sermons of the bishop in the cathedral,--a simple church, though dignified with that imposing title, without organ or choir; "no, we have no such Popish proceedings," writes the lady merrily; "a good parish minister, and bawling of the psalms is our method of proceeding." The perfect liberty of her life in Ireland is a great enjoyment to her. Pony riding, rowing on the river, walking; breakfast at ten, with tea, coffee, chocolate, buttered toast, and caudle; then battledore and shuttlecock or the harpsichord,-the hall is so large that both pursuits are carried on at the same time, even with the occasional addition of breakfast; a four-mile walk before the two o'clock dinner, a dance for two hours in the evening to plenty of good music, then prayers at nine, the organ or harpsichord till supper and afterwards, and then to bed. No wonder the lady was healthy and well and happy, leading so pleasant a life. celebration, and there is no doubt that many of her relatives were seriously displeased. But the marriage was in every respect a happy one. She had sufficient interest to procure her husband's advancement to the deanery of Down. There were sighs and longings at one time for a bishopric, but these soon abated. The worthy couple lived together in great content and comfort. Mrs. Delany survived her husband many | years. The present volumes bring down the story of her life no later than the year 1761. A further volume will comprise her papers and letters until her death in 1788. The reminiscences of George III. and his queen, promised on the titlepage, have yet to be given. In Ireland she made the acquaintance of that grand mysterious man the Dean of St. Patrick, upon whom it is evident she made no inconsiderable impression, and who entertained for her a regard that ripened into the warmest admiration and affection. "An odd companion," she thought him at first, for he was talking in very madcap spirits, not waiting for answers, but sprinkling about an abundance of good sayings in the most effortless way. And while she is writing about him, the other ladies and gentlemen in the room are reading aloud Prior's Hans Carveld! "and some other pretty things of that kind, and how can one help listen-culture. She had all the restless energy and industry of a ing?" so the letter is brought to a close. Hardly a note is addressed to her correspondents but there is mention of the dean in it. "He was then in very good humour. He calls himself my master,' and corrects me when I speak bad English, or do not pronounce my words distinctly. I wish he lived in England. I should not only have a great deal of entertainment from him, but improvement." Jonathan Swift, who could be as gay as he could be grim, as playful as terrible, delighted to bend before the graceful, good, winning woman. When she has quitted Ireland, and is once more in London, Little Brook-street, Grosvenor-square, the dean writes to her in terms of great friendship and intimacy. His letters have not before been printed. He complains of chronic attacks of giddiness and deafness which last a month with him, but for three days he did not care for these, as her letter was his constant entertainment during that time. He proposes to make it high treason for her ever to quit her Irish friends again. Then he compliments adroitly her admirable good sense and honesty. "Nothing vexes me so much with relation to you as that with all my disposition to find fault, I was never once able to fix upon anything that I could find amiss, although I watched you narrowly. For when I found we were to lose you so soon, I kept my eyes and ears always upon you, in hopes that you would make some boutade." "If I have tried you, it is the effect of the great esteem I have for you,-do but lessen your own merits, and I will shorten my letters in proportion." Further on :- -"I am grown sick, weak, lean, peevish, spiritless, and for those very reasons expect that you, who have nothing to do but to be happy, should be entertaining me with your letters and civilities, although I never return them. Your last is dated above two months ago, since which time (as well as a good time before) I never had one single hour of health or spirit to acknowledge it. It is your fault. Why did you not come sooner into the world or let me come later? It is your fault for coming into Ireland at all. It is your fault for leaving it. I confess your case is hard; for if you return you are a great fool to come among beggars and slaves; and if you do not, you are a great knave in forsaking those you have seduced to admire you." In 1743, Mrs. Pendarves married Dr. Delany, then Chancellor of St. Patrick, whom she had known and regarded many years. He was in his sixtieth year, a man of great talent and accomplishments, and in every respect worthy of her. The Granville family strenuously opposed the union. Dr. Delany was a gentleman and a scholar, and possessed of considerable wealth, but his family was of less ancient descent,-much less,-than their own. The widow overruled these objections, but the marriage took place so privately that it is difficult now to fix the precise date of its With a glance at Opie's admirable portrait of her in her age, still with her delicate rose-leaf complexion and her kindly eyes; her silver hair turned from her forehead, her lace muffler round her neck, and Queen Charlotte's pearl-set locket, with her royal hair enshrined in it pendent on her