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the Old Jewry, and there" done to death." And then arose the second rhyme, carrolled exultingly by the common people, heedless of stocks or whipping-post:

"Le Charles and George do what they can, The duke shall die like Doctor Lamb.

that it had not been, if not foretold, at least darkly alluded to, especially with the marked prognostic of an eclipse of the sun! But the wily almanac-makers doubtless looked wise, and talked of constructive treason, and pointed significantly to the Star Chamber. It is in consequence, probably, of this fear of being supposed to meddle with "affairs of state," that these almanacs deal in no dark hints how "

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Little heeded the duke such threats; he had defied impeachment of the Commons, and the hatred of the whole land; but two months only passed, and then the white-tain personage, high in office, gets, about handled knife of John Felton avenged look black in a certain quarter, and let this time, into trouble;" or how things the nation, and awfully fulfilled the pro- those about court beware." In the following phecyreign, amid the strife of opinion and arms, almanac-makers were more out-spoken; and roundhead and cavalier, episcopalian and presbyterian, even the fifth monarchyman, thanks to Lilly, Booker, and Partridge, might each have an almanac just to his mind.

&: Bloody death shalt thou die."

Can we wonder at the intense and unquestioning faith in supernatural premonitions that then prevailed, when we find even the course of events thus singularly encouraging that belief.

The almanacs of James the First's reign, however, abound with general warnings. There is in most of them a long list of "things to be done in the increase of the moon," and what is to be done in the wane. They also quite emulate Murphy in their exact prognostics of the weather; not hesitatingly, like Francis Moore, with his "rain more or less about this time;" but boldly, as though there were an actual "clerk of the weather," and his most efficient services had been procured,-declaring that the 21st shall be rainy, and the 26th quite fair;

The period was fertile, too, in "signs from heaven." A comet heralded that severe visitation of the plague in London, of which George Withers has left us so curious, though so unpoetical a description. A comet also appeared at the breaking out of the Palatine war; an eclipse of the sun took place in the May preceding Prince Henry's death; and that most rare appearance, a beautiful, well-defined lunar rainbow stretched across the palace of St. James when he there lay dying. With ominous eagerness was this sign pointed to by Dr. Mayerne, as an unquestionable proof that he could not recover. It is not surprising that almanacs at this period were in general use. Indeed, if the age of Elizabeth was the age of pamphlets, that of James the First may be called that of almanacs. We turned over, a short time since, a collection of these-above a score -for the year 1612; and truly no stronger proof of the "vanity of such devices," could be given than the various and conflicting opinions of their authors, as to coming events. "The great eclipse" of the 22nd of May is duly noted; but while one learned doctor determines that "by it we may foresee great robberies by the highways and burglaries," because "Mercury is in the The various information contained in ascendant," another declares that while its these little "Handbooks of the People,”— effects will not take place until "between for such, indeed, they then were,-gives us, the 12th of October and the 12th of Janua- on the whole, a favorable opinion of the ry," the result will be, "jangling contro- general state of information. All of them versies between clergymen and lawyers." have a sort of astronomical lecture prefixed; When the unexpected death of Prince which, although certainly not Newtonian, Henry took place, doubtless men wondered is yet in accordance with the learning of the

with a due intermixture of days neither cold nor hot, and some with a smart shower" to finish with. But it was to the list of" lucky and unlucky days" that our forefathers turned with the greatest interest. Some of the directions for conduct on these days, in "Bretnors" almanac, are very curious. Thus, on the 3rd and 12th of January, the word is, "Presse for prefermente;" while for the 6th, it is "Please the old one." On February 20th, the oracle says, "Speake and speede;" while on the 25th of March, it is "Look about you ;" and on the 2nd of April," Be bold for it." The 27th and 31st of December give, "Presse on and prevaile;" while December 24th, Christmas-eve, too, most ominously points to " A rope and a halter!"

