of the best Viceroys Ireland ever possessed; who combined with the gallantry of a noble cavalier the purity and honour, which had been long banished from Whitehall. In that court young Penn was warmly received: he won all hearts by his spirit, intelligence, and manners; and, in the mutiny which broke out at Carrickfergus, serving with Lord Ormond's son, he gained the highest credit by his gallantry.

CHAPTER II.

PENN A QUAKER.

Ir is curious to remark Penn's earnest wish to enter the army, frustrated by his father's desire that he should devote his talents to civil affairs. Some occupation, in this latter department, was found for him by his father, who directed him to extricate his Irish property from the difficulties in which it was involved. The LordLieutenant also, though regretting that the army should lose so promising a soldier, gave Penn a civil charge, and employed him in the naval commissariat at Kinsale. Successful in his management of his father's affairs, he repaired to London, to follow out there the final settlement of the estates; and in the Spring of 1667, to him a memorable epoch, he returned to Ireland, leaving behind him an united family and a proud and grateful parent. He then resumed his able management of the property which his talents had recovered for his family. But at the Castle of Shangarry the young courtier was crossed, in his brilliant path, by that obscure Quaker

(whose name but for this would have been lost) Thomas Loe, whose preaching had first attracted him and awakened his youthful convictions at Oxford. These convictions at length deepened into full assent, and led to that resolve which fixed the character of his after-life.

Penn now turned his back finally on the world, which opened brilliantly before him, and surrendered his heart and desires to religion: and to religion, under the rude aspect in which Loe presented it-the faith and forms of the Quaker. On September 3, 1667, an obscure Quaker meeting was assembled at Cork, and shared the fate then usual-of being broken in upon by the soldiers, under the orders of the Mayor, and the congregation en masse marched off to prison. To the scandal of the vice-regal court, the astonishment of Lord Ormond and the marvel of his courtiers, the heir of Shangarry Castle, the son of Admiral Penn, was found among the Quakers. He indeed would have been at once released by the Mayor on giving a personal bond; but as he refused, and stood firmly on his right, he was only released by the order of his friend Lord Ossory.

The Admiral's astonishment and indignation, when these tidings reached him, knew no bounds. That his favourite son, the object of all his hopes, should have become a moping religionist, was bad; that he should have become a Puritan, and a dissenter, was worsebut that he should drivel down to a Quaker, was more than flesh and blood could bear. Was he, the courtier's

son, to abjure titles, and renounce honours, talk a mixed jargon of cant and slang, and walk with his hat on into the court of Whitehall, to stand covered before his sovereign? He recalled his son from Ireland; he remonstrated, entreated, stormed; and, finding the youth resolute though respectful, he turned him into the street.

Thus cast out, the youthful Quaker was not left to starve. The sect, on whom his accession shed such lustre, received him with open arms. His mother's love supplied his wants, and the fear of hunger or of nakedness was certainly not before his eyes. But there was a sharper trial; that a youth, with the world at his feet, able, sanguine, of high spirit, and manly accomplishments, a favourite in the court of his sovereign, caressed in the vice-regal court of Dublin, with the gallant Ormond attracting him to his side, and his son choosing him for his associate-that in this age of gaiety and gorgeousness, of courtly manners and sparkling wit, which history associates with the names of Rochester, Buckingham and Sedley, with those picturesque dresses which still charm the eye on the canvass of Lely-that a youth, who had entered these circles, and had risen to notice in them, should fling this away, to assume that sombre dress, uncouth language, and demure manners, which marked him as the butt for every jest, and the bye-word for every ballad, -that he should henceforth school himself to bear jibe

and jeer, with a patience which the world would despise,—and suffer calmly ridicule and wrong,—this was hard for young blood to bear. It is evident that no form of trial could press more heavily on the mind of the young cavalier, than this which he was called on to endure. When, at length admitted into his father's house, he had to live under the same roof with one to whom he was tenderly attached, but who for months never addressed to him a word; or when he walked down, hat on head, to Whitehall, to accost the Duke of Buckingham, and urge upon him an appeal to Parliament in favour of toleration, while an idle court circle gathered round to listen,-we can hardly say which was the sharper trial, that which crushed his heart, or that which galled his pride. At all events, if we do not sympathize with the outward form of his piety, we must recognise its honesty, and admire that courage which triumphed over a thousand obstacles, in order to pursue what he believed to be his duty.

It is curious to see Penn's natural daring finding a vent for itself in the only course now open to it. He threw himself, at once, into the vanguard of the Quakers: whenever they were attacked, he appeared as their champion. His sword was sheathed from war, but his pen and voice were active in controversy. If a Presbyterian divine assailed the Quakers, Penn challenged the minister to a controversy, and confronted him in his meeting-house. If a Baptist preacher at