bosom,-let us gather further traits of life and manners from the correspondence of the "Pearl," as Dr. Delany aptly called his admirable wife. Yet she cannot be taken as a type of a woman of her age, for she was infinitely in advance of it. While other women were simply painting their faces, or having their hair greased and gummed to keep its place for a month without use of a comb, or playing at the eternal faro and quadrille, or in heartless coquetry with heartless gallants, Mrs. Delany was ever bent upon advance and selfthoroughly intelligent Englishwoman. Now she is busy painting portraits of her friend and relatives,-some of these adorn the book, one of them, Prior's Kitty, being especially beautiful,-landscapes from nature, copies from Vandyke, and Kneller, and the old masters. And she has judgment as well as skill. "I am passionately fond of Hogarth's painting," she writes, and this before there was anything like to-day's regulation praise of that artist; "there is more sense in it than any I have seen." She releases Lady Sunderland from her promise to have her picture done by Zincke, so that it may be executed by Hogarth. In return he promises instruction in drawing that will be of great use to her,-rules of his own, that are to improve her more in a day than a year's learning in the common way. She is a charming performer on the spinnet, and a friend and enthusiastic admirer of Handel. He has two operas in his portfolio, Erminius and Justino. He calls to play over to her the overtures. She deems them charming and applauds warmly. At one time she is busy writing for the great composer the words of an oratorio founded on Milton's Paradise Lost, though it does not appear that the work ever came out in Handel's time. She is a collector of insects and of shells; of the last manufacturing most ingenious candlesticks and lustres of admirable design. She is indefatigable with her needles, her knitting, knotting, silk, and worsted. Now she is applauding Garrick at the theatre in Goodman's-fields, the first year of his performing; now she is delighted with Farinelli and Cuzzoni at the opera house. Now she is laughing over Harry Fielding's novels, now over Smollett's,-no one then dreamt of Tom Jones or Count Fathom being condemned as too coarse for female perusal,-anon she is crying over Richardson. She agreed with the verdict of her time, and thought the author of Pamela the greatest, cleverest, best of writers; the world has since overturned that opinion. She was brokenhearted about Clarissa Harlowe. She adored,-how all the women did then adore !-Sir Charles Grandison. Yet she was no blue-stocking, she was not even a literary "woman of her time;" with all her artist talent, and skill, and industry, she was a genuine English lady. She had her eye on the fashions, the Duchess of Bedford's green paduasoy, Mrs. Dashwood's green damask, Miss Cartaret in her mamma's jewels, Miss Fortescue, "like Cleopatra in her bloom, in pink and silver," and so on. Nothing escapes her. She can love her birds and tortoiseshell kittens, her garden and its flowers, with a thought also to the orchard and the kitchen-garden for dessert and preserves. She doctors her neighbours and friends (some of her prescriptions are certainly things to shiver at), but some medical knowledge and practice was then considered indispensable in the head of a family, and she cuts out dresses and distributes patterns, and makes pipes of orange and currant wine. And with all this how good and MR. MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED 66 There was assumed world-wide proportions. "Had it been merely the rebellion of provinces against a sovereign, its importance would have been merely local and temporary. But the period was one in which the geographical landmarks of countries were nearly removed. The dividing line ran through every state, city, and almost family. There was a country which believed in the absolute power of the church to dictate the relations between man and his Maker, and to utterly exterminate all who disputed that position. There was another country which protested against that doctrine, and claimed, theoretically or practically, a liberty of conscience. The territory of these countries was mapped out by no visible lines, but the inhabitants of each, whether resident in France, Germany, England, or Flanders, recognised a relationship which took its root in deeper differences than those of race or language." The story of the contest between the States and MR. MOTLEY, in the volumes before us, takes up the history Spain is therefore much more than simply a chapter of the of the United Netherlands at the date of the assassination of history of Holland. "It is the story of the great combat the Prince of Orange, William the Silent, on the 10th of July, between despotism, sacerdotal and regal, and the spirit ď 1584, when sixteen of the eighty years during which the rational human liberty. The tragedy opened in the NetherStates waged a war of revolt against Spain had already lands, and its main scenes were long enacted there; but as elapsed. Spain was then "one of the most powerful and popu- the ambition of Spain extended, and as the resistance to the lous world-empires of history," and her monarch, Philip II., principle which she represented became more general, othet surnamed the "Prudent," "a small, dull, elderly, imperfectly nations were, of necessity, drawn into the