The king would shew no other favour, but that he changed the sentence from burning to beheading. She died with great constancy of mind; and expressed a joy, that she thus suffered for an act of charity and piety.'

Of the former portions of these atrocities Miss Strickland's only mention is a lame and impotent attempt to exonerate James from the knowledge and participation of them, by dwelling and enlarging upon the one or two cases in which (on consideration of large sums of money) he was induced to pardon the followers of Monmouth; and by a quotation from his journal, written in France long after his abdication, in which he expresses regret at the atrocities of these monsters in human shape; and naturally enough: for he had then discovered that the proceedings of Jefferies were the immediate cause of his loss of three kingdoms, and that Kirke had turned traitor to him and joined the Prince of Orange! For the pitiless and cruel murders of Gaunt and Lady Lisle, Miss Strickland has no sympathies to spare. Their names, or a single allusion to their hard cases, will be sought for in vain in her pages.

Miss Strickland's history of the years 1686 to 1688, is entirely occupied with pomps and processions, grand reviews at Hounslow, stag-hunts, unexpected royal visits, the splendours of the court at the new Roman Catholic chapel, the erection of statues, James's pilgrimage to St. Winifred's," the fair D'Este's" offerings at the shrine of Loretto, the accouchement of this peerless queen, the dietary of the royal baby, and some other matters equally momentous.

The only notices of politics with which she favours her readers, are occasional parenthetical regrets that James was so open in his profession of Popery, and so far in advance of his times in his desire to abolish the Test acts.

The omissions here are so numerous, that to supply them would require a volume as bulky as Miss Strickland's. Even to mention the circumstances which are absolutely needful to be known, to which this pattern of historical veracity makes not the remotest allusion, would exceed our present limits. We can only give a rapid glance at one or two of the most prominent of them.

Miss Strickland's readers certainly ought to have been made acquainted with the fact, that, three months after the frightful cruelties in the Western counties, Jefferies the perpetrator of them, was made Lord Chancellor by James; that James set up an ecclesiastical commission, of which Jefferies was president sine quo non ; that the first act of this commission was the suspension of Compton, bishop of London, for his fidelity against Popery. That the next acts of this commission were the suspension of the ViceBurnet, vol. iii. pp. 43—48.

chancellor of Cambridge, for refusing the degree of A.M. to Father Francis, an ignorant Benedictine monk; and of the President of Magdalen college, Oxford, because the fellows refused to obey the king's mandamus to elect to that office "one Farmer, a vicious and ignorant person, with not one quality to recommend him to so high a post but that of changing his religion." The end of the matter was, that all the fellows of Magdalen who remained true to their oath were turned out, the doors of the college were broken open, and the new president forced upon it was our friend Bully Parker, who had turned Papist immediately on James's accession, and had just been consecrated Bishop of Oxford !

The cancelling of the charters of all the corporations of England, and the dismissal of all Protestant magistrates, with the design of filling up the vacancies with Papist partizans, are the last of the illegal acts of this madman, of which we shall remind our readers, in default of any notice of them in Miss Strickland's pages. We have no fear of their agreeing with us, that those who have been led by her life of Mary of Modena to form their opinions of the reign and character of James, in ignorance of facts like these, have been grossly imposed upon.

Miss Strickland's omissions become perfectly inexcusable, when it is considered that Queen Mary Beatrice had boundless influence over her husband, while these transactions were taking place; that the immediate agents employed in them were the persons upon whom she showered her especial favours; and that at the time no one attempted to conceal, much less to deny, that she was the originator, the adviser, or the abettor of the whole of them.

The last fiction of Miss Strickland's which we feel it our duty to expose, is that with which she masks her casual and very meagre glance at the trial of the six bishops. They were committed to the Tower, and brought to trial, because of their refusal to read the king's proclamation. Miss Strickland tells her readers that they refused to read it because they objected to the principle of religious toleration which that document proclaimed. This is an untruth as direct as it is possible for words to embody. These high-principled prelates did not object to religious toleration. The writings of more than one of them remain to this day to testify to the contrary. They refused to read the proclamation, because therein the royal madman arrogated to himself the power to repeal a host of parliamentary enactments, without the consent of parliament, and in virtue of his own prerogative only!

James's pretended zeal for toleration was so perfectly understood by all Protestants, to be a mere pretext for the removal of the difficulties which the statutes against recusancy presented to his

design of filling all offices, both civil and ecclesiastical, with Papists, that, with the single exception of Penn, it would be hard to name an individual, either churchman or dissenter, who was deceived by it. Yet, in twenty places of her book, Miss Strickland holds up James II as the victim of his zeal for religious liberty!

This impudently wicked perversion-but we dare not comment. We have only to exclaim, with the Duke of Austria in the play, "O that a man would speak these words to us! "

Miss Strickland is a diligent collector of historical tittle-tattle, which she puts together in an amusing, readable form.-By the way, it occurs to us at this moment, that in "Richard Hurrell Froude's Remains" we long ago read a passage something like this: "I have been much struck of late with the history of the Jacobites; -I wish I had £5000 to pay all the clever fellows I could find, for reading and making extracts from these writings."

Has this five thousand pounds been since produced, and is Miss Strickland one of the "clever fellows" whom the dispenser of it has engaged? If it be so, she has done her work well, and is certainly entitled to a handsome slice.

