seen Cheyle, had dared propose to her father her dishonour in lieu of proffered jewels, and had been hurled, by the enraged Hebrew, with violence and contumely from the house. Before repairing to the cemetery he has placed a combustible train in a public building close by the Jew's quarter; and now, when the rage of the mob is already sufficiently excited by the discovery of the musician, he leaps upon a tomb, declares he saw a fiery dart proceed from the house of Simeon, the blaspheming Jew in whose daughter's grave a Christian had so nearly perished, points to the first puff of smoke and flame which just then shows itself, declares that the Jews have a plot to burn the city, and calls upon all present to requite murder with murder and fire with fire. The pent-up flames now burst out at every corner of the building, the alarm-bell peals, in all the streets of Frankfort the cry of fire resounds, and it is on every man's tongue that the Jews are the incendiaries. The uproar and confusion are general; the Flagellants are masters of the city; the unhappy Israelites shut themselves in their houses, to which a violent wind quickly spreads the conflagration, aided, when its progress seems too slow, by the ready torches of the fanatics. In a few moments the roof of Simeon Stork's spacious mansion is utterly consumed, and the interior in a light flame. It is to this house that the body of Flagellants we have seen assembled in the cemetery direct their steps, headed and guided by Godebrecht, who thirsts for revenge and plunder. The powerfully drawn scene that then occurs is suitable for a concluding extract.

"Upon their way to Simeon's dwelling, the Basle cobbler and his desperate gang met with various impediments, delaying their progress. Other bands of fanatics streamed out of the side-streets, mingled with the rabble of the city, who would not be behindhand in the work of plunder. When Godebrecht reached the house that was the object of his cupidity and revenge, it and the adjacent buildings were enveloped in flames, which flared out of the windows of the upper stories, whilst Simeon's

vaulted apartment on the ground floor was still unscathed. The doors of the house stood wide open, the servants had fled, but none dared venture into the interior of the dwelling, rich as was the booty there anticipated, for the flames licked along the stairs, the ceiling of the corridors was sinking, and burning timbers fell around. Godebrecht stood gnashing his teeth in front of the burning house. All about him resounded the furious shouts of his companions, who beheld the spoil, upon which they had so confidently reckoned, rescued from their clutches and given up to annihilation. Through the grated windows they could see the Jew in his counting-house. By the red light of the fire they saw him seated before his opened money-boxes, rummaging his gold-bathing his hands in itwith a mien as indifferent as though all that was passing in no way concerned him; as though he heard not the volleying peals of the alarm-bells, or the fierce yells of the foe that clamoured for his blood; as though the fire that raged above and around him existed not, or as though he himself enjoyed some special and peculiar protection, securing him from every harm. The unhappy father had lost all that gave value to his life and wealth, and stimulus to his exertions. With Cheyle, the world had perished for him. What could the fire do, which drew nearer and nearer, or the murderers who threatened him, or the greedy hands that were stretched out towards his coffers, beyond taking his life, which had become indifferent to him, and the treasures that were destined for her who was no longer there to enjoy them? In vain had his servants urged him to accompany their flight; in vain had they painted, in vivid colours, the dangers that each moment increased. Instinct and habit fettered him to his gold; he heard not the warnings and remonstrances of his people; he was morally stunned, and sat, in a state of childish insanity, playing with his money.

6

"See the Jew dog!' cried Godebrecht. He mocks us, he grudges us his gold, he had rather it should perish with him than be restored to the Christians, in robbing whom he and his forefathers acquired it! Let us

in! The building still resists the fire; before it falls, the incendiary may be chastised and his treasure ours. By the holy scourge! he shall not defraud us of our rights!'

"The Master made a hasty movement towards the open entrance, but none followed him. Only the blindest fury, only that excessive greed which gladly deceives itself as to the extent of a threatened danger, could impel any one into the interior of the house, which resembled the gaping chasm of some fiery hell. The Flagellants actually howled with rage, as Simeon displayed the wealth which they saw no possibility of appropriating; and the rabble of the city united their hoarse voices in the fierce shout. They threw stones at the windows; some, who had crossbows, shot bolts at the Jew; but none dared approach the building, from whose upper part blazing beams, and other burning fragments, poured continually down. The stones and bolts, aimed at Simeon, either glanced harmlessly from the gratings, or lost their direction in passing through the panes of glass. Simeon remained unhurt, and, regardless of the missiles, and of his approaching inevitable death, continued, with vacant air, his childish play.