struggle." educated, patient, plodding invalid, with white hair and pro-Silent stood at the head of the Netherland commonwealth, During the earlier period of this struggle, William the truding under-jaw and dreary visage," who, "seldom speaking, never smiling," sat" day after day, seven or eight hours "in an attitude such as had been maintained by hat few of ont of the twenty-four, in a cabinet far away beyond the seas the kings, or chiefs, or high priests of history." and mountains, in the very heart of Spain, at a writing-table such general confidence in his sagacity, courage, and purity, that the nation had come to think with his brain and to act covered with heaps of interminable despatches, which were constantly departing for, or arriving from, the uttermost ends with his hand." Philip believed that to get rid of William of the earth, Asia, Africa, America, Europe, and which would be to render the suppression of the revolt perfectly contained the irresponsible commands of this one individual, easy. The machinery of assassination," a regular and almost and were freighted with the doom and destiny of countless indispensable portion of the working machinery of Philip's millions of the world's inhabitants," and who, "invisible as government," was therefore set in motion, and at last "prothe grand lama of Thibet, clothed with power as extensive duced, after repeated disappointments, the result which had The murderous act, however, and absolute as had ever been wielded by the most imperial been so anxiously desired." Cæsar, as he grew older and feebler in mind and body, had not the effect which Philip had hoped from it. O seemed to grow more gluttonous of work, more ambitious to the contrary, while it filled the States with a poignant sorros, extend his sceptre over lands which he had never seen or it deepened their implacable detestation of the Spanish sway, dreamed of seeing, more fixed in his determination to annihi-a sway under which "their fields had been made desolate, late that monster Protestantism, which it had been the busi- their cities burned and pillaged, their men hanged, burned, ness of his life to combat, more eager to put to death every drowned, or hacked to pieces, and their women subjected to human creature, whether anointed monarch or humble every outrage," and strengthened their determination nevet artizan, that defended heresy or opposed his progress to again to submit to it. A high executive council, of which the universal empire,"- -was then "the autocrat of a third part murdered prince's son, Maurice, then only in his seventeent of the known world." At his absolute command were "the year, was appointed president, was formed, and every premost accomplished generals, the most disciplined and daring paration was made for continuing the struggle to the death. infantry the world has ever known, and the best equipped and most extensive navy of the age;" yet the inhabitants of a slender group of cities upon the sand-banks of the North Sea, a morsel of territory attached by a slight sand-hook to the continent, and half submerged by the stormy waters of the German Ocean, a territory, the mere wash of three great rivers, which had fertilized happier portions of Europe only to desolate and overwhelm this less favoured land,-a soil so ungrateful, that if the whole of its four hundred thousand acres had been sown with grain, it could not feed the labourers alone, and a population largely estimated at a million of souls," dared to throw off his tyrannous yoke, and to defy all his power in the assertion of their right to civil and religious liberty. The struggle which ensued was of momentous interest for others besides the Netherlanders. "Philip stood enfeoffed by the Pope of all America, the East Indies, the whole Spanish Peninsula, the better portion of Italy, the seventeen Netherlands, and many other possessions, far and near; and he contemplated annexing to this extensive property the kingdoms of France, England, and Ireland. League, maintained by the sword of Guise, the Pope's ban, Spanish ducats, Italian condottieri, and German mercenaries, was to exterminate heresy and establish the Spanish dominion in France. The same machinery, aided by the pistol or poniard of the assassin, was to substitute for England's Protestantism and England's queen, the Roman Catholic religion and a foreign sovereign." The struggle soon, therefore, The Holy • History of the "Suited Netherlands. By J. R. MOTLEY. London: Murray. 1561. It soon became necessary for the States to consider wh aid they could obtain from other countries. England basing thrown off the yoke of Rome, it was to her that they fast turned their eyes. They were sure of her sympathy; but i any active was doubtful whether they could obtain from her and effectual assistance. In the first place, the England d those days was what would now be considered as rather i petty power, and certainly presented no semblance of equaisy with the gigantic power of Spain. In the second phax, England was full of active conspirators, working day sni night in the cause of the church of Rome, while Mary Stuart. the next heir to the throne, was a Papist, so that it was impossible to say how long the English government would be favourable to the reformed faith. If the States turned to Germany, the prospect in that quarter was still less satisfactory. The Emperor of Germany was not only Philip's nephew It was to and brother-in-law, but