very humbly begging permission, &c. Mr. Stephens replied as follows: "I need not assure you that your letter gave me great surprise. I am totally at a loss to reconcile its purport with the views I have hitherto entertained of your character as a man of modesty and good sense. You must fully understand that you have no prospects in life to warrant your dreaming for a moment of the responsibilities of a wife and a family. To set your mind fully at rest on the subject, I can assure you that my daughter is engaged, and will be married in the course of a few weeks. Let me pray you, as you value your own peace of mind and welfare, to dismiss at once all notions unsuitable to your position. Remember, my dear sir, you are an usher; and in that important, though obscure office, I am sure you have talents that will make you respectable and useful. After all, I would endeavour to look at the matter in the most favourable light, remembering-to alter Seneca's adage a little amor brevis insania est.' It will be convenient to me that you should stay in your present place until midsummer, and I have no doubt your good sense will lead you to make your remaining time here agreeable to all parties. With the best wishes for your welfare," &c. Such was Peter's confusion when he read this reproof, that he forgot how to conjugate "possum,' while hearing a grammar-class.

"It seems then," said Peter, as we walked by the river," that love, like all other things, is to be purely a matter of money!" "To be sure," said I. "Does that fact dawn upon you now for the first time ?"

"Then if we have no money, we are not wanted in this part of the world," said Peter.

"Certainly not," said I; "it is a very great favour that we are allowed to exist. How dare you complain? You have twenty pounds a year."

"My parents may not live long," said Peter. "If they did not detain me, I would go to America, buy an axe, and fell timber. I might find a sociable bear in the back-woods."

In a few weeks we had the happiness of seeing Lydia whirled away to be married, while all the boys were sucking oranges. Soon afterwards Peter received excellent testimonials from the governor, and said farewell to Beechvale.

It

His career after this, though too quiet to make a story, was more honourable than felling trees in the Canadian woods. required a virtue greater than even industry-patience-long

enduring patience. He gained a situation as a private tutor, in the family of a gentleman, who paid a salary which enabled the usher to amend the circumstances of his declining parents. For them he lived and worked, buried far away from the world in a little village. His father died, and then for two years Peter supported his mother, who had lodgings in a neighbouring hamlet. There was something affecting in the circumstances of her death. She had been a very industrious wife, and up to the last month of her life she persisted in plying her needle, making shirts and other articles for sale; though Peter often argued against such over-strained industry. "I have good eyesight," she replied, " and I could not put away my time without my needle."

One evening Peter was called to attend on his mother, who had been ill for some weeks, and was suddenly seized with fatal symptoms. The son hastened across the moor to the hamlet, taking with him all his money to procure the best medical advice. When he entered the cottage his mother was dying and almost speechless. She clasped her hands together with delight, as she caught a glimpse of his face through the mist of death gathering over her eyes. Then she pointed, with hurried movements, to a little drawer in her table" There!" she gasped-" there!— it is all for my Peter!-I thought-the poor boy would need it ;" and so saying, she died in the arms of her son.

The landlady opened the drawer and found, carefully hidden in a corner, a paper packet addressed-" To my dear, dutiful son, Peter." It contained a little more than two pounds in silverthe secret profits earned by the mother's needle.

A few months after his mother's death Peter embarked for America. I received a letter from him a short time since he is still only an usher.

What is the purpose of a sketch like this? I could have made it more amusing by throwing some fictitious incidents into it; but the bare facts will serve for a moral. Do I propose a scheme for opening the way to fortune to all ushers and other young men, condemned for life to hold subordinate situations? No: the majority of mankind must always be poor. Wealth is only a luxurious disease-a plethora―never likely to spread very widely. We must all be slaves of the pocket; but we need not be slaves in soul. Among the consequences of our grand distinction between the rich and the poor some are real and unavoidable; but others are fictitious, and must be swept away. Let riches enjoy their

proper privileges. The rich man must have his tour, his winecellar, his turtle, game, hothouse fruits, and box at the Opera; and the poor man must enjoy his laugh at all such trifles. But let us not allow the aristocracy of pounds, shillings and pence in the intellectual world. The only true solace of life, for the greater number of men, must be social and intellectual. Let intellectual tastes and sympathies be the bonds of sociality; let the prejudices of caste be scouted, and the pretensions of cash be sent to their proper place-the counting-house; and then such a member of society as the usher, though condemned to poverty, will not be shut up in solitude and total obscurity. By such reasonable means, the usher might spend a happier life, even without an advanced salary. We do not expect to abolish either wealth or poverty; but God grant us a speedy riddance from the absurd prejudices connected with them!

J. GOSTICK.

New Books.

THE PROTECTOR. A VINDICATION. By J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, D. D. 8vo. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd.

HOWEVER often recited, the story of Charles and Cromwell must always interest. It is true, that every cultivated Englishman is acquainted with almost each day's occurrences from the blusterous 22nd of August, 1642, to the bitter 31st of January, 1649. But yet it can be reiterated, and be reproduced, and re-abridged, to suit each author's particular view, without wearying the reader. We were not sorry, therefore, to see Merle D'Aubigné's volume, although we did not expect from a foreigner any new elucidation either of fact or comment. Dr. D'Aubigné, or (as he particularly requests it may be expressed), Dr. Merle D'Aubigné had gained in this country, and indeed throughout the Protestant world, popularity for his "History of the Reformation." This we think was bestowed upon him more on account of his fervency as a theologian, than his powers as an historian; although it must be conceded that he has a certain picturesqueness and vigour of style, that secure the attention of those who think more of mode than matter. Writing impulsively from an energetic faith, he bestows a glow on his pages, that intellectually he might not have been able to give them. He has become the champion of what are termed evangelical principles; that is, the Calvinistic side of Protestanism, and has thus won a large

public to himself. Of his sincerity and his ability, there can be no doubts; but still a fervent theology may not be the best training for an impartial historian.

