puzzling to them than theirs to you. But I pray you

all to

be orderly, gentle, and polite, that after our departure it may be said that you knew the duties of your station, and the reverence belonging to your lord; for the commendations that you may attain by the propriety of your behaviour will reflect the greater honour on your prince and country."

From Calais Wolsey proceeded towards Amiens. Francis having, as a mark of his esteem, empowered him to pardon all criminals, except those guilty of high treason, murder, or sacrilege, he passed on, distributing his mercy on every side. When he had arrived at a short distance from the city, word was brought that Francis and the court were advancing to meet him. He immediately alighted, and entering a small chapel which stood on the road-side, he arrayed himself more sumptuously than usual, and his mule was at the same time caparisoned with gold and crimson velvet. By the time he was again mounted the king with his guards had come very near. The cardinal advanced a little way, and then stopped. Francis, surprised, sent forward one of his attendants to inquire the cause. Wolsey said, he expected to be met half-way. The messenger returned, and the king advancing, the cardinal also came forward, and both alighting at the same time, embraced in the midway, between their respective retinues.

Francis now placed Wolsey on his right hand; and each English gentleman and attendant being furnished and marshalled by a Frenchman of equal rank, the procession, extending nearly two miles in length, proceeded to Amiens, and thence to the castle of Compiegne, and the business which had been preluded with so much grandeur now commenced; but in the early stage of it, he was frequently irritated by the crooked policy and chicanery of the French ministers; and one day, when the French king was himself

present, he lost all patience, and starting from his seat said to the French chancellor indignantly, "Sir, it becomes not you to trifle with the friendship between our sovereigns; and if your master follow your practices, he shall not fail shortly to feel what it is to war against England," and he immediately left the room, nor could he be induced to return, until he had been implored to do so by the queen mother.

This was the bold conduct of an Englishman, and the matter under discussion was speedily brought to a conclusion; and an important treaty it was, although the particulars of it need not be recapitulated. There is one part of it, however, which shows that Wolsey was a resolute enemy to anything like Papal usurpation; for it declared that any commandment, sentence, bull, letter, or brief, proceeding from the Pope, who was then under durance, should not be obeyed, if contrary to the interests of the two kings, or to the legatine authority of Cardinal Wolsey: and thus it was that the Pope, for the first time, was put on a level with the secular princes.

Wolsey had now attained the meridian of his fortune. In every transaction abroad his name was mentioned, and his influence felt; the learned and the artistic geniuses of all countries came trooping to his gates, and the kingdom resounded with the fame of his influence, and the noise of the buildings which he was erecting to luxury and knowledge. His revenues derived from the fines in the legantine courts, the archbishopric of York, the bishopric of Winchester, with several other bishoprics, and the abbey of St. Albans, together with the pensions granted to him by Charles and Francis, the emoluments of the chancellorship, the revenues of the bishoprics of Badajos and Placentia in Spain, with rich occasional presents from all the allies of the king, and the

wealth and domains of forty dissolved monasteries, formed an aggregate of income equal to the royal revenues. His mansions and he had several-exhibited the finest productions of art which such wealth could command in the highest period of art in the age of Leo X. The walls of his chambers were hung with cloth of gold, and tapestry still more precious; the floors were covered with embroidered carpets, and sideboards of cypress were loaded with vessels of gold. The sons of the nobility, according to the fashion of the age, attended him as pages, and the daily service of the household corresponded with the opulence and ostentation of the master.

The entertainment which the cardinal gave at Hampton Court to the French commissioners sent to ratify the league, exceeded in splendour every banquet which had before that time been celebrated in England. Two hundred and eighty beds, with furniture of the costliest silks and velvets, and as many ewers and basins of silver, were prepared for the guests. The halls were illuminated with innumerable sconces and branches of plate. Supper was announced by the sound of trumpets, and served with triumphal music. But the master was not yet come. He had been detained late in London; and the dessert, which consisted of figures, castles, and cathedrals in confectionery, with all the emblems of ecclesiastical pomp and the pageantry of chivalry, was on the table when he entered, booted and spurred. Having welcomed his guests in a golden cup filled with hippocras-the French commissioners were served at the same time with another, and reciprocally drank to the health of their respective sovereigns. Wolsey then retired to dress, and returning speedily to the company, exerted those convivial talents which had first contributed to the attainment of this excessive grandeur. The Frenchmen doubted which most to admire,—the mansion, the feast,

or the master. Wolsey felt exultingly gratified, and the measure of his greatness could hold no more.

The grandeur of Wolsey, in a political point of view, equalled his domestic splendour. He was, perhaps, possessed of greater absolute power than any subject before his time. had ever enjoyed. He was virtually the head of the church in England, prime minister, chancellor, legislator of the two universities, arbiter of disputes between the king and foreign princes,-in short, he was "everything everywhere;" and the only wonder is, that the success of his great career, his enormous power and wealth, did not turn his brain. Not so! His head did not turn dizzy from the height he had reached. He kept his eyes upon what he thought to be a higher summit still, and climbed onwards and upwards, till at last the ground gave way under him. He found kingly friendship but a quicksand, and it was his fate to exhibit one of the most striking instances in the history of mankind of the instability of earthly grandeur, the ingratitude of despotic power, and the folly of ambition.

HE people of Spain are a high-minded race, and as noble as they are valiant. Some centuries ago they were pretty nearly cocks of the European walk, but somehow or other the British lion clipped their wings, and pretty nearly wrung their necks, and they could crow longer. But Spain is in

no

a fair way now of being a rising nation, especially if it pays its debts, which is the first thing, either for a nation or an individual to do, if he or it means to be A No. 1 in the European fraternity. But boys cannot expect to know much about that, nor to care much about it either; they would much rather see a bull fight-not such a miserable affair as