But there was one man there, whose desire for the gold and jewels of the Jew drove him irresistibly into the furnace. Neither the warnings of his companions, nor the flames that filled the corridor, nor the blasting fiery glow that met him, could restrain that man. With foaming mouth, one hand convulsively clenched and extended before him, in the other a gleaming knife, Godebrecht dashed into the burning house. The heat would have driven back any one else, but he still pressed forward, his hair and beard burned off, his cloak in flames, to the place where, as he well knew, was the door of Simeon's counting-house. He found it, burst it open, and then those without saw him

in the interior of the vaulted room, saw him cast off his burning mantle, and cast a wild confused glance around him. Then, for the first time, was Simeon aroused, by this intrusion, from his state of idiotic stupefaction. He looked up, the gold

pieces fell from his hands and rolled upon the floor; he recognised the leader of the Flagellants; a frightful laugh, which, even through the uproar that prevailed, reached the ears of the mob outside, burst from his mouth, and, with the fury and vigour of a roused tiger, he sprang, with one prodigious bound, upon Godebrecht, dashed him to the ground, and there began-unheeding the stabs of his opponent's knife-a work of retribution and revenge which filled even the frantic and bloodthirsty spectators with horror. He had grasped the Master's throat with both hands, as in an iron vice that each moment contracted; closer and closer grew their deadly pressure. Godebrecht's eyes started from his head; his face turned blue; he lost all power of resistance, and even of movement. But Simeon rested not until his work was complete. With peals of horrid laughter he strangled the man, in whom he had recognised his mortal foe, relaxing his hold only when every spark of life had fled from the stiffening body. He laid his hand upon Godebrecht's heart, to make sure that it beat no longer; he put his ear to his mouth, to convince himself that all respiration had ceased. The Master of the Flagellants was quite dead. He had fallen victim to his own rash enterprise-to his unbounded covetousness and thirst for revenge. Then, with a triumphant gesture, Simeon sprang to his feet, spurned the corpse aside with a contemptuous kick, and -returned to his gold, to recommence the same childish, mechanical play as before. He was bleeding from several wounds, but he felt not their smart. He heard not the ominous cracking noise which told that the vaulted roof above him had at last yielded to the violent heat; he did not notice the burning fragments that fell through the opening thus made; he continued to handle and trifle with his gold, until the tottering walls of the house fell in, burying him, his treasures, and the corpse of his enemy, beneath one huge heap of ardent and smoking ruins."

The Jews closed the gates of the Judengasse or Hebrew quarter, whose densely packed roofs were a sea of fire, and defended themselves despe

rately, preferring death in the flames to massacre at the hands of their barbarous assailants. After a time the survivors made a sortie, and, with their wives and children and most precious treasures, cut their way through the enemy, and took refuge in the synagogue, where the Flagellants and their rascal allies blockaded and finally burned them. It was not until the next day that the betterdisposed portion of the Frankforters were able to check the outrages and licence of the horde of fanatics and malefactors. The Flagellants were driven from the city, numerous arrests were made, the fire was at last got under. A sad spectacle remained. A great part of Frankfort lay in ashes, the streets were red with blood and strewn with corpses, wailing and lamentation were everywhere. The authorities, having at last asserted and resumed their power, proceeded to sit in judgment upon those culprits who had been captured. Numerous executions took place, with all the circumstances of cruelty that characterised the times. Some were torn asunder by horses, others broken on the wheel, others drowned in sacks; few escaped with loss of nose and ears, fewer still with flogging. It was bloody festival for the headsman and his aids. The clergy, emerging from their hiding-places, held solemn processions, and sang, in all the churches, Te Deums for deliverance from the Flagellants.

