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person I had met with who, admiring misery, was very anxious to be thought a sufferer. She liked to talk about being stricken, and also when she and I were alone of the great expense it would be to her to go into deep mourning again.

No doubt if it is a very fine and interesting thing to be stricken, many more people will be stricken than would be the case in the days when people believed that great afflictions were punishments for heinous sins, and "those eighteen" were thought by their neighbours much wickeder folks than themselves.

Miss Tott did not care to pursue the subject of the visionary hand. She returned to her former thought, and said with a sigh,

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Some people feel things less keenly than others."

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"No doubt," he answered; "and some of us think it mean and cowardly to be always looking at the dark side; if we refuse to look at it therefore, no wonder we cannot see it."

"On the contrary, others feel that yearning for sympathy which makes it ⚫ sweet to commune with some friendly and feeling heart," said Miss Tott, sharply.

"Sympathy is a skittish and perverse nymph; demands too much, and she gives nothing. When a soldier has lost his arm, if he were to go whining about the world lamenting over it everybody would despise him; but if he holds his tongue, and carries his empty sleeve carelessly, all the girls are in love with him."

"We expect a soldier to be brave."
"Certainly, and thus we help to make

him so."

"There are many things which are far more hard to bear than loss of limbs," said Miss Tott, severely, and as if she claimed for herself a large share of them.

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"We talk without book, having no experience in loss of limbs. I suppose disgrace may be worse - and remorse." I am bound to say that he spoke with a certain hesitation, and added, "I think it only honest to confess that I never had anything to bear that I consider at all comparable to the misery of carrying timber about with me in the shape of a leg or arm. However handsomely it might be made I'm sure the joints would creak," he added, thoughtfully.

"I was not speaking of remorse," said Miss Tott, "I meant such things as loss of friends, disappointment of one's fondest wishes, a hopeless attachment, the death of its object, inconstancy."

Mr. Brandon was silent.

"I consider constancy all stuff," said Tom, "unless it exists on both sides." "Good heavens !" murmured Miss Tott. "For," proceeded this hardened young man, "legs and arms won't grow again; but a jilted man has all the world before him where to choose.'

Mr. Brandon laughed, but he looked uneasy, and the subject seemed to please Miss Tott, who said to Tom, with drooping eyelids and pensive sweetness of expression, "We should hardly speak of this, should we, Mr. Graham, before we know anything about it?”

"Meaning," said Tom, "that I know nothing about it."

"You are young," she replied, with a sort of tender, regretful look at him.

66

But not without experience; I have been in love times out of number. I don't mean to say that I have been refused at present; that may be because I have not yet gone the length of making an offer."

"When you do, may you escape that sorrow," she answered, in a tone that was a strange contrast to his banter.

Mr. Brandon evidently winced under this talk: such an unmistakable twinge of dislike passed over his face that I ventured to change the subject by asking some question relative to our rate of sailing.

He looked up to answer with the air of a man who feels himself to be found out, but he took instant advantage of the opportunity to get away, rising and saying that he would go and make some inquiries.

His departure broke up the conference. Miss Tott said she should like to walk about. Tom offered his arm, and I ran below to my cabin to take my finished work down and bring up the children. They were just awake after their morning sleep; but before we had done dressing them to come on deck, Tom knocked loudly at the door, exclaiming, "Here's a pretty state of things: the sea is rising a little, and Miss Tott begins to look very pale. You had better come to her."

I met her coming down. “O let me lie down!" she murmured, "O, this terrible giddiness!"

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I gave her to Mrs. Brand, the usual thing followed; but I observed that she bore it quite as well as other people.

CHAPTER XV.

"To his own master, he standeth or falleth."

How much people talk about their first impressions of a foreign country. It was about six o'clock, and dark with thunderclouds, and pouring with rain, when I was

out.

