Did he not display much vigor in continu- | her, for in her mind it was unmixed with ing the war, and placing himself in person any idea of love. at the head of his troops? With his mind and sensibility guided by good advice, why might he not equal the renown of his gallant father? Why, indeed, might he not surpass him? The influence of friendship would restore his activity; it would inspire him with a taste for business. He already possessed courage and acquirements, and he was superior to Henri IV. in his conduct and principles, both of unspotted purity. In a word, if it were desirable to possess the esteem and confidence of a hero, it was a still nobler task to form one, and to render him worthy of the admiration of the whole universe.

The danger to which Louis was exposed made her tremble; but feeling certain that the time was now arrived when he would himself hold the reins of government, and display all the nobleness of character she attributed to him, her thoughts dwelt principally on the loss France would sustain by his death. She passionately desired his return, not for the sake of the frivolous pleasure of again seeing and conversing with him, but to speak to him of his duties, to elevate his soul, to inspire him with generous resolves, and to admonish him to persevere in his present line of conduct. Such at least was the conviction, however delusive, of Mademoiselle de la Fayette. At length the successful termination of the campaign was announced. The king had re-taken the places conquered by the Spaniards, and these latter, everywhere defeated, were obliged to re-pass the Somme. On the other side, the Imperialists, who had penetrated into Burgundy, were repulsed to the banks of the Rhine by the Cardinal La Valette and the Duke of Weimar.

All these seductive yet vague ideas passed through the brain of La Fayette; they took root there, were gradually developed, and raised her hopes and her feelings to the utmost pitch of enthusiasm. The king took his departure next morning at daybreak, and almost all the courtiers, both young and old, followed him. After they had left, many ladies affected an exaggerated display of anxiety, and many more betrayed, in spite of themselves, secret regrets that they would fain have concealed. This affectation on one side, and constraint on the other, diffused a cloud of dullness and ennui over the whole court. At last every one was of opinion that some amusement must be invented, and, without in words admitting that any one could possibly be entertained during such an anxious moment, all the usual amusements were re-commenced with renewed ardor.advice dictated by her friendship would News soon arrived from the army, announcing brilliant successes, due to the valor of the king and the bravery of the French troops.

During this time of glory and of peril Louis XIII. was no longer that timid, feeble prince, often almost overlooked in his own court; he was metamorphosed, indeed, and became suddenly a brilliant monarch, every way worthy of the throne. He was described as ever foremost in danger, leading his troops into action in person. All parties agreed in applauding his conduct: he was loved and admired—he really reigned.

Every day that his absence lasted, and every fresh intelligence that arrived, added to the state of excitement in which Mademoiselle de la Fayette found herself. Her own perfect purity insured her safety. Such an attachment could not alarm

The king returned to Paris, which, not having been considered out of danger from the attacks of the enemy, received him with transports of joy. Mademoiselle de la Fayette, witness of this universal enthusiasm, saw in Louis the worthy successor of Henri the Great, and the inheritor of all his glory. Intoxicated by these delusions, she imagined that even the

be in future needless, and that the king would of his own accord suppress the arrogance of Richelieu, lower his inordinate power, and from henceforth exercise himself the royal authority.

The next morning Louis visited the queen, remained, as usual, some minutes, and only stayed in the ante-chamber for a moment, during which time he approached Mademoiselle de la Fayette, and conducted her aside.

"I do not know," said he, "when I shall be able to resume those conversations that are so infinitely delightful, for after an absence of some months, I am overwhelmed with business."

"Ah, so much the better !" cried Mademoiselle de la Fayette. "May you, sire, ever be thus fully occupied." The king smiled.

"You have doubtless heard me blamed

for my idleness," said he "I am sure you have; but all I ask is, that you will suspend your judgment, and do not condemn me at least before you have heard my defense."

"Sire, how can I wait, when my heart already has decided ?"

"May it ever induce you to justify me, and you will not be mistaken. This will console me for a world of injustice."

After having uttered these words with an emotion that touched Mademoiselle de la Fayette to the very soul, the king left the room.

From Fraser's Magazine.

DEVONSHIRE

WORTHIES.

walk demurely to their open seats in the side aisle. We do not happen to be aware whether the society of the little town still merits the stigma attached to it by the Pendennis family, namely, that it was " by no means amusing or pleasant," but we feel quite sure that the present rector's wife is far too intent upon studying rubrics and fashions ecclesiastical ever to be caught "looking out of the drawing-room window, wondering what Mrs. Pybus can want cheapening fowls again in the market, when she had poultry from Livermore's two days before." But although progress has shown itself in the church, there is none as yet in the Clavering and Chatteris branch of the Great Western Railway; even the preliminary works mentioned by Pendennis are among the things that shall be, and it is still by the coach which has succeeded the Alacrity, alius Celerity, of bygone days, that you must journey over the sunshiny hills" which stretch from Clavering westward to the sea, in order to arrive at our terra incognita.