A striking chapter of Mr Döring's romance is that describing the adventures and perils of Regina, who, having been forcibly carried off from Frankfort by the mad Italian, Galeazzo, is guarded from insult by Joffriede, who accompanies them, and whose heart feels a yearning, alike inexplicable and irresistible, towards the adopted daughter of the house of Rheine. The Grey Penitent pursues the strangely assorted trio, which he overtakes in time to administer the last consolations of religion to the dying Mistress of the Flagellants, his erring wife, and Regina's mother. Whilst this passes in a charcoalburner's hut in the forest, justice is done upon Galeazzo by the emissaries of the Vehm-Gericht, or Secret Tribunal, whose headquarters were then

in Westphalia, and whose power extended throughout Germany. Galeazzo is found suspended to the branch of an oak, a roll of parchment under his arm, three chips (the mystic sign of the tribunal) cut out of the treetrunk below his feet. So great was then the dread inspired by the invisible judges, whose association was ubiquitous, and their power almost unlimited, that even the intrepid monk dares not approach their victim. In three days-such was their custom-the unseen agents who had done the wretched fanatic to death, would return and bury the body.

The marriage of Salentine and Regina does not take place until they have completed the time of mourning for the solitary of the Ingelheim Meadow, who dies shortly after the closing events of the romance. On his decease, and the removal of his mask, no signs of leprosy are found upon his composed and noble countenance. The assumption of the character of a leper was part of his self-imposed penance for great faults, long and deeply repented.

Additional attraction is imparted to the tale of the Geiselfahrt by the circumstance of its scene being laid in places so familiar to most English readers as Frankfort and its pleasant environs. Such familiarity on the part of the readers is always an element of success in the case of works of fiction; and to it may be attributed the popularity of several modern English romances, wherein the merit of the plot, and the ability of the author are altogether inferior and subordinate to the interest attaching to the buildings to which their action is in great measure confined, and from which they in most instances take their titles. As regards Mr Döring's book, we confess that we feel no very great interest in any of his personages, except the Grey Penitent, who is, in fact, the hero of the tale, and who excites far stronger sympathy than Salentine and Regina, who are as tame as the majority of heroes and heroines. Some of the minor characters are well sketched-as, for instance, Pater Clarus, before mentioned, and Herr Johannes Gensbein, town-secretary of Limburg, poet, and familiar of the Secret Tribunal. Salen

tine's father, with his favourite oathBy St Bartholomew's head-is worthy and wearisome; and of his blind wife, Frau Gisela, who for a time is fascinated by the doctrine of the Flagellants, preached to her by the fierce Joffriede in a strain of frantic eloquence, the reader decidedly sees and hears too much. Upon the whole, and with the single exception above noted, one thinks more, whilst reading the book, of the classes than of the individuals it portrays. To the oppressed and suffering Jews, many of whose vices originated in their relentless persecution by the Christians, a strong interest certainly attaches; and, as even the imperfect sketch of their condition we have here been

able to give may have made some of our readers partake that interest, we will conclude this article with the paragraph with which Mr Döring concludes his third and final volume. "The few Jews," he says, "who escaped with life from the fire, and from their massacre by the Flagellants, were sold, that same year, by the Emperor Charles the Fourth, with house and land their own and their inherited property, both within and without the walls, and whatsoever its denomination,' for fifteen thousand two hundred pounds of hellers, to a noble counsellor. A remarkable sign of the times, more striking and significant than all that we have here related of their abuses, prejudices, and crimes."

THE annals of antiquity and modern times will be sought in vain for a parallel to the universal and enduring interest which QUEEN MARY has awakened among mankind. It is not confined to one race or nation, or party, or sect, whether in religion or politics. If ever there was such a thing among men, it is a Catholic feeling; the Protestants evince it not less strongly than the followers of the Romish church, the Lutherans than those of the Greek persuasion. She was the martyr of the Roman Catholic faith; but the admiration for her noble qualities, the commiseration at her tragic fate, is not confined to the persons of that communion. She was the most beautiful woman of her time in Europe-the most charming and accomplished Princess of that, or perhaps any other age; but the interest in her memory has not been confined to those who felt at the time the fascination of her manner, or the sway of her loveliness. Unlike other beauties, she has been adored by posterity not less than by her contemporaries; and the interest in her history, the thirst for the details of her private life, the anxiety to un

ravel the mysteries of her character and history, so far from declining, are obviously on the increase. Travellers from every country, and the most distant hemispheres, hasten to Scotland to pay their devotions at the shrine of beauty, of heroism, and of misfortune. The pilgrims approach the spots consecrated to her memory, hallowed by her casual residence, with the feelings of those bound in the olden time for the Holy Land; and relics, real or imaginary, of the martyred Princess, are treasured up and shown to sympathising multitudes, in the spirit rather of ancient devotion than of modern scepticism or indiffer

ence.