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Ah, yes, this was foreign indeed! fine broad place, houses with two or three tiers of windows in the roof, women without bonnets, the clatter of wooden shoes, and a vast amount of joyous jabbering. A big diligence at the door, with three white cart-horses harnessed abreast thereto. (It looked like a haystack on wheels, and was covered with a tarpaulin). A market and a fair going on, tables with smoking-hot coffee, and round loaves in the shape of a ring upon them; bakers' boys bringing these round their arms, and round their necks, great heaps of apples, pears, late cherries, stacks of plums, stains

told we had entered the French harbour, till nine o'clock, when I woke and peeped and were lying opposite to the Douane. My luggage, consisting of one little box, was landed, so was Miss Tott's; and we waited on board till it had passed, sitting under umbrellas. Poor Miss Tott was fainting for air and longing to get away from the scene of her misery. Uncle Rollin, at the last moment, took alarm and declined to land, but said he would wait at Havre till we returned from Chartres. It was, therefore, a point of honor to be as quick as we could, and I found that Mr. Brandon and Tom had decided on our going on to Chartres that same evening; a cab was waiting to convey us on to the railway station. We had dined; but poor Miss Tott had eaten nothing since break-of fruit all over the stones, great rugged fast, so I made Brand give us a goodly basket of provisions to carry with us.

melons that did not seem half ripe, tiny French men and French women sitting on them in their little blue pinafores and wooden shoes, and the sun pouring down over all as it never can in England so early in the morning. Inside, the windows swarmed with flies, and the floor was tiled: cheering sights, so foreign.

Miss Tott and I dressed the children in their new clothes, then we rang, were conducted to a salon, where we found Tom and Mr. Brandon, and where we ate a remarkable breakfast, consisting of fried potatoes, rice-pudding, eggs, rolls as long as our arms, boiled pigeons, and wine.

We were a party of six, including the children. Miss Tott and I were surprised to find ourselves in a decided mist, we had hardly expected mist out of England. The rain was uncommonly like English rain. The railway carriage had the same defect, -this was disappointing; but we had the satisfaction of hearing the railway officials quarreling in real French. Nothing to be seen rain, mist, thunder-clouds. We soon unpacked our great basket of provisions. Miss Tott was terribly vexed at having to eat an English pigeon pie and salad on French soil; and after that, slices of cake, also such a thoroughly English dish! and then Stilton cheese; and, lastly, strawberries; but by ten o'clock we had done all this with appetite, and then taken off the children's hats and laid them on the THE HISTORICAL MANUSCRIPTS COMMISseat to go to sleep.

As the dusk came on the rain ceased, and Miss Tott and I gazed diligently out of the windows; but darkness, we were obliged to own, looked much the same everywhere.

We saw hardly anything, even when we reached Paris; for the children woke up and cried most piteously. We were soon shut up in a room with numbers of people half of whom spoke as good English as ourselves, and then the officials, storming at Mr. Brandon and the parcels we wanted to have with us, hustled us into a carriage, where, to our disgust, we had to sit for at least ten minutes before the train started.

We slumbered while it was dark, and day had just dawned on a perfectly flat country, when we first saw the graceful spires of Chartres Cathedral.

All very tired, some very cross, we drove to an hotel, and straightway went to bed

From Fraser's Magazine.

SION.

BY JOHN PIGGOT, JUN., F.S.A. DISCOVERIES of rare books and historical MSS. like those at Lamport Hall, Northants, in 1867, the seat of Sir Charles Isham, Baronet,* and in the following year at Crowcombe Court, Somerset, the seat of a branch of the ancient family of Carew,† showed the desirableness of a Commission to make enquiry as to the places in which MSS. and papers of gen

Here, in a lumber-room, a hitherto unknown 1599, was found bound up with a copy of The Pasedition of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, dated sionate Pilgrim of the same date, only one other We refer copy of which was previously known.

our readers to Mr. Edmond's account of the discovery in the Gentleman's Magazine, II. 1867, p. 608; and I. 1868, p. 217.

