Lost! Lost! Lost!

Floated the wail of the tempest-tossed.

Lost! Lost! Lost!

Out of the depths of the sea

Out of the night and the sea;

And the waves and the winds of the storm were hushed,
And the sky with the gleams of the stars was flushed.
Saved! Saved! Saved!

And a calm and joyous cry

Floated up through the starry sky,

In the dark-in the storm-"Our Father" is nigh.

(186.) TRIAL OF CHARLES THE FIRST.

Miss Mitford, authoress and dramatist, b. 1786, d. 1855. Daughter of an improvident father, educated at Chelsea. Her chief poem was "Our Village;" her principal play, Charles the First. The latter was interdicted by Coleman, the licenser of plays, but was subsequently acted at the London minor theatres.

BRADSHAW, seated.

Scene-WESTMINSTER HALL.

CROMWELL, HARRISON, IRETON, and DoWNES seated on raised benches. COKE and other lawyers seated at table. Chair of state for the KING. Guards at back.

Brad. Hath every name been called and every judge appeared at the high summons?

Coke. Good, my lord. [Rising.] Each one hath answered.
Coke. [Rising.] Peace! Silence in the court.

[Enter the King; guards range behind the king's chair. All rise and cry Justice! Justice! All sit except Bradshaw. Brad. My Lords Commissioners, whilst I stood pausing how fittest to disclose our mighty plea, dallying with phrase and form, yon eager cry shot like an arrow to the mark, laying bare the very core of our intent. Sirs, we are met to render justice, met to judge in such a cause as scarce the lucent sun that smiles upon us from his throne hath seen since light was born. We sit to judge a king arraigned by his own people; to make inquest into the innocent blood which hath been spilled like water; into crime and tyranny, treason and murder. Look that we chase each frail affection, each fond hidden sin, each meaner virtue from our hearts and cling to justice! only justice. Now for thee, Charles Stuart, King of England! Thou art here to render compt of awful crime: of treason, conspiracy, and murder. Answer!

Coke. [To King.] First, may it please you hear the charge.
King. Who are ye that dare to question me?

Brad. Thy judges. [Sits.]

King. Say my subjects! Who sent ye here?
Brad. The Commons.

King. [Rising.] Sir, I fling back the charge upon their heads; the guilt, the shame, the eternal infamy on them who sowed the tare of hate in fields of love; who armed brother against brother, breaking the holy tie of Nature, making war accurst as that Egyptian plague, the worst and last, when the first-born were slain. I have no answer for them or ye--I know ye not.

Brad. Be warned.

Plead to the accusation!

King. I will die a thousand deaths rather than by my breath give life to this new court against the law and liberties of England.

Brad. Your speech and deeds but ill accord, else had you not been called the Tyrant King.

King. Now, by my dearest hopes you say foul slander. I love my people and would have them free; let liberty like crystal daylight enter and fill each home, illume each path, till the king's body-guard when he goes forth on either hand, be love and loyalty.

Brad. Sir, we know your love of liberty and England. Call the witnesses. Be they in court?

Coke. They wait without.

Brad. Send for them quickly. Once again, King, Wilt thou plead? King. Thou hast my answer-Never!

[The head of the King's stick on which he is leaning falls

and rolls across. Pause.

Coke. What fell? The breathless silence of the court gives to each common sound a startling clearness. What hath fallen!

Ireton. The head of the king's staff! See how it rolled away along the floor as hurrying to forsake the royal wretch, its master! Now it is at Cromwell's feet.

Crom. The toy is broken. [Picks it up.]

Harrison. What is the device? Some vain idolatrous image!

Crom. No; a crown, a gilded crown, a hollow glittering crown, shaped by some quaint and cunning goldsmith. Look on what a reed he leaned, who props himself on such a bauble!

King. It were better that than on a sword, stained with a true man's blood; on graves where orphans weep, their very tears changed into ink to write the record there [points upward] to judge thy soul before it meets its doom. [To Cromwell.] See there! the crown is fairly in your grasp; you stooped for it.

Crom. Pass the toy on to the prisoner; he hath faith in omens. 1

fling him back his gewgaw.

[Downes hands it to one of the King's attendants. Brad. Master Coke, we wait too long.

Coke. My lord, the witnesses.

Brad. [Rises.] Call any man. Within our bleeding land there lives not one so blest in ignorance as not to know this treason. None so high but the storm overtopped him, none so low but the wind stooped to root him up. Call any man, the judge upon the bench,—the halberdiers that guard the doors.

Coke. Oliver Cromwell.

Crom. Aye.

Coke. Lieut.-General Cromwell, wast thou present in the great fight at Naseby?

Crom. Was I present? Why, I think ye know that. I was.

Coke. Didst see the prisoner in the battle?

Crom. Many times. He led his army. In a better cause I should have said right valiantly. I saw him first in the onset, last in the retreat; that justice let me pay the king.

Brad. Raised he his banner 'gainst his people? Didst thou see the royal standard in the field?

Crom. My lord, it rose full in the centre of their host, floating upon the heavy air.

Coke. The arms of England?

Crom. Aye; the very lion shield that waved at Cressy and at Agincourt triumphant! None may better know than I; for it so pleased the Almighty Captain of the field that my arm struck down the standard bearer, and restored the English lion to the lion hearts of England.