It is the strongest proof of the wide extent of this interest, and of the degree to which it has fascinated the minds of men, that it has subdued the strongest intellects, and enlisted on its side the brightest genius of modern times. Schiller has enshrined it in one of the noblest of his immortal dramas; and the last scene of his tragedy of "Maria Stuart" never fails to awaken the deepest sympathy in every audience in the Fatherland. Alfieri has devoted his ardent genius to the

same absorbing topic, and excited the sympathies of the Italian people not less powerfully than the German dramatist has those of the Teutonic in the fate of the Scottish Queen. Three of the most eminent historical writers of the present day, besides numerous subordinate ones, have devoted their talents to the elucidation of the obscure and difficult, but deeply interesting passages in her history. While Prince Labanoff was collecting with antiquarian zeal and pious enthusiasm the great collection of original documents relating to her life, which have since appeared in his voluminous work, Mr Tytler was ransacking the records of the State-Paper Office for original letters, which have thrown so much light on the unparalleled network of deceit and treachery with which she was surrounded; and Miss Strickland was visiting every scene, and inspecting every charterchest, and collecting every tradition which threw light upon her life and elucidated her character. And if the case against her, unhappily so strongly supported by incontestible facts, has been recently condensed with great ability and the skill of a practised advocate by Mignet, in the two elaborate volumes which he has devoted to her biography, he has met with a most spirited and worthy antagonist in Miss Strickland, who, with a lover's enthusiasm and a woman's generosity, has devoted her great talents to vindicating the memory of perhaps the most celebrated and interesting of her

own sex.

The extraordinary and increasing interest which the memory of Queen Mary has excited, in every age and part of the world, is to be ascribed not so much to the overpowing influence of any one charm, as to the combined effect of many with which it is invested. She united in her person the whole attractions which, taken singly, have secured immortality for their possessors in former times. Not less lovely or enchanting than Cleopatra, she subdued every man, save John Knox, who approached her, and inspired all the ardent and romantic in the other sex with the most absorbing and enduring passion. Not less captivating than

Helen, she beheld all the princes of Europe at her feet, and provoked a strife in Christendom more fierce and lasting than that of ten years' duration around the walls of Troy. She rivalled Zenobia in the spirit and animation with which she traversed deserts on horseback, and endured with manly spirit the dangers and privations of war; but, unlike her, she did not fail in the moment of her sorest trial, or mar her memory by quailing before an inevitable fate. No martyr of the Christian faith ever through life was more firmly attached to her religion, or evinced in death a more sublime or heroic spirit of mingled courage and devotion.

If Queen Mary was illustrious for the many noble qualities which in life and death she exhibited, she was not less memorable for the exemption from the usual foibles which women placed above control in exalted places have so often exhibited. We say this in perfect knowledge of the many faults and crimes with which her memory is charged, and not insensible, as will appear in the sequel, to the weight of the evidence by which these charges are supported. But granting all that is advanced on anything like authentic grounds against her, she is at least exempt from the savage cruelties, or mean and revolting indelicacies or littlenesses, with which the annals of so many other queens are stained. It was never said of her by her prime-minister that, if "to-day she is more than man, to-morrow she will be less than woman." There was no Leicester who travelled with her, and every night was placed in an apartment near her own. She never cut off the head of a rival, to allay her terror or appease her jealousy. is justly chargeable with a share in some acts of cruelty committed during her rule; but nothing to what at the same period was going on in the adjoining and more polished states. No St Bartholomew disgraced her reign; no grim row of three hundred heads, including those of her dearest friends and lovers, signalised her vengeance or caprice, as the frightful array on London Bridge did that of Elizabeth. God forbid we should overlook or extenuate the serious crimes, if they really

She