day would come at the end of the month. Finding their creditor unsatisfied with that answer, they requested him not to take any proceedings during March, as it was tapu (sacred), but to wait till April; when if nothing happened he should be paid in full. This he was constrained to

never seen. The lady handed it over to
the stage manager, and at once forgot all
about it. Actresses are used to such im-
pertinences. The manager, however,
was a man of wrath when roused; and he
sent a message to the gentleman, asking
him to come "behind." The unsuspect-
ing person went, and was promptly bon-do.
neted, pummelled, and ejected by the
stage door. Such insulting messages are
common; but real compliments are not
unknown. Playing in Glasgow for a week
this lady got every evening a modest
nosegay, which was left at the stage door
by a working man. No note accompanied
it, and she carried it to the neglect of the
more gorgeous bouquets that also reached
her.

From St. James's Gazette.
A MAORI "LAST DAY."

IN the early part of this year an extraordinary outbreak of religious craze was witnessed among the northern natives in New Zealand. A Maori prophetess, living in Kawakawa, a settlement north of Auckland, was the leader of the move ment. She is a young woman, named Meri Tapu, about twenty-five years of age, pleasant-looking but with a dazed expression. Early in March of this year Meri foretold the beginning of the millennium, which she fixed on the 28th of that month. The effect on the natives was wonderful. Crowds visited her daily, fully crediting her prophecies.

The prophetess spent most of her time in conversing with unbelieving visitors, of whom there were plenty; they were chiefly natives, attracted by curiosity and the lav ish hospitality of the converted ones. Being well versed in Scripture she was able to discuss religion with any one who cared to argue with her. The believers behaved in a very orderly manner. Spirits were strictly prohibited. But it was an anxious time for the European settlers. near the encampment; for there was no knowing what change might not take place in Meri's teachings. Safety lay in the nearness of the day fixed as the last. Had the time been longer there is no knowing what a band of wild fanatics, whose food supply had come to an end, would not do.

As the time approached for the fulfil ment of the prophecy, the mania took a more serious turn. A tohunga (priest) preached that Christ's mediation was only for the pakeha (white man). Burnt offer ings of dogs, cats, and owls were made. These offerings, however, were only preliminary and typical of the grand sacrifice that was to follow, and for which an altar was built. The victim selected was a young girl, daughter of the high priest himself, she having expressed her willingness to die for the good of the people.. The intended homicide was prevented by the police. Meri now gave out that she would probably be missing on the last day, and intimated to her followers that she would be removed to the next world by supernatural means.

About the middle of March, Meri and some two hundred of her immediate followers removed to a separate encamp ment. Prominent among these disciples were the chief Hohaia Patuone and his people, relatives of the late celebrated Tamati Waka Nene, and inhabitants of At last the great day arrived, and noth. the Hokianga district. Meri and her sup-ing happened. Meri had disappeared, porters professed to be Roman Catholics, having wisely departed to another part of but did not hold any religious service or the country with numerous presents. Her ceremony whatever. The time was spent misguided followers were powerless to do in various games and amusements, and in anything in the face of a strong contingent eating; the latter taking up a good por- of armed constabulary posted to maintain tion of the day. Money was spent in a order. There was nothing left but to remost reckless manner upon provisions and turn to their much-neglected plantations. new clothes wherein to appear on the last The only evidence of the movement is day. When cash ran short, they obtained considerable distress among the natives, goods from a neighboring store-keeper on owing to a reckless waste of provisions credit, and, when threatened with sum- and prolonged idleness. monses, said it did not matter, as the last

H. M. B.

VII. SAMUEL FOOTE. The English Aristophanes, Temple Bar,

V. MARLBOROUGH,

VI. AN UNKNOWN COLONY,

466

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494

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OF PORTUGAL,

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Each speaks of love, and strength, and hardi-

WINIFRED, COUNTESS OF NITHSDAILL.

From The Scottish Review. | sentiments of devotion to the Catholic faith, and loyalty to the house of Stuart, for which his family was famous. When he was about twenty-three, Lord Nithsdaill journeyed to Paris; no doubt chiefly with the intention of doing homage to King James, but another motive soon arose to keep him at St. Germains. He there met and wooed Lady Winifred, and as the attachment was mutual, was soon her accepted lover. Their marriage contract is dated Paris, March 2nd, 1699, but the day of the marriage itself is not known, nor can we discover where the young couple passed the first year of their mar ried life. By the month of October, 1700, however, Lord and Lady Nithsdaill were established at their own beautiful home of Terregles in Dumfriesshire, where the dowager countess continued also constantly to reside, and where she seems to have managed the affairs of the house, greatly assisting her daughter-in-law, who suffered from delicate health.

THE name of this heroic lady is familiar to us all, and famous among those noble women whose virtue and courage have given them a place in their country's his tory. At first sight it might seem, indeed, as if any new sketch of Lady Nithsdaill's life were unnecessary; and of the great event with which her name will be forever associated, this is doubtless true. The story of Lord Nithsdaill's escape from the Tower has been often told, and we have Lady Nithsdaill's own narrative, the plain, unvarnished account of her courageous deed to refer to. Little, therefore, remains to be said on this subject, but of Lady Nithsdaill's domestic history and her later life abroad, we find many interesting details in the family correspondence, which is little known, and it is on this aspect of our heroine's life that we propose to dwell more fully.

