were handed round the court and enjoyed. | in power, but of sultanas. Mothers educate Little personal imperfections, such as ma- and beautify their daughters with a view to dame's "skinny throat," and madame's sus- this proud distinction, closing their eyes in pected "tendresse" for her bottle, were all peace and happiness if they have seen them fair game. The beautiful ladies, unhappily, thus provided for. From a royal king he be"se grisaient”—exceeded in their cups comes a royal sultan, and from a royal sultan rather often, and awkward accidents were a royal swine. How loathsome, how sickenthe results. A poor lady, one of the belles ing the details! We turn away our eyes, of the day, strayed out of the staid cloisters blushing, from that rout of painted, brazen of sobriety in the company of some of the creatures, and are thankful that we have no elegant gentlemen of the court, and in that such degrading era to soil our history, not helpless state was nearly blown up with fire- even the days of that lax person with the litworks, and dreadfully burnt at the hands of tle dog who was but too indulgently called these playful spirits. Gentlemen pretended the Merry Monarch. to be short-sighted in chapel, and would kneel down on some old duchess, taking her for a prie-Dicu. Songs and epigrams were of course the fruit of these pranks. Still the young king stepped lightly over the silken lumbered along a huge berline containing the nets and the golden gins and snares hidden with flowers, and flung himself into hunting and fowling with a positive fury. He was a Royal Young Meadows, singing, by anticipation,

"-who cared a jot, For he envied them not, While he had his dog and his gun!" To which objects of affection let there be added also, his wife, on whom he doted, as boy-husbands dote.

Our dramatic situation stands out effectively: that scene round the sick-bed at Metz, when Sardanapalus had roused himself to go to the wars. Among the camp equipages

painted ladies of the royal suite, at whom the soldiers jeered and sang insulting songs even under the royal windows. Was this not degrading enough for Bourbon majesty? And soon after Sardanapalus falls sick. The scene, I say, is splendidly dramatic.

The

royal roué in the centre tossing miserably on his bed in fever, moaning, now bled in the foot, now purged, now bled again, and wholly given up to the experiments of ignorant quacks. The painted ladies and their esI fear very much that this virtuous lady quires and agents are creeping about on tipwas (innocently) at the bottom of the mis- toe, whispering, plotting, counterplotting, and chief that followed. She was too austere, too trembling, while their arch-emissary Richerigid a paragon. She repelled his fondness lieu keeps the door fast against all comers coldly, and thought "most loving mere folly." who may whisper danger-even against the Therefore she had soon to sing "Heigh-ho princes. One forces his way in boldly with the holly!" With the Lurleïs and water-"Lacquey, do you dare to stop me?" and at nymphs singing and waving their long arms, the breach enters, too, a tall, stern figure, in and growing bolder every day, she could not the purple and lace and the gold cross of a have been too careful. The vile crew about prelate, who, stooping to the king, breathes him found him in a moment of irritation, the word "Confession." chilled by her austerity, and artful Mephisto- Bishop of Soissons. Now was about to be pheles Richelieu, their accredited agent, is at played an embodiment of the old legend hand with a bait. Down goes the light paling which sings how, when Great Nameless was of virtue and decency: the first of the four sick, Great Nameless would enter a monastic sisters is installed as titular sultana, and the order, but when he got well, he was any thing whole court rejoices. Alas! for the youth in the world (rather out of the world) but mowith the flowing brown locks, who was so pi- nastic. Sardanapalus is impatient, and will ous, and cared not a jot while he had his dog not believe in danger, like most of his name and his gun. These pastimes were now found and kind. Time enough to-morrow. Stern insipid. "Je n'aime pas les plaisirs inno- prelate persists. His majesty can begin tocens," said a fine lady whom her careful hus- day and finish to-morrow. The light ladies band had taken down to the country. The are gasping outside, and one breaks in and reign of Sardanapalus the Second has begun. rushes to his pillow. "Go away, go away," It is no longer succession of ministries of men says Sardanapalus half crying, "we have

