The last part of this romance to which we can direct the attention of our readers is a misrepresentation of the personal character of King William, so indiscreet as to surprise us exceedingly. Mr. Macaulay's most obvious purpose in this very strange attempt is to double-gild his idol; and, instead of being satisfied, as the world has hitherto been, with considering William III. as a great soldier and statesman, and the opportune though irregular instrument of a necessary revolution, he endeavors to show that he was entitled to the choice which the country is represented as having made of him, by his private virtues, and, above all, by the concurrence in his election of the legitimate successor, his affectionate and devoted wife, who, apart from all political and above all selfish considerations, was but too happy to see the throne, which strict law would have conferred on her alone, shared with the man of her heart. This is, of course, the indispensable conclusion of all romances, but we confess the dénouement seems here somewhat forced and unnatural. We have little doubt that Mary was an obedient, if not a loving wife; and that she willingly, gladly admitted William to a participation of her royal rights-not from romantic affection, but for this plain and paramount reason, that without his sword she would have had no rights to share. That sword it was which cut the Gordian knot with which the Convention Parliament and its parties so long seemed to puzzle themselves. Mr. Macaulay states fully, and more clearly and fairly than is usual with him, the various expedients that were proposed, and the various arguments that were urged for the supplying the place of the absent king. The Archbishop and the high Tories proposed a Regency, which would have preserved their nominal allegiance to the king. Danby and the moderate Whigs and Tories were for the plainer and, under such circumstances, the sounder course of considering James's abdication as a civil death, and calling the next heir, Mary, to the throne. The old Republican party would rather not have had a monarchy at all, but if a monarch, one whose title should not be legitimate; and Mr. Macaulay takes great pains to show that Halifax and the Trimmers, the party that seemed finally to decide the question, were the more disposed for electing William on the republican principle of breaking the line of succession. But in fact this last argument was a mere pretense to conceal the duress under which they really had

no alternative but the choice of William. All these eloquent debates and all Mr. Macaulay's ingenious argumentations only enwreathe the steel. William might say

εν μύρτου πλάδι τον ξιφον φορησω—“You may cover my sword with rhetorical garlands, but it is not the less a sword; and if you will have its protection you must submit to its power." And as the bulk of his special adherents were of the old Republican Regicide and Rye House party, they not only would have had no compunction in submitting even to his forcible seizure of the Crown, but would have much preferred that to the execution of the threat by which William finally stifled their various differences-namely, that, if they did not make him king, he would retire with his army and leave all parties to the tender mercies of a Jacobite restoration. It was chiefly, we think, with a view of throwing a kind of veil over this real state of the case, not very creditable to the Revolution Whigs, nor very grateful to the national pride of any Englishman, that Mr. Macaulay has indiscreetly, we think, recalled attention to the conjugal relations of William and Mary.

He was indeed drawn away from his wife by "For a time William was a negligent husband. other women, particularly by one of her ladies, Elizabeth Villiers, who, though destitute of personal attractions, and disfigured by a hideous squint, possessed talents which well fitted her to partake his cares. He was indeed ashamed of his errors, and spared no pains to conceal them; knew that he was not strictly faithful to her."— but, in spite of all his precautions, Mary well ii. 174.

All this is sadly misrepresented. It was not for a time-he was not ashamed of, and took no pains to conceal, his infidelity! The amour with Elizabeth Villiers began immediately after his marriage, and continued notoriously during all Mary's life. He even made her husband Earl of Orkney, as Charles II. had made the husband of Barbara Villiers Earl of Castlemaine; and in 1697 he made her grants of forfeited estates in Ireland so scandalous that they were rescinded by Parliament; and, in short, as Miss Strickland says, "Elizabeth Villiers was the canker of Mary's peace from her marriage to her grave."-Life of Mary, ii. 303. But we decline pursuing a subject even more disagreeable than is here stated; and we pass on to a less unpleasant cause of the estrangement. This, we are told, was William's uneasiness at the awkwardness of his future position at King-consort.

"Mary had been nine years married before she discovered the cause of William's discontent; nor would she ever have learned it from himself. In general his temper inclined him rather to brood over his griefs than to give utterance to them; and in this particular case his lips were sealed by a very natural delicacy."-ii. 175.

