The latest generations would know how, in that extremity, he had borne himself. To the brave peasants of the West he owed it to show that they had not poured forth their blood for a leader unworthy of their attachment. To her who had sacrificed everything for his sake he owed it so to bear himself that, though she might weep for him, she should not blush for him. It was not for him to lament and supplicate. His reason, too, should have told him that lamentations and supplication would be unavailing. He had done that which could never be forgiven. He was in the grasp of one who never forgave. . .

5. The hour drew near; all hope was over; and Monmouth had passed from pusillanimous' fear to the apathy of despair. His children were brought to his room that he might take leave of them, and were followed by his wife. He spoke to her kindly, but without emotion. Though she was a woman of great strength of mind, and had little cause to love him, her misery was such, that none of the bystanders could refrain from weeping. He alone was unmoved.

6. It was ten o'clock. The coach of the Lieutenant of the Tower was ready. Monmouth requested his spiritual advisers to accompany him to the place of execution, and they consented; but they told him that, in their judgment, he was about to die in a perilous state of mind, and that, if they attended him, it would be their duty to exhort him to the last. As he passed along the ranks of the guards he saluted them with a smile, and mounted the scaffold with a firm tread. Tower Hill was covered up to the chimney-tops with an innumerable multitude of gazers, who, in awful silence, broken only by sighs and the noise of weeping, listened for the last accents of the darling of the people. "I shall say little," he began. "I come here, not to speak, but to die. I die a Protestant of the Church of England."

7. After the execution, many handkerchiefs were dipped in the duke's blood; for by a large part of the multitude he was regarded as a martyr who had died for the Protestant religion. The head and body were placed in a coffin covered with black velvet, and were laid privately under the communion-table of

St. Peter's Chapel, in the Tower. Within four years the pavement of the chancel was again disturbed, and hard by the remains of Monmouth were laid the remains of Jeffreys. In truth, there is no sadder spot on the earth than that little cemetery. Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul's, with genius and virtue, with public veneration and with imperishable renown; not, as in our humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame.

8. Thither have been carried, through successive ages, by the rude hands of jailors, without one mourner following, the bleeding relics of men who had been the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles of senates, and the ornaments of courts. Thither was borne, before the window where Jane Grey was praying, the mangled corpse of Guilford Dudley. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Protector of the realm, reposes there by the brother whom he murdered. There has mouldered away the headless trunk of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and Cardinal of Saint Vitalis, a man worthy to have lived in a better age, and to have died in a better cause.

9. There are Lord John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Lord High Admiral; and Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Lord High Treasurer. There, too, is another Essex, on whom nature and fortune had lavished all their bounties in vain, and whom valor, grace, genius, royal favor, popular applause, conducted to an early and ignominious doom. Not far off sleep two chiefs of the great house of Howard-Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and Philip, eleventh Earl of Arundel. Here and there, among the thick graves of unquiet and aspiring statesmen, lie more delicate sufferers: Margaret of Salisbury, the last of the proud name of Plantagenet, and those two fair queens who perished by the jealous rage of Henry. Such was the dust with which the dust of Monmouth mingled.

Westminster Abbey.-Miller.

[A church was erected on the site of the present abbey by the East Saxons in the seventeenth century. The abbey afterward built was called Westminster, to distinguish it from the cathedral church of St. Paul's, called originally Eastminster. The principal portion of the abbey was built by Henry III., who took down the edifice which had previously been constructed by Edward the Confessor. Other parts were built by Richard III. and Henry VII. The upper parts of the two western towers were constructed under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren. The abbey was the burying-place of the English kings, and it is considered a national honor to be interred within its walls. The following beautiful poem by Thomas Miller is inserted for the contrast which it presents between the cemetery described by Macaulay in the preceding selection and that great national burial-place in which the most illustrious of England's sons repose.]

TREAD lightly here! this spot is holy ground,
And every footfall wakes the voice of ages:
These are the mighty dead that hem thee round,—
Names that still cast a halo o'er our pages:

Listen! 'tis Fame's loud voice that now complains,―

"Here sleeps more sacred dust than all the world contains."

