Touch not the soil, for he is sleeping there
In a rich shroud that never shall decay,
And pure the watching lamp shall shed its glare
Of living lustre round his couch of clay!
Sleep on, enduring name, sleep on thy bier
Of mortal rottenness,-sleep on, and lay
Thy name within the blaze of Heaven's gemmed page,
To cheer the struggles of each after age.

And thou art with the dead, and every deed

To which the flesh was heir has slept with thee!
Shrined in thy slumbers, Glory be the meed
That hallows thy repose of sanctity!

Child of the Godhead's martyr-peopled creed,
Bright be thy place amid the clouds, for we
Shall deem the upward skies more pure and fair,
While Hope reveals that MILNER resteth there.

20.-1653.

D. S. L.

CROMWELL DISSOLVED THE LONG

PARLIAMENT.

The circumstances attending the dissolving the long parliament of Oliver Cromwell are well known, but the speech he made on that occasion is a curiosity. The document was found among some old papers, belonging to the Cromwell Family, and is as follows:

Spoken by Oliver Cromwell, when he put an end to the Long Parliament, in 1653:

"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which ye have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would, like Esau, sell your country for a mess of pottage; and like Judas, betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse-gold is your God-which of you have not bartered away your consciences for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that hath the least care

for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes! have ye not defiled this sacred place, and turned the Lord's Temple into a den of thieves? By your immoral principles, and wicked practices, ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. -You, who were deputed here by the people to get their grievances redressed, are yourselves become their greatest grievance.

"Your country, therefore, calls upon me to cleanse this Augean stable, by putting a final period to your iniquitous proceedings in this house; and which, by God's help, and the strength he hath given me, I am now come to do. I command ye, therefore, upon the peril of your lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go! get ye out! make haste! ye venal slaves, begone!-Poh! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors."

21.-1142.-PETER ABELARD DIED, ÆTAT. 63.

Abelard was the unfortunate husband of the still more unfortunate Heloise; whose loves and correspondence have rendered them so familiar in every civilized country. Amboesus says, "Abelard was a grammarian, an orator, a poet, a musician, a philosopher, a theologian, a mathematician, an astronomer, a civilian; he played upon many instruments; he knew five or six languages; he was ignorant of nothing that sacred or profane history contained." The declining life of Heloise is thus depicted by the abbot of Cluni: "Her tears had long since destroyed her beauty; a sad paleness took place of her native vermilion; her eyes lost all their fire, and her whole frame was broken down by grief. She looked upon herself as the disconsolate widow mentioned by St. Paul, whose only occupation is to weep and to lament. After the death of Abelard she hardly ever went into the monastery but to

attend the offices of the church; and, except at the times of her attendance in the church, when she had always a veil over her face, she remained shut up in her cell, at prayers, or was upon her knees before the tomb of Abelard."

Heloise survived Abelard more than twenty years, and at her death was laid in his coffin. In 1497, their coffin was removed from the chapel of the Paraclete, and transferred into the great church of the monastery; but the bones of the two bodies were separated, and two tombs erected, one on each side the choir. In 1630, Marie de la Rochefoucault directed them to be placed in the part called the chapel of the Trinity, and in 1766, Madame Rose de la Rochefoucault projected a new monument in honor of the two lovers, but it was not erected till 1779.

This beautiful monument has been since removed to the cemetry of Père la Chaise at Paris; it is, however, wretchedly placed in a corner, near the wall which incloses the ground, and loses much of its beauty by being so placed.

S

22,-1829.-WILLIAM STEVENSON DIED, ÆTAT. 57. He was Keeper of the Records in the Treasury and Author of an Agricultural Survey of Surrey; Historical Sketch of the Progress of Discovery, Navigation, and Commerce; the articles on Chivalry, in Dr. Brewster's Encyclopædia; The Life of Caxton, published by the Society for the Diffu sion of Useful Knowledge; and at the period of this death was engaged in writing for the same publication a series of treatises intended for the agricultural classes.

23.-ST. GEORGE.

The true history of St. George is a subject that has involved the literary world in much controversy; and even now the opinions of the learned on the question of his existence appear to be divided. By some he is regarded as a real personage, who was born and martyred in Cappadocia; by others, he is considered as the offspring of a warm imagination, whose birth was a mere coinage of the brain, and all his attributes ideal. Whichever of these conclusions are correct, it is incontestible, that he became the tutelar saint of England at a very early period, his name being found in the martyrologies of the venerable Bede. In Gibbon's Roman History, he is traced to a fuller's shop in Epiphania. "From this obscure and servile origin," says the historian, "he raised himself by the talents of a parasite; and the patrons whom he assiduously flattered procured for their worthless dependant a lucrative commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. His employment was mean: he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversions were so notorious, that he was compelled to escape from the pursuits of justice. After this disgrace, in which he appears to have saved his fortune at the

+

expence of his honor, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profession of Arianism." He afterward became Bishop of Alexandria, where his intolerable oppressions excited the indignation of the populous; and in a tumult purposely raised, he was torn in pieces by the mob, and his remains thrown into the sea, to prevent their receiving the future honors, which the superstitious veneration of his votaries were expected to bestow. This design, however, was rendered ineffectual by the absurd bigotry of his Arian disciples, "who introduced his worship into the bosom of the Catholic church," where the odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia, has been transformed into the renowned St. George, the patron of England, Chivalry, and the Garter." This tale of the origin and conduct of the Cappadocian martyr, thus divested of its legendary accompaniments, has met with many supporters though several literary characters have contended, that the profligate Arian bishop, and the celebrated champion of Christendom, were not the same persons. The Legenda Aurea asserts, that in the "noble college in the castle of Windsore, is the harte of Saynt George, which Sygysmunde, the emperor of Almayne, brought, and gave for a great and precious relic to K. Harrye the Fyfth; and also, here is a peyce of his hede.' Britton and Brayley's Berkshire.

St. George was the ancient English war cry, and it is so used several times by Shakspeare.

"Our ancient word of courage-fair St. George."

In the reign of Henry VII. the Irish were prohibited from using their own battle cry, or any other than St. George, or the name of the King of England.