times. They have also "a table of dis-" and my coach-horses, mother, must take tances of some of the most famous cities in the wall of yours,' "did the remark appear the world, from the honorable City of Lon- so very laughable to them as to us. don." Mexico, Quinzas (whatever city From the pictures of manners in the conthat may be), Jerusalem, and "Calicut," temporary drama, so much frivolity and ex-scarcely known, we should have thought, travagance, so much destitution of high and then, the precursor of our eastern me- noble feeling appear, that we marvel from tropolis, Calcutta, -and Nineveh! and whence the next generation derived their Babylon! which is just 2710 miles off, and lofty views and stern principles. It could about forty others, figure in this table. The not be the mere reflection of the dramatist's compiler is, however, strangely out in his own mind that bodied forth the fine characcalculations respecting cities nearer home, ters of the Elizabethan school, and then the for he makes Edinburgh only 286 miles off. reckless, mean-spirited, or else Quixotic perWe must, however, not forget to mention, sonages of the succeeding. No, it was the that there is also a table of remarkable earnest religious spirit of the earlier period events, "from the creation of the world." that gave even to the drama its elevated In contemplating the general character of character; and its deficiency was the cause the people, we cannot but perceive that it of the deterioration, not of dramatic literawas inferior to that in the reign of Eliza- ture alone, but of national manners. beth. The influence of so corrupt, so With many who take their estimate of abandoned a court was necessarily widely King James from the servile dedication still felt; and although its worst characteristics prefixed to the Bible, the age that witnesswere confined to its immediate sphere, stilled its new translation, made with so much greater profanity, greater extravagance, and care, and under the especial auspices of the less decorous manners were the result. The monarch, must appear religious. And so, if love of expensive dress seems to have in- " forms and ceremonies" are the all in all, creased so inordinately, that worthy mayors it certainly was. No prelate, indeed, upand aldermen, after the usage of the times, lifted his voice amid all the crying iniquihad constantly to promulgate newer and ties of the court, but many fought vehemore stringent sumptuary laws, to prevent mently for "the divine right of episcopawomen "below the rank of an alderman's cy;" and all inculcated the duty of churchwife" from wearing "three-piled velvet," going, and of adherence in the minutest and such braveries; and to keep the ap- points to the rubric and canons. Moreover, prentices to their old-accustomed kersey the churches were adorned with splendid hose and blue gowns. The dramatists of altar-plate, and the king's choristers ministhe day afford us many traits of the almost tered in rich copes. And with much uncunimagined luxury and state of the "city tion do the compilers of " Hierurgia Anglimadams," who were determined, as far as cana detail the "decent and orderly" they could, to imitate the pomp and show array of church ornaments in Bishop Anof the ladies of the court. Nor have we drews' private chapel. The two candlereason to think that these descriptions sticks with tapers, the bason for oblations, are exaggerated, when we remember the the canister for the wafers, silver gilt, modest request of Lady Compton, for like a wicker basket, and lined with cam"twenty gowns, 6000l. to buy me jewels, bric laced!" the flagon, the chalice covered and 4000l. for a pearl chain ;" or the royal with a napkin embroidered in colored silks; state of the Duchess of Richmond, who went to the chapel at Ely House-"three gentlemen-ushers, in velvet gowns and gold chains, going before with wands; six ladies following, and two to hold up her train."

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the tricanale "with screw cover, and three pipes for the water of mixture;" and the silver censer, "wherein the clerk putteth frankincense at the reading of the first lesson; and the navicula, out of which the frankincense is poured!" Can we wonder that the Puritans of King James's days were intractable as they had been in Elizabeth's, and that many preferred exile to ministering at altars thus decked?