In these busy, jostling, nineteenth-centu- | church and up the organ loft stairs," but ry days, when, through the agency of iron and steam, the ends of the earth have been brought together, it may well seem almost impossible to find a quiet primitive spot, out of sight and sound of rushing engine and screaming steam-whistle. Yet for those who diligently seek them, such nooks and corners do still exist, and in one of them we were lucky enough to spend the early part of our long vacation. The place is situated on the coast of the most beautiful of our south-western counties, and though for certain reasons we do not intend to disclose its name, the sagacious amongst our readers will be able to form a pretty good idea as to its whereabouts when we admit that it is not very distant from the birthplace of Pendennis, that "little old town of Clavering St. Mary," past which the rapid river Brawl holds on its shining course, and which boasts a "fine old church, with great gray towers, of which the sun illuminates the delicate carving, deepening the shadows of the huge buttresses and gilding the glittering windows and flaming vanes." Things have, however, a little changed at Clavering since Mr. Thackeray spent many a pleasant summer holiday there in his boyhood. The old collegiate church has been swept and garnished, and bedizened with finery till it scarcely knows itself, and the Wapshot boys no longer make a good cheerful noise scuffling with their feet as they march into

66

The farm in which we had taken lodgings was about a mile from the little town where the Clavering and Chatteris coach set us down one pleasant summer evening. The house was one of those quaint old buildings which are not uncommon in the West of England, built of gray stone in the form of the letter E; the centre projection containing the doorway being en

quarries of Babbicombe lay; still further on, the islands at the entrance of Torbay seemed sleeping on a sea of palest gold, and beyond them Berry Head half hid itself behind a veil of mist that hung before the horizon, and hid the meeting of the land and sea.

tirely covered with a large vine, and the with it. At our feet, long silvery lines of two wings with myrtle trees reaching al- light, with spaces of brightest blue bemost to the spring of the gables. Our tween, stretched across the surface of the room, which served us as "bedroom, par- restful sea; the blue deepening into a royal lor, and all," was long and low; a broad purple, as it passed beneath the shadow of casement window nearly filled up one end the red rocks, washed by tiny waves which of it, the other was fashioned into a kind cast their evanescent wreaths of silvery of alcove in which was placed a bed; on foam upon the sparkling sand. In the one side was the tall chimney-piece quaint- foreground a majestic cliff, the finest on ly carved, and opposite it the oak door. the south coast, threw its protecting shaOn each side of the chimney-piece stood dow far over the sea; its steep sides glowan antique oak chest, such as are often to ing with green and crimson and gold, that be found in Devon farm-houses, and in a faded and flushed again as clouds and corner near the window were a couple of lights passed over it. Sunk in deep shashelves for books; these were, amongst dow the rock islands at the foot of the others, a Family Bible, a much-read his- peak rose out of the water, whilst snowtory of Bamfylde Moore Carew, the King white wings, glancing every now and then of the Gipsies, and a worm-eaten volume of suddenly across the gloom, told where seapamphlets and sermons, with the follow-gulls had built their rude nests on the ing suggestive titles: Meditations on the bleak ledges, and in the crevices of the mirth of a christian life, and the vain weatherworn crags. Towards Dawlish mirth of a wicked life, printed at Oxford and Torquay the hills became more unduin 1663. A relation of the famed disturb-lating in their outline and more pale in ance at the house of Mr. Mumpesson, by their coloring, save where a bright space the beating of a drum invisibly every of lovely pink showed where the marble night from February, 1662, to the beginning of the year forthcoming. Philosophia Pia-a discourse of the Religious Temper and Tendencies of the Royal Society, London, 1671. A whip for the Droll Fiddler to the Atheist, being reflections on Drollery and Atheism. A sermon on Christian Charity, preached before the Lord Mayor of London, followed by A letter to Mr. Henry Stubb, Doctor of Warwick, wherein the Malignity, Hypocrisy, and Falsehood of his Temper, Pretenses and Reports, in his animadversions on Plus Ultra are discovered, by the author of the Sermon on Charity. On the upper shelf reposed in solitary state Prince's Worthies of Devon, a venerablelooking folio volume, bound in calf, and evidently a prized heirloom. To it we were indebted for many a pleasant hour, and with good reason, we trust you will say, when we introduce you, as we purpose doing, to its pages. But first we must make you acquainted with the scenery in our own neighborhood, and with this intent we invite you to accompany us on a walk which we took the day after our arrival, to the top of the hill immediately in front of the valley farm. Much as the view seen from thence has always struck us, often though we have seen it since, we can not remember when it appeared more beautiful than on the morning when we first made acquaintance