a strait Catholic besides. France alone, therefore, that the States could look for assist. ance against their wily foe. The adored chief whom they had lately lost had always favoured a French policy, and had always felt a stronger reliance upon the support of Fraces than upon that of any other power. The French monarch, Henry III., was certainly a Catholic, but he had for some years tolerated the reformed religion in his dominions, and it was probable, not only that the fast expanding power of French Calvinism would compel him to continue so to do, but also that upon his death the crown would legitimately devolve upon the champion and chief of the Huguenots, Henry of Navarre. The Netherlanders, therefore, with some besit. should fail to read in Mr. Motley's glowing pages how a cloud of fire-ships, vomiting vengeful flames, and two floating volcanoes, awaiting in darkness and silence the moment when they should burst forth into a wild cataract of ruin, floated down from under the walls of Antwerp to the famous bridge, tion, persuaded themselves to offer their country in full sovereignty to France. To their surprise, Henry and his mother, Catherine de Medicis, evinced no eagerness to accept the munificent offer. They prolonged the negotiations over eight months, raising endless objections to every condition with which the offer was accompanied, and at last, when every-how the fire-ships proved harmless, being extinguished by condition had been withdrawn, rejected the proffered gift. The real motives which influenced the French court to this rejection were not known to the Netherlanders at the time, but are well known now. During eight tedious months the Netherland envoys sent to make the offer were used as a cat's paw to extract money from Philip. Catherine de Medicis had long set up a frivolous claim to the crown of Portugal, which had now fallen by conquest into the hands of Philip, and, faint as their title was, she and her son were bent on changing it against Spanish gold. "Let Philip," they said, "purchase our legal right to the crown of Portugal, and we will dismiss the Netherland envoys; let him refuse, and we accede to their wishes and make their cause our own." Philip, "the Prudent," made amicable overtures, and the Netherland envoys were at once sent away. In the meantime, the Spanish monarch's famous general, Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, was carrying on the memorable siege of Antwerp, then the commercial centre, not only of the Netherlands, but of Europe. Antwerp stands upon the Scheldt, and William the Silent, foreseeing the probability that Parma would seek to strike a blow at so vital a spot, had proposed to protect it by destroying the dykes which protected the lowlands along the Scheldt against marine encroachments, and converting Antwerp for a period into an ocean port. William, however, was now dead, and the chief command in Antwerp had devolved upon Sainte Aldegonde, the scholar, theologian, diplomatist, swordsman, orator, poet, and pamphleteer, who had a genius for all things, and was eminent in all, save only the ability to exert authority. He could persuade his fellow-citizens readily enough of the necessity of carrying out the plans of their late prince, but when the guild of butchers opposed him with the practical argument that to do so would involve the destruction of twelve thousand head of cattle, he had neither nerve nor perseverance enough to insist on what he knew to be right. Meanwhile, the Prince of Parma had been prosecuting a carefully matured plan for closing the navigation of the Scheldt, and now occupied, with about half his army, a position on the left banks of the Scheldt, nearly opposite Antwerp, whilst the remainder of his army, under Count Mansfeld, was stationed upon the right bank, ten miles further down the river. His object was to throw a fortified bridge across the Scheldt, for the purpose of cutting off all traffic up the river from Zealand, and thus, as the country on the land side about Antwerp had been reduced, of completely isolating that city, and reducing it by famine. Summer and autumn wore on, however, and still the bridge was hardly commenced, and the fleets of provision boats which were perpetually arriving with supplies would have provisioned the city for more than a year, had not the magistrates committed the incredible folly of establishing a maximum price for corn, and compelling the adventurous skippers, who had run their cargoes through the gauntlet of hostile forces all the way from Flushing to Antwerp, to take in exchange for them only the exact sum which the Antwerp board of trade might consider reasonable. This traffic ceased at once, and winter and famine stared the ninety thousand inhabitants of Antwerp in the face. After infinite delays, Parma's bridge was finished at last, and on the 25th of February, 1585, the Scheldt was closed by a fortified barrier, two thousand four hundred feet in length, stretching from shore to shore. The patriots, who had been lulled during the winter by the delusive negotiations with France, now perceived that the city must fall unless a decisive blow could be struck by themselves, and such a blow they determined to strike. No transformation scene in a Christmas extravaganza could present a more brilliant spectacle than was afforded by the effort which the Antwerpers made to destroy the bridge which shackled the free current of the