We must conclude with a word or two of serious warning. The history of Protestantism in England is at this moment altogether in the hands of its enemies. There is not one living English historian in whose pages it has the slightest chance of fair play. Miss Strickland is merely one of a class of collectors, who are searching everywhere for unpublished letters or other documents in favour of Popery, no matter how mean their authority, or how obvious their falsehood. These are accepted without examination by another class of writers who affect the tone of impartiality, as important materials for history. Meanwhile the history of England is made so very subordinate a part of modern education, that with the great majority of readers the only distinct impressions they have of it are derived altogether from Sir Walter Scott's novels; than which a more effective preparation of the mind for the implicit reception of Miss Strickland's fables it would be impossible to imagine. The melancholy results of all this are already beginning to show themselves; and unless God in mercy interpose, still more fearful ones are soon to follow. The prestige of Protestantism is gone already. The Reformation is no longer regarded as the cause of God's truth, but as a necessary evil; in itself altogether incapable of defence.

It is by no means the intention of the authors of this declension, that it should remain quiescent in the minds of the people of England, as an uninfluential and harmless speculation.

A LETTER TO LORD JOHN RUSSELL. By the Rev. HUGH M'NEILE, M.A., &c. London: Hatchards. 1846.

A SOLEMN WARNING FOR THE TIMES. By A STANDARD BEARER. Edinburgh: Ritchie. 1846.

THESE two publications, which have appeared within the last few days, are rather of a disappointing character. Perhaps we should say this more particularly of the first. Whatever is announced under Mr. M'Neile's name is sure to excite interest. But this tract, though appearing to be his own, consists, in fact, mainly of a series of letters written about a century ago, and published in 1778; since when they have remained in obscurity. Mr. M'Neile thinks them worthy of republication, but most men would have been more gratified, and perhaps more instructed, by forty pages from his own pen, than by these forty pages of an old tract.

We confess, too, that without gainsaying Mr. M'Neile's good opinion of these letters, we are not glad of their republication. We think them not à propos to the present crisis of the controversy. The grave and fearful allegations made in them, concerning the anti-social pretensions of the Papacy, may be substantially true; but they will find few believers at the present moment; and we should greatly prefer to be discussing that which is THE QUESTION of the present day, rather than that which was the question in 1829, and may be the question again in 1859.

There can be very little difference of opinion, we should think, as to the exact position of the controversy at the present moment. We have already conceded to the Romanists, Religious Liberty and Civil Equality; and they are now demanding Religious Equality. They may demand, at a future stage of the business, Civil Ascendancy; but they do not claim it yet. The clamour which now endangers us, is that which calls for Religious Equality. In other words, the Papists demand, that, either their Clergy in Ireland shall be endowed and established; or else, that the Protestant clergy shall cease to be so. The existence of a Protestant Establishment in a "Catholic" country, they declare to be an injury and an insult; and they demand its removal. Timorous and time-serving Churchmen think to compromise the matter, by offering, not to pull the Protestant Church down; but to raise a Romanist Church by its side. This is the desire, at the present moment, alike of Lord John Russell, of Sir Robert Peel, and of Lord Stanley. These statesmen all regard it as the best device by which to save the Church of Ireland ;--to give a sop to the Papists.

They would willingly give the latter an Establishment of their own, in the hope that, when once turned into state-pensioners, they would abate somewhat of their hostility to the other Establishment. True, the practical difficulties of this plan are very great, and very obvious. The Romanists would never admit that "Justice" had been done "to Ireland," until the two Establishments had been accurately apportioned to the population;-i. e. to the Protestants an Establishment for 850,000 people; to the Romanists an Establishment for 6,400,000. And in what way could this be brought about?

The Endowment-question, however, is now, it seems to us, the question of the present day. And hence we felt disappointment when we found Mr. M'Neile dealing with another and a different part of the controversy. However, we must let him speak for himself. He thus begins:

"My Lord,―The present state of affairs renders an apology for a public avowal of our principles wholly unnecessary. One after another of those who were depended upon as the tried friends of Britain as she was, in Church and State, have discovered some reason for changing their opinions, or for changing their line of conduct in opposition to their opinions. Avowals of such changes are no longer confined to statesmen, or laymen, or ministers of Dissenting congregations; but clergymen of the Established Church also have found out, either that our ancestors were wrong in framing those formularies of exclusion against Romanists, by which our venerable Institution is surrounded, and in sworn agreement to which alone those clergymen can hold their stations; or, that our formularies are ineffectual for the attainment of their object, and may be subscribed by gentlemen who at the same time 'hold all Roman doctrine.'

"As a citizen of a free state, endangered by the defection of her natural rulers to the ranks of her most inveterate enemy, and as a clergyman of the Church of England, thus exposed to the assaults of open foes, and thus wounded in the house of her professed friends, I venture to address the chief minister of the Crown; and in order to induce your Lordship to read a part at least of what follows, I avow, without further preface, that my object is to transcribe a series of Letters, which were addressed, nearly a century ago, to a noble Duke, who had at that early period imbibed and avowed opinions which have since found practical expression in many acts of the Legislature. The Letters were not published for a considerable time after they were written. They appeared as notes to a work by a Mr. Murray, of Newcastleupon-Tyne, printed in 1778, and I believe they have never since been reprinted, until now. The facts they refer to are as important, the principles they maintain as vital, and the arguments they advance as applicable and as urgent at this hour, as when they were first written: and they seem to me to present strongly that view of this great subject, which should never have been lost sight of by British statesmen. If it be urged, that it is now hopelessly too late to put forward such a view, because it is utterly impossible to act upon it; the simple answer is, sera nunquam ad bonos mores, &c.: it is never too late to do, or at least honestly and vigorously to try to do, what is right. Only let the justice of the view be acknowledged, and its chronology, though of much practical importance to the country, will be found comparatively a very minor matter. I am fully aware of the prima facie absurdity, in the eyes of many, of attempting to re-open this question; but, my Lord, experience has confirmed the conviction that this is THE QUESTION on which the