Landwards, the prospect extended over the valley, which lay smiling in the sunlight, its boundary hills clothed with woods and pastures, and bright patches of cornfields, and beyond all, soft brown moorlands overlapping one another in long reaches, till they sank below the rugged tors of Dartmoor. The voices of laborers at work in the fields below rose cheerily upon the air, and mingling with the distant cawing of rooks, the tinkling of sheepbells, and the plaintive scream of sea-gulls, gave animation to a landscape as varied as it was beautiful, and which was not wanting in associations either to give it added charms. Scarcely could we look in any direction without seeing the site of a Roman encampment, or the broad green road along which the legions marched from one station to another. And in the valley, just where the highroad loses itself in a clump of elms, on whose topmost branches we are now looking down, lived not long ago a descendant of that ancient family, of whom tradition tells, and there are those alive still who assert the truth of the story, that when the death hour of any of its

members arrives, a mysterious silent bird | perilous commission to guide eight vessels

with pale wing outspread hovers over their bed, vanishing only when the spirit has taken flight.

filled with combustibles towards the Spanish fleet, under cover of the darkness, and then to leave the burning ships to drift One likes to think that a legend so ro- right upon the foe, carrying terror and mantic should be attached to the family of ruin with them, themselves escaping afterJohn Oxenham, that brave sea captain, wards as best they might. In what dear the whole of whose checkered life was full and honored remembrance too would you of strange adventure and bold daring, and have held that Devon captain, William the exciting story of whose last and fatal Cocke, of whom Camden thus writes: Solus voyage will not be lightly forgotten by in suâ inter medios hostes navicula cum any who have chanced to read it in the laude periit-he the only Englishman of old book to which we have already alluded. any note who died "honorably fighting in There too, towards the north-west, be- his little ship," during those fierce contests neath that knoll, crowned with a grove of which cost every noble family in Spain the oak and fir trees, is situated the earliest life-blood of a husband or a father, a brothand best-loved home of Sir Walter Ra- er or a son. Truly Devon is, and ever has leigh; and there the church where his pa- been, a favored county, blessed not only rents sleep beneath the centre aisle. Here in the varied loveliness which adorns its too, on a day as calm and bright as the hills, its valleys, and its coasts, and which one we have described, and in this self- has given so much inspiration to poets and same month of July, in the year 1588, a painters, but in the heroes and worthies Devon wayfarer standing on this very hill to whom it has given birth, and of whom might have beheld what would have made it would seem our England is no longer his heart beat high with pride, whilst gaz-worthy, since she has never been permiting from morning until evening upon that glorious sea-fight in which his country once more proved her title good as mistress of the seas. Out there in the offing, where the Isle of Portland rides as it were at anchor, hugging the eastern horizon, the first great battle between the Armada and the English took place, that morrisdance upon the waters, as Sir Henry Wotton styles it, which must have strangely puzzled the Spanish admirals. If you, dear reader, had been a Devonshirer, looking upon that sight, how you would have exulted afterwards on learning that many of your own countrymen had been taking a leading part in it, and that none fought more bravely than they did against the proud Spanish corsairs when they bore down haughtily and slowly upon us in their huge galleons, girt about with such a terrible prestige, and with all the pomp and circumstance of war; that none faced them with more godlike calmness, more heroic courage, than the men of Devon, ever foremost in those dread engagements, as they were last to leave the gallant chase which drove their arrogant enemies for ever from our coasts, and secured to England her liberties and her religion. How great would have been your pride on finding that it was Drake and Hawkins who were the first to pour their broadsides on the enemy, and that two Devon captains were intrusted with the

ted to look upon their like again. Generals and admirals, such as the Duke of Marlborough and Sir Francis Drake, the Grenvilles, Hawkins, Gilberts, and Carys; statesmen such as Lord Chancellor King, ecclesiastics such as Stephen Langton, Jewel, and Hooker; and, greatest of all, Sir Walter Raleigh, statesman, philosopher and poet, famous alike on sea and land. Ay, and in the old book to which we have already alluded, you will find the histories of men of Devon, many of them less widely known indeed, but not less deserv ing of record and remembrance. Here, for instance, is the story of one of them which well merits a place in these old chronicles.

The man's name was William Adams; he was a sailor, born at Paignton, "an ancient village, lying in the bosom of Torbay, about the year of our Lord 1612, of mean and obscure parentage, but inasmuch," continues our author, "as he was one of those five men who enterprised and compassed an exploit of as high resolution and difficult performance as can be paralleled in history, I hope it will be looked upon as no disparagement to our famous worthies to insert him here."

Now it appears that in the year 1639, William Adams, being then twenty-seven years old, took ship with several others at Gravesend, for the West Indies. They had not been at sea many days before