Scheldt, and was but too emblematical of the tyranny impending over themselves. No one who can obtain them the Spanish troops, one by one,-how one of the two floating infernal machines, the " Fortune," drifted helplessly upon the shore,--and how the other infernal machine, the " Hope," floated with wonderful precision, unguided by human hand, right under the most important point of the bridge, and there exploded, opening a mighty chasm in that structure, and whirling away in an instant the lives of a thousand of the Spanish troops. Blunders innumerable robbed the Antwerpers of all the advantages obtained by the success of the "Hope." At last they made up their minds to cut the dykes. A desperate sally was made for the purpose, but was unsuccessful, and the city, after being reduced to the verge of starvation, had finally to surrender, almost unconditionally, to the victorious Parma. Previous to the fall of Antwerp, almost immediately after the failure of the negotiations with France, the States had offered to become a province of England, and England had displayed considerable readiness to accept the proposed gift. The scheme eventually broke down, ostensibly on account of certain matters of detail, but really because Elizabeth, while she bore the greatest goodwill towards the States, was unwilling to burden herself with a new kingdom at a time when Ireland was in a state of chronic rebellion, when Scotland was a hostile power, and when the most powerful sovereign in the world, Philip of Spain, was straining every nerve to remove her by assassination, and make her kingdom his own by conquest. But although Elizabeth would not accept the sovereignty of the States, she was willing to lend them men and money, conscious as she was that their cause was in fact her own; and after much hard bargaining on both sides, she agreed to lend them six thousand troops,--five thousand foot and a thousand horse,--the towns of Flushing and Brill being placed in her hands until her expenditure on this head should be reimbursed. Accordingly, after a very long delay,— it was at first intended that the troops should be sent in time to relieve Antwerp, the Earl of Leicester, and what would now be called a brilliant staff, arrived in Flushing at the head of the stipulated number of English troops, and was received with the utmost enthusiasm. As may well be supposed, so considerable a man as the Earl of Leicester, one of the most prominent personages in the kingdom, was not sent to Holland merely to command a few thousand soldiers. He went as the representative of his royal mistress; and the most influential Netherlanders were anxious that he should assume an absolute governor-generalship of the whole country. Elizabeth had foreseen this offer, and had forbidden its acceptance. Leicester accepted it, nevertheless; and forty days afterwards the news of what he had done reached Elizabeth, and threw her into a frenzy of passion. How she sent despatch after despatch, couched in the most violent terms, abusing both Leicester and the States, and how at length she was persuaded to acquiesce in the arrangement, it would take us beyond our limits to relate in detail. The effect upon the minds of the Netherlanders was most painful. A feeling spread amongst them that Elizabeth was playing double, and was treating with Spain; and this feeling was not diminished by the fact that her parsimony left her troops to starve or beg about the streets of Flushing and Ostend. The seeds of distrust thus sown were not slow to produce manifest results, the most prominent of which was an open demonstration on the part of the municipal authorities against the Earl of Leicester. This led Leicester to appeal to the people against their legal representatives, and thus to lay the foundation in the United Netherlands of a nominally democratic party in opposition to the municipal one. In the meantime a negotiation between England and Spain really had been going on. It was an underhand negotiation, and constitutes one of the many curiosities in the history of diplomacy. Set on foot by two adventurers, who had created themselves ambassadors and diplomatists of their own mere will, it had been taken up by Lord Burghley as a means of crushing Leicester. Walsingham, the steady friend both of Leicester and the States, blew it to the winds as soon as he heard of it, but this was not until it had already done its work,-until it had sapped the very pith and marrow of Leicester's enterprise, and prevented Elizabeth's ostensible assistance being of any real service to the States. in the United Netherlands of those parties and factions which are invariably called forth by the ill-defined interests of a young state. Towards the close of the year, to the infinite gratification both of himself and of the States, Leicester was recalled by his sovereign, who announced his recall to the Netherlanders in a letter which, if words were blows, would have effectually prevented them from playing any further part in the history of Europe. But whilst Leicester departed, for making his absence even more hurtful than his presence. He went away, but did not resign his position, so that the supreme authority, so far as he could claim it, was trane. ferred with his person to England. The consequences were immediate and disastrous. All the Leicester faction in the States refused to obey the state-general. Utrecht, the stronghold of the party, announced