Coke. Please you, sir, retire. [Cromwell resumes his seat.] Now

summon-

King. [Starting up.] Call not another. What I have done boldly in the face of day and of the nation, nothing repenting, nothing derogating, from the king's high prerogative; boldly and freely I avow to you, to all men. I own ye not as judges. Ye have power, as pirates or land robbers, o'er the wretch entrapped within their den; a power to mock your victim with a form of trial, to dress plain murder in a mask of law. As judges I know ye not.

Brad. Enough that you confess the treason.

King. Stop. Sir, I appeal to them whence you derive your power -the people.

Brad. The people? King, thou seest them here in me.

King. Oh that my voice could reach my loyal people! That the winds could waft the echo of this groined roof, so that each corner of the land might hear their rightful monarch's cry! Then should ye hear from this great nation the stern shout of just deliverance, mighty and prolonged, smiting each guilty conscience with such fear as wait on the great judgment day. The wish is vain. I and my people are o'ermastered. Yet, sir, I demand a conference with these masters. Tell the Commons the king would speak with them.

Brad. We have no power to stay the trial.

Dow. Nay, good my lord; perchance the king would yield such reason as might move the Commons to renew the treaty. Best confer with them.

Crom. [Rises (to Downes).] Art mad?

Dow. "Tis ye are mad that urge with such remorseless haste this work of savage butchery.

Crom. This is sudden.

Dow. He's our king.

Crom. Our king! Have we not faced him in the field a thousand times! Our king! why I have seen thyself hewing through mailed battalia till thy sword and thy good arm were dyed in gore to reach yon man. Didst mean to save him? [Aloud.] Why do ye pause?

Coke. My high and honouring task to plead at this great bar for lawful liberty were needless now and vain. The haughty prisoner denies your jurisdiction. I call on ye for instant judgment.

Brad. All ye who deem Charles Stuart guilty, Rise. [The judges rise. King. What, all!

Brad. Not one is waiting. Clerk, record them guilty.

Coke. Now the sentence.

King. Now speak your doom and quickly.

Brad. Death! Thou art adjudged to die. Do ye all accord in this just sentence?

[Judges all rise. King. I am ready. To a head aching with royal cares the block is a kind pillow. Yet once more.

Brad. Silence! The sentence is pronounced; the time is past, conduct them from the court.

[Sits. King. Not hear me ! me your anointed king! Bear witness then the world what justice a meaner man may hope for.

Crom. Why refuse his death speech to a prisoner? whoso knoweth what weight hangs on his soul? Speak on and fear not.

King. Fear! let the guilty fear. As I lift up this sword, miscalled of justice, my clear voice hoarsens not, falters not. See I can smile as, thinking on the axe, I draw the bright keen edge across my hand.

Fear! Would ye ask what weight is ou my soul, I tell ye none save that I yielded once to your decree and slew my faithful servant. Oh, Strafford! Strafford! this is a retribution.

Brad. Better weep thy sins than that just holy act.

King. For ye, my subject judges, I could weep; for thee, beloved and lovely country, thou wilt groan under the tyrant. Marry—till some bold and crafty soldier [looking at Cromwell] shall come and climb the vacant throne and fix him there a more than king. Cromwell, if such thou knowest tell him the rack would prove an easier couch than he shall find that throne, tell him the crown on an usurper's brow will scorch and burn as though the diamonded and ermined round were framed of glowing steel.

Crom. Hath this dread wrath smitten thee with frenzy?

King. Tell him that doubt and discord shall like fell harpies wait upon him. By night, by day, beneath the palace roof, fear shall appal and danger threaten the usurper, and all natural love wither and die, till on his dying bed, old 'fore his time, the wretched traitor lies heartbroken. Then, Cromwell, bid him think on me and how I fell. Oh, thou shalt envy in thy long agony my fall that shakes a kingdom but not me.

Crom. He is possessed.

King. On to my prison-on.

(187.) THE COLONEL'S DEATHBED.

William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist and miscellaneous writer, born in Calcutta 1811, died in London 1863. Educated at Charter House School. Principal works: Vanity Fair, History of Pendennis, Henry Esmond, The Virginians, The Newcomes, English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century, Lectures on the Four Georges, Paris Sketch Book, and Irish Sketch Book; besides various contributions to Punch, Fraser's Magazine, and the Cornhill Magazine, of which latter he was for many years the editor. Severe upon society, he had the strongest faith in human nature, and his own great heart beat responsive to all that was generous in history, fiction, or the world of his time.

[Colonel Newcome, says Hannay, is the finest portrait that has been added to the gallery of fiction since the time of Sir Walter Scott.-The colonel has served in the Indian army. Returning to England, he enters into speculations by which he is ruined, whilst the ill-treatment he receives at the hands of a female relative, eventually breaks the warm heart of the old soldier. "The pathos with which his ruin and death are treated, places Thackeray in the very highest rank of poetic humorists."]

But our Colonel, we all were obliged to acknowledge, was no more our friend of old days. Now, as in those early days, his heart was pure; no anger remained in it.

The days went on, and our hopes, raised sometimes, began to