one in the library of the British Museum. The authorities there value it so highly that they have not, as they usually do, bound it in the same volume with a number of other pulpit discourses, but keep it separate in its original paper cover, and allow it to be perused only in the interior recesses of the library, under vigilant supervision.

Cardinal Newman's "St. Bartholomew's Eve."

The British Museum has become possessed of the extremely scarce poem, by J. H. Newman and J. W. Bowden, entitled "St. Bartholomew's Eve: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century. In Two Cantos. Oxford: Printed and published by Munday and Slatter, Herald Office, High Street, 1821." It belonged. to the Rev. Dr. Bloxam, of Beeding Priory, Hurstpierpoint, and it bears the inscription, "John R. Bloxam, D.D. With the Affectionate Regards of John H. Newman." An envelope addressed to Dr. Bloxam by Newman is pasted in; it has the postal mark, "Birmingham, Feb. 20, /83." Pencil notes in the margin assign the shares of the two authors. Bowden begins and goes on to line 65. Newman commences and goes on thus :

"'Mid the recesses of that pillared wall

Stood reverent Clement's dark confessional.
Here Rapine's son, with superstition pale,
Oft through the grated lattice told his tale;
Here blood-stained Murder falter'd, tho' secure
Of absolution from a faith impure-
Mistaken worship! can the outward tear
Make clean the breast devoid of godly fear!
Shall pomp and splendour holy love supply,
The grateful heart, the meek submissive eye?

Mistaken worship! when the priestly plan
In servile bondage rules degraded man,
Proclaims on high in proud imperious tone
Devotion springs from ignorance alone;
And dares prefer to sorrow for the past

The scourge of penance or the groan of fast!
-Where every crime a price appointed brings

To sooth (sic) the churchman's pride, the sinner's stings,
Where righteous grief and penitence are made

A holy market and a pious trade !"

Another passage by Newman may be given from the

second canto:

"There is in stillness oft a magic power

To calm the breast when struggling passions lower;
Touched by its influence, in the soul arise
Diviner feelings kindred with the skies.

Through this the Arab's kindling thoughts expand,
When arching skies on all sides kiss the sand.

For this the hermit seeks the silent grove

To court the inspiring glow of heavenly love.

-It is not solely in the freedom given

T'abstract our thoughts and fix the soul on heaven;
There is a spirit singing aye in air

That lifts us high above each mortal care;

No mortal measure swells that silent sound,

No mortal minstrel breathes such tones around;

-The angels' hymn-the melting harmony
That guides the rolling bodies through the sky-
And hence perchance the tales of saints who viewed
And heard angelic choirs in solitude,

By most unheard, because the busy din

Of pleasure's courts the heedless may not win;

Alas! for man; he knows not of the bliss,

The heav'n attending such a life as this."

Four pages of notes are added. The first is by Newman,

and runs thus:

"Canto the First.

Note 1, page 5, line 1,

The sun has risen.

I take this opportunity of introducing a short sketch of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. It may be thought by many an unnecessary task, and some will not fail to deem it as presuming to suppose that our learned University is unacquainted with the full particulars. This I thought myself, when I published the first canto; but an earnest and attentive canvassing of the opinions of those who have done me the honour to peruse my publication has convinced me of my mistake; and since I have done my best to please, I hope I shall be pardoned if I be in error. The year of our Lord 1572 will ever be branded with infamy and recollected with horror as the date of this most barbarous and cold-blooded massacre. The queen-mother, Catherine de Medici, actuated by zeal or ambition, conceived this design so pleasing to the Court of Rome; and her weak and ill-fated son Charles the Ninth was made the tool of her bloodthirsty intentions. The hour of twelve according to Voltaire, of three according to Sully, was the time appointed for the commencement of the assassination, and the clock of the church of St. German l'Auxerrois awakened the pious Catholics of Paris to deeds of treachery and murder. Coligny, Lord High Admiral of France, was one of the first that was (sic) martyred. 30,000 Huguenots shared his fate throughout the empire, and it was only a motive of policy that spared the Protestant King of Navarre, afterwards the famous Henry the Fourth, who had lately married the King's

sister. Charles died not long after, a victim to a most miserable disease; his dying moments were haunted with the visions of a distempered imagination or a guilty conscience, and he seemed to wish to atone for his conduct towards the Protestants by appointing his brother-in-law of Navarre his successor. The poetry of Voltaire and the prose of Sully exhibit two Frenchmen speaking in abhorrence of the deeds of their countrymen; and this single circumstance is perhaps more convincing in respect to the atrocity of the massacre than the most laboured declamation of the historian."

The last note is also by Newman, and contains the following curious sentence:

'Paley in his moral philosophy supposes that the happiness of the lower and sedentary orders of animals, as of oysters, periwinkles, etc., consists in perfect health: I should prefer to say, it consists in the silence they enjoy."

It may be added that in the British Museum Catalogue the pencil notes assigning authorship are ascribed to Dr. Bloxam. Is this certain?

From Some Early Letters of George Eliot.

We make some extracts from a few letters written by George Eliot to an early school friend.

THE PHYSICAL THEORY OF ANOTHER LIFE.

"FOLESHILL, May 21st, 1841.

Leaving this fruitless subject, I will not omit to tell you that you have instrumentally furnished me with the best soother under a rather severe attack of influenza in The

Physical Theory of Another Life, which I had lent to a friend without reading it myself until about a month ago, when I nestled in my father's arm-chair and forgot headache, cough, and all their etceteras in the rapture this precious book caused me, as intense as that of any school-girl over her first novel."

"Have you, dear Patty, read any of T. Carlyle's books? He is a grand favourite of mine, and I venture to recommend to you his Sartor Resartus. I dare say a barrister of your acquaintance has it. His soul is a shrine of the brightest and purest philanthropy, kindled by the live coal of gratitude and devotion to the Author of all things. I should observe that he is not 'orthodox.'"

MARRIAGE.

"FOLESHILL, April 21st, 1845.

"What should you say to my becoming a wife? Should you think it a duty to ascertain the name of the rash man that you might warn him from putting on such a matrimonial hair-shirt as he would have with me? I did meditate an engagement, but I have determined, whether wisely or not I cannot tell, to defer it, at least for the present. My health is not of the strongest-dreadful headaches come now and then to me as well as to the rest of mankind, but idleness is my chief disease, and my most salutary medicine the exhortation, 'Work while it is day.'