Then were again seen in the streets faces which called up strange and terrible recollections of the day when the saints, with the high praises of God in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hands, had bound kings with chains, and nobles with links of iron. Then were again heard voices which had shouted Privilege' by the coach of Charles I. in the time of his tyranny, and had called for 'Justice' in Westminster Hall on the day of his trial. It has been the fashion to represent the excitement of this period as the effect of the Popish plot. To us it seems clear that the Popish plot was rather the effect than the cause of the general agitation. It was not the disease, but a symptom, though, like many other symptoms, it aggravated the severity of the disease. In 1660 or 1661 it would have been utterly out of the power of such men as Oates or Bedloe to give any serious disturbance to the Government. They would have been laughed at, pilloried, well pelted, soundly whipped, and speedily forgotten. In 1678 or 1679 there would have been an outbreak, if those men had never been born. For years things had been steadily tending to such a consummation. Society was one vast mass of combustible matter. No mass so vast and so combustible ever waited long for a spark.

Rational men, we suppose, are now fully agreed that by far the greater part, if not the whole of Oates's story was a pure fabrication. It is, indeed, highly probable that, during his intercourse with the Jesuits, he may have heard much wild talk about the best means of re-establishing the Catholic religion in England, and that from some of the absurd daydreams of the zealots with whom he then associated he may have taken hints for his narrative. But we do not believe that he was privy to anything which deserved the name of conspiracy. And it is quite certain that, if there be any small portion of truth in his

evidence, that portion is so deeply buried in falsehood that no human skill can now effect a separation. We must not, however, forget, that we see his story by the light of much information which his contemporaries did not at first possess. We have nothing to say for the witnesses, but something in mitigation to offer on behalf of the public. We own that the credulity which the nation showed on that occasion seems to us, though censurable indeed, yet not wholly inexcusable.

Our ancestors knew, from the experience of several generations at home and abroad, how restless and encroaching was the disposition of the Church of Rome. The heir-apparent of the crown was a bigoted member of that Church. The reigning king seemed far more inclined to show favour to that Church than to the Presbyterians. He was the intimate ally, or rather the hired servant, of a powerful king, who had already given proofs of his determination to tolerate within his dominions no other religion than that of Rome. The Catholics had begun to talk a bolder language than formerly, and to anticipate the restoration of their worship in all its ancient dignity and splendour. At this juncture, it is rumoured that a Popish plot has been discovered. A distinguished Catholic is arrested on suspicion. It appears that he has destroyed almost all his papers. A few letters, however, have escaped the flames; and these letters are found to contain much alarming matter, strange expressions about subsidies from France, allusions to a vast scheme which would give the greatest blow to the Protestant religion that it had ever received,' and which would utterly subdue a utterly subdue a pestilent heresy.' Such expressions were found in the letters of Coleman, secretary to the Duchess of York. Just after the discovery of these papers, Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, the magistrate before whom Titus Oates, the informer, had

sworn his information of a plot amongst the Catholics, was found dead in a field near London, with a sword run through his heart. Of Titus Oates no good was known. He had been in succession a Baptist minister, a curate, a navy chaplain, a resident as a convert to Catholicism at the Jesuit houses of Valladolid and St. Omer. From this last he was driven out for misconduct. He then came to London, and swore the information referred to. Abroad he had heard something of a meeting of Jesuits in London, though this was but the ordinary congregation of the order. To some extent he may have believed that there was a plot, but he embellished his narrative with many highly-coloured and purely imaginary details. Little attention would have been paid to him, but the discovery of Coleman's letters, the murder of Sir Edmondsbury Godfrey, and the suspicion which the nation had of the court, all combined to throw the people into a perfect frenzy of terror."

A determined effort, which only just failed, was made to kill the Duke of York, who some time since had turned Catholic, and who, as brother of the king, was the nearest heir from the throne, and a great number of men were accused, condemned, and executed, for their share in this imaginary plot. However sad this was, we cannot wonder at it very much, for a state trial of those days was very unfair; and, indeed, "till the Revolution purified our institutions and our manners, a state trial was merely a murder preceded by the uttering of certain gibberish, and the performance of certain mummeries.