1868. The Director of this Society examined the tReport of the Council of the Camden Society, 120 volumes of MSS. forming this important collec tion. They were carefully preserved in a recess converted into a closet, and had not been inspected by any competent person within the memory of any one living.

eral public interest are deposited. Such a Here was found also the original letter, Commission was appointed in 1869; in wholly in the handwriting of Charles I., 1870 the First Report was issued, in 1871 addressed to the House of Lords, May 11, the Second; and in the following paper we 1641, recommending that the Earl of propose giving an account of some of the Strafford should be imprisoned for life most interesting documents brought to rather than be executed, " although he, the light. The First Report was so successful king, had satisfied the justice of the kingthat three editions, or 1625 copies, have dom by the passing of the Bill of Attainbeen disposed of showing the interest der against the earl." The Peers offered taken by the general public in the matter. to return the letter, but he replied: "My One hundred and eighty persons and Lords, what I have written to you I shall heads of institutions expressed their wil- be content it be registered by you in your lingness either to co-operate with the Com- House. In it you see my mind. I know missioners, or requested their aid in mak- you will use it to my honour." The origiing known the contents of their collec-nal petition was found of Laud, Archbishtions; and the result was that a number op of Canterbury, in his own handwritof papers of great utility in the illustra-ing, while a prisoner in the Tower. He tion of history, constitutional law, science, had been required to give the presentation and general literature, have been brought of St. Leonard's, Foster Lane, to a Mr. to light. The Commissioners in their George Smith, and he requests them to First Report state that as far as their en- allow Mr. Smith to come, that he may exquiries have extended, very important and amine respecting his fitness. The Comvaluable materials have been discovered, missioners note the discovery of a docuillustrating some of the least known ment of great national importance, viz. periods of the history of Great Britain, the original manuscript of the Book of from the Saxon era down to the end of Common Prayer, which was annexed to the seventeenth century. They hope that, the Statute 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 4. The with enlarged powers of compiling and Parliamentary Commissioners, in 1645, publishing calendars of the more impor- issued an order abolishing the Book of tant papers that may be brought before Common Prayer and Charles II., upon his them, they will be able to render a most restoration, took the earliest opportunity essential service to the historical student, to re-establish the worship sanctioned by not only in this country, but throughout the Acts of Uniformity of Edward VI. the civilized world. We now turn to and Elizabeth. In March 1661, he aptheir First Report. A valuable collection, almost unknown, was brought under the notice of the Commissioners. They were found in the House of Lords, but are not referred to in any printed Report of the contents of their lordship's muniment rooms. They were brought to light by the late Mr. John Bruce, who was engaged in an historical enquiry. A portion of these (29,507) have been examined and arranged, and the Commissioners hope that the remainder will be treated in the same manner. Many of the papers found illustrate the Journals of the House of Lords, or rather are the original documents to which constant reference is made in those time-honoured registers. No copy The Duke of Rutland's Collection at of a document was ever received by the Belvoir Castle contains 4,000 deeds of the Lords in evidence, and even the House of twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifCommons sent the originals, retaining teenth centuries, largely used in Nichols's copies for themselves. Some important History of Leicestershire. There are also letters from Charles I. to his queen were a number of household books of the fif found among these, and were the identical teenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth cenones taken in his cabinet at Naseby, por- turies. Ameng the MS. volumes is a fine tions of which (detrimental to him) were Psalter of the twelfth century on vellum, published by the Parliament. The Com-adorned with illuminations. This is a missioners print several letters which magnificent work of English art. were not noticed by the Parliament at all. The Hatton collection was contained in

pointed certain Commissioners to revise the Book of Common Prayer, and make such alterations as they thought fit. This altered copy was ordered to be appended to the Act, and so remained till the beginning of this century when a clergyman, who was permitted to consult it, severed it from the original roll. With it was found a volume, printed in 1636, containing about 600 MS. alterations, as well as some new forms of prayer. The Commissioners hope that the Books of Common Prayer attached to the Act of Uniformity of King Edward VI. and Elizabeth may yet be discovered among the buried treasures of the House of Lords.

