The mob, more earnest Catholics and not less savage than the court, were soon mad-liance; and in worldly strength as well as dened by the shedding of Huguenot blood, and revelled in a general massacre. Nor were these atrocities confined to Paris; it was pretended that the Huguenots would take up arms; and orders were given to exterminate them in Lyons, Orleans, Rouen, and other towns. These massacres were as savage as those revolutionary butcheries which disgraced France more than two centuries later. The first began with the court the latter with the people; the frenzy which animated the former was religious; the madness which inspired the latter was political; but both alike illustrate the hideous excesses into which

Turning to him, as a Hebrew prophet | part she had played throughout these troumight have turned, he said, “Go, tell your bles. She had been arbitrary, meddling, king that sentence has gone out against him that God's vengeance shall never depart from not for her to espouse the cause of any facofficious, and unjust to all parties. It was him or his house that his name shall remain tion. The Queen had been deposed, and an execration to the posterities to come, and that none that shall come of his she ought at once to have acknowledged the loins shall enjoy that kingdom unless he re- young King. Mary fled to her for protecpent." (Vol. iv. p. 443.) tion. She was not at liberty to judge her

that was the office of her own subjects; still less was she justified in consigning the fugitive to a prison. Her affected interest in her cause merely served to keep alive the dissensions of her distracted country.

Throughout his narrative Mr. Froude has done his best to save Elizabeth's character, at the expense of her weakness and indecision; but he now gives up her defence in the following bitter but too truthful words: —

To this it had come at last; and the shuffling, and the falsehood, and the broken promises had been thrown away. A few plain words would have sufficed to annihilate the hopes of the party of the Queen of Scots, which Elizabeth herself had created and had kept alive by her uncertainty. She had encouraged them to take heart she was on the Queen of Scots' side; and arms; she had led them to believe that in her in the end, after the Regent had been murdered, and her true friends brought to the edge of ruin, after having brought her own throne in danger, and imperilled the very Reformation itself, her diplomacy broke down, and she was obliged to trample out the sparks with her own feet, which she and only she had kindled.' (Vol. iv. p. 465.)

While the Scots were possessed by such feelings as these, the sacrifice of Mary Stuart's cause naturally offered the means of reconciliation between Elizabeth and the King's party in Scotland. The Regent Lennox had already fallen a victim to the violence of Mary's friends; at this very time the Earl of Mar was carried off, not without suspicions of poison; and it fell to his successor, the Earl of Morton, to continue the negotiations with England. He was resolved that Mary Stuart's party should be effectually crushed, and for this end he sought the aid of England. Money was his most pressing want, and this, with her accustomed parsimony, Elizabeth long continued to withhold by contemptible tricks unworthy of a queen. It was wrung from her at last: she was obliged to recognise the King, without further shifting and equivocation, and to promise armed assistance if required. The effect of her recognition of the young King was decisive upon the Scottish factions. Nearly all the leaders of the Queen's party at once swore allegiance to her son, and accepted Morton as Regent. What miseries would have been spared to Scotland; if Elizabeth had yielded earlier to the obvious necessity of acknowledging the de facto King! Edinburgh Castle was now the only stronghold of Mary Stuart's few remaining friends, held by Grange, Maitland, and other leaders on her behalf. They would soon have surrendered; but they received secret aid from France; and, after the doubtful policy of Elizabeth, they did not believe that she could be induced to interfere in the strug-picture of them on a larger scale. Mr. gle. Nor were they without warrant for their doubts. Having promised assistance to the Regent, she began to fear that her own influence would be weakened by the utter ruin of Mary's cause, and she grudged the expense of sending an army across the border: but, at last, she was brought to reason by the adroit persistence of her clever envoy Killigrew. An English force was sent from Berwick to aid the Regent in the reduction of the castle, which was soon obliged to surrender; and with it fell the last hopes of Mary Stuart in Scotland.

Elizabeth had little cause for pride in the

Here, with the exception of a chapter upon Ireland, into which we do not propose to follow him, Mr. Froude's volumes are brought to a close. From an original history we necessarily gather many new impressions; but we are unable to affirm that our general judgment of the events and characters of this period has been modified by the perusal of this work. The greater detail, however, into which it enters presents a

Froude has laboured hard to paint Elizabeth in more attractive colours than she generally wears; but it is the old face after all. He endeavours to shade her moral obliquities under her irresolution of purpose; and, assuredly, he has succeeded in presenting that aspect of her character in a most striking light. But we are still able to discern, no less clearly, the other faults of her disposition. She was at once fickle and obstinate; she was cold, vain, niggardly, false, and treacherous; and, if we find her weaker than we believed her to be, she appears not more amiable, but only less wise.

