unpopular. It is even said that Buckingham proposed to have her stolen away, and hidden in one of the remote American plantations; but Charles heard of the notion with horror, saying it would be a wicked thing to make a poor lady miserable, only because she was his wife and had no children.

Buckingham's lawless dissipation was as scandalous as that of the King. Charles still submitted to the violence of Lady Castlemaine, whom he had made Duchess of Cleveland, with reversion to her son, Charles Fitzroy; but his admiration had drifted away from her to two comic actresses, Moll Davies and Nell Gwynn. They were much more harmless persons than their predecessor, and never meddled with affairs of State; indeed, Nell was very kind-hearted and charitable, and in later years became a good woman. Unhappily, these evil passions had so much effect both on public affairs and manners that there is no passing them over in silence. In France, Louise de la Vallière was often in agonies of repentance and fear, but still lingering, although the King was transferring his affections to the beautiful Athenaïs de Mortémar, Madame de Montespan, a much more brilliant and entertaining person than Louise, who had nothing but her beauty, grace, and profound affection for the King, and latterly had become too much depressed to be amusing. It was not till 1674, however, that she finally retired into the Convent of the Visitation, where her grief and her penances made a great sensation at the Court.

Deeply and earnestly good people there were at each Court, who were forced to tolerate evil. Madame de Sévigné too often laughed over it; but in England Margaret Blagge, one of the Queen's ladies, who lived in intimate friendship with John Evelyn, went through the Court life like a pure and limpid stream in the midst of foulness, observing her regular devotions, reading good books behind her playbill when forced to attend licentious theatricals, and keeping up her modest dignity whenever the gay courtiers or the King himself addressed her.

Evelyn himself, one of the best and most religious of men, could not help enjoying the conversation of the King in his better moods. Charles's abilities were of a high order, never better depicted than by the epigram that Lord Rochester (the Wilmot of his wanderings) affixed to his bed-chamber

'Here lies our sovereign lord the King,
Whose word no man relies on;

Who never said a foolish thing,

And never did a wise one.'

No one had more brilliancy in conversation or repartee, and people were delighted both with his wit and graciousness, and the familiarity he permitted. 'Old Rowley' was his familiar nick-name among his own circle, and to those who approached him he always said the right thing, and in the pleasantest manner, so that in spite of all the evils

of his life, he was never personally unpopular, and the people of London liked to see him, sauntering among his courtiers in St. James's Park, surrounded by his dogs, especially the little Spaniels still known by his name, feeding the ducks in St. James's Park, with a merry word for every one.

He had some knowledge of music and considerable taste, and that in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall was highly esteemed. The great composers, Blow and Purcell, were of his day, and gentlemen of all ranks viewed the science of music as one of the most suitable of accomplishments. Painting was chiefly represented by Sir Peter Lely, whose ladies, in easy attire, do not do much honour to him or to themselves. There was, however, a unique wood-carver, Grinling Gibbons, whom Evelyn discovered in a cottage at Deptford, carving a copy of Tintoretto's picture of the Stoning of St. Stephen.'

Evelyn showed it to the King, who was delighted with it, and sent it to be shown to the Queen, when, to Evelyn's great indignation, it was cried down by a 'peddling Frenchwoman who sold baubles to the ladies,' and found fault with things she understood no more than an ass or a monkey.' However, Charles gave Gibbons an appointment at the Board of Works, and much of his exquisite work is still extant, especially in the choir of St. Paul's. He also worked in marble, and executed a statue of the King for the new Royal Exchange. There was likewise much scientific research, in which Charles took great interest, and Prince Rupert devoted himself to it. Robert Boyle, son to that Earl of Cork with whom Strafford quarrelled, was a great discoverer in physical science, and the Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge' was chartered by the King, perhaps after the example of the French Academy, and greatly fostering the advance of knowledge.

Literature flourished as it generally does after the stimulus of a great national convulsion. Milton, after his stormy political career, had, in his old age and blindness, returned to the poetical delights of his early youth, and living in his cottage at Bunhill Fields, dictated to his daughters his Samson Agonistes' and 'Paradise Lost' and 'Regained.' These attracted little or no attention at the time, though the grave beauty, and the perfect harmony of many passages, especially in Paradise Lost,' gradually won their way, and placed the author on the same pinnacle of fame with Shakspere, while, in spite of the Socinian tone of some portions, the poems became to many of the English what Dante's Inferno' was to the Italians.

Dryden was, however, the Court poet, and there was a crowd of playwrights, mostly licentious, but whose works Pepys deliberately preferred to those of Shakspere. Defoe was writing numerous books, of which Robinson Crusoe' is deservedly the survivor, as one of the universal classics of England. So also is the Pilgrim's Progress,' the wonderful work of John Bunyan, the tinker, or rather brazier, who was confined in Bedford Jail under the Conventicle Act.

