which others of our countrymen committed upon the simple natives of the forest, to state that this benevolent overture was received with a spirit corresponding to that which dictated it; and that the young colony was already in a considerable state of prosperity when Penn himself set out to visit it in the autumn of 1682. He carried with him from his own resources a large store of everything necessary to contribute to the welfare of the natives as well as of the colonist, and was accompanied by a numerous body of sectarians of all classes, anxious to avail themselves of this new proffered sanctuary of religious liberty. But these considerations, interesting though they be in the eyes of politicians and philanthropists, we quit for the still greater attractions which Penn's letters to his wife and children, in our opinion, present.

His letters, we think, are exceedingly beautiful, and if half of the innumerable tracts he wrote contain a tithe of their feeling, we may suggest that even yet they should be rescued from oblivion :

"My dear wife and children," he says, before sailing, "my love, which neither sea, nor land, nor death itself can extinguish or lessen toward you, most endearedly visits you with eternal embraces, and will abide with you for ever: and may the God of my life watch over you, and bless you, and do you good in this world and for ever. things are upon my spirit to leave with you in your respective capacities, as I am to the one a husband, and to the rest a father, if I should never see you more in this world.

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"My dear wife! remember thou wert the love of my youth, and much the joy of my life; the most beloved, as well as the most worthy of all my earthly comforts; and the reason of that love was more thy inward than thy outward excellencies, which yet were many. God knows, and thou knowest it, I can say it was a match of Providence's making; and God's image in us both was the first thing, and the most amiable and engaging ornament in our eyes. Now I am to leave thee, and that without knowing whether I am ever to see thee more in this world, take my counsel into thy bosom, and let it dwell with thee in my stead while thou livest."

He then gives her much advice on the subject of economy and his religious opinions, and continues in a strain more interesting to us: "And now, my dearest, let me recommend to thy care my dear children, abundantly beloved by thee as the Lord's blessings, and the sweet pledges of our mutual and endeared affection. Above all things, endeavour to breed them up in the love of virtue, and that holy plain way of it which we have lived in, that the world in no part of it get into my family. I had rather they were homely than finely bred as to outward behaviour; yet I love sweetness mixed with gravity, and cheerfulness tempered with sobriety. Religion in the heart leads unto the true civility, teaching men and women to be mild and courteous in their behaviour; an accomplishment indeed worthy of praise,

"Next breed them up," he adds, "in a love one of another: tell them it is the charge I left behind me; and that it is the way to have the love and blessing of God upon them. Sometimes separate them, but not long; and allow them to send and give each other small things to endear one another with. Once more I say, tell them it was my counsel they should be tender and affectionate one to another. For their learning be liberal; spare no cost; for by such parsimony all is lost that is saved: but

let it be useful knowledge, such as is consistent with truth and godliness, not cherishing a vain conversation or idle mind; but ingenuity mixed with industry is good for the body and mind too."

He counsels her to avoid public schools. "Rather," he says, "keep an ingenious person in the house to teach them than send them to schools, too many evil impressions being commonly received there. Be sure to observe their genius, and do not cross it as to learning: let them not dwell too long on one thing, but let their change be agreeable, and all their diversions have some little bodily labour in them."

The italics are ours, and we can with difficulty refrain from copying the whole of this charming letter. One more passage will suffice, from his counsel to the mother, "When grown up," he says, still speaking of his children, "have most care of them; for then there are more snares, both within and without. When marriageable, see that they have good worthy persons in their eye, of good life, and good fame for piety and understanding. I desire no wealth, but sufficiency; and be sure their love be dear, and fervent, and mutual, that it may be happy for them. I choose not that they should be married to earthly, covetous kindred; and of cities and towns of concourse beware: the world is apt to stick close to those who have lived and got wealth there: a country life and estate I like best for my children. I prefer a decent mansion of a hundred pounds per annum before ten thousand pounds in London, or such like place, in a way of trade."

With one more extract from this exceedingly beautiful document we shall conclude-it is his advice to his children :

"Be obedient to your dear mother," he says, 66 a woman whose virtue and good name is an honour to you; for she hath been exceeded by none in her time for integrity, humanity, virtue, and good understandingqualities not usual among women of her worldly condition and quality. Therefore honour and obey her, my dear children, as your mother, and your father's love and delight; nay, love her too, for she loved your father with a deep and upright love, choosing him before all her many suitors; and though she be of delicate constitution and noble spirit, yet she descended to the utmost care and tenderness for you, performing the painfullest acts of service to your infancy, as a mother and a nurse too. I charge you, before the Lord, honour and obey, love and cherish, your dear mother."