The opposition had now the great body of the nation with them. Thrice the king dissolved the Parliament; and thrice the constituent body sent him back representatives fully determined to keep strict watch on all his measures, and to exclude his brother from the throne. Had the character of Charles resembled that of his father, this intes

tine discord would infallibly have ended in a civil war. Obstinacy and passion would have been his ruin. His levity and apathy were his security. He resembled one of those light Indian boats which are safe because they are pliant, which yield to the impact of every wave, and which therefore bound without danger through a surf in which a vessel ribbed with heart of oak would inevitably perish. The only thing about which his mind was unalterably made up was that, to use his own phrase, he would not go on his travels again for anybody or for anything. His easy, indolent behaviour produced all the effects of the most artful policy. He suffered things to take their course; and if Achitophel had been at one of his ears, and Machiavel at the other, they could have given him no better advice than to let things take their course. He gave way to the violence of the movement, and waited for the corresponding violence of the rebound. He exhibited himself to his subjects in the interesting character of an oppressed king, who was ready to do anything to please them, and who asked of them, in return, only some consideration for his conscientious scruples, and for his feelings of natural affection, who was ready to accept any ministers, to grant any guarantees to public liberty, but who could not find it in his heart to take away his brother's birthright. Nothing more was necessary. He had to deal with a people whose noble weakness it has always been not to press too hardly on the vanquished, with a people the lowest and most brutal of whom cry Shame!' if they see a man struck when he is on the ground. sentment which the nation had felt towards the court began to abate as soon as the court was manifestly unable to offer any resistance. The panic which Godfrey's death had excited gradually subsided. Every day brought to light some new falsehood or contra

The re

diction in the stories of Oates and Bedloe. The people were glutted with the blood of Papists, as they had, twenty years before, been glutted with the blood of regicides. When the first sufferers in the plot were brought to the bar, the witnesses for the defence were in danger of being torn in pieces by the mob. Judges, jurors, and spectators seemed equally indifferent to justice, and equally eager for revenge. Lord Stafford, the last sufferer, was pronounced not guilty by a large minority of his peers; and when he protested his innocence on the scaffold, the people cried out, God bless you, my lord; we believe you, my lord.' The attempt to make a son of Lucy Waters King of England was alike offensive to the pride of the nobles and to the moral feeling of the middle class. The old Cavalier party, the great majority of the landed gentry, the clergy and the universities almost to a man, began to draw together, and to form in close array round the throne."

And so the reaction went on. Notwithstanding the unblushing assertions of Oates, four of his victims were acquitted.

Desperate efforts were indeed made by the unscrupulous Earl of Shaftesbury to keep up the delusion! Fresh informers were brought forward to swear to a conspiracy for the assassination of the earl himself, and to the share of the Duke of York in the designs of his fellow religionists. A paper found in a meal tub was produced as evidence of this new danger. Gigantic torchlight processions paraded the streets of London, and the effigy of the Pope was burnt amidst the wild outcry of a vast multitude. But it was all in vain; the nation had seen its errors, and repented of them. The Duke of York, though himself a Catholic, had Protestant children, and it was not thought proper by the nation to pass these over and place on the throne the son of Lucy Waters and the dissolute monarch, even though he had been created Duke of Monmouth.

Even Shaftesbury himself was arrested for bringing forward false witnesses to swear to the plot. He was soon released; but nothing could show more conclusively how the popular rage had abated.

ALE OF THE

A TALE

T is not our intention to give here a history of the Scottish Covenanters, or of their struggles and sufferings in the cause of civil and religious liberty. Yet, as an illustration of this period in the history of Britain, we shall tell the following simple,

yet interesting story, which is founded on a tradition of some antiquity. Peaceful and pleasant, rural Scotland now is. The feeling that now comes over one on a peaceful evening there is well described in the following lines:

'Tis even as if reluctant to depart,

Far in the mellow'd west lingers the light, Like happy moments waning from the heart;

The bat flits round, and ushers in the night; O'erhead, unseen, majestic sails the owl;

Dark, from the furze, the foumart creeps abroad, To go his rounds nocturnal, and to prowl

To lap the dew, and prey on frog and toad;
In ether high, the solan passes by,
To southern climes, and a more clement sky.

Sleep Nature's charms: The trees are dimly seen;
Now and anon the sear leaf falls to earth;
Dark is the bosom of the tarn serene,-
And there not heard the schoolboy's frolic mirth.
The patient angler from the lake is gone;

The watch-dog barks by hamlet door afar ;-
Perhaps some almer tired, homeless and lone,

Who now may curse his inauspicious star, Approaches to crave lodging for the night,Haply an honest, though a luckless wight.

Now cot and castle in one chaos lie,

The cloud of night makes all alike without; Not so within :-When supper time is by,

The decent cottagers, with hearts devout,

* For a full account of the Covenanters, see "Picturesque Scotland," by Francis Watt and Rev. A. Carter, issued by the publishers of this volume.

ERS.