It was Fitzjames,

been very wrong;" and presently feeling a though exiled through an unworthy spite, strange sensation, he roars loudly for a con- you shall take with you a consciousness of fessor and faints off. The confession is made, having done your duty. and as a first point the stern bishop sends notice," by order of his majesty," to the ladies to pack up and begone forthwith. They hang down their eyes and look at each other, but their esquire Richelieu steps forward. "Mesdames," he says, "if you have only courage to remain, and brave the order wrung from a sick man, I will take it all on myself." "Ah! is it so?" said the stern prelate, turning on him with flashing eyes. "Then let the churches be shut, so that the disgrace may be more conspicuous, and the reparation due to an outraged Lord more complete!" The ladies were cowed, they and they champion, and slunk away. But the stern bishop was not done with them: "Sire, the canons of the Church forbid us to administer the Viaticum while these persons are in the city. Your majesty is at the point of death. There is no time to lose."

This most Christian Sardanapalus was later induced to show himself at that famous fight at Fontenoy, where with a dull insensibility he would keep himself on an exposed hill. It was the day of the "terrible English column," whose "rolling fire," a courtier writes, "was really infernal;" and of that Irish brigade who fought so desperately. 'It was a glorious sight," writes another enraptured loyalist, "to see the king and dauphin writing upon a drum, surrounded by the conquerors, the conquered, the dead, and the dying. It was the last flickering up of any thing like spirit in the breast of Sardanapalus; for he was now to receive the tap of the pantomime wand, and become a right royal porker.

Henceforth how shall it be with that poor France under direction of this courtesan camarilla? While they were busy with their The wretched creatures were literally right of the cushion and the cap, and the hooted from the town. Then was the com- presentation of the Pompadour at court, munion administered. "Oh," snivels Sar- and such wretched mummeries, that fair and danapalus, "what an unworthy king I have beautiful country was falling into frightful been!" Yet one more sacrifice is demanded disorder. Every thing went wrong-money, by the stern prelate, who calls in the whole trade, morals, fighting on sea and landworld, and tells them that his majesty has excepting taxes. But the ministry of the charged them to say how sincerely he re- fine ladies could not see beyond the palace pents of these awful scandals, etc. The gardens. They had heard, indeed, of laborcrowd murmurs, "He is killing our king," ers and industrious farmers, who were far and scowls fiercely at the priest. But I down in the country districts, and made up confess, looking back to that scene-to the the population; but they were not officially figure of the stern prelate doing his duty cognizant of them. If there were such in fearlessly and almost harshly, in the midst being, let them pay taxes, and thus tangibly of that crew of valets, lords, and dukes, who substantiate their existence. Was not Paris were lower even than valets-we feel it is France, and Paris again the king's palace? the only wholesome bit of fresh air that has Everywhere the national honor was discome to us from that reign. Had he no graced. Those heavy moral English islandsuspicion, this by-and-by bishop, of what ers beat their armies, beat their "marine," was to come? I suspect he knew the pie- stripped them of those beautiful colonies and crust character of this repentance. Sar- settlements far off in the East. It reads danapalus gets well (as did the horned gen- comically to see how fleet after fleet was tleman who would be a monk), grows sulky fitted out and sent away, only to be sunk, and moody, and wears his new penitential battered, and captured by those incorrigible dress but ill. By and by he gives a cold English. The grand scented counts with cheek to the queen, and lets her know that the sonorous names who commanded, usually her conjugal attentions are boring him. He fell out amongst each other; inferior capreturns to Paris to a populace drunken with tains appointed by the ministers, lost the joy, and who christen him the Well-Beloved: battle to spite superior captains appointed and on that very evening is on his knees by the Pompadour; and when the rough before the old sinful shrine! O good Bishop English admirals, the Pococks, Hawkes, Fitzjames, not by any degree too stern; and Kempenfeldts of that school hove in

sight in the offing, the craven courtiers pretended to mistake the signal, and were seen crowding all sail in retreat. Crossing to Italy in the well-appointed vessels which sail from Marseilles, we shall see many of these heroes pointing fiercely at smoke, and looking down on us from medallions as we dine. You may be sure the British lion, as he sips his soup in the saloons, has his joke at these commodores.