This admission shows at what a remote period, and with what a distant chance, William began to pine after the crown of England, and would go far to convict him of all the intrigues against the governments of Charles and James, from which Mr. Macaulay, in other parts of this book, so zealously labors to exculpate him. The sequel of the story is more romantic. It was after nine years of unhappiness from moral causes on the part of the wife, and "brooding discontent" from political reveries on the part of the husband, that, by the lucky arrival of an English or rather Scotch parson, who was travelling in the Low Countries, "three words of frank explanation" were elicited and cured all in a moment. A complete reconciliation was brought about by the agency of Gilbert Burnet :

"Burnet plainly told the Princess what the feeling was which preyed upon her husband's mind. She learned for the first time, with no small astonishment, that, when she became Queen of England, William would not share her throne. She warmly declared that there was no proof of conjugal submission and affection which she was not ready to give. Burnet, with many apologies and with solemn protestations that no human being had put words into his mouth, informed her that the remedy was in her own hands. She might easily, when the crown devolved on her, induce her parliament not only to give the regal title to her husband, but even to transfer to him by a legislative act the administration of the government. 'But,' he added, your Royal Highness ought to consider well before you announce any such resolution. For it is a resolution which, having once being announced, cannot safely or easily be retracted. I want no time for consideration,' answered Mary. It is enough that I have an opportunity of showing my regard for the Prince. Tell him what I say; and bring him to me, that he may hear it from my own lips.' Burnet went in quest of William. But William was many miles off after a stag. It was not till the next day that the decisive interview took place. 'I did not know till yesterday,' said Mary, 'that there was such a difference between the laws of England and the laws of God. But I now promise you that you shall always bear rule: and, in return, I ask only this, that, as I shall observe the precept which enjoins wives to obey their husbands, you will observe that which enjoins husbands to love their wives.' Her generous affection completely gained the heart of William. From that time till the sad day when he was carried away in fits from

her dying bed, there was entire friendship and confidence between them. Many of her letters to him are extant; and they contain abundant evidence that this man, unamiable as he was in the eyes of the multitude, had succeeded in inspiring a beautiful and virtuous woman, born his superior, with a passion fond even to idolatry."— ii. 180, 181.

Burnet assures us that William's grief for the loss of Mary was passionate, and it is not improbable that when the discontent that had been so long brooding in his mind was removed he may have become more sensible to the charms of Mary's person, and the strength and accomplishments of her mind; but we confess that we find it difficult to imagine a passion "fond even to idolatry," at once so suddenly and yet so permanently produced. And how? By contrition on the part of the profligate husband, and condonation on the part of the appeased wife? Not at all: but by setting the husband's mind at ease as to his future position in a distant and not very probable political event. Burnet, though his interest and feelings would lead him in the same direction as Mr. Macaulay, namely, to magnify William and justify his artful and selfish conduct in his pursuit of the crown, yet still he preserves a kind of moderation which gives his account a different and a less unnatural appearance. He begins with an introductory anecdote of great significance, wholly omitted by Mr. Macaulay. He describes a conversation between the Princess and himself, in which he blamed M. Jurieu for having written with acrimony and indecency against Mary, Queen of Scots. The Princess took Jurieu's part, and said "that if Princes would do ill things, they must expect that the world will do justice on their memory, since they cannot reach their persons; that were but a small suffering, far short of what others suffered at their hands." (i. 693.) One easily understands the meaning of these last words in the mouth of a neglected wife. Burnet goes on to say that some time after this—

had been married above nine years, had always had English chaplains and attendants, and "was," says Mr. Macaulay, "a woman of good natural abilities, had been educated by a bishop, was fond of history and poetry, and was regarded by very eminent men as a superior woman." (i. 394.) Yet Burnet and Mr. Macaulay would have us believe that, until the Prince "resolved to make use" of him, Mary was absolutely ignorant of her position as heiress of the crown. It is much more probable that Mary, like a sensible, ambitious woman as she was, knew her position perfectly well; but, seeing the crisis to which affairs were coming in England, had for their common interest resolved to gratify William, and had taken advantage of Burnet's intervention for that purpose.

Burnet, however, according to his own story, explained to her her special rights, the cases of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, Philip and Mary; adding:

"That a titular kingship was no acceptable thing, especially if it was to depend on another's life. She desired me to propose a remedy. I told her the remedy, if she could bring her mind to it, was to be contented to be his wife, and to engage herself to him that she would give him the real authority as soon as it came into her hands, and endeavor effectually to get it legally invested in him for life. This would lay the greatest obligation on him possible, and lay the foundation of a perfect union between them, which had been of late a little embroiled."

Mary without hesitation resolved to take Burnet's advice, and sent him on the moment to bring William to her, that she might explain her intention with her own lips.

"He was that day a-hunting," [off after a stag.] "The next day I acquainted him with all that had passed, and carried him to her; where she in a very frank manner told him that she did not know that the laws of England were so contrary to the laws of God as I had informed her: she

did not think that the husband was ever to be obedient to the wife; she promised him he should always bear rule; and she asked only that he would obey the command of husbands love your wives,' as she should do that of wives, be obedient to your husbands.' From this lively introduction we entered into a long discourse of the affairs of England. Both seemed well pleased with me, and with all I had suggested; but such was the Prince's cold way that he said not one word to me upon it that looked like acknowledgment.”—ib.

