that has the least oonderstanding at a' ought to know that flax water was the finest of top-dressings to a bit of a spongy lawn like yours, full of fog;* and as ye have always been ceevil, quiet like, modest neighbours," Zeacky had decided, as he said, "to give us the prafference." After tea our host proposed that we should all stroll to the summit of a very high hill, which rose westward from his house, the premier pas to a loftier mountain behind, from whence there was a splendid view of the sun setting behind the great mountain of Arigle, or "The White Arrow," which is the giant of the Donegal highlands. To this there was a glad assent given; and, accompanied by all the family, we commenced our walk. Just outside the avenuegate we met a decent-looking man and his wife going home in a country car. I have seldom seen two countenances more expressive of sweetness and sense than these people had. friend stopped them, and shook hands with them, asking how all the folk were at G-, and receiving a warm greeting in return, with "How is it wi' you the day," and "Ech, but you look reightly, and that's a truth;" and "Well, but I'm proud to see you ony way;" and such other little accustomed courtesies as were duly understood and appreciated. On parting, he said, "Well, Charlie, shall I see you on Sunday at church ?" "Depend on it, sir, the whole town will be in it on Sabbath; we will all be out."

My

My friend told me of this townland, how it was tenanted by people all of the same name, descendants of three English brothers, and that the name was a Christian name, Thomas; and the confusion and want of individuality was frightful among the community; and recourse was had to personal marks to distinguish its members, such as White, and Black, and Brown, and Yellow Thomas; and Pock-pitted, and Purty (pretty) Thomas; and Longshanked, and Short-nebbed Thomas; and Thomas wi' the freckles, and Thomas wi' the skelly (squint), and Thomas wi' the twa thumbs, which last was our friend in the car. He amused us much by narrating a characteristic anecdote of one Walter M'Avee (pronounced Muckavee), a steady, sim

ple young fellow, very hardy, and immensely tall. Whatever degree of mental gifts nature had bestowed on Wattie, his dental obligations to her were but small, for he had not a tooth in his head, and never had, though to make amends for the deficiency, he had "wicked gooms," as the neighbours said; and furthermore, was what the late pope pronounced of Dr. MacHale, "uno grande parlatore," though his "delevery," as the people called his accentuation, was none of the clearest. One evening Wattie called in for a Testament "with large prent" for his sister, whose eyes were failing. Our friend had just dined, and the remainder of a capacious Damascene tart lay on the table. This immediately attracted Wattie's gaze, and my friend seeing him look highly fru givorous, invited him to fall to and finish the fragments, himself retiring to a window, to be no check on his guest's appetite. In a very few minutes Wattie had disposed of paste, and fruit, and juice; but now came the difficulty, which was in the application of the stones, of which a whole cairn was lying on the plate. they to be lost? Surely not. The question was decided in a moment, and Wattie proceeded to shovel them down his throat at the point of the knife, and on my friend's remonstrating, the answer was, "Oh, your raverence, 'tis nothing to a plain, coarse man like me;" and down went the last mouthful of stones. Aristotle died of a colic, and Wattie seemed in the way to follow his example, when a week afterwards he walked up to my friend on the road, who was greatly relieved to find him alive and well after such deleterious diet. Wattie smiled at his fears, assured him he was "not a het the worse," and added, with a gentle sigh to by-gone bliss, that she was the sweetest tert he ever ate in his life; my oh, but she was a reight one."

Were

We had a breathing walk up the mountain, by a rough, steep road, which commanded spacious and, as we mounted, changing views of the glen scenery. When we reached our destination, we found we were too soon, for the sun was still far above its setting point. Our friends then proposed

