mother dear!
What other friend was e'er so near,
So patient, kind, and true to me?

Beyond those skies and planets fair,

Beyond the countless seraph throng, Beyond the highest angel's song Thou hearest the poor sinner's prayer.

Thy throne is near God's throne above:
Full mercy near the judgment-seat;
When I shall come before his feet,
My sweetest hope is in thy love.

But, ah! there's many a darkest day

Between this hour and my last breath; There are temptations, doubts, and deathA long, and hard, and unknown way.

The fragrant blossoms deck the grass
The mower laid in damp swathes low;
Sweet Mother! let my life shine so
When death's strong scythe by me shall pass.

With some fair bloom that thou may'st prize, Some passion-flower or violet sweet,

Or lilies to lay at thy feet

Beyond those tender, summer skies.

BRACTON; OR, SUB SIGILLO.

A TALE OF 1812.

BY OLIVER SLOANE.

CHAPTER XXI.

DOWN TO THE SOCKET.

"I AM glad," resumed Lord Wellesley, "that our friend Canning has just got in for Liverpool, and beaten that dangerous radical, Harry Brougham. It was a representative contest, in every sense."

"Why," observed Eustace, "you yourself, my lord, must be called a Liberal, and Canning as well, since you are both bent on liberating our reverend friend here, and those who think with him."

"Ah," said the Marquis, gravely, "there is a vast difference, Eustace, between seeing the political necessity, as well as justice, of a measure of relief for an oppressed class, and a disposition to throw open a door to all the ragamuffins in the country to scramble to place and power. Brougham would invite a tinker or a tailor to sit for your seat in Parliament. Stultz, sir-no; he's a foreigner and can't be elected. But his foreman, his chief cutter, prosperous and retired upon his money, might become the Honourable Member for Gatton, or old Sarum, or-Sudbury. I am a sort of Liberal-Tory, if you will. Then, remember that I am also a born Irishman. It needs but a slight acquaintance with the circumstances of that country (my country) to see how the great majority of the people have been downtrodden, through generations, not by civil disabilities alone, but by the most oppressive domination of a privileged few. Not the French nobility under the old regime (no irreverence to your grandfather, Eustace, who must have been a great exception, to have so good a fellow for his descendant), not the Spartan handful, lording it over their helot population, were more absolute masters of the situation, or abused it more odiously. I have seen enough of that, though I have been more in India than in Ireland. As every abuse has its Nemesis, though it may seem to limp after the malefactor with slow footHorace, you remember, Mr. Morton-so you will see Orange Ascendency will bring about Catholic Emancipation as surely as

He hesitated, as feeling that he had got into the meshes of the parallel he was going to draw, and with a fear of any apparent discourtesy to Morton.

"As the ancien régime brought about the French Revolution," supplied the priest, good-humouredly. "Do not fear, my lord; I shall not be hurt at your analogy. Moreover, that convulsion under

which Europe still reels was the result of many causes; the oppressions of the nobility, tyrannous as they were, being only one. There were evils that gathered round the altar as well as the throne."

"Ay?" inquired the Marquis, with some little surprise.

"Most assuredly," continued Morton, "though it would take us beyond our present range of thought, and bring us quite out of Hyde Park, to develop the strong conviction I entertain. The Bourbon rule so unduly exalted the Regale as to produce one manifest result, which tended to that Nemesis directly. It procured the appointment to bishoprics and other spheres of Church influence of men who would second the crown in its encroachment on the privileges of the Holy See, no less than on the rightful liberties of the people. What was the result? The Church in France, under the Grand Monarque and his immediate successor, with their two protracted reigns, became as national as was possible, short of actual schism from the centre of Catholic unity. Wherever the power of the Holy See has been unfettered, there has been wholesome centralisation, together with local freedom. Where it has been thwarted or weakened by the jealousy and the pride of kings, whether in France, Portugal, Austria, or elsewhere, you have had regal despotism, paralyzed church action, courtly, subservient prelates, and peoples oppressed."

"Pardon me," interrupted Eustace, while Wellesley listened, "but is it not an advantage to a church to be national ?"

"I keep to politics, as far as the two questions can be disjoined," answered Morton. “ "You will agree that it is more than a mere advantage for a church to possess the sympathies of the masses, and a moral hold on their conduct."

"It was the want of this that brought about the Revolution. Now, the want of it was produced by the rigorous doctrines which are known as Jansenism; and Jansenism grew and gathered strength in France, like a carbuncle, for want of fresh and vigorous life-blood from Rome, excluded, as it had been, by the Bourbon policy. It was of no avail for Louis XIV. to deal trenchantly with Port Royal while he insisted on carrying out his Regale, and becoming all but a rebellious son of the Church. This was a mere local treatment and empiricism, instead of improving the circulation itself: and thus I sum up. French nationalism, under its kingly head, produced rigorism of teaching, partly as a reaction from the corruptions of the court and its thousand dependencies, partly by excluding (to repeat my metaphor) the healthy and genial life-blood from the centre. Rigorism resulted in alienation of the people from the clergy. This, combined with the secular oppressions of the nobility, developed into a settled hate of altar and throne alike, which had become associated in the popular mind. "Priests and aristocrats à la lanterne !" And thus, when the evil was ripe, and the well-meaning but feeble king showed him

self incapable of interpreting a revolt into a revolution, throne and altar have been overturned together before our eyes."

"This is a very interesting topic," said Wellesley, "and leads to other thoughts beyond what you have expressed. But I must be off. Mr. Morton," he added; "do you ever do so secular a thing as to dine out? Will you honour me by joining my family party to-morrow? Lady Wellesley, as perhaps you may know, belongs to your faith, and would be very happy to receive you. Friday shall be no bar to your finding something you may touch with a safe conscience. Yes ?-well, thank you sincerely. Addio, Eustace; I shall be under the gallery tonight. No chance of hearing you speak, you disciple of Harpocrates, the god of Silence? That ought to be as much a matter of conscience as Mr. Morton passing by the best efforts of my chef to-morrow."

So saying, he raised his hat again to the priest-those were days when men did not account it a sign of belonging to high society to be nonchalant or supercilious-touched his noble animal with the spur, and sprang away.

The new friends rode on for a space in silence. Then Eustace said: "Will your leisure serve you to come with me two or three miles, and visit a kind of villa that belongs to my cousin, whom you heard Wellesley mention? He is lying there, poor fellow, in a sad state of health, and is cheered whenever I can go and look in upon him,"

Morton assenting, they struck out of the Park in a north-westerly direction, towards those pleasant Middlesex lanes which had not then been devoured by the great monster of brick, though it has since made havoc among them by absorbing large portions into its huge self. Half an hour's riding brought them to the lodge-gate of a villa, on which Mr. Robins the auctioneer might have expended his flowery rhetoric without much exaggeration. It was a gem among residences of the class to which it belonged. A trim lawn, mown like the cheek of an "" exquisite," some large drooping lime-trees, that yielded both shade and perfume, and were "musical with bees," led up to the villa of two storeys, embosomed in the shade, which afforded a pleasant relief from the dusty road.

Eustace dismounted, and gave his horse to the lodge-keeper, saying to Morton in a lower tone:

"Poor Riversdale is in such a nervous state, and so sensitive to the least sound, that I want to spare him even the trampling of our horses on the gravel."

They proceeded on foot to the hall-door. Eustace rang the bell cautiously, and when Lord Riversdale's valet appeared behind th footman, asked in French, still guarding his voice:

"How is he to-day, Lejeune ?"

"Milor finds himself no better sir," answered the valet, in his native speech: "affreusement low and desponding-but he has asked several