with as little effusion as possible of Christian blood, from the imminent danger of Popery and slavery.' There, James, that language is plain enough. Popery and slavery-the dread of these it was that terrified the length and breadth of the land, and from these came I to deliver the people. Howbeit, Popery can never, henceforth, be the established religion in this country, for by my Bill of Rights it is enacted, that the subjects are absolved from their allegiance, and that the crown shall pass to the next heir thereof if the then possessor of it in England shall hold communion with the Church of Rome or marry a Papist. As your authority was still acknowledged in Ireland, you embarked, the year after, from France, to try and regain your forfeited dominions; but I beat you at the battle of the Boyne, and myself and my Orangemen have ever since celebrated this victory, which was at once the triumph of Protestantism and liberty. Your son, the Pretender, tried his fortune afterwards in Scotland, in 1715; and in 1745 your grandson, the young Pretender, tried again; but the battle of Culloden ended these projects for ever. During the rest of your days you were a pensioner on the King of France; and some amusing anecdotes of that time any statue may read in Madame de Sévigné's Letters; but your disappointments and blighted hopes weighed upon you, and you took to a lowly life of piety. You visited the poor monks of La Trappe, and subjected yourself to many unkinglike acts of privation, penitence, and mortification. Such transitions, however, appear to me very inconsistent. I have noted them amongst persons around me in the nineteenth century. When people meet with reverses, or when they find that their earthly career of ambition, and sometimes of sin, is nearly run out, and there is not much to live for, then they pay God the compliment of turning to religion. To me this looks more like a mockery than anything else. But rest you content, James; for regret can have no part with you or your family now. Your descendants have all died off, and hence the throne of England is nothing to them. Wherefore, that being all over, I will end by singing, 'God save the Queen.' By-the-bye, James, what will you sing?"

TO A DYING GIRL.

BY MRS. CHARLES TINSLEY.

NoT from the home made joyous by thy presence,
Not from its hope that cleaveth to thee still,
Not from its deep love, an undying essence,
Art thou departing at thy Father's will;
Not from the hearts to which thy childhood gave
Sweet promise, art thou passing to the grave.

Not from the quiet paths that thou hast brighten'd
With youth's unsetting sunshine through all hours;
Not from the household cares that thou hast lighten'd
With song and laughter-time's fast fading flowers--
Not from love's faith-born dreams, so fair, so free,
Art thou call'd forth-for these are full of thee!

Thou art but summon'd-ere the spell be broken
That circleth, halo-like, thy future day-
From the cold truths so oft in darkness spoken
To every fated lingerer by the way;

From all of life that bears so stern a part
In the sad history of woman's heart.

From lavish waste of that exhaustless treasure,
Her soul's affections, an unsounded deep,
That, freely pour'd and given without measure,
Yield back so little, save the right to weep!
From the first dread, and most unselfish trust,
That bartereth sumless wealth for sordid dust.

From shrinking thoughts as the rich sunlight dyeth,
And the rude gusts of worldliness sweep past,
While round the heart a scatter'd heap there lieth
Of faith and feeling-fashion'd not to last!
From the cold consciousness that all around,
Life, love itself, is disenchanted ground!

From weary watchings o'er some death-bound slumber,
When the lip's murmur'd hope must break the heart;
From patient anguish as the hoarded number

Of the soul's day-stars, one by one depart;

From all the griefs, the fears-than death more strong,
And oft as silent-that to love belong.

From these thou goest, and art blest in going;
Not from the earth departest thou alone;
With thee go forth high hopes, divinely glowing,
True faith and love that shrine thee as their own!
And to thy heaven shall rise full many a prayer
From hearts that joy to own one treasure there!

THE INSANE COURTIER.

BY MRS. EDWARD THOMAS.

CHAPTER I.

Fly from the court's pernicious neighbourhood,
Where innocence is sham'd, and blushing modesty
Is made the scorner's jest; where hate, deceit,
And deadly ruin wear the masks of beauty,
And draw deluded fools with shows of pleasure.
Rowe's Jane Shore.

CATHARINE the Second, having secured to herself and son the throne of Russia, by the assassinations of her poor weak-minded husband, Peter the Third, and Prince Ivan, son of Anne of Mecklenburg, and Prince Anthony Ulric, and great great nephew to Peter the First, and consequently lawful heir to the empire, Paul Petrovitz, Catharine's son, being well known to be illegitimate, secured also her third of the territory of Poland from her former favourite, and now subservient and intimidated puppetking, the unhappy and degraded Poniatowski, triumphed over her enemies in the Isles of Greece, planted her victorious flag in the Archipelago, conquered the Turks in Syria and Egypt, and made herself mistress of the Crimea, the Isle of Taman, and a great part of the Kuban, and the unrestricted navigation of the Dardanelles by a treaty which the harassed and exhausted Ottoman Porte was at last too glad to sign with such a powerful adversary. Satiated with conquest, and confident of success the moment she chose to engage in fresh wars, she resolved to repose for a time on the laurels already so gloriously won, and abandon herself to the pleasures and dissipations of her elegant and voluptuous court.

