their sermons-to decry rashness and enthusiasm -to speak of a new discipline fished up from the lake of Geneva-to contend that the opposite extreme from Popery was as bad as Popery itself. I have heard Hooker* himself ("Hooker!" said the old gentleman, and almost leapt from his seat) denounce the rising spirit of disaffection to Church and State,-which, though now (he said) a mere cloud in the horizon, would soon darken the face of the heavens." But he prophesied in vain. The tumult increased. And I grieve to

* The accuracy of the Author's assertion of the Calvinism of Hooker having been questioned by some of his readers, he begs to add, in confirmation of this statement, the following passage, taken, almost at random, from a Sermon, whose very title("Of the certainty and perpetuity of Faith in the Elect,") is almost demonstrative of his Calvinism :

"Their faith (says this illustrious divine) when it is at strongest, is but weak; yet, even then, when it is at the weakest, so strong, that utterly it never faileth, it never perisheth altogether, no, not in them who think it extinguished in themselves.”—Oxford Edit. Vol. 3, p. 526.

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say, that the effect of the spirit of disaffection upon the staunch Churchman was not such as to allay the heat. Disgusted with the rash foes to Popery, they somewhat lessened their hostility to that religion. Elizabeth herself, began to regard the two extremes of Puritanism and Popery with equal dislike. Her successor, James, scarcely hated Popery-And Charles the First, perhaps, preferred it.' At this sentence our venerable divine sighed, and for a moment, felt displeased with his velvet memorialist. If he had a prejudice in the world it was in favour of the first Charles. It arose partly from his love of royalty,-partly from his father having, though he had carefully shut up the rest of Hume, given him, when a boy, those few exquisite pages to read, in which he records the death of the King,-partly from a slight infusion of Scotch blood in his veins,-partly from the virtues, especially of the latter part of the life of Charles, and the terrors of his death, which have invested him with a species of martyrdom in the eyes of Englishmen. I have some times suspected also, that an exquisite portrait of Charles, by Vandyke, which had descended in the old gentleman's family, and always hung in his study, had a little to do with this feeling. So ample a

forehead, so meek a smile, so pensive an eye, could not surely belong to a bad man.--But whatever might be the source of his prejudice, certain it is, that he felt it. When, therefore, he came to this sentence, he stopped, shut the manuscript, took a few turns in the room looked at his picture, and, at length, gravely said," I do not like to serve our kings like those of Egypt, and bring them to judgment after their death. That poor Scotch mi. nister had a kinder heart, who, though he loathed Queen Mary living, said, when his brethren, after her death, were emptying the vials of their hatred upon her, Nay, bury her, for she is a King's daughter.' The temptations of Kings excuse many of their faults in my eyes."

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"You and I, my love," said his wife," have often thanked God that our temptations were so few. But had Charles any great faults ?"

"One of the greatest," he replied; "was, perhaps, that of surrounding his person with dissolute men, that, in the hour of his calamity, few good ones dared to trust him.-But his misfortunes I think were greater than his faults. I am surprised men are not disposed more to-pity and love, than to condemn him."

"You, my dear," she said, "love every body."

"Seventy years acquaintance with myself," he answered," has taught me that it becomes us not anxiously to search out each others nakedness,— but rather to approach the faults of others backwards, and throw the mantle over them."

"I think my dear," she said, the "picture seems to cast an eye of reproach upon that page of the manuscript."

"I think it does," he answered," and so, perhaps, we had better turn to another." They accordingly did, and read as follows.

CHAPTER V.

As I have already hinted at the spirit of the Church, and at that of the enemies of the church, in the days just after Queen Elizabeth, I will now pass them over, and hasten forward to a period most important to myself and to the nation. One morning, almost before sun rise, I saw a band of soldiers enter the church. They were strange-looking men,with hair cut short and rounded,-dealt much in scriptural language, often metaphorically, and as often inaccurately used. They

frequently denounced Church and King. On a sudden I was confounded to hear a man, who looked like a serjeant, give the word, and the band flew to work. In a moment they broke down the rails of the altar, beheaded a fine Magdalen, put the silver chalice and candlesticks into their pockets, bayonetted a surplice, fastened the vicar's band upon a great black dog, which had followed them into the church, dashed the Common Prayer Book through a fine painted window,---and at last mounted, I tremble while I tell it, the pulpit, and the serjeant himself, with one end of his halbert, cut away my lace and tassels, and with the other ran me through the bowels.' "True, I declare, my dear," said the old gentleman;" for see here the two holes made by the sacrilegious instrument,--holes of which you know how perplexed I have often been to discover the origin." "Holes" she replied," which I darned for the third time so carefully last Candlemas." "Holes," said he,

which I always deemed the disgrace of the establishment, but which henceforward I shall charge upon their puritan authors." In short, fifty years had associated so many circumstances with these holes in the cushion, that it was a considerable time before they conld get back to the cushion