plied, sharply," or I may be forced to utter that which will not sound pleasing in your ear."

"You can say naught that will be displeasing to me, I am well assured," he rejoined. "But what have you heard of me? Speak out, and fear not."

"I have heard that your whole troop are cruel and bloodthirsty," she replied; "and that you are the cruelest among them."

"Ho! ho!" Stelfax laughed. "Cavaliers' tales, believe me. I am cruel only to my foes-bloodthirsty only in the field. And so is every soldier, malignant as well as Parliamentarian. But since you reside with Colonel Maunsel, damsel, you must have known his son, Clavering?"

Dulcia made no reply, but her cheek burnt hotly.

"What of him?" demanded the colonel, who had with difficulty controlled his anger during this discourse.

"Have you not heard?" the other said, looking at him steadfastly.

"Heard what?" the colonel cried.

"Your son fought at Worcester," Stelfax rejoined; "on that great day when the Lord of Hosts so wonderfully manifested his power, covering our heads in the conflict, and enabling us utterly to overthrow our enemies. Praise and glory to His holy name for the great success given us. "Thou didst march through the land in indignation. Thou didst thrash the heathen in anger. Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked.""

"It is not your intention, I presume, Captain Stelfax, to hold forth to me like a preacher at a conventicle," the old Cavalier observed, contemptuously. "What have you to tell me concerning my son?"

"I do not desire to give you needless pain, colonel," Stelfax rejoined. "But it is plain you have not received intelligence of your son's fate. Learn, then, that he was amongst the slain at Worcester."

"My son amongst the slain!" the colonel exclaimed.

"His body was found, recognised, and buried on the field of battle," Stelfax returned. "But you need not repine. Many an adherent of the man Charles Stuart suffered greater loss on that day-glorious to us, if disastrous to your cause. Neither need you grieve, fair damsel, for this poor youth," he added to Dulcia. "A better man may be found to supply his place."

"Were he lost, his place could never be supplied to me!" Dulcia murmured.

"Colonel Maunsel," Stelfax now said to the old Cavalier, "I sent for you to give you a warning. You are known to be illaffected towards the Commonwealth

"I am known for my loyalty to my king, whom Heaven preserve!" the colonel cried.

"Take heed you give not Charles Stuart shelter. Take heed you aid him not so that he escape beyond sea," Stelfax said, sternly, "or you will find little mercy from your judges."

"I expect none," the colonel rejoined "neither mercy nor justice. Have you done, sir?"

"For the present-yes," Stelfax rejoined. "Yet hold! It is part of my duty, Colonel Maunsel, to make a strict inquisition of your house-Ovingdean Grange, I think 'tis called-to ascertain whether any fugitive malignant be concealed within it. Should you find me there on your return, you need not feel surprised. And now, my men, forward!-Farewell, sweet Dulcia! We shall soon meet again." So saying, he departed with his troop towards Iford.

Colonel Maunsel rode on in silence and great anxiety towards Kingston, until the Parliamentary leader and his men had disappeared from view. He then said to the younger Saxby, "Thou art swift of foot, Ninian. Dost think that thou canst reach the Grange before yon redcoats?"

"Ay, marry can I," the young falconer rejoined.

"Off with thee, then," the colonel cried. "On the instant of thine arrival, seek out John Habergeon-thou wilt find him in my chamber and acquaint him with the intended visit of this rebel captain. Say to him-and say to the whole house-that my son is reputed to have been slain at Worcester-dost understand?"

Perfectly, your honour," Ninian replied. And mounting Kingston Hill with the lightness and swiftness of a deer, he ran across the summit, and then dashed down on the further side of the eminence.

Meanwhile, Colonel Maunsel and Dulcia, attended by Eustace Saxby, rode on towards Lewes.

ROSE'S DIARIES AND CORRESPONDENCE.*

THE Right Honourable George Rose occupies a distinguished place amongst the statesmen and political writers of the conclusion of the last century and the commencement of the present. Like many another spirited boy, he served for a few preliminary years as a midshipman. He even saw service, and was severely wounded. Quitting the navy in his nineteenth year, he was, within four years of that time, appointed joint Keeper of the Records, with a salary of 500l. a year, with the view to the printing of the Journals and the Rolls of Parliament. This was a great step for a youth whose career opened so differently, nor are we precisely informed how it was brought about.

About the year 1777, Mr. Rose was appointed secretary of the Taxoffice, and this new appointment brought him into connexion with Lord Shelburne, and when the latter became First Lord of the Treasury, he nominated Mr. Rose to the secretaryship of the Treasury, and it was thus that this active, laborious, and gifted man became launched in party politics.

The greater portion and the most useful part of Mr. Rose's life as a servant of the Crown and of the public, was, however, spent in connexion with Mr. Pitt. His first appointment to the Treasury did not last above a year, but having the very same year (1783) met Mr. Pitt in Paris, whom he had previously known when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord Shelburne's administration, the two became more intimately acquainted, and when Mr. Pitt became prime minister in 1784, Mr. Rose was again appointed secretary to the Treasury, which office he held during the whole of Mr. Pitt's administration. When Mr. Pitt came again into office, he was appointed joint Paymaster-General of the Forces and Vice-President of the Board of Trade, and which offices he retained till January, 1806, when Mr. Pitt died.

Although Mr. Rose still continued in his career of labour and activity after that period, and acted as Treasurer to the Navy and Vice-President of the Board of Trade under the Duke of Portland, a place which he held till his death in 1818, still the great era of Mr. Rose's usefulness as a public man may be said to have expired with his distinguished patron. Mr. Rose took a part in the ministerial complications that arose between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning; he was also full of activity during the brief administration of Mr. Perceval, and he lived to witness the gradual failure of the mental powers of the king and the establishment of a profligate and extravagant regency, but he never had the influence after Pitt's death that he enjoyed during that great man's lifetime.