its intention to annex itself, without any condition whatever, to the English crown, while many governors of towns who had taken the oaths of allegians to Leicester pretended that they still considered themselves bound by those oaths. The result was, in many quarters, a Early in the spring of 1586, Philip's general resumed hostilities in earnest. He had already in January sent Count Mansfeld to lay siege to the city of Grave. Leicester, how-shaking the dust off his feet, he hit upon an ingenious plan ever, had been informed of the intended attack, and had sent three thousand men to its defence. The English and Spanish troops met, the Spaniards were repulsed, and Grave was apparently secured to the States. But what valour had effected treachery rendered of no avail; for the governor of the city was soon afterwards induced by a Spanish mistress to open his gates to the enemy. The fall of Grave was soon followed by that of Neusz. Twice Leicester got together a force of four thousand men to go to the relief of the latter town; but twice he was forced to disband them for want of funds to set them in the field. The town was burnt, only eight houses escaping destruction, and four thousand persons, citizens and soldiers, were put to the sword. The result to Parma was immense, for Neusz had previously barred his communications with Germany, whence alone he could obtain supplies, and his army had thus been threatened with famine. mutiny against the legal authorities which almost amounted to civil war, and threatened to render nugatory at one bus all that the Netherlanders had done and suffered for freedom; nor was it until this state of things had endured five months that Leicester at length sent in his formal resignation. At this point Mr. Motley leaves for a time the diret history of the Netherlands, and completes his second volume with a minute account of those negotiations with the English court, under cover of which Philip gained time to complete the preparation of his invincible armada, and a magnificent description of that stupendous failure. LIFE IN JAPAN. acceptance imply a reverential recognition of their fishermen ancestors by a people who, in the midst of their present civilization and prosperity, have not become effeminate and luxurious, but still retain their forefathers' thrift and frugality. While Parma was gaining this great success, Sir Philip Sydney, who had accompanied his uncle Leicester to the Netherlands, obtained a countervailing advantage for the patriots by the capture of the city of Axel. Parma, prosecuting the campaign with his usual vigour, next laid siege to Rheinberg. Leicester, determined to make some attempt to check the Spanish general's victorious career, resolved, in spite of the numerous difficulties which beset him, and which IT is a Japanese custom to present a departing guest with a arose, partly from the hatred with which he was now regarded piece of dried salt-fish. The slice of fish is intended to symby the Netherland authorities, and partly from the extra-bolize the origin of the nation; and its presentation and ordinary parsimony of the English court, to lay siege to Zutphen, the capture of which would give the patriots the command of the Yssell, on which it was situated, while any demonstration against it would doubtless compel Parma to raise the siege of Rheinberg. Leicester's calculations on the latter point proved correct; and it now became the question whether a convoy of provisions which Parma had collected with extraordinary rapidity should succeed in eluding Leicester's forces and entering Zutphen before the arrival of the latter under its walls. Leicester was led to believe that the convoy was guarded by only a small force, and he accordingly sent five hundred men to intercept it, believing that that number would be amply sufficient for the purpose. When the morning mist which at first hid the convoy from its attackers rolled away, the latter discovered, with a surprise which might reasonably have been dismay, that they were in the presence of a compact body of three thousand five hundred Spanish troops. There was no thought of retreat, how ever, and the battle began. After the first charge, it became a series of personal encounters, such men as Sir Philip Sydney, Willoughby, and Stanley, fighting as private soldiers. The most desperate struggle took place about the train of waggons, the English and Spanish soldiers both struggling with the horses, and striving to gain exclusive possession of the convoy. The contest lasted an hour and an half. Three times the enemy was driven back; but at length two thousand fresh troops sallied out from Zutphen to the help of their comrades, and the English,-the odds against them being now nine to one,-were forced to retire. In this battle, which must ever be regarded as affording one of the most brilliant examples of English valour, Sir Philip Sydney received his death-wound. Altogether, the results of the campaign of 1586 were most unfavourable to the patriots. We cannot follow Mr. Motley through the history of the year following. It is the history of the Earl of Leicester's misgovernment of the country he was sent to strengthen by his presence; the history of the painful vacillations and duplicity of a sovereign who, at this time, appears to have thrown aside all the qualities which make her name glorious, and to have been only a suspicious, timid, irritable woman; the