lord within, rolls by as imposingly as ever; but there is an ominous sound in the streets which the rumbling of its wheels cannot utterly drown; it is the low, half-suppressed threat, YOUR TIME WILL COME! Her cathedrals and bench of bishops retain their ancient splendor, but there are eyes looking on them with other purpose than to admire or revere.

To the careless observer, England is as powerful and magnificent as ever; all things yet remain as they were. But there is an under-working power which gathers strength from the very obstacles that bar its progress. The tremendous power exerted to restrain it from bursting forth, cannot make it cease working. Instead of expending its fires in eruptions, it slowly eats away under ground, hollowing out the whole mountain on which the throne, the aristocracy, and the church rest. The greatest, keenest-sighted men of England know this, and they begin to study these new and alarming appearances, as philosophers study volcanoes, not to see what they shall do with the volcano, but what the volcano is going to do with them. And yet after all, we think England could make as great an exertion (in certain directions) now as ever. In a crisis which should call forth all her resources she would exhibit as much strength as she has ever done. A common danger would unite for a while all her jarring interests. No outward force, we imagine, can subdue her. Her provinces might be cut off

in a general war, but her throne she would hold against the world. Her danger lies where the exertion of physical force would only increase it. Not abroad, but at home, are the elements of trouble. Not hostile armies, but her own subjects have become her greatest dread. She has reached that crisis from which most governments date their decline-her foes have become they of her own household.

In many respects she resembles the Roman empire. Her own population being but a small proportion to the number of her subjects; like Rome her external growth has been more rapid than her internal; or rather, while she has been extending her dominion abroad, the elements of destruction have been gathering at home. Like Rome, too, her arms have become too long for her body. Even had not the Northern barbarians swarmed down on her, "like a giant drunk with wine," Rome soon would have reeled to her downfall. Nothing but a regeneration of the people could rescue her from the approaching ruin. But England is not threatened with this evil; her superstructure does not totter because it stands in the midst of a depraved people, but because it is based on millions of agitated human hearts. It vibrates not so much because it is drunk with sin, as because the bowed necks on which it has so long rested, begin to erect themselves. England's greatness is in the past, not in the future. She looks back with pride, forward with shuddering. This truth was illustrated to me most forcibly as I passed from the crowded streets of London into the TOWER, that grand and gloomy treasure-house of England's feudal and military glory. It was founded by William the Conqueror as a fortress nearly eight centuries ago, and it speaks, to us of modern times, in the voice of the feudal age. As I entered its pondrous gates, crossed the ditch, and stood before the massive buildings, made gloomy by the terrible part they have played in the history of England, the past rose before me, crowded with its majestic figures. For awhile the misery of England was forgotten-London was to me as though it were not-I stood in the shadow of past centuries. It is not my object to describe the Tower, but to listen for awhile to the language of this old home of the English monarchs. In one of the great chambers of the Tower,* (the Horse Armoury,) were arranged, in regular and chronological order, twenty-two equestrian figures, many of them the most celebrated kings of England, with their favorite lords; all of them with their horses, in the armour of the ages in which they lived, surrounded by the insignia of their rank, and the trophies of their conquests. In passing slowly along this royal rank, I saw first, the figure of Edward I. clad in armour he wore 600 years ago, with hauberk, and sleeves, and hood, and chausses of mail. Next came Henry VI. with his battle-axe in hand, and his knightly cap on his head. Passing Edward IV. and Henry VII., I stood, with a strange feeling, face to face with Henry VIII. in his gilt plate armour. As he scowled down on me in his battle-array, I wanted to whisper in his ear the names of his murdered wives and disinherited daughters. I imagined the change that passed over that kingly face when he read the letter of the incomparable Ann Boleyn, written to him from this very Tower, a little before she was brought to the block. Though his heart had become harder than the mail that covered it, there were daggers in these dying words of a faithful wife that found their way to its core: -"Let not your Grace ever imagine that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, when not so much as a thought thereof ever preceded. Try me, good King, but let me have a lawfull tryall: and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges: yea, let me receive an open tryall, for my truth shall fear no open shames. But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander must bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness, then I desire of God that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof, and that he will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me at his general Judgment Seat, where both you

*

* *

*

* *

and me, myself, must shortly appear, and in whose judgment, I doubt not, (whatsoever the world may think of me,) mine innocence shall be openly recorded and sufficiently cleared, &c. From my dolefull prison in the Tower, this 6 of May. Your most loyall and ever-faithful wife, ANNE BOLEN."

To that judgment he has gone, and the King of Kings has made inquisition for the blood of the pure and the innocent.

As I looked on this long line of kings, sitting motionless on their motionless steeds, the sinewy hand strained over the battle-axe, the identical sword they wielded centuries ago flashing on my sight, and the very spurs on their heels that were once driven into their war steeds as they thundered over the battle plain, the plumes seemed to wave before my eyes, and the shout of kings to roll through the arches. The hand grasping the reins on the horses necks seemed a live hand, and the clash of the sword, and the shield, and the battle-axe, and the mailed armour, rang in my ear. I looked again and the dream was dispelled. Motionless as the walls around them, they sat, mere effigies of the past. Yet how significant ! Each figure there was a history and all monuments of England's glory as she was. At the farther end of the adjoining room sat a solitary "Crusader on his barbed horse, said to be 700 years old." Stern old grim figure! Of the very trap