thirteen chests, full of documents of in- | number of charters, from Edward I. to estimable value, in chaotic confusion. Edward IV. throwing a good deal of light These have all been carefully arranged. on the early topographical history of EngAmong the early deeds may be mentioned land, and the papers of Sir Gilbert Talbot, one of R., Earl of Warwick, (1123-53); K. G., Deputy-Governor of Calais, under another by Arnoul, Bishop of Lisieux Henry VII. and Henry VIII. Two of the (1141-82); Empress Matilda (1167); Ed- latter refer directly to Perkyn Warbeck. mund, son of Henry III. (1186); and a There are original documents of Elizabeth number of papal bulls. A careful list of of York, Catherine of Aragon, and Prince the autograph letters will be found in the Henry (afterwards Henry VIII.), Charles Report. One portfolio contains letters of II. and James II., and three letters in the Oliver Cromwell, Charles II., William III., writing of "Thomas Wolcy." There is a Queen Anne, Pedro II. King of Portugal, deed of acquittance between King Henry Catherine Queen of Portugal, &c. VII. and Richard Gardyner, Alderman of London, on the return of "a salte of golde with a cover stonding upon a morene garnyshed with perles and precious stones." This piece of plate had been pledged by King Richard to Gardyner for 66l. 13s. 4d.

Lord Mostyn's collection contains a number of News Letters and private letters, chiefly from 1673 to 1632, of a highly interesting character; the News Letters are unsigned. The parliamentary news seems to have been obtained through the Among the papers at Montacute House, Clerks of Parliament, and it appears from Somersetshire, are interesting letters &c. one of the papers in the present collection of the sixteenth and seventeenth centhat a number of coffee-house keepers turies. Letters of Sir Walter Raleigh are were summoned before the House of Com- rare; there is one here addressed by him mons, and the Clerk of the House was for- to Sir Edward Phelipps, Master of the bidden to furnish copies of the Minutes to Rolls, beseeching him "to give some end be read at the coffee-houses. These News to the unchristian sute which Sanderson Letters are full of Court and City gossip, hath against me," &c. Mr. Horwood, who accounts of duels, murders, &c. We have examined this collection, found that one notices of Nell Gwynne, of the Popish bundle labelled Law Papers consisted of Plot, of Titus Oates standing in the pil-original Council letters and depositions of lory at Tyburn, of the great fire in the witnesses and other valuable documents Temple (1678) when Mr. Ashmole's col- relating to the Gunpowder Plot. These lection of curiosities was consumed, A must have been at Montacute ever since private letter gives a long account of the the year 1612. trial of College, the Protestant joiner; mentions King Charles's visit to Newmarket; the custom of bonfires, and burning the Pope on the anniversary in November of Queen Elizabeth's coronation; proceedings in the Court of Chivalry; the birth of the Prince of Wales, son of James II., and the fee of 500 guineas to the midwife, &c. Lord Herries, of Everingham Park, pos-in English verse; several volumes consesses a cartulary of the monastery of S. Nicholas of Drax; a large collection of the original charters of the same house from 1083; fine Bible of the thirteenth century; a quarto volume on vellum, written in the fourteenth century, containing the French poem by William de Wygetone called the "Manuel des Pechés; a magnificent antiphonarium of the fifteenth century on vellum, written | for the use of the Metropolitan Church of York. The collection contains a number of devotional and liturgical MSS. of the fifteenth century, and a large collection of family correspondence of the early part of the eighteenth century.

The Shrewsbury papers consist of a

The library of John Tollemache, Esq., of Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, contains some rare MSS.; among them the splendid Anglo-Saxon volume, King Alfred's translation of Orosius; Trevisa's translation into English of Bartholomew de Glanville's work De proprieta'ibus rerum, a fine illuminated MS. on vellum; the only MS. known of Sir Gennerides, a long romance

taining materials for the History of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; early MSS. containing the statutes to the end of Edward I. and statutes in French to 9 Henry VI.; and Divinity is represented by several splendid MSS. of the Bible, and some of the Fathers and other works; six or seven volumes of the Fathers are of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and some of them came from the Monastery of St. Osyth, in Essex. Most of the collections were formed by Lionel Tollemache, temp. James I. Mr. Horwood noted a letter of Charles II., to a lady, while an exile in Paris: "It is," he says, "perfect in composition and stately grace.'