that we should go on a little, and visit the hut of a very singular old woman, of a style of mind and feeling superior to the other peasantry, and who preserved her enthusiasm intact, under the pressure of illness and great poverty. He added, "We call her The Lady of the Fort,' because her cabin is in the shadow of an ancient structure of this nature." Her house was small, and so full of smoke, that were the practice of kapnomancy, or divining by smoke, to be revived, a more suitable spot than this mountain-cabin could scarce be found. On arriving at the place, there issued from the door a cur dog, yelping, and tail depressed, with several flying turf-sods rebounding from his sides. This shower of fuel was intended to usher in the sunshine of a welcome to us; and the voice of a child from the room invited us to "walk up and take a glaze (meaning of this word unknown) at the fire." Such an invitation came rather malapropos, inasmuch as it was the end of July; and we were thoroughly heated by the walk. We saw two large bright eyes glittering through the murky gloom; they were those of the speaker, a sick girl, who was sitting on a stool by the fire, and who had ejected the dog in that summary way for fear of his alarming the ladies. Her mother, she said, was "out on the brae-head;" we gave her a trifle, and left her. My friend described the mother as a half-educated woman, who had a touch of insanity about her. She had lived as servant in respectable families, and was, at all events, a sincerely religious woman. When we had reached a green knoll which lay at the glenward side of the fort, and looking boldly from a great height, commanded a finer and further range of the valley than anything I had yet seen, we found the object of our search, sitting on the mound, and diligently knitting. She was a tall, thin, erect, and peculiarlooking woman, with an appearance of pain on her corrugated brow, and a wild light in her small, dark eyes; yet the cut of the lips was expressive of refinement, and the habitual compression of the mouth denoted energy and decision. As she talked, I recognised in her language much of the quaint and, at times, picturesque phraseology of the Methodist body; and I believe she had been amongst them in her youth, and got no harm from them. Now she at

tended Church service, and was as attentive an auditor of sermons as Alaac M'Craub himself, though not so keen a critic.

She greeted our ladies warmly, and not ungracefully, rising from her seat; they told her they had come to see her, and ask after her sick child and her own pains and rheumatism, and hear her conversation, and admire her fine view. She answered in a singularly clear and sweet tone of voice, and less of the Scotticé than I had yet heard, and rather, I thought, in a queenly way, like one accustomed to be listened to. "Ah, madam, you are always good and kind, the child is better, and the view is a grand one; and I am as God would have me. I went to the town yesterday to sell a tub of butter, and as I passed along the road, I thought the birds from the hedges, and the cattle in the fields were all talking to me, and crying, 'Maggie Colhoun, death is coming on you,' and I smiled at this, and my heart was pleased, yet sore too; for though I should like to leave a cauld world for a bright one, yet sorry would I be to quet himself and the childre, and they so young, and Nanny so donsy and puny, poor wee thing! Yet, nae doubt, madam, 'tis all want of faith. Sure and certain am I, that all my childre, and Robin himself, will be delivered from the house of bondage and from the land of Egypt-ay, ay-there will not be a hoof of them left behun. worshipped myself for many a year of sorrow and of sin on the dark side of the mountain. Like the woman who would not give our Lord a cup of cowld water and she at the well, I worshipped I know not what: but at last I got such a view; and it came to me, madam, in the visions of the night, and now I am all changed, and I do not know what to do for joy, and happiness, and pleasure. It was just sixteen years ago, and I dreamt I was lying in my bed, and a great gust of wind took the side of the house, and rifted the thatch, and burst the door open; and up I got, and went round the walls, holding by the stones, for the storm was out and raging in the valley. And what did I see in the grey dawn, but a large sea eagle from the cliffs beside Ummara, sailing down the hollow, backwards and forwards, as the manner of them creatures is, and barking for its prey; and then

I

the river swelled, and the waters in the hills began to gather, and roar down the gullies. And Asmashen, which you see so caulm over yonder, was all like soap-suds, with the strength and madness of its stream. And, in a short time, the valley was a wide, deep sea, and the water swelling and swellingup the hill-side, and rippling against the rocks, and foaming over the bushes. Up it came, closer and closer; and the middle of it boiling and whirling, as if a thousand fountains were springing under it from the heart of Glen Swilly. In a few moments it wet my feet. It was verra cauld, and I thought the day of judgment was come. By-and-bye it came up to my knees, and my waist, caulder and caulder; and all my sins came round me then, and they were caulder on my heart than the water. I grasped the bough of a tree in my agony, for the great waters were rising to my shoulders, and I shouted for my husband and my childre, but my voice had no sound in it; and I wept gore, and cried to God, for his dear Son's sake, to come and pu' me out of these waves. Just then came a sweet voice, Look up,' it said, 'for your salvation draweth nigh.' I heard the rushing of a boat coming across the valley, and the noise and plash of oars, and it came nearer and nearer; and six rowers were in it, dark men with beards to their breasts, like the pictures I have seen of the fishermen of Galilee; and a figure of glory sat in the stern, and I saw it was my dear Lord, for I knew his scarred brow where he had worn the thorns for my sake; and I cried to him for life or death, whichever he would gie' me I was content and pleased to take, but he smiled at me, and when I touched his hand I woke up; and indeed, indeed, my heart has never been asleep since,

after a' the suffering and love Himself taught me in that sweet dream.”

