It will be remembered that the prince had to go home without Henrietta, and to wait two years until he could renew his suit as King Charles I.

When, twenty-one years later, he wrote MS. 44 to Prince Rupert, his fortunes had changed. For nineteen years he had been a too faithful follower of his father's doctrines about royal prerogative, until the turbulent element in the nation was in arms. against him, Cooped up at Oxford in the spring of 1644, with a Cavalier Parliament of his own, somewhat discouraged and prognosticating evil for himself in the coming campaign, he writes to his rash nephew in a tone which shows a dejected spirit, thanking him for the freedom of his remarks in his last letter, and concluding: "It is lykely that your Brother Maurice army shall joyne with this; now to avoid disputes I desyre to know if you think it nott fit that I should declare your Brother, in your absence Generall of my Horse." Five weeks later, the impetuous Rupert had precipitated the battle of Marston Moor, and his troops in the hour of victory, too busy with plundering, lost the day to Cromwell and his Ironsides.

Three other manuscripts of the king's are to be seen, two of which relate to the impeachment of the Five Members and one in cipher about plans for his escape from Carisbrooke castle, the year before his execution. A proof of his wife's devotion remains in a cipher letter to the king respecting a supply of ammunition which she had purchased abroad by the sale of her jewels.

As we get into the middle of the seventeenth century, manuscripts become more abundant. The whole of Charles Second's speech to the House of Commons on the 1st of March, 1661, can be seen in his own handwriting. It was the year of the Restoration, just after the quelling of the mad tumult raised by Thomas Venner and his Fifth Monarchy men.

In the midst of this array of royal chirography is a letter of Oliver Cromwell to his wife, referring to various members of his family, written from Edinburgh, 12th April, 1651.

One by William Prynne opens up the whole biography of a man whose opinions changed often enough to keep him in opposition to whatever party happened to be in power. Shifting like a weathercock, he was always facing the storm: sometimes Laud, again Cromwell; losing his ears a second time after they had once been sewed on. It is in keeping with a temper that was always getting lost to demand in this letter to Fairfax: "What kinde of a Prisoner am I, and whose?" This time it was for

denying the supremacy of Parliament and because he would not indorse its condemnation of the king. Finally, he was so zealous for the Restoration that Charles made him keeper of the records in the Tower.

The next manuscripts of importance are three by William of Orange, prince and king. As prince there is one announcing his landing with troops at Torbay and his intention of marching on Exeter. And another, a month later, contains directions in regard to the Dutch fleet that brought his army over. In the following March, after his proclamation as William III. of England, he wrote the "Instructions to Admiral Herbert for the disposal of the late King James II., in case of his capture at sea." Dated Whitehall, 16 March, 1688.

It is in correspondence with the change in the ideas that rule the world that manuscripts of the greatest interest for the last two centuries are those of literary celebrities. All four of the Georges are, indeed, given a sort of immortality by indifferent samples which were apparently written with a stick, that of George III. being a paragraph written out by himself for insertion in his first speech from the throne, beginning: "Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Britain," etc.: the House of Hanover was getting acclimated by 1760. And it is an evidence of the worshipful loyalty of the British to-day that they have placed beside the writings of old kings and queens the first attempt of Princess Victoria at writing her name "in pencil at the age of four years; but in spite of these tracings of recent royalty, those which belong to the commonwealth of letters attract the greatest attention.

This is true in a measure of times preceding William III. Contemporary with some of the manuscripts that have been mentioned are others which have been oftener printed and will be more widely known, as Sir Francis Bacon's famous "Memorandum Book," written as if for his eye alone; and Ben Jonson's autograph copy of the "Masque of Queenes" in an almost microscopic hand; and Tasso's "Torrismondo," in irregular characters and faded ink. Shakespeare left only his autograph and seal on a mortgage deed of a dwelling-house in Blackfriars, and Spenser a grant in his handwriting of the custody of the woods of Balliganin, county of Cork; and John Milton, his signature to the Articles of Agreement between himself and his publisher for the sale of the copyright of a "Poem intituled Paradise Lost," for fifteen pounds sterling. Camden, Donne, Jeremy Taylor, and VOL. XIV. -NO. 81.