The Duke of Manchester's collection at merous. One document bears reference to Kimbolton Castle contains letters of the insurrection headed in London by Wat Charles I., William III., Sophia, Electress Tyler, and at Cambridge by Edward Lysof Hanover, George her son (afterwards ter, the mayor, and James de Grancetre. George I.) the great Marlborough, Prior, Of about the date 1381 there is a suppliAddison, Charles James Fox, and Horace cation addressed to the King in French, Walpole's to George Montague, 226 in setting forth that a great part of the number. At Blickling Hall, Norfolk, the houses belonging to the College in Camseat of the Marquis of Lothian, are some bridge had been burnt, and their munifine MSS. on vellum; a folio Psalter on ments carried away. In a description of vellum, written in Lombardic characters, books belonging to the College in 1400 with Anglo-Saxon glosses over many of there is this item: "The seventh book is a the words; a volume of Anglo-Saxon Bible, which Master John Kynne, Master Homilies of the tenth century; a number of the College, bought at Northamptone, of copies of letters to Mr. Grenville, Lord at the time (1380) when the Parliament Halifax, and the Earl of Sandwich, from was there, for the purpose of reading John, second Earl of Buckingham, while therefrom in hall at the time of dinner; ambassador to the Court of St. Peters- and there is a red line at the beginning, burg, giving great insight to the Court of above the text, containing these words of Catherine II., its political and social in- the Epistle of Jeronymus to Paulinus, the trigues. At Crome Court, Worcestershire, Presbyter, &c." The descriptions of the the official papers of Sir Thomas Coventry, vestments, cups, relics, and jewels of the afterwards Lord Coventry, Lord Keeper of college, are full of valuable and curious the Great Seal from 1626 to 1639, are pre- items. The horn thus described is still in served. The Earl of Macclesfield's papers the possession of the college: "Also a contain George Stepney's correspondence, great horn in English called bugel, with 1694 to 1707, relating to the negotiations feet silver gilt, and the head of an emperor in which Stepney was employed during at the end silver gilt, having also a silver this bustling period, to the movements of cover, at the top of which are four acorns the allied armies, the Electors of Germa- silver gilt." This horn was given to the ny, &c. Earl St. Germans, of Port Eliot, Guild of Corpus Christi by John Goldcorn, Cornwall, has letters of Gibbon the histo- one of its aldermen in the fourteenth cenrian to the first Lord Eliot, which throw a tury. good deal of light on his parliamentary career. The Earl of Zetland's collection contains documents relating to the rebellion of 1745. The papers at Tabley House, Cheshire, consist of a vast amount of matter collected by Sir Peter Leycester (an ancestor of Lord de Tabley), on the history of Cheshire and of his own family. Sir J. S. Trelawny's collection at Trelawne, Cornwall, contains a great number of ancient deeds and rolls relating to lands in Cornwall and elsewhere; also hundreds of letters to and by Bishop Trelawny (one of the seven imprisoned bishops); and Mr. Almack's is rich in early deeds relating to Norfolk, Suffolk, Cheshire, and Lancashire, and has some important historical letters.

Mr. H. T. Riley visited Cambridge, and examined the muniments and papers in several of the colleges there. We note some of the most interesting items in his Report. Corpus Christi College: - A number of parchment Bede and other rolls, containing curious information relating to the Guild of St. Mary, at Cambridge. The account books of this guild are very interesting, and begin in 1349. Mr. Riley gives items from these. The ancient deeds in the possession of the college are very nu

King's College. In this collection are several volumes of interesting original letters, chiefly of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and a number of college accounts, containing curious items. Another volume contains an account of the expenditure on continuing the building of the College Chapel in 23 and 24 Henry VII. This has been overlooked in the printed History of the Chapel.

Pembroke College. Here are a number of interesting deeds relating to the foundress, Mary de St. Paul, Countess of Pembroke, papal bulls, royal licenses, &c. There is a "Book of Emptions" of the household of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, from 18 Henry VIII. to 19 Henry VIII., of considerable value and much interest. It came to the college probably through its connection with Framlingham, Suffolk. The inventories of plate and ornaments (1488) in the Great Register are curious. Mr. Riley, in his Report, gives extracts from these. Another volume contains copies of between 700 and 800 charters and deeds, mostly executed by English sovereigns (King John more especially), between Edgar and the later Saxon Kings and the end of the reign of Edward I.

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