The "pride of place" was stoutly maintained at this period by all who had claim to precedence of any kind. And this, sufficiently ridiculous in the court ladies, and source of endless squabbles, was emulated by the civic dames: nor when the daughter Happily for religion, in many of the who has married a knight, in that amusing more remote parts of the land, some of picture of London manners, "Eastward these confessors found a secure asylum, and Hoe," tells her mother, with no little pride, there kept alive the flame of religion, which

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but for their efforts would have died out. (almost at the same time, endured a far And despite of strict and severe search, sterner captivity, almost deprived of air many continued in London, sheltered as and light-Andrew Melville. But his chaplains or tutors in the households of buoyant spirit, his heavenward hope, dwelt some "worshipful merchant," whose oppor- with him there, and the Master whom he tune loan to some nobleman purchased him served enlightened the darkness, and he becourt protection. The next generation, guiled the long, but not weary hours, by and even ourselves, separated by seven, owe writing graceful Latin verse on the walls of no common debt to those worthy laymen his cell. It was with a refinement of cruelwho sheltered and patronized the persecuted ty that James consigned his illustrious ministers of that day. It is delightful, countryman to the Tower. Had Melville turning from the disgusting details of court been sent to the Counter, the Marshalsea, profligacy, to contemplate these worthies. or Newgate, there were numberless "pious Master John Temple, of Stowe, who had citizens" who would have rejoiced to have always some grave and learned silenced visited and soothed him. In the beforeminister" in his house, and who so in- mentioned play, "Eastward Hoe," two prostructed his son-in-law, Lord Saye and fligate young men are sent to prison; they Sele, in "church matters," that he stood become penitent, and display their peninobly forth to bear his "testimony" in the tence by psalm singing. They will sit following reign, and Sir Henry Mildmay, you up all night, singing of psalms, and of the Graces, whose mansion was a secure edifying the whole prison," says the jailer, asylum to the persecuted Puritans, and "so that the neighbors cannot rest for them, whose worthy lady, with her sisters, Mistress but come every morning to ask what godly Helen Bacon and Mistress Gurdon, are so prisoners we have." How characteristic is heartily praised by that "powerful preach- this of a time of persecution, and the er" of that day, Master John Rogers, of brotherly love that always prevailed:Dedham, and Robert Bruen, Esquire, of the inquiry after the "godly prisoners," Stapleford, too, "who caused the desert to-strange term to us-and the sympathy, blossom as the rose ;" bringing the light of and the gatherings, and the visits of the the gospel into the most obscure parts of kind-hearted women, upon whom the duty Cheshire, and proving to the country round of visiting the prisoners mostly devolved, that the best Christian will also be the and the interchange of good wishes, and truest gentleman. We had frequently seen prayers. There was much quiet heroism in the account of this worthy in compilations the religion of those times, which we, in of religious biography, but were never much our days of platforms and speeches, have interested, until we took up the original lost sight of. And then there were the exmemoir. Here we see him to the life;-the iled brethren, towards whom, those who retrue old English gentleman of the seven-mained at home cast many an anxious look, teenth century-exercising a power, and an influence far beyond aught in the present day, but using them—

"As ever in his great taskmaster's eye:"adopting the stately and formal usages of a time when even the internal regulations of a household were marshalled with the strict etiquette of the Herald's College; but looked up to with affectionate reverence by his dependents, for the gentle and considerate care that kept watch over their interests, as though they were his own.

And delightful is it, too, to contemplate those confessors, who, although not called upon to endure the pillory, and the branding-iron of the next reign, "took joyfully the spoiling of their goods," and sustained long and severe imprisonment. In the same Tower of London where Sir Thomas Overbury languished and died, a noble prisoner,

and on these did the government also cast an anxious look, as though conscious of the distinguished talents of their leaders, and the wide influence their principles would eventually command. It is curious to observe how often these, although under the general name of "puritan," are referred to in the writings of this time. The Brownists, indeed, must have been still rather numerous in England, to have attracted the notice of Donne, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ben Jonson.*

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*All the puritans whom he holds up to contempt in his plays, are Brownists. In his "Alchemist," written about 1610, Ananias is represented dam;" and Tribulation is the pastor, deputed by the expressly as one of the holy brethren of Amsterbrethren abroad to visit the brethren at home. In like manner, Zeal of the Land Busy, in "Bartholomew Fair," is represented as a baker of and been" chosen by the brethren." His hostess is Banbury, who has left his oven to turn preacher, an "assisting sister of the deacons," and the