Presently Heliogabalus falls sick. Let us
hurry to the end quickly, and get out into
air.
open

66

There

There was a pet marquis who fell down dead at a whist party, who, it was said would die exactly six months before the king; an event which preyed upon the royal Heliogabalus. They tell how actually before the six months were out, foul Small-pox came in and seized the old sinner in his It was malignant grasp. Still there was a an appropriate disease. An English physician, named Sutbrave man or two among them who fought ton, offered his skill, but was kept out until us ship to ship, and, it must not be con- the last minute by the jealousy of the royal cealed, beat us too. A tout seigneur, tout quacks. Again was the old drama of the honneur. Alack! it was this principle that Great Nameless turning monk renewed, and ruined every thing in France. Seigneurs the bishops and priests sent for. were to be the sacraments administered; got it all: there was none for the brave. Meantime, royal Louis waxes old, and and again was the battle of the light lady to be fought out over the sick-bed. Once that court miasma thickens. We may not more did a simple cure struggle to the room, lift the veil which hangs over those later and protest firmly that the king must be told days. Things come about, not to be named, of his danger. 'You shall be flung from nor so much as hinted at. All things be- the window," said one of the unholy crew come demoralized, and strange rumors fly about the bed, "at the first word."""If I abroad. Now, a child or two has been am not killed by the fall," said the courastolen, and it is said that the Well-Beloved gous priest, "I shall enter by the door has been ordered baths of children's blood. again." At last it was done, the confession made, Viaticum administered; and then the Now, there were mysterious deaths, sus-Crew, seeing the game was up, fled. Fled! pected poisonings in cups of coffee, and half not one remained of the whole company of a dozen persons of quality die unaccounta- demireps and noble valets; while miserable bly within a week of each other. Now, it Heliogabalus writhed and tossed in his fiery is known that the loose seigneurs send out | bed, and roared and shrieked to God for press-gangs who range the streets, and mercy, and bathed himself in holy water, and called himself the greatest sinner in the There is no order, world. Then the black spots of gangrene off young women. no justice, no morals, no money. No jus- broke out all over him, and his flesh litertice, certainly; else that vile marquis, who ally rotted from his bones, and he raved stripped the young girl and gashes her over and shrieked on for mercy. In all this horrid with a penknife, and filled up the gashes scene I see one glimpse of light, which with melted sealing-wax; and then, flying shows me four figures kneeling by him alto his country seat, collected the young la- ways, never quitting him night nor day: the three outraged, insulted, angelic daughters, dies of his village at a ball, and poisoned and a faithful priest. them, out of pure devilishness with cantharides pills; otherwise, I say, this wretch would not have been let off with a fine of fifty francs. As we approach the end, The pages of the Memoirs are smeared with hideous spots. Old Heliogabalus, worn out, usé, moody, deaf, not able to mount his horse without a stool, casting about with those bleared eyes for some stimulant, still totters in the centre. Grown now to be a puppet, he is helpless among them all. He writes orders for money, and the bearers comes back to him to tell how the treasurer has bade them go to the Devil. "But the king says I am to be paid." "Well, let him pay you, then!"

carry

horrors accumulate.

