At length broke under me, and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy

Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!
I feel my heart new opened. Oh, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.'

Thomas Cromwell, an attached servant of his, then comes in to tell him more sad news, and to condole with his master, to whom Wolsey addresses these words:

'Thus far hear me, Cromwell; And when I am forgotten, as I shall be, And sleep in dull, cold marble, where no mention Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee, Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory, And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ; A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it. Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me. Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition! By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?

O Cromwell, Cromwell! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, He would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies.'

If Cromwell really did receive this advice, he did not profit by it. His career was little less ambi

tious than that of his master, and his end was, if anything, worse. Although he rose high in Henry's favour, and was created Earl of Essex, and made chancellor, a day came when he too was accused of treason and other offences. He was found guilty, and executed on Tower Hill in 1540.

LESSON 17.

STORIES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.

V. THE GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON.

e-jac-u-la-tion, sudden excla- re-frain, keep back

That terrible summer of 1665, during which the plague swept away more than a hundred thousand persons, was long remembered by the people of London. The most striking account of this fearful pestilence is from the pen of De Foe, who wrote the well-known Robinson Crusoe. After giving a very brief description of the 'great plague,' as it was called, we shall insert an extract from De Foe's account. People began to sicken, and drop dead in the streets. The rich and well-to-do fled to the suburbs. The deaths were so numerous that graves could not be dug quickly enough, so the poor victims were thrown into great holes by scores and hundreds. A red cross was put on the door of houses in which the plague had entered, and no one was allowed to go in or out for a month. At night

carts went through the deserted streets, the driver ringing his bell, and shouting, 'Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!' Many people went to live in boats on the middle of the river, but the pestilence overtook them there, and numbers were thrown into the water. Some idea of the terrible sufferings of this period may be gathered from the following account:

EXTRACT FROM DE FOE'S ACCOUNT.

Much about the same time I walked out into the fields towards Bow, for I had a great mind to see how things were managed in the river and among the ships; and as I had some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had been one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infection to have retired into a ship; and musing how to satisfy my curiosity in that point, I turned away over the fields, from Bow to Bromley, and down to Blackwall, to the stairs that are there for landing or taking water.

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank or sea-wall, as they call it, by himself. I walked a while also about, seeing the houses all shut up; at last I fell into some talk, at a distance, with this poor man. First, I asked him how people did thereabouts.

'Alas! sir,' says he, 'almost desolate; all dead or sick. There are very few families in this part, or in that village,'-pointing to Poplar,—'where half of them are not dead already, and the rest sick.' Then, pointing to one house, 'There they are all dead,' said he, 'and the house stands open; nobody dares go into it. A poor thief,' says he, 'ventured in to steal something, but he paid dear

for his theft, for he was carried to the churchyaru too, last night.' Then he pointed to several other houses: 'There,' says he, they are all dead-the man and his wife and five children.'

'There,' says he, they are shut up: you see a watchman at the door; and so of other houses.' 'Why,' says I, 'what do you here all alone?'

'Why,' says he, 'I am a poor desolate man: it hath pleased God I am not yet visited, though my family is, and one of my children dead.'

'How do you mean, then,' said I, 'that you are not visited?

'Why,' says he, 'that is my house,'-pointing to a very little low-boarded house, and there my poor wife and two children live,' said he, 'if they may be said to live, for my wife and one of the children are visited; but I do not come to them.' And with these words I saw the tears run very plentifully down his face; and so they did down mine too, I assure you.

'But,' said I, 'why do you not come to them? How can you abandon your own flesh and blood?'

'Oh, sir,' says he, 'the Lord forbid! I do not abandon them; I work for them as much as I am able, and, blessed be the Lord, I kept them from want.' And with that I observed he lifted up his eyes to heaven, with a countenance that presently told me I had happened on a man that was no hypocrite, but a serious, religious, good man; and his ejaculation was an expression of thankfulness that, in such a condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family did not want.

'Well,' says I, 'honest mah, that is a great mercy, as things go now with the poor. But how do you live, then? and how are you kept from the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all?'

'Why, sir,' says he, 'I am a waterman, and there is my boat,' says he; 'and the boat serves me for a house: I work in it in the day, and I sleep in it in the night; and what I get I lay down upon that stone,' says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of the street, a good way from his house; 'and then,' says he, 'I halloo and call to them till I make them hear, and they come and fetch it.'

'Well, friend,' says I, 'but how can you get money as a waterman? a waterman? Does anybody go by water these times?'

'Yes, sir,' says he; 'in the way I am employed there does. Do you see there,' says he, five ships lie at anchor?'-pointing down the river a good way below the town-'all these ships have families on board, of their merchants and owners, and such like, who have locked themselves up, and live on board, close shut in for fear of the infection; and I tend on them to fetch things for them, carry letters, and do what is absolutely necessary, that they may not be obliged to come on shore; and every night I fasten my boat on board one of the ships' boats, and there I sleep by myself; and, blessed be God, I am preserved hitherto.'

'Well,' said I, 'friend, but will they let you come on board after you have been on shore here, when this has been such a terrible place, and so infected as it is?'

'Why, as to that,' said he, 'I very seldom go up the ship's side, but deliver what I bring to their boat, or lie by the sides, and they hoist it on board. If I did, I think they are in no danger from me, for I never go into any house on shore, or touch anybody, no, not of my own family; but I fetch provisions for them.'

E