history, finally, of the first growth The legends of the early history of Japan will be especially acceptable to all who believe in the faultiness of recognised chronology, and who, instead of estimating the age of the world by thousands of years, do not hesitate to introduce into the computation millions, and even still higher powers of ten. The legends record, with admirable precision, that for 2,342,467 years Japan was subject to the united rule of tre demi-gods, whose successors continued to control the country's destinies down to the year 660 B.C. In that year, a theocratic form of government was established, which existed, without alteration, for more than 1,800 years. Supreme power was vested in a single ruler, called the "Mikado," who united in his own person hereditary ecclesiastical authority and absclute control over the numerous princes whose territories composed his empire. In the middle of the twelfth century of the Christian era, in order to check the growing spiri of contention among the subordinate princes, the command of the imperial army was entrusted to a generalissimo, to whom was given the title of "Ziogoon." The Ziogocus for a while shared the temporal power with the Mikados, but at length obtained exclusive possession of it. Japan thas came to be governed by two emperors, the Spiritual Emperor, or Mikado, and the Temporal Emperor, who is called, in time of war, Ziogoon, and in time of peace, Tycoon. The functions of the Mikado are, at the present day, strictly ecclesiastical. He is the head of the national Sintoo church, and traces his descent from the goddess Teu-sio-dai-zin, the patron deity of Japan. In him rests the power of canonization, and he is also an intercessory mediator between his living subjects and the spirits and canonized beings of the other world, who, in their turn, act as mediators with the patron goddess. Nominally, the supreme temporal power is still vested in the Tycoon; but, just as he in former times wrested the power be for a long time wielded from the Mikado, so are the council of state now slowly compelling him to yield all actual control into their hands. Except in this transference of power, the Japan of to-day differs but slightly from the Japan of two hundred and fifty years ago, when William Adams, the first Englishman who ever trod this strange country, wrote to his friends at home quaint accounts of the people amongst whom he was sojourning. His letters have furnished Mr. Dalton with the groundwork of an interesting historical romance, in which personal adventure, authentic history, and descriptions of manners and customs, in part derived from the writings of recent travellers and missionaries, are skilfully interwoven.* Will Adams was born early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, at Gillingham, in Kent. He served an apprenticeship to Nicholas Diggins, a shipmaster, of Limehouse, and in 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, married Mabel, the daughter of Master Saris, a wealthy London merchant. He was now in the Queen's service, as a master and pilot in the Royal Navy. Ten years later we find him piloting one of the ships of a Dutch fleet, dispatched by merchants of Amsterdam on a mission of trade to the East Indies. His ship, which carried a cargo of woollen cloth, soon became separated from the rest of the fleet, and had to pursue its voyage alone. After many fruitless attempts to dispose of its cargo, and after its crew had undergone many hardships, one of the sailors suggested that as woollen cloth was in great estimation in Japan, it would be well to make for that island. The suggestion was acted upon, and in April, 1660, the vessel reached a Japanese port. At first, Will and his Dutch shipmates were put into prison; but they were kindly treated, and were eventually set at liberty, in spite of the utmost efforts of the Spaniards and Portuguese, who were bent on keeping Japan closed to all nations except their own. They presented a memorial to the then Ziogoon, Ogosho-Sama, entreating him to exclude from Japan all foreigners except themselves and their countrymen; but Ogosho drove the petitioners from his presence, vehemently declaring that if "devils from hell were to visit his dominions, they should be treated like angels from heaven, so long as they conducted themselves according to the laws laid down by himself and his royal predecessors." Will, by his manly conduct, soon attracted the favourable notice of Ogosho, who now insisted that the Englishman should enter his service, in order to superintend the building of vessels for the use of the state. Will, though his foremost desire was to quit Japan and return to his home in England, served his master faithfully, and attained to great honour. "For my service, which I have done and daily do," he writes in one of his letters, "the emperor has given me a living very like unto a lordship in England, with eighty or ninety husbandmen, that be as my slaves or servants, which, or the like precedent, was never here before given to any stranger. Thus God hath provided for me after my great misery, and to Him only be honour and praise, power and glory, both now and for ever, world without end." In the midst of his prosperity, Will was grieved by the receipt of intelligence of the death of his wife Mabel. Afterwards, not of his own free will, but in obedience to the commands of his imperial master, he married a lady of