As for Mary Stuart, if hard words could and Killigrew, also make a favourable imlower our estimate of her character, she pression upon the reader. In the difficult would have fallen low indeed: but the his- positions assigned to them they displayed torian's rancour against this unhappy queen courage and diplomatic sagacity, with a has failed to obscure her womanly graces, straightforward purpose, which puts to her high courage, and her rare talents and shame the mistress whom they served. And accomplishments. Nor are we able to lose lastly, we are introduced to Alva, not as all pity for her wrongs and misfortunes, the cruel bigot with whom we are too famithough she was stained with all the duplicity liar, but as a cool and far-seeing statesman, and guilt of the House of Lorraine, from offering moderate counsels to Philip, and which she sprang. not to be betrayed into political indiscretions by an undue zeal for the Catholic cause.

Cecil shows himself to great advantage, as the shrewd, sagacious, and active statesman; and we are enabled to estimate the difficul- We must now reluctantly take leave of ties which encompassed him -- an intract- Mr. Froude, whose volumes will afford an able Queen, a divided and intriguing council, intellectual treat to every class of readers. a discontented nobility, an unsettled Church, However familiar they may be with the a people distracted by political and religious reign of Elizabeth, they will find it presentdissensions, and the Catholic Powers ever ed to them from new points of view; the plotting his ruin. That so great a man characters are drawn at full length, and should have been unable to exercise a more may be judged by their own words. We salutary control over Elizabeth is mainly to read the minutes and marginal notes of be ascribed to the influence of other council- statesmen; the despatches of ambassadors; lors, especially of Leicester, in whose base the debates of the council board, and the and cunning counsels may probably be conversations of the Queen and her minisfound no little excuse for her vacillation. ters. We have before us an animated repThe Lord Keeper Bacon is just as rough, resentation of the time. It is not so much honest, and fearless as we took him to be. a picture as an historical play, in which the The Regent Murray rises to a higher place actors perform their several parts with a in history than has usually been assigned to reality and truthfulness which the most superior to the factions of his coun- graphic descriptions fail to convey. For try, and pious without fanaticism. Several the present, the curtain has dropped upon a of the secondary figures, such as Walsing- stirring act; and we await, with deep interham, Throgmorton, Sussex, Knollys, Drury, est, its rising for another..

him

NINA BALATKA.

PART IV. CHAPTER VIII.

EARLY on the following morning-the morning of the Christian Sunday - Nina Balatka received a note, a very short note, from her lover the Jew. "Dearest, meet me on the bridge this evening at eight. I will be at your end of the right-hand pathway exactly at eight. Thine, ever and always, A. T." Nina, directly she had read the words, rushed out to the door in order that she might give assurance to the messenger that she would do as she was bidden; but the messenger was gone, and Nina was obliged to reconcile herself to the prospect of silent obedience. The note, however, had made her very happy, and the prospect pleased her well. It was on this very day that she had intended to go to her lover; but it was in all respects much pleasanter to her that her lover should come to her. And then, to walk with him was of all things the most delightful, especially in the gloom of the evening, when no eyes could see her, eyes but his own. She could hang upon his arm, and in this way she could talk more freely with him than in any other. And then the note had in it more of the sweetness of a love-letter than any written words which she had hitherto received from him. It was very short, no doubt, but he had called her "Dearest," instead of "Dear Nina," as had been his custom, and then he had declared that he was hers ever and always. No words could have been sweeter. She was glad that the note was so short, because there was nothing in it to mar her pleasure. Yes, she would be there at eight. She was quite determined that she would not keep him waiting.

--- no

At half-past seven she was on the bridge. There could be no reason, she thought, why she should not walk across it to the other side and then retrace her steps, though in doing so she was forced, by the rule of the road upon the bridge, to pass to the Old Town by the right-hand pathway in going, while he must come to her by the opposite side. But she would walk very quickly and watch very closely. If she did not see him as she crossed and recrossed, she would at any rate be on the spot indicated at the time named. The autumn evenings had become somewhat chilly, and she wrapped her thin cloak close round her, as she felt the night air as she came upon the open bridge. But she was not cold. She told herself that she could not and would not be cold. How could she be cold when she was going to meet her lover? The night was dark, for the moon was now gone and the