Winifred Herbert was the fifth and youngest daughter of William, first Marquis of Powis; and, an exile even in her childhood, must have early learnt to suf. fer in the cause for which her husband was so nearly to lose his life. Lord Powis, a Catholic and a devoted loyalist, followed James the Second to France, and it was therefore in the melancholy court of St. Germains that Winifred's youth was passed a fit training, perhaps, for a life never, it would seem, very bright, and destined to end, like her royal master's, in a mournful exile. No traits of Winifred's girlhood have come down to us, and we can only endeavor to picture to ourselves how her education was conducted, or whose task it was to impress on her young heart those lessons of virtue and self-sacrifice which afterwards bore such noble

Lord Nithsdaill's only surviving sister had married (in 1694) Charles, fourth Earl of Traquair, and an intimate and loving friendship united the families of Traquair and Terregles. Five children were born to Lord and Lady Nithsdaill, but of these, three, Lucie, Robert, and George, died young.

William Lord Maxwell and his

sister Anne-still an infant in 1715alone survived.* Up to this memorable date, there is little to record of Lady Nithsdaill or her family, and few letters exist to help us to follow the comparatively peaceful, and possibly rather uninteresting, tenor of their lives.

When in 1715 the standard of the Chev. alier de St. George (James III.) was raised by his adherents, Lord Nithsdaill, im pelled by his own Jacobite sentiments, and by the traditions of his house, hastened to join the English rising under Forster and Lord Derwentwater. Lord

Nithsdaill was reported to have been fol but on the other hand it is stated that far lowed to the field by many of his tenants, from this having been the case, most of

quite young, for his education, as there is no mention of his presence at home at the time of his father's misfortunes.

* Lord Maxwell was probably sent abroad when

Our Lady dow do nought now, but wipe aye

her een

Her heart's like to burst the gold lace of her

gown;

Men silent gaze upon her, and minstrels make a wail,

O dool for our brave warrior, the Lord of

Nithsdaill.

his people were zealous for the Hano- out on her long and perilous journey to verian government, and but few followed | London.* Her letters give a graphic detheir master. And this, Lord Nithsdaill's scription of all she underwent on the road. own statement corroborates. That his The winter of 1715-6 was unusually severe. wife's entire sympathy was with the royal | The Thames was frozen over, and the cause, we cannot doubt, and if it is diffi- road to the capital was blocked by snow. cult to imagine with the poet that the Coaches were stopped, and Lady Nithsstately Lady Nithsdaill and her sister daill was forced to perform most of her ladies were "full loud" in their merri-journey on horseback, and this with the ment on this occasion, or that they "sang greatest difficulty. She herself writes to in the parlor and danced in the ha'," we Lady Traquair, "I must confess such a cannot but share the sorrow of the faith- journey I believe, was scarce ever made, ful bard when he describes his mistress's considering the weather, by a woman; grief on hearing the fatal news:— but, as she goes on to say, an earnest help." And so the courageous lady pushed desire compasses a greate deal with God's forward, undaunted by the cold, and reached town towards the middle of January. Here she lost no time in endeavor. ing to secure her husband's safety, and earnestly sought the assistance of those in power; but she received scant comfort, Deep, indeed, must have been the de- and it was plainly intimated to her that spair of the poor Jacobite ladies when the though mercy might be shown to some of tidings reached them of the disaster of the imprisoned lords, none need be exPreston, and that the prisoner noblemen pected for Lord Nithsdaill, who, from his were on their road to London. Lord position and character, was too important Nithsdaill wrote to his wife urging her to a personage to be spared. The poor lady join him in town. He knew he would be was allowed to see her husband once or kept a close prisoner, but perhaps then he twice, before she was prostrated by the entertained hopes for his life, hopes in illness brought on by anxiety and the which his poor wife could not join, for great bodily fatigue she had gone through. reasons which a passage in her "Narra- The only thing that consoled her during tive gives us the key. "A Catholick this period of forced inaction, was the upon the Borders, and one who had a assurance that nothing could be done in great following, and whose family had her lord's cause until sentence should have ever upon all occasions stuck to the royal been passed upon the prisoners. On the family," could not, as she well knew, look 19th January Lord Nithsdaill and five for mercy, and it must have been with a others were brought to trial, and, at the heavy heart that she prepared to follow recommendation of their friends, pleaded her lord. Her preparations showed the guilty. We cannot think that Lord Nithsprudence and foresight which character-daill's reply to the indictment accorded ized her. Dismissing nearly the whole of her establishment, Lady Nithsdaill confided the care of Terregles to three trusty servants, and then, foreseeing that the house would probably be searched in her absence, she, with the assistance of a faithful gardener, safely concealed the family papers in a portion of the grounds, still pointed out by tradition. Then sending her dearest treasure, her infant daughter Anne, to the affectionate care of her aunt at Traquair, Lady Nithsdaill set

with his own dignity, or with the sentiments which had animated him to draw

his sword in his master's cause; and that he was afterwards sensible of this, and regretted it, his "dying speech "† affords proof. As it was, all the hopes held out to the prisoners of saving their lives by

Lady Nithsdaill was accompanied on the journey by her attached Welsh maid, Evans, whose name fre

quently occurs in the correspondence.

† We refer to the address written by Lord Nithsdaill on the eve—as he believed― of his execution.