The reign of James the First is, indeed, [ James the First died in his bed, surrounda dark period in our history,-darker stilled by all that belongs to kingly state, and from succeeding the "golden days" of Eli- was duly interred with solemn obsequies, zabeth. But darkness, no less than the Laud declaring "that his rest was undoubtlight, has its appointed use, and the period edly in Abraham's bosom ;" and Williams, just contemplated formed part of the need- that to him this text might undoubtedly be ful discipline through which the nation had applied-"The zeal of thy house hath eatto pass. Thus, the ultimate effects of James en me up!" Popular opinion, however, the First's reign were beneficial to the pub- whispered that his end was not peace; and lic mind. The prestige of a court was no that "the poisoned chalice" had been held longer influential, when men were compelled to his own lip. There seems no reason to to behold what wretches were the honored believe this was the casc, although the moand courted ones there; the old nobility ther of Buckingham kept constant watch could no longer maintain their ancient ho- over him with diet drink of her own supnors when a Northampton, a, Somerset, a ply. That the wretched king feared it, Buckingham claimed them; and monarchy seems probable, from his earnest supplicaitself came to be regarded with widely diffe- tion to Lord Montgomery, his first favorite, rent views than in the reign of Elizabeth," for God's sake look that I have fair play!" after James had played his "fantastic This we believe he had; for Providence tricks." "The divinity that doth hedge a king" had long ceased to awe the people, ere king and commons met on the battlefield. And each disgraceful event of this reign exercised the minds of the people, while the strong efforts to put down all free speaking chafed that proud spirit, which but required a stimulus to arouse it. And then, an age cradled in warlike feelings could ill brook the state of inglorious repose in which "Jacobus Pacificus" delighted. Thus,| when the Palatine war broke out, many a gallant spirit set forth to aid in the struggle for religious freedom, unconscious that within twenty years a nobler struggle would await him at home. Much does England owe to those "free companies, who set forth

does not always in this life pursue crime
with open punishment; but when the trou-
bles of his son came on, when his grandson
was exiled, those who could not consider
James the First as guiltless in the mysteri-
ous cases to which we have directed the rea-
der's attention, remembered the solemn
threatening which pointed
even unto the
third and fourth generation."

66

LAND AND ASSESSED TAXES IN ENGLAND AND

SCOTLAND.-The land and assessed taxes levied in England and Scotland, in the year 1847, yielded to the National Exchequer £4,553,859, viz.: England, £4,266,088; Scotland, £287,771. The English revenue is thus made up: land tax, £1,119,878; window tax, £1,544,356; servants, £193,919; carriages,

"To fight for the gospel, and the good king of Swe- £400,457; horses for riding, £293,998; other horses

den."

The lessons of warfare taught by the illustrious Gustavus, they in turn taught the parliament soldier, and a more important lesson still;-to view inevitable war as no mere game of pride or ambition, but as a last appeal, a solemn self-sacrifice, to be hallowed by psalm and prayer.

"woman," who inquires at the Staple of News for intelligence, asks for news of "the brethren of the separation." That all these characters should be exhibited in disgusting caricature might be expected, but it is curious to observe the unconscious testimony Jonson bears to their talents and learning. The Banbury baker, while he eschews Latin, maintains the pre-eminence of Hebrew, and marshals his arguments in a scholastic form. Even the "she Brownists" express interest in questions which would have been unintelligible to most woman of that day. We seldom attack what we do not fear, surely Jonson must have deemed the Brownists no common foemen, in these often repeated notices.

and mules, £67,379; dogs, £137,757; horse dealers, £9,368; hair powder, £2.689; armorial bearings, £65,441; game duties, £143,551; composition ditto, £19,466; additional 10 per cent. £269,844; penalties, £171.