wind was blowing; but there were a few looked down through the parapets of the stars bright in the heaven, and when she bridge, there was just light enough for her to see the black water flowing fast beneath her. She crossed quickly to the figure of St. John, that she might look closely on those passing on the other side, and after a few moments recrossed the road. It was the figure of the saint, St. John Nepomucene, who was thrown from this very bridge and drowned, and who has ever since been the protector of good Christians from the fate which he himself had suffered. Then Nina bethought herself whether she was a good Christian, and whether St. John of the bridge would be justified in interposing on her behalf, should she be in want of him. She had strong doubts as to the validity of her own Christianity, now that she loved a Jew; and feared that it was more than probable that St. John would do nothing for her, were she in such a strait as that in which he should she think of any such danger? Lotta was supposed to interfere. But why_now Luxa had told her to drown herself when she should find herself to have been jilted by her Jew lover; but her Jew lover was true to her; she had his dear words at that moment in her bosom, and in a few moments her hand would be resting on his arm. So she passed on from the statue of St. John, with her mind made up that she did not want St. John's aid. Some other saint she would want, no doubt, and she prayed a little silent prayer to St. Nicholas, that he would allow her to marry the Jew without taking offence at her. Her circumstances had been very hard, as the saint must know, and she possible, if the saint would help her, that she had meant to do her best. Might it not be might convert her husband? But as she thought of this, she shook her head. Anton Trendellsohn was not a man to be changed in his religion by any words which she could use. knew, that the conversion would be the It would be much more probable, she other way. And she thought that she would not mind that, if only it could be a real conversion. But if she were induced to say that she was a Jewess, while she still believed in St. Nicholas and St. John, and in the beautiful face of the dear Virgin-if to please her husband she were to call herself a Jewess while she was at heart a Christian, She prayed again to St. Nicholas to keep then her state would be very wretched. her from that state. a Jewess, she hoped that St. Nicholas would If she were to become let her go altogether, heart and soul, into Judaism.

"I never thought of your coming from the side of the Hradschin," said Nina, wondering whether any of those lights she had seen could have been there for the use of Anton Trendellsohn. "I am so glad you have come to me. It is so good of you."

"It is good of you to come and meet me, my own one. But you are cold. Let us walk, and you will be warmer."

When she reached the end of the long | reach you otherwise than by the direct road bridge she looked anxiously up the street from my own home." by which she knew that he must come, endeavouring to discover his figure by the glimmering light of an oil-lamp that hung at an angle in the street, or by the brighter glare which came from the gas in a shopwindow by which he must pass. She stood thus looking and looking till she thought he would never come. Then she heard the clock in the old watch-tower of the bridge over her head strike three-quarters, and she Nina, who had already put her hand upon became aware that, instead of her lover her lover's arm, thrust it in a little farther, being after his time, she had yet to wait a encouraged by such sweet words; and then quarter of an hour for the exact moment he took her little hand in his, and drew her which he had appointed. She did not in the still nearer to him, till she was clinging to least mind waiting. She had been a little him very closely. "Nina. my own one," uneasy when she thought that he had neg- he said again. He had never before been lected or forgotten his own appointment. So in so sweet a mood with her. Walk with she turned again and walked back towards him? Yes; she would walk with him all the Kleinseite, fixing her eyes, as she had so night if he would let her. Instead of turnoften done, on the rows of windows which ing again over the bridge as she had exglittered along the great dark mass of the pected, he took her back into the KleinHradschin Palace. What were they all seite, not bearing round to the right in the doing up there, those slow and faded cour- direction of her own house, but going up tiers to an ex-Emperor, that they should the hill into a large square, round which the want to burn so many candles? Thinking pathway is covered by the overhanging of this she passed the tablet on the bridge, houses, as is common for avoidance of heat and according to her custom, put the end of in Southern cities. Here, under the low her fingers on it. But as she was raising her colonnade, it was very dark, and the passenhand to her mouth to kiss it she remember-gers going to and fro were not many. ed that the saint might not like such service from one who was already half a Jew at heart, and she refrained. She refrained, and then considered whether the bridge might not topple down with her into the stream because of her iniquity. But it did not topple down, and now she was standing beyond any danger from the water at the exact spot which Trendellsohn had named. She stood still lest she might possibly miss him by moving, till she was again cold. But she did not regard that, though she pressed her cloak closely round her limbs. She did not move till she heard the first sound of the bell as it struck eight, and then she gave a little jump as she found that her lover was close upon her.

"So you are here, Nina," he said, putting his hand upon her arm.

"Of course I am here, Anton. I have been looking, and looking, and looking, thinking you never would come; and how did you get here?

I am as punctual as the clock, my love." "Oh yes, you are punctual, I know; where did you come from?

but

"I came down the hill from the Hradschin. I have had business there. It did not occur to your simplicity that I could

At

each angle of the square where the neigh-
bouring streets entered it, in the open space
there hung a dull, dim oil-lamp; but other
light there was none.
Nina, however, did
not mind the darkness while Anton Tren-
dellsohn was with her. Even when walking
close under the buttresses of St. Nicholas

- of St. Nicholas, who could not but have been offended - close under the very niche in which stood the statue of the saint - she had no uncomfortable qualms. When Anton was with her she did not much regard the saints. It was when she was alone that those thoughts of her religion came to disturb her mind. "I do so like walking with you," she said. "It is the nicest way of talking in the world."

"I want to ask you a question, Nina," said Anton; 66 or perhaps two questions." The tight grasping clasp made on his arm by the tips of her fingers relaxed itself a little as she heard his words, and remarked their altered tone. It was not, then, to be all love; and she could perceive that he was going to be serious with her, and, as she feared, perhaps angry. Whenever he spoke to her on any matter of business, his manner was so very serious as to assume in her eyes, when judged by her feelings, an appearance of anger. The Jew im nediately felt the