ing of his imposture, cannot with certainty be known-he surrendered to the mercy of the king. By him, for a while, he was kindly treated, but at last was thrown into the Tower; led, by what means we cannot say, to make a confession of his falsehood; and on pretence of having waged war against the King, he was executed on Tower-hill. Opinions as to Perkin Warbeck's claims were long divided. If the princes were really murdered in the Tower, why' were not their remains found and shown to the people, in order to settle the question? Long after that time, two skeletons were certainly found, in a part of the building which at one time had been used as a burying-ground for the garrison. On the other hand, if Perkin were the real prince, what had become of him in the interval? How had he escaped the hands of the assassin? Did he escape alone, or did his elder brother escape along with him? If so, what became of him? Did he die afterwards by violence or by a natural death? In short, there is no end to these questions, and we must leave the whole story as dark and unsettled as we have found it.-From 'Landmarks of the History of England.'

EMPSON AND DUDLEY (Henry VII.).

THE ruling passion of Henry the Seventh, in the midst of many great qualities that might have fitted him for the position he had gained, was insatiable avarice. He loved money so much that he cared not how unjustly he obtained it, and the merciless way in which he robbed the partisans of the House of York is one of the chief features of his reign. But by way, perhaps, of showing his impartiality, he lost no opportunity of robbing of their estates the very men who had supported him. By raking up old laws or acts of Parliament which had slumbered for hundreds of years, he brought the titles of half the lands in the kingdom into doubt. He paid spies

to discover flaws in the titles to the estates of any one he wished to ruin; and if some encroachment had been made on the forest bounds in the reign of John; if a forfeiture had taken place in the reign of Edward; if one link was wanting in the chain of succession from the original Norman who had received the estates from William the Conqueror in 1066, there were slavish judges who would decide in the king's favour, and the unfortunate occupier was forced to make friends with the King by a payment that brought him to poverty. Empson and Dudley were the two men who made themselves foremost in this worst of all duties. They terrified a whole county by giving notice of their intention to visit it, to inquire into the landowners' rights. Whenever they threatened an accusation, terms of settling were instantly offered; and these claims were advanced to the small tenements of the yeoman as well as the broad acres of the squire. Henry VII. lived at once the richest and most hated of all the kings in Christendom. He had a sum equal to ten or twelve millions of our money in his treasury; but not a friend, or person he could rely on, in the whole world.-From 'Landmarks of the History of England.'

SOCIAL MATTERS SECTION.

OF VALUE.

PART I.

OLD and Silver are the most convenient metals to use as money, because they take up but little room in proportion to their value. Hence they are called the precious metals.

But why should gold and silver be of so much more value than Iron, for they are not nearly so useful? We should be very ill off without knives, and scissors, and spades, and hatchets; and these could not be made so well from anything as from iron; and silver or gold would make very bad tools indeed.

To understand this you must remember that it is not always the most useful things that are of the most value. Nothing is more useful than air and water; without which we could not live. Yet these are, in most places, of no value, in the proper sense of that word; that is, no one will give anything in exchange for them; because he can have them without payment.

In some places, indeed, water is scarce; and then people are glad to buy it. You may read in Scripture of many quarrels that arose about wells of water; because, in some of the Eastern countries, water is so scarce, that a well is a very important possession. But water is not more useful in those places where people are glad to buy it, than it is here, where, by the bounty of Providence, it is plentiful. It is the scarcity that gives it value. And where iron is scarce, it is of great value. In some islands which our ships have visited no iron is found; and the

people there are glad to get a few nails in exchange for a hog.

But in most countries, iron, which is the most useful of all metals, is also, through the goodness of Providence, the most plentiful. But still it is of some value; because it must be dug from the mines, and smelted in furnaces, and wrought into tools, before it can be used. If knives and nails were produced by nature, ready made, and could be picked up everywhere like pebbles, they would be of no value: because every one might get them for nothing. But they would be just as useful as they

are now.

Scarcity alone, however, would not make a thing valuable, if there were no reason why any one should desire to possess it. There are some kinds of stones which are scarce, but of no value, because they have neither use nor beauty. You would not give anything in exchange for such a stone; not because you can easily get it, but because you have no wish for it.

Many people will work hard to earn money enough to buy, not only food and necessary clothing, but also lace and jewels, and other articles of finery.

And they desire these things the more, because besides being beautiful to the eye, they are reckoned a sign of wealth in the person who wears them. A bunch of wild. flowers will often be a prettier ornament than a fine riband or a jewel; but a woman likes better to wear these last, to show that she can afford the cost of them: whereas the wild flowers may be had for picking.

You understand now, I hope, that whatever is of value must not only be desirable, for its use or beauty, or some pleasure it affords, but also scarce; that is, so limited in supply, that it is not to be had for nothing. And of things which are desirable, those are the most valuable which are the most limited in supply; that is, the hardest to be got.

This is the reason why silver and gold are of more value than iron. If they had been of no use or beauty

at all, no one would have ever desired them; but being desirable, they are of greater value than iron, because they are so much scarcer, and harder to be got. They are found but in few places, and in small quantities. Gold, in particular, is obtained chiefly in the form of dust, by laboriously washing the sand of certain streams. It costs only as much, in labour and other expenses, to obtain about fifteen pounds of silver as to obtain one pound of gold; and this is the cause why one pound of gold may be exchanged for about fifteen pounds of silver.

PART II.

ON these elementary points such questions as the following may be usefully put to themselves by those to whom the subject is new ;—

1. Why is air not an article of value?-Because, though it is very useful, it is to be had for nothing.

2. Why is some scarce kind of stone, that is of no use or beauty, not an article of value?-Because, though it is not a thing that every one can get, no one desires it.

3. Why is a healthy constitution not an article of value?— Because, though it is very desirable, and is not what every one can get, it is not transferable; that is, cannot be transferred, or parted with by one person to another.

4. Why is a spade an article of value?-Because it is, first, desirable, as being of use; secondly, limited in supply; that is, it is not what every one can have for nothing; and thirdly, transferable; that is, one person can part with it to another.

5. Why is a silver spoon of more value than a spade?— Because, though it is not more useful, it is more limited in supply (or harder to be got), on account of the difficulty of working the mines of silver.

When anything that is desirable is to be had by labour, and is not to be had without labour, of course we find men labouring to obtain it; and things that are of very great value will usually be found to have cost very great