one letter is evidence sufficient of the very large share which the latter had in filling out the gigantic plan. He himself is said to have declared not only that" Barry's grand plan was immeasurably superior to any that I could at the time have produced"-but a still more significant fact, that "the commissioners would have killed me in a twelvemonth." With such a statement before us, imagination is apt to recall such an arrangement as that which preferred the suave Lord Raglan to the uncompromising Highlandman, who might have fought our battles better, but certainly would have set us at loggerheads with our fastidious ally. A great artist, who loves his work for the work's sake, may be pardoned even for relinquishing his due share of the fame of a great national undertaking, under consideration of escaping at the same time from all the official worry which another man might be better able to bear.

We do not linger upon Pugin's journeys and criticisms during this busy period. He went to Rome, where he was utterly horrified and disgusted, as so Pointed a man was likely to be. Though he denied afterwards that he wished for the downfall of St Peter's, a story is told of him so lively and characteristic that some truth undoubtedly is in the tale. He was found praying in one of the chapels in that vast centre of Papal finery and "debased" grandeur, and, on leaving the church, disclosed confidentially to a friend the fact that he had found out a crack in the dome, and had gone to his knees forthwith to give thanks! "St Peter's is far more ugly than I expected, and vilely constructed, a mass of imposition," he writes: "bad taste of every kind seems to have run riot in this place.

The Sistine Chapel is a melancholy room; the 'Last Judgment' is a painfully muscular delineation of a glorious subject; the Scala Regia a humbug; the Vatican a hideous mass; and St Peter's is the greatest failure of all. It is quite painful to walk

about. Italian architecture is a mere system of veneering marble slabs; it is enough to make one frantic to think that these churches, with their plaster pilasters and bad windows [here the furious artist interposes a sketch of a round-headed iron-barred window ludicrouslylike], have not only been the model for all larger churches erected during the last two centuries, but have been the means of spoiling half the fine old buildings, through the efforts that have been made to assimilate them to this wretched model." There were, however, gratifying circumstances in this Italian journey. The Pope presented the devout son of the Church with a gold medal, and out of his own country the prophet had all due honour. The crisis of his fate, however, was now approaching, and these momentary gratifications perhaps only enhanced the pain and annoyance that were to follow.

In 1851 came that great Papal effort, the re-establishment of the hierarchy in England, which caused so much commotion at the moment, and which has now fallen into such entire forgetfulness. Pugin, who never could confine himself to his own trade, and whose restless eye and spirit took cognisance of everything passing round him, had of course his word to say upon this exciting subject. He plunged into the midst of the conflict with an Earnest Address, as unforeseen and embarrassing as could be imagined, urging on Catholics, as the practical end of his discourse, the necessity of supporting their new episcopate by voluntary tithes of their substance, but at the same time reading that hierarchy an astounding historical lecture upon the backsliding of other hierarchies in times past, and upon the fact that the sins and schisms of the Anglican Church were not so much referable to Protestantism as to the treachery and depravity of the last Catholic bishops who had flourished in England. This astonishing performance fell like a thunderbolt among the new

dignitaries. The flutter and ferment which ensued did not end in the pages of the Rambler, as former controversies had done. This time the man who had devoted his life and substance to the thankless task of correcting, adorning, and perfecting, in the externals which were so important in his eyes, and indeed in her own as well, his mother Church, was denounced to the newmade cardinal as a doubtful believer, if not a heretic; and threats were uttered, and proceedings taken, to place this new production of his upon the fatal Index of Rome. What effect this disappointment, mortification, and sting of ingratitude had upon the vehement heart and overwrought brain, nobody perhaps, but the instruments of that wonderful ecclesiastical system, can tell. But not to enter into the mysteriously-veiled circumstances, to which, indeed, no means of entrance is afforded us, in less than a year thereafter, mysterious and sudden downfall had come upon the strong man in the height of his days. The wondering public heard by snatches, which did but increase its curiosity and the mystery of the matter, that Pugin, who but the other day had been visible in the full activity of his restless career, lavishing toil, genius, and money upon ecclesiastical offerings, and earning an income which could afford such liberality, was in Bedlam, in one of those cells so dismal to the popular imagination, where the pauper and the friendless find sad refuge in their hour of extremity. How he came to be there he with friends in the highest circles of society, with an anxious family, and with supporters throughout the country who had even a commercial interest in his restoration-nobody ventures to say. But in Bedlam he was, when the news burst upon the astonished community which knew Pugin, and knew his almost arrogant independence, his fastidious honour, his English determination to "pay his way." The natural conclusion was, that ruin had over