Dr. Merle D'Aubigné has been impelled by the course of his studies to see that our civil war, as it is termed, was truly a religious one. And that, therefore, the characters of the leaders in some degree affect the validity of the arguments that support each party. The high church writers made their leader not only a good and great man, but a saint and a martyr. He thinks that the same should be done for the dissenting party; and Cromwell should be enshrined, at least in history, also as a saint. It is certainly true, that immediately after the Restoration every writer who sought popularity, did so by heaping every possible opprobium on the leaders of the defeated party. The reaction had every possible aid, in the wit as well as in the profligacy of those who ultimately regained the public ear. Nor have the dissenters, at least that particular portion of them to which the Cromwellians belonged, ever been in a situation to command the suffrages or enthusiasm of the people at large. The Church of England alone, even in the temporary reaction of 1688, held the position to influence public opinion. It is, therefore, astonishing that even so much justice has been awarded to Cromwell, imperfect as it may have been, and it is of itself a sufficing proof of the intense energy and power of his nature and spirit.

We think, however, that Mr. Carlyle's able and comprehensive volumes were a sufficient record wherein to come to a conclusion as to the individual, and that there was little occasion at all, and still less from the mode in which it is performed, for this set and partial vindication. The Doctor has, indeed, felt somewhat of this himself, as he tells us that he originally only designed to pen a review, but that as the subject swelled under him, it grew into a volume. Doubtless, as whatever he writes has a universal sale, there were not wanting stimulants of all kinds to induce him to make it a substantive work.

Giving full credit, as we do, to the Doctor, for an earnest and sincere faith in all he utters, we can hardly blame him for this vindication not being more artfully made. We must take it as the expression of a belief rather than a subtle exercise of logical power. It has not been performed as a thesis but uttered as a conviction. But although we think Dr. Merle D'Aubigné himself honest in his intentions, we do not think it fairly executed. The very truth of his zeal has warped his sense of justice, and disturbed the precision of his reasoning. All through the Vindication he assumes the very matter in dispute, producing Cromwell's own assertions as proofs of his sincerity. There never was any doubt as to the documents, and almost as little as to the fervency and fanaticism of Cromwell's character. The question is still open, in spite of this Vindication, and must probably remain doubtful until that day when the secrets of all hearts will be declared, of the amount of duplicity he used to the furtherance of the

great deeds he was engaged in. To bring forward his own letters and assertions in proof of their sincerity, is of no avail. That he thought deceit sometimes necessary could be proved from his own writings. That the religious expression of the time had become a manner and mode, there is also no doubt: and as little that the intriguing spirit of war and contest had also bred a laxity in the use of the most solemn words.

If, however, this volume settles nothing, it is worthy of perusal as a rapid and clear narrative of the important events; and also as containing the opinions of one able from his earnestness and his pursuits to throw out new ideas. It has also the merit of being written with an enlightened Christian feeling; deploring the shedding of blood, whether on the scaffold or the field; though his vindication of Cromwell's merciless campaign in Ireland is hardly in accordance with his otherwise mild pleadings. His enthusiasm kindles with his theme, and ends in a climax of laudation that we cannot think deserved. That Cromwell had ideas beyond even the rule of these kingdoms can easily be believed, and his patronage of the Waldenses might foreshadow his championship of the universal Protestant cause. Had his life continued, or had he been younger, doubtless his energetic spirit would have manifested itself even in a more universal field than Marston Moor or Worcester Close. Indeed this point of his proceedings and character it is that makes him so popular at Geneva. We cannot give a better specimen of the style of the work, than in the following extract on this subject, and with it we shall conclude our necessarily too brief notice of a book rendered important by the position of its author, and his extensive popularity :

CROMWELL THE TRUE DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.

"Oliver carried into practice in the seventeenth century that famous motto which was the glory of one of the greatest Englishmen of the nineteenth"Civil and religious liberty in all the world.' Practice, in our opinion, is much better than theory; but the example set by the Protector, which had no precedent, has unfortunately met with no imitation. the French Protestants were abandoned, both at the peace of Ryswick in 1697, and again at that of Utrecht in 1713, although hundreds of Huguenots were perishing in dungeons or groaning on board the galleys. If Cromwell's spirit had continued to govern England, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes would never have taken place. May we be permitted to pay a feeble tribute of esteem to the great man who was the protector of our ancestors, and who would have been the vindicator of Protestant France if he had lived, or if he had survived in successors worthy of him.

"His attachment to the great cause of evangelical Protestantism extended over all Europe. In Switzerland, for instance, he endeavoured to arouse and reanimate the interests of the Reformation. You stand so much in awe of your popish neighbours,' said his minister in May 1655, to the evangelical Swiss, that you dare not budge a foot in favour of any Protestant church,