is most sure; if the art were sure and certain, he is foolish, indeed, who seeks to know the coming misery, or anticipates the coming happiness. Let us only live in the present, looking forward with sure and certain hope to the life where there will be no shedding of tears or thought of trouble. Why could not Frank let the future alone? The present, which he spoiled by this curiosity, should have been to him full of happiness, because he had everything that the world has to give-youth, health, strength, riches, and a good heart. What more doth God give to any ?

Why,' said Frank, what am I to do? There is nothing in this country for a Catholic gentleman to do. We may not hold commissions in the army; we cannot act as magistrates; we cannot enter the Universities; we cannot go into Parliament; we can hold no office, and are cut off from all employment. What wonder if some of us sit down to drink and hunt, and nothing more? Why should the country be afraid of a handful of gentlemen who have kept their old faith?'

Truly it was a hard case; yet what to do?

We must not have the Pope's subjects in our Houses of Parliament.

Well,' he went on, what am I to do with myself? I am a younger son, with a younger son's portion-enough, but not great riches. You have shut up all the doors; you treat us with suspicion and contempt; you call us Papists. I knew not till we came home how despised a creature is an English Catholic.'

6

Nay,' I said, for the young man had worked himself into a passion, and the tears were in his eyes, you have but to ride through any village in Northumberland to see the contempt with which a Radcliffe is regarded. Fie, Master Frank! you have been abroad so long that you know not the English heart. It may be, as you say, that the Catholics are excluded from civil rights. Is it not because it is believed that you love Pope first and King second? But it cannot be that there is nothing for you to do.'

'Oh yes,' he said bitterly, there is always something. I may go to Douay, and so presently come back with shaven crown, and even be made some day, if I am fortunate, a Bishop in partibus.'

All this was true.

There were here three

brothers rich in gifts and graces. The eldest should have been a great statesman, the second a great scholar, and the third a soldier.

Yet because their grandfather chose to remain in the old religion, when the people were ordered to change for the new (because it is foolish to suppose that all the country gentlemen and the very rustics and hinds had wit and learning wherewith to argue for or against the faith), they were all condemned to idleness. Wherefore the eldest, who had the estates, the wealth, and the power, resolved on spending his life in good works, and the advancement of the poor committed to his trust; and the second became melancholy, and troubled himself about things hidden from mankind; and the third-he was only a boy as yet-was going to become a beau, and to follow all the pleasures of the town. Why, what a waste of gifts was here! And all for the Mass which stood between.

As for my lord,' said Tom, he is very well. He rides as straight as can be expected. His shooting will improve, and no doubt he will learn to put his money on matches and

fights, though at present he cares little about such sport. And as for Charles, it is a promising boy and well-plucked. But as for Frank, he does nothing at all; he will neither laugh, nor sing, nor drink, nor hunt-what is to be done with him? Tony, he loves your company. Can you make nothing of him? Can you not even make him drink?'

'Indeed, sir,' said Mr. Hilyard, the English law opens to a young gentleman who is a Papist no opportunity at all for distinction. He must therefore either be made a priest or remain a sportsman. He has his choice between a saint and a cockfighter. Mr. Frank, though born to be a scholar, has little calling to the saintly profession, and none at all for cock-fighting. So that unless he changes his disposition or his creed, he is likely to remain in his present. melancholy.'

As for the cure of melancholy,' Mr. Hilyard went on, there are many things enumerated by the learned Burton. Borage, for instance, or bugloss, of which Helena's famous bowl was made, after drinking which she felt no grief or remorse; marigold, put

into broth; hop, which may be infused into ale, and taken by melancholy men with advantage; betony, the root of which is sovereign for the causing of mirth; pennyroyal, wormwood, and other herbs, any of which may be taken by Mr. Francis without fear.'

6

'Give him,' said Tom, a bowl of punch. after a day's hunting; make him dance after a pretty woman. A fig for all your herbs, and broths, and messes, Tony! Betony for the causing of mirth! Why, then, to-night, instead of whisky punch you may have a mess of betony.'

But Frank Radcliffe's case was beyond the 'reach of herbs, and not even a bowl of punch would help partly because he could not drink punch.

I spoke about him to my lord, who owned that he could do nothing for his brother.

'There is among us a strain of melancholy. My uncle, Thomas Radcliffe, hath it, and cannot be cured, though he wears a chalcedony in a ring, and hath taken medicines of all kinds, both simple and mineral, yet none to cure him. I doubt not Frank will be like