taken the too-liberal and generous life-and an immediate commotion ensued, such as, thank Heaven, always ensues in England, whenever distress becomes clamorous enough to be spoken of. A thrill of immediate help and tender kindness awoke in the general heart, not unmixed with indignation. When that impulse found utterance, poor Pugin's guardians, whoever they were, were startled by the sound; they withdrew him noiselessly from that unbecoming asylum, and put his son forward to assure the public that their help was unnecessary. After a while they conveyed him home to his house, where, with extraordinary ignorance or heartlessness, he was suffered to see his library stript of the sketches with which he had embellished it. A few days after he died. Such is all that apparently can be told of this singular tragic scene in the midst of commonplace modern life. Perhaps, were this hidden story known, its circumstances too might be natural and explainable enough; but all the parties concerned seem to agree in hushing up and covering over the melancholy conclusion. Whether this reticence is caused by personal feeling, or by the policy of a system which for once has made a failure, and cannot prove itself otherwise than cruelly in the wrong, or by sheer folly and incomprehension of the benefits of candour, it is impossible to decide. But in whatever light it is regarded, these mysteries, still kept up about the close of so singular and wellknown a career, permit all kinds of possibly groundless conjectures as to the unexplained causes of Pugin's premature fate.

Perhaps the most pathetic particular of all remains to be told. When his overworn mind was trembling in its balance, and his heart vexed by the opposition and contradiction he met with everywhere among his fellow-Catholics (and it is impossible not to perceive that this opposition must have been aggravated rather than lessened by

the insincere blandishments of those priestly coaxers, whose part seems to have been to keep him in goodhumour), Pugin began, of all extraordinary things in the world, to write a book, which he himself describes as being "on the real cause of the change of religion in the sixteenth century, which will place matters in an entirely new light, overthrow the present opinions on both sides, and may be the means of tending to much mutual charity on both sides, and a better understanding." This work, as described by Mr Purcell, his Catholic apologist, was intended to prove more fully the fact which he had already stated in his Earnest Address, that the system of Catholicism in England had been overthrown by Catholics, and that the state of the Church of Rome at the time had been such as to account for the ruin and decay which overtook her. The proposed title-page was as follows:-"An Apology for the separated Church of England since the Reign of the Eighth Henry: written with every feeling of Christian charity for her children, and honour of the glorious men she continued to produce in evil times. By A. W. Pugin, many years a Catholic-minded son of the Anglican Church, and still an affectionate and loving brother and servant of the true sons of England's Church." "In consequence of the religious commotion of the times," continues Mr Purcell, the work, by the advice of the author's ecclesiastical superiors, was delayed: he was admonished, indeed, not to go on with this promised publication without a sound [the italics are the writer's own] theological adviser, nor before he had cleared up the objections and scandal which was feared to have resulted from his former work on the hierarchy-a work so taken up by the hostile papers, and by whom, certainly, it was hoped, Pugin could not wish to be considered as a friend."

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Thus, without much grammar, the last pathetic project of his troubled but mellowing intellect

was peremptorily put down by the ecclesiastical superiors to whose sway in an evil hour this ungovernable and impetuous but generous soul had subjected itself. Finding out by dire experiment how hard and inexorable was that infallible mistress whom he now served, his heart yearned, not with a second change of faith, but with pathetic human affection, to that English community, not infallible, not perfect, yet reasonable and human, which had shown him kindness, and had not resented his sharp words. He acknowledges-for even this last project was architectural— that it was the English Church which had preserved the monuments of Catholic antiquity; and concludes his many battles against her, and virulent attacks on her clergy and her principles, as well as his own laborious life and many conflicts, in the following affecting words :

"Let us then always speak and think with gratitude of the old bridge that has brought us over, and lend a pious help to restore her time-worn piers, wasted by the torrents of dissent and infidelity, but which God in His mercy, beyond our human understanding, appears yet to sustain, and to make it the marvel of some of the most zealous men that have appeared since the ancient glory of the Church in the pious early times. Par omnibus. Amen."

These, Mr Purcell tells us, were the last words which Pugin wrote." More pathetic words were never spoken by any soldier falling on the field.

His life had been war from beginning to end-sharp, uncompromising conflict; attacks, often virulent, only made tolerable by the perfect unhesitating honesty and single-mindedness of the hearty fighter. But, struck to the heart by unkindness and desertion, that last and keenest blow of adversity, those of his own house lifting up their heel against him, the gallant unfortunate turns wistfully round to see a deeper bond of perfectness, a more universal catholicity than he had dreamed of. He falters his Pax omnibus as he falls, defeated, yet

victorious, escaping out of all the unthought-of pangs which his primitive rude knight-errantry was unprepared to meet. Whether his brain gave way under natural pressure, or whether he was driven mad, into Bedlam and the grave, by agencies more occult than toil and excitement, will probably never be known; and whether known or not, is now deeply indifferent to the dead soldier. He has his grave in flint-built St Augustine's, within sound of the stormy Channel, which he loved almost as well, no longer able to interpose his desperate human exertions between perishing

sailors on these angry straits and the wide grave that gapes for them -no longer able to feel the serpent's tooth, the pang of desertion; and somebody has offered unlimited money to complete what remains unfinished of the Pugin Chauntry. It is a fit conclusion to the sad strange story. Those who build the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers have slain, may afford a little tabernacle-work and dainty "detail" after his own forlorn heart, could he but know it, to this rude but loyal mediæval vassal, who gave heart and genius, life and fortune, to the service of his Church and his Art.

