commissioners, no more churches would be wanted for at least five centuries.

4. MRS GAMP'S APARTMENT.-(" MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.")

Mrs Gamp's apartment in Kingsgate Street, High Holborn, wore, metaphorically speaking, a robe of state. It was swept and garnished for the reception of a visitor. That visitor was Betsy Prig;

Mrs Prig of Bartlemy's; or, as some said, Barklemy's; or, as some said, Bardlemy's; for by all these endearing and familiar appellations had the hospital of Saint Bartholomew become a household word among the sisterhood which Betsy Prig adorned.

Mrs Gamp's apartment was not a spacious one, but, to a contented mind, a closet is a palace; and the first-floor front at Mr Sweedlepipe's may have been, in the imagination of Mrs Gamp, a stately pile. If it were not exactly that to restless intellects, it at least comprised as much accommodation as any person not sanguine to insanity could have looked for in a room of its dimensions. For only keep the bedstead always in your mind, and you were safe. That was the grand secret. Remembering the bedstead, you might even stoop to look under the little round table for anything you had dropped, without hurting yourself much against the chest of drawers, or qualifying as a patient of Saint Bartholomew by falling into the fire. Visitors were much assisted in their cautious efforts to preserve an unflagging recollection of this piece of furniture by its size, which was great. It was not a turn-up bedstead, nor yet a French bedstead, nor yet a four-post bedstead, but what is poetically called a tent; the sacking whereof was low and bulgy, insomuch that Mrs Gamp's box would not go under it, but stopped half way, in a manner which, while it did violence to the reason, likewise endangered the legs of a stranger. The frame, too, which would have supported the canopy and hangings, if there had been any, was ornamented with divers pippins carved in timber, which on the slightest provocation, and frequently on none at all, came tumbling down, harassing the peaceful guest with inexplicable terrors. The bed itself was decorated with a patchwork quilt of great antiquity; and at the upper end, upon the side nearest to the door, hung a scanty curtain of blue check, which prevented the zephyrs that were abroad in Kingsgate Street from visiting Mrs Gamp's head too roughly.

The chairs in Mrs Gamp's apartment were extremely large and broad-backed, which was more than a sufficient reason for their being but two in number. They were both elbow-chairs of ancient mahogany; and were chiefly valuable for the slippery nature of their seats, which had been originally horsehair, but were now covered with a shiny substance of a blueish tint, from which the visitor began to slide away with a dismayed countenance immediately after sitting down. What Mrs Gamp wanted in chairs she made up in bandboxes; of which she had a great collection, devoted to the reception of various

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miscellaneous valuables, which were not, however, as well protected as the good woman, by a pleasant fiction, seemed to think; for, though every bandbox had a carefully-closed lid, not one among them had a bottom; owing to which cause the property within was merely, as it were, extinguished. The chest of drawers having been originally made to stand upon the top of another chest, had a dwarfish, elfin look alone; but, in regard of security, it had a great advantage over the bandboxes, for as all the handles had been long ago pulled off, it was very difficult to get at its contents. This, indeed, was only to be done by one of two devices; either by tilting the whole structure forward until all the drawers fell out together, or by opening them singly with knives, like oysters.

Mrs Gamp stored all her household matters in a little cupboard by the fireplace; beginning below the surface (as in nature) with the coals, and mounting gradually upwards to the spirits, which, from motives of delicacy, she kept in a teapot. The chimney-piece was ornamented with an almanack; it was also embellished with three profiles; one, in colours, of Mrs Gamp herself in early life; one, in bronze, of a lady in feathers, supposed to be Mrs Harris, as she appeared when dressed for a ball; and one, in black, of Mr Gamp, deceased. The last was a full-length, in order that the likeness might be rendered more obvious and forcible, by the introduction of the wooden leg. A pair of bellows, a pair of pattens, a toasting-fork, a kettle, a spoon for the administration of medicine to the refractory, and lastly, Mrs Gamp's umbrella, which, as something of great price and rarity, was displayed with particular ostentation, completed the decorations of the chimney-piece and adjacent wall.