This affords the true clue to the whole of William's conduct with reference to the Revolution. He had resolved-we cannot

guess how early-to be King of England in his own right-Marte suo, he might emphatically say. Nor do we call this the darkest stain of his history: it was a natural feeling in a careless husband and an ambitious prince; to many it may seem the more excusable from William's being, in his own right, the next heir to the crown after his wife and her sister; and, as regards public interests, we doubt whether the expulsion of James-absolutely necessary for the religion and liberties of England-could have been otherwise accomplished and maintained. Our country profited by the selfish policy of William; but it is a falsification of historical fact to pretend that his policy was guided by zeal for the liberties and Church of England, which he really felt as little as James, though, fortunately for us, it suited his personal ambition to profess it. We owe him and his "glorious memory" public gratitude, but we cannot regard his personal character or conduct with either affection or respect-still less can we accept the extravagant glorifications of every point-even the worst of his character, by Mr. Macaulay.

We must here conclude. We have exhausted our time and our space, but not our topics. We have selected such of the more prominent defects and errors of Mr. Macaulay as were manageable within our limits; but numerous as they are, we beg that they may be considered as specimens only of the infinitely larger assortment that the volumes would afford, and be read not merely as individual instances, but as indications of the general style of the work, and the prevailing animus of the writer. We have chiefly directed our attention to points of mere historical inaccuray and infidelity; but they are combined with a greater admixture of other we know not whether to call them

literary or moral-defects, than the insulated passages sufficiently exhibit. These faults, as we think them, but which may to some readers be the prime fascinations of the work, abound on its surface. And their very number and their superficial prominence constitute a main charge against the author, and prove, we think, his mind to be unfitted for the severity of historical inquiry. He takes much pains to parade-perhaps he really believes in-his impartiality, with what justice we appeal to the foregoing pages; but he is guilty of a prejudice as injurious in its consequences to truth as any political bias, He abhors whatever is not in itself pictur

BEING in Paris last summer, we called upon the Abbé Lamennais, immediately after the insurrection of June, in which he was supposed by many to be deeply implicated. He then lived near the Barrière de l'Etoile, in the Rue Byron, leading out of the Avenue Châteaubriand. This is one of the most quiet neighborhoods in Paris.

The Abbe's appearance is at first unprepossessing. He is little and old, and looks older than he is. He is usually dressed in a grey morning gown, with a common check neckerchief; everything else about him being much of the same order. He stoops, He stoops, moreover, and his whole figure suggests the idea of a man in feeble health-an impression which is confirmed by the weakness of his voice. But as he begins to converse, all your notions undergo a complete change. You soon forget whether he is short or tall, young or old. As his countenance kindles with enthusiasm, it becomes altogether radiant and beautiful.

We had heard in Paris and elsewhere numerous evil reports uttered against this man, which, though at variance with the spirit of all his writings, were so steadily persisted in, that an incredulity less pertinacious than our own, might ultimately have given way on the point. But in the Paroles d'un Croyant we fancied we could perceive the true beating of his heart. The warmth which pervades that little book, and constitutes its vitality, could not, we are persuaded, be artificial. It seemed to have been caught from the highest source of inspiration, and to be as incompatible with the coldness of scepticism, as with the fierce ebullitions of a vindictive temper; and our personal intercourse with Lamennais left deep in our mind the conviction, that whatever might be his faults, he is a genuine apostle of humanity; loving the poor, sympathizing with the distressed, and anxious

above all things to render his own protracted existence a blessing to other men.

With Lamennais' precise age we are not acquainted. He is said to have been born at St. Malo, in Bretagne, in 1782, though this date by no means agrees with other facts mentioned in his biographies. He applied himself diligently in his youth to the study of theology, but would seem afterwards to have laid it aside, and transferred his affections to the mathematics-a too exclusive application to which led probably to religious indifference. He was not eager for premature reputation in literature; but when Napoleon was arranging the affair of the Concordat with the Pope, he published a book entitled "Reflections on the State of the Church during the Eighteenth Century," which gave so much offense to the master of France, that its author resolved to come no more before the public during his tyranny.

Meanwhile he continued to discharge the duties of a mathematical teacher at St. Malo, but having conscientiously reviewed his religious opinions, he emerged from a state of indifference, and, with characteristic ardor, rushed to the opposite extreme of enthusiasm. He imagined that he discovered in Catholicism the only power by which society could be preserved and regenerated. His own experience had taught him the evil of indifference, and he saw around him, in the intellectual lethargy of the French, irresistible proofs that the absence of religious faith is indissolubly connected with moral and social degradation. Taking Catholicism, therefore, as he found it, or rather as it existed in his own transcendental conception of it, he sought to awaken his contemporaries, through its means, to a true sense of the dangers which he beheld encircling society. On all sides he witnessed material tendencies co-operating to check the development of