water

as plainly as once I saw all sorts of sharks in a drop of New River I shall write this blessed night to Sir Andrew Agnew(by the way, dear Grandmother, it was said that Sir Andrew was lately caught in a Sunday train, but it isn't true : it's now proved to be somebody I won't mention to you, who sometimes, out of spite to the baronet, goes about in his likeness)-I'll write to Sir Andrew, and get him to give a Potato Lecture, after this fashion, at Exeter Hall. If with one potato he wouldn't make the women cry, then there's no weeping to be got out of an onion! Sir Andrew with one rotten potato, like David with a smooth pebble, would kill Goliah Peel as dead as Tamworth mutton.

And yet when it's plain that it's the Maynooth Grant, and not the wet-certainly not the wetthat 's rotted the potato, we find big-wig Doctors sent to Ireland (a further insult to Providence, Grandmother) to inquire, as it is presumptuously said, into the cause of the disease. Why, I know what you, or any other good old woman would have done; after you'd tasted the Maynooth Grant -and there's no mistaking the flavour-in your early kidneys, you 'd at once have stopped the rot ;-and how would you have done it? Why, you'd have got the Queen to send a message to Parliament, to order a repeal of the Maynooth Grant. Of course you would. But no; sinful men are made fool-hardy by success. cause, when they granted Catholic 'Mancipation, the fly spared our turnips, it was thought we could give money to Maynooth College, and yet save our 'tatos! Ha! dear Grandmother, when you take your kidney baked, steamed, or mashed,—think of us sinners, and say a short prayer for us.

Be

I'd forgotten to tell you that the potatos in Belgium are as bad, or even worse, than ours. Besides the wet, I can't precisely tell the cause of this because there 's been no Maynooth Grant there; nearly all the wicked people being Catholics,—but then, I suppose, that's it. Mr. Flunky Ferrie declares that "the present judgment is connected with Popery." There's no doubt

of it:

The blight being general over three kingdoms, points out the rulers of the land as the persons whose sin has secured it; and the blight being in the potato crop directs attention to their dealings with Ireland as the particular sins which have immediately called it down.

This is, doubtless, true enough; and no less true, because the whole people must suffer for the dozen rulers. Now, had the

blight fallen only upon Tamworth, or Strathfieldsaye, or all the 'tatos of all the Ministers,-the disease would doubtless have been hushed up. Yes,-it was necessary that every man should suffer in his potatos; not only the sinful Protestant who consented to the Grant, but the lucky Catholics who accepted it. The judgment fell upon all tubers alike,—the tubers of the Established Church and of the Church of Babylon. The Bishop of London's 'tatos are in as forlorn a way as the 'tatos of the Irish Lion of Judah : that's some comfort, Grandmother.

Well, and what does this blight say to the Catholics-what does every potato cry-(with the little voice that what they call tubercular consumption has left it)—what does it cry to the "papishes," but " Change your religion, and henceforth be happy in your 'tatos!" At first, I thought this change of religion a ticklish matter; but when I see how easily the nobs-the bright examples of the world -do it, why it's only conceit in smaller people to hesitate: for I've just read a long story about the Emperor of Nicholas, who 's in Italy with his poor dying wife. (By the way, it seems that the Emperor, like many other folks, is such a good-tempered, jolly fellow when he 's out, that it's a pity he should ever go home again.) The Emperor's daughter, the Duchess Olga (a good play-bill name isn't it?) was to marry an Austrian Archduke; but her father wouldn't let her alter her religion from the Greek to the Catholic Church. Now, however, Nicholas has thought better of it, and his daughter may change her religion for a husband, just as she 'll put on a new gown to be married in. When emperors and kings play at hustle-cup with creeds, isn't it downright impudence in mere nobodies to be nice?

When I think, though, that the Maynooth Grant has brought the rot in potatos, I can't help looking round about the world, and fearing what may bye-and-bye become of us for our friendship with the heathen. We take tea of the Chinese; a people, evidently an insult to heaven-though long put up with, and mustering hundreds of millions. Doesn't Mr. Ferrie fear that some day, all us men may rise in the morning with pig-tails, and the women get up with a little foot a piece? We buy rhubarb from the wicked Turk. A time may come when-for a visitation -the drug may deceive all the doctors, and Old Gooseberry only know what mischief may happen! We get tallow from Russia. How do I know that I mayn't, in every six to a pound, without thinking of it, set up a candle to the Greek Church?

Will

Flunky Ferrie think of these things?-for there are many of his kidney who 'd like to be enlightened.