Is it not awful, terrible, this end of Heliogabalus the Well-Beloved? We may hope, we may charitably pray, but we fear. That frightful agony, as he passed out of the threshold of his life, may have done somemutable, the old warning, coming true althing; but there stands against him, immost always, that trees must lie-even royal oaks as they fall. This vile nightmare of a drama is done at last. Hearken how the dirge rises, the priests sing Dies iræ as the procession moves on to Saint-Denis. Hearken, too, how the populance howls and spits and insults the body, and sing vile songs as it passes. It is very terrible! Requiescat in pace! Now the black folds of the curtain have come down, let us hurry away and see the new king.

know much, but the Scotch clergy have fos- Mr. Buckle's chapter on the poor, unedutered in Scotland a great amount of genuine, cated, silly Puritan preachers is very amusfervent, and noble religious feeling. This ing. He collects a great variety of odd is a most important contribution to the gen- stories about them, and shows how ready eral advance of the Scotch nation. So an they were to claim a special glory for themaccession of that common sense and that selves, how their fears or their hopes gave extended knowledge which would cure the a coloring of the supernatural to every thing Scotch of their blind acceptance of Puritan around them, and how they bullied and dogmatism, and of their superstition about frightened their flocks. Mr. Buckle has a the sabbath, would be a very great gain to great turn for putting together a vast quanthem. But when two things are necessarily tity of illustrations of a general proposition, joined in order that the highest good should and it is very curious to see what these be realized, it is a great mistake to attend preachers thought and taught. But what only to one. is the exact purpose of all this most elabo It is true that Mr. Buckle objects to the rate exposure of the follies of the Covenantwhole creed of the Scotch and Spanish ing preachers? If any one requires to have clergy. He thinks all theology and all the- it proved to him that Protestants can be as ological systems a mistake; and, therefore, tyrannical and as credulous as Catholics, it might be argued that he ought not to be here is abundant proof; and if any one is said to overlook a part of civilization which unaware that a very uneducated clergy, he condemns. That he should openly say taken from the lower ranks of society, dethat he thinks the creed of Christendom er- void of all superintendence from betterroneous shows great courage, and we wish trained minds, and living in a time of perto pay a hearty tribute to his fearlessness.secution, danger, and passionate excitement, It is a good thing that we should have some is at to do and say many things which the open speaking in an age and country where sober judgment of the learned who live at there is so much of half-thinking and half-ease cannot quite approve, he may glean a speaking. Mr. Buckle is perfectly at liberty lesson once for all from these anecdotes of to state his opinion that physical science the Scotch clergy in the sixteenth and sevwill soon show that it can destroy all belief enteenth centuries. But when we have got in the supernatural. But then he avows his so far, what further step are we to take ? desire to see a pure religious feeling of some Mr. Buckle does not appear to us to give at sort, and this suggests two remarks. In the all a fair picture of the Scotch clergy, nor to first place, there ought to be far more fre- throw much light on the general history of the quent traces of a careful inquiry into the ministers of the Scotch religion, nor, so far nature, the sources, and the possibility of a as appears, to show us the true state of the religious feeling apart from a religion than Scotch intellect at the period. The Scotch appear in his volume. He does not appear clergy would be exceedingly ill-appreciated to us to have set definitely before him what and understood if they were to be judged he means by this religious feeling, and what only by the extravagances of their discourses is its relation to the constitution of man. and writings. They gained the hearts of And in the second place, supposing that a their flocks by their fervent piety, by the religious feeling of some sort is a part of the earnestness of their moral indignation, by ultimate and highest destiny of man, there the completeness with which their life was is not the slightest reason for doubting that hid in Heaven. The very small degree to a belief in particular religious systems is an which Mr. Buckle has penetrated the true important and perhaps indispensable pre- character and history of such men may be liminary. The Scotch clergy may, for all gathered from the persistency with which that we can gather from Mr. Buckle's book, have been paving the way for the expansion of that religion, or religious feeling, which will survive the destructive operations of physical inquiry. They may, in short, have been powerfully aiding the progress of civilization.

he treats them, and all ministers of religion, as almost exclusively guided by a selfish wish for power, money, and aggrandizement. Every priest is in his eyes a bird of prey, a robber, and an intriguer. He gives us to understand that he is up to all the tricks of