more unfortunate than criminal; but an evident misgiving appears in the concluding sentence of his summary. On the whole, allowing the king to have possessed good qualities and good intentions, his conduct serves only, on that very account, as a stronger proof how dangerous it is to allow any prince infected with the Catholic superstition, to wear the crown of these kingdoms.' Very true and emphatic words, as I think. Accidental circumstances have connected two great names of this reign with the old homestead at Meole: those of Bishop Pearson of Chester, and the Honourable Robert Boyle, so well known for his connection with the Royal Society and with that for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, of both which societies he might almost have been called the founder. The accidental circumstance alluded to is that the folio edition of Pearson on the Creed, printed in 1683, and Boyle's 'Occasional Reflections upon several Subjects; with a Discourse about such kind of Thoughts,' were both numbered amongst the few books in what was called 'The Library.' It was only, however, of late years that they appeared on the shelves, having been found-the copy of Pearson, at least-by the late Rev. Charles Peters, rector of the Second Portion of Pontesbury, in an old lumber room. I quite recollect the circumstance, and his mentioning how valuable a book it was. How Boyle's volume turned up, I do not know, but it was one of the editions published in his own lifetime, and printed in London by Henry Herrigman, in the year 1668. No common name was that of Robert Boyle, the founder of the Boyle Lectures. Bishop Pearson died in the year 1686, and Burnet speaks of him more honestly than he did of Archbishop Sancroft, when he says that he 'was in all respects the greatest divine of the age; a man of great learning, strong reason, and of a clear judgment. He was a judicious and grave preacher, more instructive than assertive; and a man of a spotless life, and of an excellent temper; his book on the Creed is among the best that our Church has produced. He was not active in his diocese, but too remiss and easy in his episcopal functions; and was a much better divine than a bishop. He was a speaking instance of what a great man could fall to; for his memory went from him so entirely that he became a child some years before he died.' How often has this betided some of greatest intellects, as if to show that their light was but borrowed from Him who is Light of Light, and the Father of Lights! Or, as old Fuller puts it, 'God oftentimes leaves the brightest of men in an eclipse, to show how they do but borrow their lustre from His reflection.' As for the Honourable Robert Boyle, that eminently good man, his name stood as high as-higher even than-that of his friend Evelyn, and he commanded the respect and love of the careless and dissolute Charles II. It is remarkable that he and the lamented Southey-the value of whose life and writings keeps coming out day by day, despite the reckless indifference of our time-should have given expression to a similar opinion on a most important subject. Charles II. on the Restoration wished Boyle to enter the Church, where he would readily rise to the most elevated position, but he maintained, against his own interests and the wishes of his Sovereign, that he 'could best forward the Church's interests as a layman.' Southey always said this for himself, and did the Church and State some service. Let any one capable of forming sound opinions, read the concluding sentences of 'THE BOOK OF THE CHURCH,' and they will readily couple his name and Robert Boyle's together. ་ I venture to give the extract following from 'A Discourse touching Occasional Meditations,' which no doubt would have attracted the attention of the 'Last of the Old Squires,' had he ever lighted upon it in his reading. 'Betwixt the mere stated employments and important occurrences of human life, there usually happen to be interpos'd certain intervals of time, which, though they are wont to be neglected as being singly, or within the compass of one day, inconsiderable, yet in a man's whole life they may amount to no contemptible portion of it. Now, these uncertain Parentheses (if I may so call them), or Interludes, that happen to come between the more solemn passages (whether businesses or recreations), of human life, are wont to be lost by most men for want of a value for them, and ev'n by good men, for want of skill to preserve them. For though they do not properly despise them, yet they neglect or lose them for want of knowing how to rescue them, or what to do with them. And as the grains of sand and ashes be, apart, but of a despicable smallness, and very easie and liable to be scattered and blown away, yet the skilful Artificer, by a vehement fire, brings numbers of these to afford him that noble substance, Glass, by whose help we may both see ourselves and our blemishes lively represented (as in Looking-glasses); and discern celestial objects (as with Telescopes), and with Sunbeams kindle disposed materials (as with Burning-glasses), so when these little fragments or parcels of time, which, if not carefully lookt to, would be dissipated and lost, come to be managed by a skilful contemplator, and to be improved by celestial fire of devotion, they may be so ordered as to afford us both looking-glasses to dress our souls by, and perspectives to discover heavenly wonders, and incentives to inflame our hearts with charity and zeal. And some goldsmiths and refiners are wont all the year long carefully to save the very sweepings of their shops, because they may contain in them some filings, or dust of those richer metals, gold and silver. I see not why a Christian may not be as careful not to lose the fragments and lesser intervals of a thing incomparably more precious than any metal, Time; especially when the improvement of them, by our Meleteticks, may not only redeem so many portions of our life, but turn them to pious uses, and particularly to the great advantage of Devotion.' Striking words, even if a little far-fetched. As far as I could make out from my Talking Friend, nothing further, of any telling interest, attached this reign either to the valley of the Rea or to the venerable old town of Shrewsbury, and once more I thanked the good Old Tree for all the information he had so often condescended to give me; for he constantly laid aside the gravity of years to suit my humour, and he was never put out by all sorts of questions which I put to him on summer days, when it must have been so pleasant to him to let the sunbeams sleep in his aged branches, cherishing them with its warmth, and when it must have been pleasanter to him to hear the buzz of the insects in his outspread lordly boughs: Parvæ murmura vocis, Qualia de pelagi, si quis procul audiat, undis Esse solent. And I betook me to the stream below, as I had so often done, and saw the trouts strike up the shallows as I had so often done, and I repeated to myself those other lines from the same book, so beloved by schoolboys: Labitur occulte fallitque volatilis ætas, Et nihil est annis velocius. It should be added that a great name passed away in the year 1688, no less a person than the celebrated John Bunyan, who was buried in the vault of his friend Strudwick the grocer, in whose house he died. ་ The Pilgrim's Progress' now is finished And Death hath laid him in this earthly bed. Such was the simple inscription in the well-known Campo Santo of Bunhill Fields. CHAPTER XLI. WILLIAM AND MARY. Aged woods and floods that know What hath been long times ago. GEORGE WITHER, Faire Virtue, The Have not some by equality of mind, Even in the crossest course of evil times, The highest eulogy which can be pronounced upon the Revolution of 1688 is this, that it was our last Revolution. Several generations have now passed away since any wise and patriotic Englishman has meditated resistance to the established Government. In all honest and reflecting minds there is a conviction, daily strengthened by experience, that the means of effecting every improvement which the constitution requires may be found within the constitution itself.—MACAULAY, vol. ii. 662. Insperata accidunt magis sæpe quam quod speres. PLAUT. Mostell. i. 1. 69. IT cannot be said that on the accomplishment of this great Revolution, which certainly saved our liberties by a Protestant succession, that ary, To shun Charibdis's jaws, they hopeless fell In Scylla's gulphe. On the morning of Wednesday, the thirteenth of Februthe court of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets,' writes Macaulay, 'were filled with gazers. The magnificent Banqueting House, the masterpiece of Inigo, embellished by masterpieces of Rubens had been prepared for a great cere |