Amid the large number of letters contained in these volumes, there are many which clear up some old political difficulties, adding much that is new to the details of Pitt's conduct with regard to Catholic emancipa

* The Diaries and Correspondence of the Right Hon. George Rose: containing original Letters of the most distinguished Statesmen of the day. Edited by the Rev. Leveson Vernon Harcourt. Two Vols. Richard Bentley.

tion, the peace, and other matters. The opinion of the Russians, as expressed through Count Woronzow, of the Addington administration, was of the most humiliating character:

He told me that he received a letter on Monday, the 15th, from the Emperor of Russia, written in his own hand, in which his majesty expressed the deepest regret at hearing Mr. Pitt was not likely to enter upon the charge of the administration again, as he could have no confidence whatever in the men who now govern this country, marked as they are throughout Europe for their utter imbecility; which, the count said, occasioned no surprise in him, as he knew from all the foreign ministers here, and from his correspondence with different parts of Europe, that they are held in universal contempt. The count added that he had so much experience of their weakness, and in some instances of their falsehood, that he should conceive it a point of duty to do all in his power to disabuse the king respecting their true characters; with a view to which it was his intention to communicate the original letter above alluded to, through Baron Leuth, the Hanoverian minister, to his majesty, as soon as the baron should return from Germany, having made frequent confidential communications to the king through that channel.

There is an amusing account of an intended formal (not real) reconciliation that was to have taken place between the king and the Prince of Wales; and this is followed up by an additional statement, to the effect that

I heard, while at Weymouth, with great concern, from an authority I respect quite as much as if I had been myself present at the conversation, that the Princess of Wales said to Mrs. George Villiers, "I cannot say I positively hate the Prince of Wales, but I certainly have a positive horror of him." They lived in different houses, dined at different hours, and were never alone together. The princess said, "Nothing shall shake the determination I have taken to live in no other way than the state of separation we are now in." Little was known on the subject at the place, and not a syllable said to me about it, except in one house. The circumstances cannot, however, be kept under, I think, much longer, as there are occasional manifestations of them that must meet the eyes and ears of observers.

The deaths of Pitt and Fox were the two greatest events in Rose's life; and they are also treated of at the greatest length and with greater eloquence than any other topic.

There are also some detailed recollections respecting Sellis's attempt on the Duke of Cumberland's life (May 31st, 1810), by a member of the Rose family-for the better understanding of which a plan of the apartments is added-and which we regret we cannot enter upon, as many absurd rumours were current at the time in connexion with the incident, and, indeed, still float on the surface of the popular mind.

Exclusively employed in public offices of great importance, Mr. Rose was, throughout a long and eventful career, brought into contact with the most distinguished men of his age; and their letters, as introduced in this correspondence, constitute a truly valuable contribution to the history of that period. Mr. Rose also knew much that was hidden from the outer world, and hence are his diaries not less important to the future historian than his correspondence. The two together give a curious idea of an eventful period, in main part portrayed in the very words of the actors themselves.

"UN PERE PRODIGUE."

"WHAT next?-and next?" the astounded reader of the younger Dumas's comedies may fairly exclaim, on noticing the extraordinary motives he selects for evolvement. In fact, it seems as if he were working up family matters to the benefit of his pocket; in "Le Fils Naturel" most persons saw an allusion to the writer's position; while there cannot be a question that his new play, "Un Père Prodigue," was suggested by the career of his own father, Alexander the Great.

It is a curious psychological fact that Frenchmen, who arrogate to themselves the possession of sensibility beyond all other nations, should, at the same time, excel all others by the cool way in which they analyse their emotions, and convert them into copy. Dumas père unblushingly tells us in his Memoirs that the "Dame aux Camélias" was a young lady of his and his son's acquaintance, while the story of the "Dame aux Perles" was mainly founded on fact.

But this fault is not peculiar to the two Dumases. All the successful authors of France have more or less sinned in the same way, and it is really high time that a stop should be put to such revelations.

By his new comedy Dumas fils has aroused a very dangerous antagonist in Granier de Cassagnac, who, in an article that recently appeared in the Pays, has successfully proved that the author's reputation is based on exaggeration. So long as he confined himself to the demi-monde and the Bourse, this did not so much matter, but he has had the audacity to accuse the aristocracy of open vice. M. de Cassagnac urges, most justly, that the very nature of society has changed of late years in favour of morality. He then refers to the comedy we have now under consideration, and declares that it is a great mistake in Dumas fils, and writers of his class, to bring such pieces before the public in the present day. His remarks demand careful perusal :

Good Heaven! who could find any pleasure in seeing a father of a family, calling himself a count, and moving in the highest circles, who, though above fifty years of age, parades, as does also his son, a young man of twenty-five, dashing Aspasias well known to all the town, not only at the sea-side, but in his own carriage, in his own house even, where they give orders as if at home? What! you would make people believe that there are now among the French nobility among those proud families whose dignity all parties for forty years past have been constrained to acknowledge and respect-examples of those prodigal, or rather infamous fathers, who throw disgrace by such creatures on the family pictures which La Tour and Rigaud painted, and in which their grandmothers are represented in the attire and attitude of a presentation at court?

M. de Cassagnac then urges that society in France is ameliorating, and that authors will, ere long, have to take another track, or remain without readers. He bids them appeal to noble and elevated sentiments, which are respected by all, even by those who do not possess them, and they will be certainly listened to and applauded. Still it does not seem as if this regeneration were a fait accompli in Paris, for the Gymnase is nightly thronged to see the piece M. de Cassagnac objurgates. As an