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Pepys have letters here, but no histories, or poems, or sermons, or diurnal gossip; but Baxter's "Narrative" and George Fox's Explanation of Arone's linen breches" throw light on the Long Parliament and Old Testament patterns. Richardson's letter defending the compromise between Sir Charles Grandison and Clementina in the article of religion is a leaf from an old literary controversy, and Sterne writes to his publisher about the sale of "Tristram Shandy." An "Agreement," never fulfilled, attests to the uncertain ways of Oliver Goldsmith, and Samuel Johnson answers an invitation on a card, which, of course, is inclosed in an accompanying note of Boswell's, who, faithful to his idol even in things polite, "regrets that so agreeable a meeting must be deferred till next year." Garrick complains of a criticism on Bates' farce, "The Blackamoor Washed White," and Kemble desires Ireland to send him the play of "Vortigern." Gray is fortunate in the preservation of a fair copy of the "Elegy," and Burns has here the song, "Here's a Health to Them That's awa," in a hand that is like the song, but steady yet. Keats writes concerning some verses which "can be struck out in no time," for Haydon, the painter; and Shelley, in angular characters, tells Miss Curran that he has nearly finished his "Cenci." S. T. Coleridge, in the letter to Basil Montague, discourses of the doctrines of Edward Irving; and William Wordsworth, in the chirography of a man who approves of himself, informs a friend of the benefit he has received from the application of "Blue Stone" to his eyes. Charles Lamb, lives here in his letter to John Clare, written in a pale, even, and clerkly hand, thanking him for a present of his poems, criticizing his provincialisms, and sweetening his criticism with a recipe for cooking frogs, "the nicest little rabbity things you ever tasted." Sydney Smith answers an attack by Sir Robert Peel, and Thomas Hood writes to E. Bulwer Lytton about an article written by the latter for his magazine. Theodore Hook writes a humorous letter to Baylis in answer to a complaint about the killing of a cat by his servant ; and Lord Lytton, with the pen of a ready writer, writes his first letter after his elevation to the peerage. Of the latest date is the letter, with down-running lines in blue ink, written by Charles Dickens, the day before his death, to Charles Kent, appointing to meet him on the morrow: "I may be ready for you at three o'clock. If I can't be why then I sha'n't be," and finished in a jocular vein.

Letters on indifferent matters are here from other men of note,

from Addison, Steele, Pope, Dryden, and Swift. And mentioned with those of the kings should be that of George Washington, then a colonel in his majesty's service, and that of Napoleon Bonaparte, written before the meagre hospitalities of England were pressed upon him at St. Helena. To the reader of Early English a copy of Beowulf will have an interest, written on vellum about the year 1000, and another of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle." So, also, will the autograph copy of Dan Michel's "Ayenbite of Inwit," as well as one of "Piers Plowman," written before 1400. Three fifteenth-century copies of different works of Chaucer are a memorial of the poet whose demure, contemplative countenance is depicted in the margin of Occleve's "De Regimine Principum."

Preceding these early English manuscripts are those of older Europe and Asia and the Orient, which are invaluable treasures to scholars from every nation: manuscripts in Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Arabic, and Egyptian characters, engrossed on bark, palm leaves, papyrus, and ivory, in letters of silver and gold, with a wealth of ornamentation belonging to races with which both art and time are long; where results and not haste were the chief concern of the writer, the industrial as well as the geographical Antipodes of the Western workman with brain and pen. But what can be done with over fifty thousand manuscripts beyond placing a few of the most interesting in their proper historical frames?

In attempting this for some stray English leaves, one is reminded of their likeness to the outcroppings of geologic formations, giving hints of the masses of material buried in successive layers below the surface. But, taken as a series, these fragmentary documents index the making of English literature and liberty from the azoic age of lifeless annals to the alluvial deposits of recent fiction, from the traditions of freedom in the German forests to the Declaration of Rights and a free Parliament. Alfred the Great's "Grant" of land to Liaba, son of Bergwin, with the consent of the Witanagemote, recalls the freeholders' rights in Friesland. Danish occupation and Church possession have their memento in Cnut's "Grant" to Eadsin, bishop, of half a plough of land. Over Saxon law and Dane lawlessness is laid the burden of Norman conquest, keeping uneasy elements in place, whose significants are Stephens' "Confirmation" and "Domesday Book" in the Tower. Magna Charta marks the people's ascendency in spite of Plantagenet encroachments, and the Reformation Letters their final deliverance from Tudor despotism; while the

third William's "Instructions " announce the downfall of Stuart assumption, and indicate the establishing of constitutional liberty.

What manuscripts shall survive to mark in the far future the character of the conflicts and changes that are now going on with little disturbance, but none the less certainty than in former ages, as to the limits of power on either side, leading to ominous questions concerning the perpetuation of royalty and of the ancient relations between church and state?

PROVIDENCE, R. I.

L. Sears.

THE HEBREW PROPHET AND THE CHRISTIAN

PREACHER.

IT is said that Charles Reade, whom time is fast exalting to a high place in his department of literature, was led to a study of the Old Testament by a remark of Matthew Arnold. According to my memory, the remark was like this: "The old Bible is getting to be to us literary men of England a sealed book. We may think we know it. We were taught it at home. We heard it read in church. Perhaps we can quote some verse or even passage; but really we know very little of it. I wish, Reade, that you would take up the Old Testament, and go through it as though every page of it were altogether new to you; as though you had never read a line of it before. I think it will astonish you." Well, Reade resolutely put himself into this fresh, eager, zestful reading of the Old Scriptures. The world knows the result. It did more than astonish the great novelist. It regenerated him. The creed he died by, and which, at his request, was chiseled into his tomb-stone in Willesden churchyard, is forever more to be associated with his literary achievements, and is a new and shining witness to the power of God's Word.

What most impressed this man, what begot within him boundless admiration and profoundest moral conviction, was the study of the Old Testament prophets. The majesty and beauty of their utterance enthralled and delighted his intellectual nature. Their superb moral tone, their transcendent spirituality humbled his pride, and won his whole heart and mind to a saving faith in a personal God, and a supernatural Christ. And how could it be otherwise? How npon any ground of merely human history can