Thou mayst bend o'er each marble semblance now:

That was a monarch,-see how mute he lies!
There was a day when, on his crumbling brow,
The golden crown flashed awe on vulgar eyes;

That broken hand did then a sceptre sway,

And thousands round him knceled, his mandates to obey.

Turn to the time when he thus low was laid

Within this narrow house, in proud array:

Dirges were sung, and solemn masses said,

And high-plumed helms bent o'er him as he lay;
Princes and peers were congregated here,

And all the pomp of Death assembled round his bier.

Then did the midnight torches flaming wave,

And redly flashed athwart the vaulted gloom;
And white-robed boys sang requiems o'er his grave;
And muttering monks kneeled lowly round his tomb;
And lovely women did his loss deplore,

And with their gushing tears bathed the cold marble floor.

See! at his head a rude-carved lion stands,

In the dark niche where never sunbeams beat; And still he folds his supplicating hands:

A watchful dragon crouches at his feet,

How oddly blended!—he all humble lies,

While they defiance cast from their fierce, stony eyes.

Here sleeps another, clothed in scaly mail;
Battle's red field was where he loved to be;

Oft has his banner rustled in the gale,

In all the pomp of blazing heraldry!

Where are his bowmen now, his shield and spear,
His steed and battle-axe, and all h once held dear?

His banner wasted on the castle wall;

His lofty turrets sank by slow decay; His bowmen in the beaten field did fall;

His plated armor rust hath swept away; His plumes are scattered, and his helmet cleft, And this slow-crumbling tomb is all he now hath left.

And this is fame! For this he fought and bled!
See his reward!-No matter; let him rest;

Vacant and dark is now his ancient bed,

The dust of ages dims his marble breast;

And in that tomb what thinkest thou remains?
Dust!-'tis the only glory that on earth man gains

And kings and queens here slumber side by side,
Their quarrels hushed in the embrace of Death;
All feelings calmed of jealousy or pride,

Once fanned to flame by Slander's burning breath;
Even the crowns they wore from cares are free,
As those on children's heads who play at royalty.

And awful Silence here does ever linger;
Her dwelling is this many-pillared dome:
On her wan lip she plants her stony finger,
And, breath-hushed, gazes on her voiceless home;
Listening, she stands with half-averted head,

For echoes never heard among the mute-tongued dead.

Character of William III.-Burnet.

[William, Frince of Orange, was the son of Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I., and he married his first cousin, Mary, the daughter of James II. Taking advantage of the popular indignation against James, he set sail from Holland, landed in England, and was received with acclamations of joy by the people. James fled to France, and the crown was settled upon William and Mary jointly. After the death of the latter, he reigned with the title of William III. until 1702. The following sketch of his character is given by Bishop Burnet in a work entitled by him the "History of My Own Times."]

1. THUS lived and died William III., King of Great Britain and Prince of Orange. He had a thin and weak body, was brown-haired, and of a clear and delicate complexion. He had a Roman eagle nose, bright and sparkling eyes, a large front, and a countenance composed to gravity and authority. All his senses were critical and exquisite. He was always asthmatical; and the dregs of the small-pox falling on his lungs, he had a constant deep cough. His behavior was solemu and serious, seldom cheerful, and but with a few.

2. He spoke little and very slowly, and most commonly with a disgusting dryness, which was his character at all times, except in a day of battle; for then he was all fire, though without passion; he was then everywhere, and looked to everything. He had no great advantage from his education. De Witt's discourses were of great use to him; and he, being apprehensive of the observation of those who were looking narrowly into everything he said or did, had brought himself under an habitual caution that he could never shake off, though in another scene it proved as hurtful as it was then necessary to his affairs.

3. He spoke Dutch, French, English, and German equally well; and he understood the Latin, Spanish, and Italian, so that he was well fitted to command armies composed of several nations. He had a memory that amazed all about him, for it never failed him. He was an exact observer of men and things. His strength lay rather in a true discerning and a sound judgment than in imagination or invention. His designs were always great and good. But it was thought ha trusted too much to that, and that he did not descend enough