XXIII. JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE has within the last few years turned the attention of the public once more to the eventful period of the English Reformation, and has endeavoured to counterbalance the tedium of a ten-times-told tale by giving an entirely different reading of the character and motives of the principal agents, especially Henry and Anne Boleyn. He is a graduate of Oxford University, where he occupied a conspicuous place, and was a fellow of Exeter College. Previous to the issue of his "History," he was known to the public as the author of the "Nemesis of Faith," "Shadows of the Clouds," and an essay on the "Book of Job." To him it appears that Anne Boleyn, of whom Cranmer entertained so high an opinion, was a woman of the most abandoned habits, and addicted to profligacy in its most revolting shape; and Henry VIII., the husband of six wives, and the executioner of More, Surrey, and Cromwell, is, in Mr Froude's eyes, a highly chaste and virtuous man! Such startling conclusions Mr Froude supports by a plausible show of evidence, of which it is sufficient to remark, that Burnet, Hume, and Hallam, our best and most competent authorities on the

subject, after examining the same documents, pronounced unanimously and decisively, that they afforded no ground whatever for the opinions which Mr Froude has advanced. The history furnishes a strong illustration of the natural but unfortunate tendency of our modern historians to exaggerate the value of the manuscript documents which curious research is constantly bringing to light, and which, without any deliberate attempt to estimate their worth, are at once presumed to form a sufficient ground for denying the truth of everything that had been previously printed on the subject. Apart from this, the history of Froude is highly meritorious; the language is vigorous, and the narrative lively; the only fault which in this respect can be charged against it is the occasional imitation of the peculiarities of Carlyle-always an objectionable feature, and quite out of place in Mr Froude, whose mind is of an entirely different cast from that of the object of his literary idolatry.

The characters of Henry and Anne Boleyn, given below, contain in brief the novel views of Mr Froude, and furnish a good specimen of his style.

1. CHARACTER OF HENRY VIII.

If Henry VIII. had died previous to the first agitation of the divorce, his loss would have been deplored as one of the heaviest misfortunes which had ever befallen the country; and he would have left a name which would have taken its place in history by the side of that of the Black Prince, or of the conqueror of Agincourt. Left at the most trying age, with his character unformed, with the means at his disposal of gratifying every inclination, and married by his ministers, when a boy, to an unattractive woman far his senior, he had lived for thirty-six years almost without blame, and bore through England the reputation of an upright and virtuous king. Nature had been prodigal to him of her rarest gifts. In person he is said to have resembled his grandfather, Edward IV., who was the handsomest man in Europe. His form and bearing were princely; and, amidst the easy freedom of his address, his manner remained majestic. No knight in England could match him in the tournament except the Duke of Suffolk; he drew with ease as strong a bow as was borne by any yeoman of his guard; and these powers were sustained in unfailing vigour by a temperate habit and by constant exercise. Of his intellectual ability we are not left to judge from the suspicious panegyrics of his contemporaries. His state papers and letters may be placed by the side of those of Wolsey or of Cromwell, and they lose nothing in the comparison. Though they are broadly different, the perception is equally clear, the expression equally powerful, and they breathe throughout an irresistible vigour of purpose. In addition to this, he had a fine musical taste, carefully cultivated; he spoke and wrote in four languages; and his knowledge of a multitude of other subjects, with which his versatile ability made him conversant,

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He was

would have formed the reputation of any ordinary man.1 among the best physicians of his age; he was his own engineer, inventing improvements in artillery, and new constructions in shipbuilding; and this, not with the condescending incapacity of a royal amateur, but with thorough workmanlike understanding. His reading was vast, especially in theology, which has been ridiculously ascribed by Lord Herbert to his father's intention of educating him for the Archbishopric of Canterbury; as if the scientific mastery of such a subject could have been acquired by a boy of twelve years of age, for he was no more when he became Prince of Wales. He must have studied theology with the full maturity of his understanding; and he had a fixed and perhaps unfortunate interest in the subject itself.