Lest he should die in the course of his philanthropic mission, he added the following advice to his eldest son, on whom the ownership of the colony would devolve; and it may be adduced as illustrative of his own administration :

"As for you," he says, "who are likely to be concerned in the government of Pennsylvania, I do charge you, before the Lord God and his holy angels, that you be lowly, diligent, and tender, fearing God, loving the people, and hating covetousness. Let justice have its impartial course, and the law its free passage. Though to your loss, protect no man against it; for you are not above the law, but the law above you. Live, therefore, the life you would have the people live, and then you shall have right and boldness to punish the transgressor. Keep upon the square, for God sees you; therefore do your duty, and be sure you see with your own eyes, and hear with your own ears. Entertain no

lurchers-cherish no informers for gain or revenge-use no tricks-fly to no devices to support or cover injustice; but let your heart be upright before the Lord, trusting in him above the contrivances of men, and none shall be able to hurt or supplant you."

This letter, which, for richness of diction and purity of thought, we consider unsurpassed by any in the language, is dated "Warminghurst, fourth of sixth month, 1682," and thus concludes :

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Finally, my dear children, love one another with a true endearing love, and your dear relations on both sides, and take care to preserve tender affection in your children to each other, often marrying within themselves, so it be without the bounds forbidden by God's law, that so they may not, like the forgetting unnatural world, grow out of kindred and as cold as strangers; but as becomes a truly natural and Christian stock, you and yours after you may live in the pure and fervent love of God towards one another, as becoming brethren in the spiritual and natural relation. So farewell to my thrice dearly beloved wife and children. "Yours as God pleaseth, in that love which no water can quench, no time forget, no distance wear away, but remains for ever,

"WILLIAM PENN."

With these sentiments, this great and good and worthy man set forth, and reached America a few weeks after quitting England. His career there was commensurate, and is a matter of history, as well as a world's notoriety. His memorable convention with the Indians has formed a subject alike for pen and pencil. He congregated and addressed them in an harangue corresponding; and the Indians on their side, in their own hyperbolical language, "pledged themselves to live in love with William Penn and his children, as long as the sun and the moon should endure." After spending a number of years in consolidating and giving laws to the province, he returned to England, and experienced a most courteous reception at court. Charles II. had previously expressed a warm esteem for him, and his successor James, with far higher taste, and still more sincerity, insisted that the new territory, which Penn had proposed originally to term New Wales, and eventually Sylvania, should ultimately, by the prefix of his own name, be for ever identified with his benign reputation. By William he was well received, though he appears to have undergone some persecution for conscience-sake, as well as lost his wife, a lady of estimable family, and son, and government in the interval; but the latter was restored to him by the Dutchman, and after revisiting the colony, and marrying again, he eventually died gently in England, in the 72d year of his age.

History has many greater, but than Penn it has no purer character to commemorate. With a little self-complacency perhaps, and overweening conceit, he seems to have been otherwise almost wholly without alloy; and if his tenets and the peculiarities of his creed-to which we may possibly take another opportunity of alluding-were in some degree overstretched, he is yet entitled to be considered one of the most estimable, beneficent, and meritorious of his species.

J.*

A CURIOUS STORY OF THE STUARTS.

THE Viscount D'Arlincourt, who not very long since visited Scotland, gives us the following strange and romantic history of the Brothers Stuart, regarded by the descendants of those who fought and fell in the cause of "Prince Charlie," as the grandsons of the young Chevalier.

"I quitted Inverness for the mansion of Colonel Hugh Baillie. Red Castle not only possessed for me the interest of a beautiful situation, but also that of historical recollections. It was the last Scotch castle which obstinately resisted Cromwell. Charles Edward was there a short time before his defeat; the chamber occupied by him has been preserved. I begged permission to sleep there, and found myself within the same walls where the heir of the Scottish kings must once have felt his heart beat with the hope and the memory of the past; for he was there surrounded by his faithful Highlanders, and until then fortune had appeared to smile upon him. Alas! Culloden was at hand.

"On joining the breakfast party next morning, my thoughts were engrossed by recollections of 1745. I spoke of the emotions I had felt in Charles Edward's chamber.

"You are doubtless come hither,' said one of his guests, 'to visit his grandchildren?'