The

But, oh Grandmother! perhaps the worst is to come. Church is really now in danger! I've not had a fare up LudgateHill lately, but I've no doubt St. Paul's is cracked from top to bottom. Would you believe it? David Salomons, the late Sheriff (who was sweetly cheated out of his gown as Alderman, the said gown being now on the shoulders of Church-and-State Moon, Esq.);-David Salomons, a Jew, has given 16667. 13s. 4d. to buy a scholarship of 50l. a year for the city of London, and the City Gog and Magog quivered as with the ague-has been mean enough to take it. Oh, for the good old times, when they used to spit upon Jews in the Exchange! and now we take their money from 'em! I know you'll think it a blow at the Church. The scholarship is said to be "open to members of every religious persuasion;" this is a flam-a blind. The gift is a sly attack on the Established Church. It's the evident intention of the Minories to turn us all into Jews. Never has there been such a blow struck at the vested interests of Smithfield pig-market. Sir Robert Inglis-whom I took up at Exeter Hall a night or two ago says, in two years there'll be a grand Rabbi in Lambeth Palace. Your affectionate Grandson,

A HISTORY FOR YOUNG ENGLAND.*

What a pitie is it to see a proper gentleman to have such a crick in his neck that he cannot look backward. Yet no better is he who cannot see behind him the actions which long since were performed. History maketh a young man to be old, without either wrinkles or grey hairs; privileging him with the experience of age, without either the infirmities or inconveniences thereof. Yea, it not onely maketh things past, present; but inableth one to make a rationall conjecture of things to come. For this world affordeth no new accidents, but in the same sense wherein we call it a new moon; which is the old one in another shape, and yet no other than what had been formerly. Old actions return again, furbished over with some new and different circumstances.-FULLER.

CHAPTER THE NINTH.

HENRY THE SECOND AND HIS SONS.

1170-1189. It was a day of evil omen for the great English king, when the swords of Fitzurse, Brito, and Hugh of Horsea, struck down Thomas à Becket at the high altar of Canterbury church. Wholly without warrant are the partizan statements which would still associate Henry with that dreadful crime, and most melancholy blunder. At the very hour when the murderers held parley before the deed with their high-spirited victim, three barons, royal messengers, were on their way, with proper legal authority, and on a ground for which no good man will now condemn the king, to arrest the archbishop. His first act on his return to England after his six years' exile, had been in gross violation of the compromise he had, at the least colourably, sanctioned but a few brief months before.

In truth the contest, as I have said, was virtually decided for the king, when these ruffian swords again depressed the scale against him. Even in the French Court, where political had far outweighed religious considerations in the determined support of Becket, there was but one feeling of hearty sympathy with Henry, when, in language often afterwards referred to, he would have brought the quarrel to a simple test. Whatever displeases that

* Continued from page 469.

'man, is taken by him to be contrary to God's honour. By these 'two words would he take from me all my rights. But I will make 'him one concession. Certes there have been kings in England 'before me, less powerful than I am; and possibly there have been in the See of Canterbury, archbishops more holy than he is. What the greatest and holiest of his predecessors did for the least of mine, let him do for me, and I shall be satisfied.' The virtuous and independent bishop of Lisieux had not scrupled after this to convey to Becket, that even churchmen began to attribute the continued desperation of his struggle to pride rather than to virtue; and that they saw in him still the Chancellor in spirit, resolved to have no superior, and determined to assert a power above government with which government could not consist. Finally, when Henry procured the secret apostolical letter which authorised his son's coronation by whatsoever prelate he might choose to select, even the Pope had virtually deserted the archbishop's cause.

On this question of the consecration of Henry's eldest son, the last dispute turned almost wholly. The coronation of young Henry was an ill-advised step, but, supposing it would settle the succession past dispute, the king had set his heart upon it; and when Becket, still suspended from his see, learnt that what he held to be the inalienable right of consecration belonging to it, had been deputed to another, his rage did not spare even St. Peter's representative. He accused the Roman court of betraying the cause of God, of saving Barabbas, and of crucifying Christ again. It is my firm purpose,' he added, never more to importune the pontifical court. Let those repair thither who seek profit from their iniquities, and return thence glorious 'for having oppressed the righteous cause and made innocence 'captive.' Alarmed at this abuse, the Pontiff, with a double treachery to which it is strange to find the high though mistaken spirit of Becket a consenting accomplice, secretly supplied means of suspension and excommunication against the very prelates whom his own act had authorized to supersede the alleged functions of the primacy. With these powers, unknown to the king, who would not else have reinstated him, Becket returned to England.

He returned, not to complete the compromise-an essential condition of which was acquiescence and silence in regard to the past— but to renew the contest. The common people crowded to welcome him at his landing (knowing nothing of the matter in dispute,