WHEN Nettie opened the door of the sleeping house, with the great key she had carried with her in her early dreadful expedition, there was still nobody stirring in the unconscious cottage. She paused at the door, with the four men behind her carrying shoulder-high that terrible motionless burden. Where was she to lay it? In her own room, where she had not slept that night, little Freddy was still sleeping. In another was the widow, overcome by watching and fretful anxiety. The other fatherless creatures lay in the little dressing-room. Nowhere but in the parlour, from which Fred not so very long ago had driven his disgusted brother-the only place she had where Nettie's own feminine niceties could find expression, and where the accessories of her own daily life and work were all accumulated. She lingered even at that dread moment with a pang of natural reluctance to associate that little sanctuary with the horror and misery of this bringing-home; but when every feeling gave way to the pressure of necessity, that superficial one was not like to resist it. Her companions were not aware

that she had hesitated even for that moment. She seemed to them to glide softly, steadfastly, without any faltering, before them into the little silent womanly room, where her night's work was folded tidily upon the table, and her tiny thimble and scissors laid beside it. What a heartrending contrast lay between those domestic traces and that dreadful muffled figure, covered from the light of day with Nettie's shawl, which was now laid down there, Nettie did not pause to think of. She stood still for a moment, gazing at it with a sob of excitement and agitation swelling into her throat; scarcely grief-perhaps that was not possible-but the intensest remorseful pity over the lost life. The rude fellows beside her stood silent, not without a certain pang of tenderness and sympathy in their half-savage hearts. She took her little purse out and emptied it of its few silver coins among them. They trode softly, but their heavy footsteps were heard, notwithstanding, through all the little house. Nettie could already hear the alarmed stirring up-stairs of the master and mistress of the cottage; and,

knowing what explanations she must give, and all the dreadful business before her, made haste to get her strange companions away before Mrs Smith came down-stairs. One of them, however, as he followed his comrades out of the room, from some confused instinct of help and pity, asked whether he should not fetch a doctor? The question struck the resolute little girl with a pang sharper than this morning's horror had yet given her. Had she perhaps neglected the first duty of all, the possibility of restoration? She went back, without answering him, to lift the shawl from that dreadful face, and satisfy herself whether she had done that last irremediable wrong to Fred. As she met the dreadful stare of those dead eyes, all the revulsion of feeling which comes to the hearts of the living in presence of the dead overpowered Nettie. She gave a little cry of inarticulate momentary anguish. The soul of that confused and tremulous outcry was Pardon! pardon! What love was ever so true, what tenderness so constant and unfailing, that did not instinctively utter that cry when the watched life had ended, and pardon could no longer come from those sealed lips? Nettie had not loved that shamed and ruined man-she had done him the offices of affection, and endured and sometimes scorned him. She stood remorseful by his side in that first dread hour, which had changed Fred's shabby presence into something awful; and her generous soul burst forth in that cry of penitence which every human creature owes its brother. The tender-hearted bargeman who had asked leave to fetch a doctor, drew near her with a kindred instinct-"Don't take on, miss-there's the crowner yet-and a deal to look to," said the kind rough fellow, who knew Nettie. The words recalled her to herselfbut with the softened feelings of the moment a certain longing for somebody to stand by her in this unlooked-for extremity came over the forlorn courageous creature, who

never yet, amid all her labours, had encountered an emergency like this. She laid the shawl reverently back over that dead face, and sent a message to the doctor with lips that trembled in spite of herself. "Tell him what has happened, and say he is to come as soon as he can," said Nettie ; for I do not understand all that has to be done. Tell him I sent you; and now go-please go before they all come down-stairs."

But when Nettie turned in again, after closing the door, into that house so entirely changed in character by the solemn inmate who had entered it, she was confronted by the amazed and troubled apparition of Mrs Smith, half-dressed, and full of wonder and indignation. A gasping exclamation of "Miss! was all that good woman could utter. She had with her own eyes perceived some of the "roughs" of Carlingford emerging from her respectable door under Nettie's grave supervision, and yet could not in her heart, notwithstanding appearances, think any harm of Nettie ; while, at the same time, a hundred alarms for the safety of her household gods shook her soul. Nettie turned towards her steadily, with her face pallid and her brilliant eyes heavy. "Hush," she said; "Susan knows nothing yet. Let her have her rest while she can. We have been watching for him all night, and poor Susan is sleeping, and does not know."

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Know what?-what has happened?-he's been and killed himself? Oh, miss, don't you go for to say so!" cried Mrs Smith, in natural dismay and terror.

"No," cried Nettie, with a long sigh that relieved her breast, "not so bad as that, thank Heaven; but hush, hush! I cannot go and tell Susan just yet-not just yet. Oh, give me a moment to get breath! For he is dead! I tell you, hush!” cried Nettie, seizing the woman's hand, and wringing it, in the extremity of her terror for alarming Susan. "Don't you understand me? She is a widow, and she does