The sun is now sinking like a huge round shield of burning copper, behind Arigle. The White Arrow" is now black as ink, its pointed summit standing sharply out against the evening sky, like a cone of jet painted on crimson. Muckish also rears its long immense back, while a crowd of mountain tops about and around them, glitter with a golden smile in the far distance, as if wishing the dying sun good night; then fade one after another into gloom, and darkness shrouds them and it is night among the hilis and valleys which girdle and grace Glen Swilly.

A sweet summer night, soft, balmy, tranquil, and warm; slowly we descend the hill, silent, and our spirits much softened and attentive. On the left the mountain rises, capped with impenetrable gloom; on the right we look down into the valley. Lights are twinkling there, and from the hill-side hamlets. Voices, too, float up; the far off bark of a dog, the clap of a gate, or the lowing of cattle in the darkened fields, or the rush of Swilly amidst her stones, like man's unquiet spirit, still murmuring onwards with fretful activity through the darkness and light of his chequered existence. Now we hear the runnel in the little glen which faces our friend's house; now we gain the black belt of plantation which stretches round his lawn; and now we are among candles and books, and music, and drawings, and friendly faces, and sweet voices, discussing our pleasant day's ramble; and planning great things to be achieved in our ride to Horn Head to-morrow; and so, dear Mr. Poplar, I wish you a happy good night, and a hopeful au revoir till next month's meeting.

B.

THE importance of the period of History which may be described as commencing with the reign of Charles V., can scarcely be too highly estimated. How far the changes in European politics, which date from that time, were affected by the personal character of the princes who then filled the thrones of the great monarchies, is a question which we have no thought of now discussing, nor is it one in any way suggested by the volume which it becomes our present duty to examine.

The volume is one as purely of biography as it is possible that any book should be which deals with a man whose public and private life can scarcely be separated-of a man whose private life could never have been a subject of interest or curiosity from any reason unconnected with his historic character. Mr. Stirling's work s confined to the period of Charles's life when he sought to lay aside the cares of empire, and to act upon the feeling, which there are few elderly men in any station who do not feel, but on which men seldom act, or, indeed, can act the feeling so admirably expressed by Scott, in Kemble's farewell address:

"Higher duties crave
Some space between the theatre and grave;
That, like the Roman in the Capitol,
I may adjust my mantle ere I fall.
My life's brief act in public service flown,
The last-the closing scene-must be my own."

The retirement of Charles has been the subject of speculation to almost all the writers who have had occasion to mention it, and has been ascribed by almost all to his jealousy of his son Philip a cause no doubt adequate, had the imputed jealousy any foundation in fact. This, with other theories, is for ever set at rest by Mr. Stirling's book.

The intention of retiring from the direction of public affairs, to such seclusion as the neighbourhood of a monastery promised, was a thought which often passed before the mind of Charles. Charles survived his empress, Isabella of Portugal, full twenty

years; and, while she yet lived, the prospect of such retirement was his consolation in the fatigues of business. He had agreed with her that as soon as the ages of their children would permit, he should retire into a convent of friars-she into a nunnery. "In 1542, he confided his design to the Duke of Gandia; and in 1546 it had been whispered at court, and was mentioned by Bernardo Navagiero, the sharp-eared envoy of Venice, in a report to the Doge." His purpose was adverted to by him, in a remarkable document. In a letter to his son he mentions that Mary Tudor, the heir to the throne of England, had intimated to him her willingness to become his second empress. The union of Mary with the Emperor was an old and favourite project of Henry VIII.

In

1521, Wolsey wrote to Charles, urging the matter with great earnestness; and, in 1524, Henry himself wrote to Charles, making the proposal. Mary was then a child, and her succeeding to the crown was one of those contingencies on which none could think of speculating. It was a more serious affair when the mature virgin fixed her imagination on the widowed princes of Spain, and intimated that father or son would do.

"Devotion wafts the soul above,

And heaven itself descends in love."

Mary's love was itself devotion, and the great charm which either Philip or Charles possessed was Catholicity.

Charles was not more than fifty; but gout had done its work and he had projects, he said, to his son, inconsistent with matrimony. The crown of England, however, was not to be despised. A great people was to be reclaimed from heresy. Philip himself was luckily a widower, and might hope to be as likely to please Mary as his father. True, he was already engaged to another, but some pretence might be created for getting rid of such difficulties. In short, Charles would not marry; and the interests of