To God give worship, ere they go to rest

His blessing bathes their hearts in balmy sleep, Sweet as the linnet's in its sylvan nest;

The lordling, and his creatures revel deep Till morn, then stagger to a couch of down; Yet sleep they not so soft as simple clown.

Far in the north-east peers a cheerful light Above the mist, that seems a mountain dim; And yonder star, so beautiful, so bright

Haply the home of blessed seraphimBurns like a watch-fire on the hill of God.

But what the radiant orb is, who can say? Though Galileo's tube its heavenly road

May trace, yet what, in its own native day There lives, earth's habitant can never know, And immortality alone shall show.

How pure it glows! I ever loved, and love Yon beauteous star. My thought in youthhood 'twas,

As 'neath its silvery shine I wont to rove,

That there might be on earth some lovely lass, Kind, fair, and beautiful as its chaste ray,

And with my heart's love I would woo the maid, And lead her to green walks, and arbours gay, With young June's sweet and bloomy charms array'd::

This is the inborn dream of Paradise,

Past, and to come, and God is good and wise.

The moon is up! and, with a mellow ray,

She shines on what she loves-the rural home :The cotters, rested now-their feelings gay, They from the cheerful-lowing ingle come, To see her rising o'er the distant hill:

In her unclouded disc, the peasant sees Fair vale, and heathy alp, and crystal rill,And hers, he weens, must be a land of peace; No despot there, to take the honest life; God is the King, in whom all things are blithe.

It came and comes pure from an holy source.
Ye who drink inspiration at the stream,
Pollute it not in its joy-giving course;
Amelioration's no Utopian dream.
Philosophy, be it thy sacred task,

Truth to disseminate the poor among ;
And, Poesy, as thou dost musing bask

In fancy's sunshine, conning o'er thy song Be it of virtue, freedom, truth, and peace, Till tyranny and war on earth shall cease.

"Two centuries ago, how different was the prospect! From one case let us learn all. One of the most popular of the covenanting preachers was the Rev. Thomas Myddleton, formerly minister of an Ayrshire parish. "Driven out for refusing to take the oaths required by government, he still continued his ministrations in the open air. To one of these meetings, which were held in remote districts for fear of the dragoons, Myddleton was one day going, accompanied by his brother William. The

cause of truth and justice,' he was saying, 'will yet triumph in our land, for her people are neither daunted by oppression, nor wearied out by delay.' No answer being returned to the observation, Myddleton turned round, and, to his horror, saw that his brother had, through hunger and fatigue, fainted. He knelt down beside him, and chafed his temples with his hands till consciousness returned. Myddleton was considering within himself how to obtain nourishment for him, when to his joy one of his elders appeared in sight, bearing their morning meal. When his brother had swallowed a few mouthfuls, his strength returned in some degree; and, with the old man's assistance, he led him towards the assembled worshippers.

The little glen in which they had met was almost surrounded with hills; and through its bottom flowed a mountain stream. Here and there over it were scattered clumps of sloe and hazel bushes; and in its centre rose an ancient cairn the tomb of some warrior of the olden time-which for that day was to serve in the place of a pulpit.

The men of the Covenant did well in carrying their worship to the fields. There is something that strikes the spirit with awe, in the spectacle of multitudes praising God under the open canopy of heaven. The public service of God is far more impressive when performed in the cathedral of nature-the walls of which are the eternal mountains, and the roof of which is the lofty skythan in temples built by the hands of men. Doubtless the Covenanter felt, as he worshipped in the lonely glen, that he was bearing witness to the truth under the open eye of Heaven. Fervent must have been that spirit which brought the grey-haired man of threescore and ten with the still yellow-haired boy, and the old and tottering crone with the bashful village maiden, far up into the mountains, to worship their God in their own manner, though they knew not but that their earthly reward might be the gibbet or the block.

Such an assembly as this was the one to which Myddleton and his brother approached. There was no greeting, no salutation, but many a 'God bless you both,' was murmured around them. The meeting was still and solemn; for those composing it felt that they were by their presence binding themselves yet more firmly to a good and holy, but a perilous cause. Though no present danger was apprehended, sentinels were placed on the tops of the surrounding hills, and the services of the day were commenced in peace, and with a feeling of security.

The solemn prayer was prayed, and while the assembly lifted up their voices in praise, the hills answered with many an echo. After the preliminary services of the day were gone through, Mr. Myddleton commenced his discourse. He told his hearers that they were that day met to do honour to the name of that beneficent Being, who made and preserved them. He told them of man's evil state, and of God's great mercy;