Evelyn, though not a great writer, did much for the beauty of England by his 'Sylva,' a book on planting and on forest trees. During the past troubles, great havoc had been made in the fine old parks and forest lands where grew primeval trees, and in the lavish Court of Charles II. there were plenty of gentlemen who defined them as excrescences designed by Providence for the payment of debts. It was Evelyn who first roused the public mind to the beauty and value of the glorious forest-tree, and incited country gentlemen to be careful in the cutting, and to renew the ranks of the fallen by planting. His own estates of Wootton, and his garden at Says Court, were thus rendered beautiful, and the former still bears witness to his taste by its noble timber trees.

PREPARATION OF PRAYER-BOOK LESSONS.

XLI.

AT THE GRAVE.

A. King Edward's First Prayer-book gives after the Lesson, the Kyrie, the Lord's Prayer, and these suffrages, the two first with repetition like an antiphon.

V. And lead us not into temptation.

Ry. But deliver us from evil.

V. Enter not, O Lord, into judgment with Thy servant.
Ry. For in Tby sight no living creature shall be justified
V. From the gates of hell.

Ry. Deliver their souls, O Lord.

V. I believe to see the goodness of the Lord

Ry. In the land of the living.

V. O Lord, graciously hear our prayer.

Ry. And let our cry come unto Thee.

Then followed the Prayer which with us follows the Lord's Prayer, and thus the service ended. But in the revision of 1549, the beautiful portion to be said at the grave was substituted for these versicles. S. Who thought of doing so?

A. That we do not know. And it is remarkable because the grand anthem sung at the grave comes from Germany, though it had been used in the Salisbury breviary, at the Compline for the third Sunday in Lent.

S. The first verse is Job xiv. 1, 2.

A. Yes; I did not mean that verse, but the other three, beginning 'Man that is born of a woman.'

S. Is their history known?

A. They were composed in the ninth century by Notker, a monk of St. Gall, who had been wisely bidden by his superior to devote himself to religious poetry, the same who wrote the grand hymn of judgment, Dies Ira, dies illa. The story goes that he was watching some workmen building the bridge of St. Martin, and often in positions of extreme danger, when these words, almost of inspiration, occurred to him.

S. In Latin?

A. Yes. Mediâ vitâ in morte sumus' are the original first words. It was constantly used as a dirge in Germany, and as a battle song, and even was viewed as a sort of charm, so that the Synod of Cologne in 1316 forbade its use without special permission from the Bishop.

Luther translated it into the hymn, Mitten wir in Leben sind,' and in that form it holds its place in Germany.

S. It is most solemn, and I remember how it struck on me at the first funeral I ever was at, that of the little girl in my class who was drowned.

A. Yes; after sudden deaths it has a very striking application, and even at other times, though the last illness may have been lingering, standing as we do in the midst of graves, the words come home to us. I do not think any words in our whole Prayer-book are so awful as those verses-especially the final one.

S. It is like the Litany, In the hour of death deliver us.'

Good Lord,

A. It helps to store up prayers against that time when we shall be absolutely alone, with no power to aid us among those from whom we shall be drifting away. And who can tell what are the conflicts of the soul when the bodily power of expression is gone, and the spiritual world is opening on us. Then, indeed, none can tell how it may be with the passing spirit.

S. You make me tremble.

A. It is well so to tremble that we may pray before that hour of thegreat waterfloods.'

S. And now we come to that last farewell at the grave. I think I have read of the Greeks using an open bier, there giving the last kiss in the order of relationship. And then after the lowering into the grave comes the throwing of earth.

A. Three times, observe. It is, as it were, the beginning of the new Baptism to the Resurrection of the body. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.' It was originally done by the priest, and in the Eastern Church he says, as he does so, The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, the compass of the world and they that dwell therein.' The rubric of 1552 directed that some standing by' should cast the earth; but up to Bishop Cosin's time, many priests observed the old custom, and thus preserved the symbolism, raising the idea above the painful one of the rattle of the clods.

S.

'If human anguish o'er the shaded brow,

Pause, shuddering when the handful of cold earth

Touches the coffin lid.

If at our brother's name,

Once and again the thought "for ever gone"

Comes o'er us like a cloud, yet, gentle spright,

Thou turnest not away,

Thou knowest us calm at heart.'

A. For if it is earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' it is really the sowing the vile body that it may be made like unto His glorious Body.

S. In sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection.' That is the sentence that gives umbrage.