In all directions of human activity Henry displayed natural powers of the highest order, at the highest stretch of industrious culture. He was attentive, as it is called, to his religious duties, being present at the services in chapel two or three times a-day with unfailing regularity, and showing, to outward appearance, a real sense of religious obligation in the energy and purity of his life. In private, he was good-humoured and good-natured. His letters to his secretaries, though never undignified, are simple, easy, and unrestrained; and the letters written by them to him are similarly plain and business-like, as if the writers knew that the person whom they were addressing disliked compliments, and chose to be treated as a man. Again, from their correspondence with one another, when they describe interviews with him, we gather the same pleasant impression. He seems to have been always kind, always considerate, inquiring into their private concerns with genuine interest, and winning, as a consequence, their warm and unaffected attachment. As a ruler, he had been eminently popular. All his wars had been successful. He had the splendid tastes in which the English people most delighted, and he had substantially acted out his own theory of his duty, which was expressed in the following words : Scripture taketh princes to be, as it were, fathers and nurses to their subjects; and by Scripture it appeareth that it appertaineth to the office of princes to see that right religion and true doctrine be maintained and taught, and that their subjects may be well ruled and governed by good and just laws, and to provide and care for them, that all things necessary may be plenteous, and that the people and commonweal may increase, and to defend them from oppression and invasion, as well within the realm as without, and to see that justice be administered unto them indifferently; and to hear benignly all their complaints, and to show towards them, although they offend, fatherly pity; and, finally, so to correct them that be evil, that they had yet rather save them than lose

1 Of Henry's music, one anthem, "O Lord, the maker of all things," is alone generally known; and when we remember that it was written in the age of Tallis and Farrant, it can scarcely be entitled to more praise than that of being very good for a king.

them, if it were not for respect of justice and maintenance of peace and good order in the commonweal." These principles do really appear to have determined Henry's conduct in his earlier years. It is certain that if, as I said, he had died before the divorce was mooted, Henry VIII., like that Roman emperor said by Tacitus to have been, "by universal consent, capable of reigning had he not reigned,' ," would have been considered by posterity as formed by Providence for the conduct of the Reformation, and his loss would have been deplored as a perpetual calamity. We must allow him, therefore, the benefit of his past career, and be careful to remember it when interpreting his later actions. Not many men would have borne themselves through the same trials with the same integrity; but the circumstances of those trials had not tested the true defects in his moral constitution. Like all princes of the Plantagenet blood, he was a person of a most intense and imperious will. His impulses, in general nobly directed, had never known contradiction; and late in life, when his character was formed, he was forced into collision with difficulties with which the experience of discipline had not fitted him to contend. Education had done much for him; but his nature required more correction than his position had permitted; whilst unbroken prosperity and early independence of control had been his most serious misfortune. He had capacity, if his training had been equal to it, to be one of the greatest of men. With all his faults about him, he was still, perhaps, the greatest of his contemporaries, and the man best able of all living Englishmen to govern England, had he not been set to do it by the condition of his birth.

2. CHARACTER OF ANNE BOLEYN.

Anne Boleyn was the second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a gentleman of noble family, though moderate fortune, who, by a marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, was brought into connection with the highest blood in the realm. The year of her birth has not been certainly ascertained, but she is supposed to have been seven years old in 1514, when she accompanied the Princess Mary into France, on the marriage of that lady with Louis XII. Louis dying a few months subsequently, the princess married Sir Charles Brandon, afterwards created Duke of Suffolk, and returned to England. Anne Boleyn did not return with her; she remained in Paris to become accomplished in the graces and elegances, if she was not contaminated by the vices, of that court, which, even in those days of royal licentiousness, enjoyed an undesirable preeminence in profligacy. Among those scenes she could not have failed to see, to hear, and to become familiar with, occurrences with

1 Mr Froude here misquotes, in a very inexplicable way, the famous expression of Tacitus, in his character of Galba (History, i. 49):-" Omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset;" or, in Mr Froude's version, "Consensu omnium dignus imperii, nisi imperasset," which, to say nothing of the mistake in an expression that has become proverbial, is a violation of one of the most ordinary rules of Latin grammar.