the Japanese court, who had been converted to the Christian religion by a Jesuit missionary. Several of her kindred were also converts, but were put to death by Ogosho, who had discovered that the Japanese Christians, in conjunction with the Portuguese, had formed a conspiracy against his life and throne. The lady in question was absolved from the same fate only upon the condition that she became the wife of Will Adams. The Englishman's services were valuable to the Ziogoon, who chose this way of securing his permanent residence in Japan. In May, 1613, Captain Saris arrived at Japan, in command of the Clove, bearing a letter from King James I. to the Japanese emperor, with whom, through Will's instrumentality, he negotiated a most favourable treaty. The result of the treaty was the establishment of an English factory at -Firando; but this factory existed only for ten years. The bitter animosity of the Dutch, their unscrupulous obstructions, the absence of an adequate demand for English pro Will Adams, the First Englishman in Japan. A Romantic Biography. By WILLIAN DALTON. London: A. W. Bennett. 1861. ductions, and the ignorance of the English merchants with respect to Japanese resources, were the causes of the failure of the enterprise, which was abandoned after about £40,000 had been spent upon it. Will's last years were saddened by the discovery that the report which had reached him of the death of his first wife, Mabel, was false. Mabel really survived him. He died in May, 1620, to the deep sorrow alike of his Japanese wife, whom he had treated with kindness and affection,-of his numerous dependants, over whom he had exercised a wise paternal control, and of his true wife Mabel, whose love for him had never ceased, and who died of grief soon after receiving the news of his death. In Will Adams's time, as for ages previously, Japan was divided into sixty-eight separate principalities. The minor potentates who ruled over these were eventually found to possess too much power, and, in order to put an end to their frequent rebellious outbursts, their territories have from time to time been subdivided, until at the present day the number of feudal princes is not fewer than three hundred and sixty. Each prince is obliged to have a residence at Jeddo, the capital, and to spend six months of every year at it. During the other six months he retires into the country, leaving his wife and children at Jeddo as hostages for his good behaviour. The nobility of Japan are encircled by such a net-work of etiquette, that they would enjoy less personal liberty than any aristocracy in the world, were it not for a practice by which they may occasionally be freed from the ordinary restraints of their dignified position, and do as they like. This consists in a kind of recognised incognito, which serves as a loophole through which escape may be made from the irksome routine of official and court life to the fuller freedom which untitled mortals enjoy. A distinguishing feature of both official and private life amongst the Japanese is their spy system, which crushes all individual freedom, except the freedom of every man to act the spy upon his neighbour, and to report to the government whatever he sees amiss in his neighbour's conduct. It results from the universal prevalence of this system, that the Japanese government officials are absolutely incorruptible, and that fewer injuries are committed by individuals against the community in Japan than in any other country in the world. Another peculiarity of Japan is the extreme secrecy with which all government affairs are conducted. Perhaps the most singular instance of this secrecy is that which occurs when an emperor dies. The fact of his death is kept hidden from all but a few of the royal family for several weeks, or until the successor to the throne has obtained secure possession of the imperial honours. A similar custom is prevalent in the families of the grandees. As already stated, the government of Japan, which in Will Adams's time was in the hands of the Tycoon only, is now practically, for the most part, in the hands of the council of state. A good deal of power, however, is exercised by the princes of the blood. If the council and the Tycoon should be at variance on any important matter, the question in dispute is referred for decision to a tribunal composed of three of the royal princes. If they endorse the opinion of the council, the Tycoon is bound to abdicate in favour of the nearest heir; but should the umpire decide in favour of the Tycoon, the council are compelled to accept the privilege of 66 kara-kiri," or the "happy despatch from this world to the next. This kara-kiri, in Will Adams's time, and for long after, was a method of committing suicide by ripping the abdomen. It has ceased to be such of late years. When any one now has had the privilege of kara-kiri accorded to him, he calls his wife and children around him, and his dearest friend,-armed with a keen sword,—to his side. With the knife which was formerly used to cut open the abdomen, he then makes a slight incision, as a sign of his wish to be put to death. This incision is a signal which the friend obeys; the sword flashes, and the victim's head rolls at the feet of his forlorn family. The government of Japan, despotic as it is, seems to be wielded with wisdom, and to be conducive to the happiness of the people. Both Will Adams and travellers who have |