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"His grandchildren!' I repeated, with an exclamation of surprise. They live very near here, he resumed. Nothing can be more interesting than their mysterious abode; it is called Eilan Aigais.'

"But,' said I, 'the tomb of Cardinal York, in St. Peter's, at Rome, bears the celebrated inscription, 'Here lie the last of the Stuarts.'

"They who commanded the inscription you mention to be placed there had doubtless their own reasons for doing so. But go and see the descendants of Charles Edward; they are the two handsomest men in this part of the country. Nature has loaded them with her favours. Education, wit, talents, they are deficient in none of them; they would have been worthy of a throne.'

"My curiosity was excited. I passed the remainder of the day in making inquiries respecting the brothers Stuart, for whom a general interest is manifested in the north of Scotland, and the following details were related to me:

"Charles Edward, it was said, had a son from his marriage with the Princess of Stolberg, Countess of Albany. This fact, which has not been published in history, is contradicted by official statements, but attested by authentic documents; some of these last I have seen, but I will not venture to speak of them. As to the following details, which have been published in different compilations, I may repeat them without scruple.

"A Scottish doctor, named Cameron, being at Florence, in Italy, a stranger of high rank sent to him, begging him to visit a noble lady, who was dangerously ill. A promise of secrecy as to what he might see was exacted from him, and his eyes were blindfolded before he was admitted to the presence of her who required his care. On arriving at the place where he was expected, Dr. Cameron beheld a lady lying on a bed. She had just given birth to a son. A nurse, as well as a priest, had been summoned thither; the portrait of Charles Edward, set round with

precious stones, lay on a table; and at the end of the room was the Prince himself.

The doctor wrote and signed a detailed statement of the fact. It is af firmed that this declaration is one of the documents in the possession of the brothers Stuart. There still exists a picture painted at the time (I am not authorized to say where it is), which represents Charles Edward in the act of entrusting his son to Admiral Hay, to be brought up in secret at a distance from him. The Admiral is standing on board ship, his wife is on the shore; with one knee bent to the ground, she is receiving the child from the Prince, and the vessel awaits them.

But why did Charles Edward and the Countess of Albany so carefully conceal the existence of their son? Why did they confide him to an Admiral of the name of Hay, that he should be brought up away from them? The answer is as follows:-The Prince wished to place his child in safety until he attained his majority; he was convinced that the life of a new heir of the Stuarts would be attempted; moreover, he desired that he should be kept in ignorance of his birth, that his education and early years might not be disturbed by thoughts of the sceptre and the throne; he would not have enlightened him except favourable circumstances had rendered such a proceeding necessary.

"But after the death of her husband, why did not the Countess of Albany reveal the secret of the existence of another Stuart? In reply to this, it is stated that the Countess of Albany, the mistress of Alfieri, and a woman of little principle, had received considerable sums as a reward for her continued silence. There is nothing surprising in this conduct of her who, after having been the wife of Charles Edward, became the mistress of Alfieri, and ended by contracting a third marriage with a painter of Montpellier, called Fabre.

"The son of Charles Edward, adopted by Admiral Hay, whose name he bore, married, it is said, contrary to the will of his mother; he became the father of two sons, who are the brothers Stuart, He caused them to be brought up in Scotland, and retired himself into Italy, where he still lives. in the strictest seclusion. It is pretended that, bound by a solemn oath, he has forbidden his children ever to reveal their origin, at least during his life. They, therefore, will neither publish, nor permit to be published, any of their papers or titles; nevertheless, they openly assume their grandfather's name; the eldest signs himself John Sobieski Stuart, and the second Charles Edward Stuart. The former bears a striking resemblance to Vandyke's portrait of Charles the First, but is much handsomer; the other is the living image of the Pretender. They have in their possession most valuable and remarkable articles; the orders of Charles Edward, his clothes, watch, jewels, hair, flags, arms, and portrait. I was shown the chest where the heir of the Highlanders usually kept his money, his precious stones, and his papers, locked up; this chest, originally a present from Francis I., is admirably carved. It still contains title deeds.

"Let us conclude with some extracts from an article in the Catholic Magazine

Was Cardinal York really the last of the Stuarts? It is generally maintained that he was; but has the statement been proved? No. "Numerous testimonies bear witness to the contrary.

The life of Charles Edward, from the time of the battle of Culloden until long after his marriage with the Princess of Stolberg, is little known, and shrouded