She had taken care to remove far from it all those whose presence might awaken disagreeable reflections, particularly Count Orlof and his brothers, who had taken such a fearfully active part in her aggrandizement. Loaded with wealth and honours, they lived in a distant part of the kingdom, unthought of and unregretted.

In the full zenith of her power and beauty, absolute sovereign of the finest and most flourishing empire of Europe, universally admired for her daring courage, extraordinary talents, and liberal patronage of the arts and sciences, she felt the supremacy of her exalted situation, she felt that she had achieved her own great

ness, and she gloried in the proud consciousness that on her the eyes of the universe were fixed in wondering admiration. She felt, however, no compunctious visitings of conscience, no remorseful whisperings how that splendour had been attained; she shuddered not to think that adultery, murder, and every crime of which human nature can be guilty, tarnished the lustre of her name, and would hand it down to posterity dyed in the ineffaceable hue of her fellow-creatures' blood.

Too sensual, too worldly-minded, too intoxicated with prosperity, to reflect on her enormities, she lived only for the present, in a whirl of pleasure, the past fading from her memory in the remoteness of oblivion, and the future being, as she thought, and as, alas! we all think, too far distant to obtrude or annoy. She, therefore, unscrupulously yielded to every impulse, seizing on all occasions to gratify her inclinations of luxurious enjoyment.

One evening after a grand masked ball, feeling no inclination to retire to rest, she ordered refreshments to be taken to her own private and splendid suite of apartments, where, seating herself on a superb Persian divan, round which clustered the favoured beauties and gallant cavaliers admitted into that secret temple of seduction, and knowing her powers of repartee and sarcasm, and moreover, from that envy innate in the human breast, wishing to wound the feelings of one younger and lovelier than herself, and who, in her profligate court, yet boasted of an unsullied reputation, Catharine commenced a lively and animated discussion on the nature of love and jealousy, with the beautiful and accomplished Princess Dashkof, asking her, half in badinage, and half in seriousness, "whether she believed a woman ever really forgave a successful rival ?"

The poor princess saw the snare spread for her by the wily and triumphant empress, yet knew not how to escape it, or even conceal her pained and mortified sensibilities, for her attachment to Orlof, whom Catharine had allured from her by the magnificent bait of ambition, was well known to all present, and she felt assured that any display of wounded pride, anger, or distress would only afford amusement and gratification to the heartless throng, and convince Catharine how pitiless were her talents for mordant raillery, than which nothing would please her better. Suppressing her emotion as much as possible, she replied,

“Really, madam, I have had so little experience in the subtle and delicate movements of the heart that I am quite at a loss to reply. Your majesty, I should imagine, would be the most profound judge in such tender affairs."

Whether this was said premeditatedly, or was merely one of those unintentional strokes of refined satire with which the innocent sometimes confound and astonish the guilty, Catharine could not divine from the placid countenance and mild eyes which un

shrinkingly bore her scrutinizing gaze, but she was evidently galled to the quick by it, and, with heightened colour and flashing eyes, she imperiously exclaimed,

"To the point, to the point; no evasion, princess; I ask you again whether a woman ever sincerely forgives a successful rival?" The tears sprang to the eyes of the luckless girl as she thought of what it had cost her to partially forgive the being who had wrecked the fondest hopes of her young heart, and with a faltering tongue she replied,

66

Yes, madam, from her soul a generous woman does pardon a successful rival."

An involuntary murmur of applause at this noble sentiment told Catharine that she had failed in her cruel intention, that innocence and virtue still met with the approbation it merited, which even her most servile sycophants could not withhold, although at the risk of her displeasure. But, far from being discouraged by this signal failure, she felt her determination to humble the princess yet increase by the unequivocal triumph just obtained over her astute malignity; she, therefore, without evincing the slightest resentment, adroitly seized on the word "generous" to change the subject, by asking the princess "whether she, placable as she was, believed in the possibility of a generous compassion ever succeeding a disappointed or extinguished passion of a more ardent nature? She admitted," she continued, "that pity might be awakened in the bosom, but then only a contemptible commiseration -a commiseration which utterly degraded the object on which it was bestowed."

The young courtiers crowded round the fair disputants, highly amused at the singularity of the contest; a contest which deeply interested their amour-propre, and their secret wishes were for the lovely princess, who, with the unguarded warmth and enthusiasm of youth, too easily yielded to the fascination of supporting her favourite theory, by declaring, "that when once a pure and exalted passion had existed in the heart, that whatever feeling succeeded it must be of a generous description, even if faithlessness and treachery had rewarded that fond heart's confidence ; that when a woman had once sincerely loved, neither hatred nor contempt for the object that had inspired that affection could supersede it the heart repudiated the bare idea; that nothing but the certainty that that object was steeped in crime could change the sentiments of the heart for it, and then, oh, God! oh, God!" added the beauteous speaker, with thrilling emotion, “not pity but horror must succeed.'

Again was Catharine defeated; but unaccustomed to submit, she endeavoured to recover her lost ground by the potent assistance of ridicule; she, therefore, with an affected laugh, "protested that she had never heard anything so charmingly romantic, that