STAMP DUTIES IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.-The

net revenue derivable in England from stamp duties in the year 1847 was £6,505,888, viz, Deeds, £1,703,042; probates of wills and letters of administration, £902,380; bills of exchange, £426,559; bankers' notes, £9,696; composition for the duties on bills and notes on the Bank of England and of country bankers, £31,361; receipts, £141,215; marine insurances, £159,119; licenses and certificates, £177,129; newspapers and supplements, and papers for advertisements, £284,338; medicine, £28,660; legacies, £1,167,426; fire insurance, £956,229; gold and silver plate, £68,252; cards, £8,532; dice, £94000; advertisements, £133,567; stage-coaches, £175,850; hackney-coaches, £46,095; railways, £79,958. The stamp duties in Scotland, within the same period, yielded £576,544.

From Lowe's Magazine.

PICTURES OF DR. CHALMERS, FROM THE MEMORY OF ONE WHO LOVED HIM.

It is an afternoon of June, 1839, in the granite city of the North. A great church is full of people assembled to hear a man, who, for years, has been in the list of those accounted the conspicuous few in the British Island. His home is Scotland's capital; but he is now on an errand of philanthropy through the shires of the land, and in whatever town he rests for a day or two to stir up the people by his eloquence, thousands that have yet only heard his name, flock with eager curiosity to see his person. For the inhabitants of the granite city of the North, the meeting in their great new church that summer afternoon is an opportunity not to be lost.

The nature of the errand on which their distinguished visitor has come, is already partially known to them. The population of the island, he and others have found, has far outgrown the means provided for its religious education. In every large city, it has been found, there is a vast proportion of the inhabitants of whom it can with certainty be affirmed, that habitually they "attend no place of worship." "Allowing for a few peculiar exceptions, the part of the community included in this description, comprises precisely those whose moral and social condition renders their subjection to ecclesiastical influences the more necessary. It is respectability that has seized on the churches; the poor, the ignorant, the criminal are left to themselves. So true is this, so distinctly in all general cases is the habit of church-going an evidence of condition superior to the lowest, that, even by the mere social observer, a simultaneous increase of this habit over all parts of the country would in the present state of things, be accepted as a decisive evidence that some thorough social amelioration was secretly going on.

That the people must be educated-that only by education can the sunken masses be lifted up; as to this, all are agreed. It is, moreover, to the great existing institute, called "the Church," that most men naturally look for immediate and direct activity in this work of popular education. A body of doctrines brought home by exposition, thereby at least stimulating the intellect; a code of noble moral rules set up and enforced; reverence implanted by the habit

of worship in common; orderliness and selfcontrol secured by voluntary submission to certain articles of communion-these are things which the Church promises: and whatever differences may exist as to which form of the Church discharges its promises best, or as to the universal sufficiency of the education supplied by the Church in any of its forms, to all surely it would seem an immense point gained, if, in the midst of every polluted little mass of city life, one of these miniature institutes, such as it is, were actively at work. Imagine, as some may, various ideal schemes of culture for the human being as a man and a citizen, surely, in the meantime, even to such persons, this existing instrumentality of a Church offers some hope; one may raise stones without a silver lever. As things are, what statesman is there, what philanthropist, what sceptical student of society, even, but would think it a good thing that the great mass of the nation be thoroughly subjected to ecclesiastical influences, individual liberty, and the power of supplemental personal culture being allowed? But this, again, is tantamount to the assertion, that the whole community having been divided into masses of convenient size, there ought to be within. each of these a sufficient ecclesiastical apparatus; for by no other than this parochial system can the community be thoroughly overtaken and gone into. Whether the ecclesiastical apparatus should consist of a church, a chapel, a meeting-house, or of several chapels and meeting-houses together, is, so far as the abstract political view of the question is concerned, immaterial. Only, seeing that to ensure the national efficacy of the apparatus, the Legislature, or the old prepossessions of the nation, have selected one special form of worship, and established it, this form, in regard to extent of machinery, ought to be in thorough possession of the country; that is, ought to be represented as fully in every parish, as if all the ecclesiastical activity necessary in that parish devolved upon it. In short, in every parish of England there ought to be a Church of England-and in every parish of Scotland there ought to be a Church of Scotland; and the parishes ought to be uniformly of that size, in respect to popu

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