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but her faithlessness, felt the full value of what he had been wilfully throwing away. But this is the romance of printed romances, and our business is with the romance of war. Some of that romance is too horrible, too revolting, to be placed before the reader; though that such scenes have passed, nay, are frequent in lands where this scourge is raging, is but too true. Among these passages is the fate of Donna Catalina, which even a more practised fictionist would not, in all its dreadful horrors, have ventured to present so nakedly. It would have required no ordinary skill to have rendered the catastrophe of Catalina fit for representation in a work of entertainment. It is enough that this beautiful creature became the victim of the monster-villain of the story. But private sorrow and affection must give way to public duty. Almarez was to be taken; and the British General baffled for a time, at last succeeded in carrying the forts. One of these had been gallantly defended by D'Estouville, the French officer, with whom, when a prisoner of war, Ronald had become acquainted in Edinburgh Castle.

We cannot give the long conversation of the officers, aliens in nation but friends in heart, when they met for the last time, and under the most painful circumstances. Life was ebbing fast with D'Estouville, but his spirit was unchanged:

"He spoke now with more difficulty, and at longer intervals, Glory to France, and long life to the great Emperor, and I trust he will think Major D'Estouville has done Ls duty. Almarez I defended to the last; and Maurice, Lad you not cut the pontoon we might have effected our treat. The Emperor would have saved four hundred

ldiers of his noble old Guard.'

446

'And your life, Victor'

"A mere bagatelle! I lay it down in his service.' "Vive l'Empereur!' cried one of his soldiers, who bay within hearing on their pallets of straw. The shout was taken up by many, and echoed through distant parts of the Chapel. D'Estouville's eye flashed brightly, he

waved his hand as he would have brandished his sword, and, exhausted with speaking, and the emotions which the gallant battle cry aroused within him, he again sank backards, and by the spasms which crossed his pallid featares, they saw too surely that the moment of death was high. Again, rousing himself from his lethargy, he beckoned to Ronald, who knelt down beside him.

I would speak to you of Diane de Montmichel,' he whispered, in tremulous and broken accents. 'Her husband, Monsieur le Baron-de Clappourknuis-the letter I gave you at Truxillo; ah! mon ami, do you not understand me?

"Indeed I do not, D'Estouville.'

"The hand of the grim king of terrors is upon me: the sands of life are ebbing fast, and my voice will fail me soon. Monsieur le Baron-'

"Is released from the Castle of Albuquerque, and has passed over to the French lines. Think not of these, D'Estouville.'

"I-I would give you a message to Diane.'

486 'Alas, how can I ever deliver it?'

424

'Find means, croix Dieu !' muttered he piteously. Kneel closer to me. I depend on your honour, Monsieur Stuart. Diane-Diane'

"What of her? Say-say ere it be too late!' "But there was no reply. What the Frenchman would have said expired on his lips, and he fell back speechless on the hard knapsack which formed his pillow.

"He never spoke again; but in a few minutes died, and without a struggle."

We might multiply such descriptions, but it is enough to have exhibited the general character of the " Highlanders in Spain." Of connected story, there is little, and even the incidents are of a desultory kind, as the author takes up whatever theme may serve for a sketch

of military operations or scenic description. We should have liked to show our readers some of the stronger points-the Passes of the Pyrennees, or the Passage of the Nive-but cannot even quote the account of the brave enterprise of the hero, Ronald, and the small and gallant party which he led on a most hazardous service, though it is the closing scene, and one of the most finished, as a picture of actual war, in the volumes.

When our heroes have, in the three volumes yet to come, fought their way through France, conquered at Waterloo, and returned to Scotland, we may, perhaps, meet them again. Meanwhile, as a farewell to the "Romance of War," we give a glimpse of the field of Vittoria on the day after the battle:

"As Ronald passed slowly onwards to that part of the heights whence he expected to have a view of the whole battle-field, he beheld the officer whom he had encountered lying dead, pierced with a score of bayonet wounds. A soldier of the light company lay dead across him, with his face literally dashed to pieces by a blow from the buttend of a musket, and so much was he disfigured that it was impossible to recognise him. Close by a piper of the 71st lay dead with his pipe under his arm; his blood had formed a black pool around him of more than a yard square. Hundreds were lying everywhere in the same condition; but further details would only prove tiresome or revolting.

"With much difficulty Stuart gained the extremity of the ridge, and the whole soul-stirring display of the field of Vittoria burst at once upon his gaze, extending over a space of ground fully six miles in length. Truly thicker than leaves in autumn, the bodies of men were strewed along the whole length of the hostile armies. The warm light of the setting sun was beaming on the mountain tops; but its lustre had long since faded on the sylvan vale of the Zadorra, where the shadows of evening were setting on the pale faces of the dead and the dying. The plains of Vittoria, too, were growing dark, but at the first view Ronald was enabled to perceive, and his heart beat proudly while he did so, that the allies had conquered, and the boastful story of the Gaul was false.

"Afar off he beheld dense clouds of dust rolling along the roads which led to Pampeluna and Bayonne. There the glistening arms were flashing in the light of the western sky, as the brigades of British cavalry swept on like whirlwinds, charging and driving before them sabre à la main the confused masses of French infantry, who, when their position was abandoned, retired hurriedly towards the main roads for France. He saw his own division far down the plain driving a column like a herd of sheep along the banks of the river towards Vittoria, beyond which they pursued them, until the smoke of the conflict, and the dust which marked its route, were hidden by the cloud of night. But long before this he had begun to descend the hills, and weak and wearied as he was, he found it no easy task to scramble among the furze, briars, and brambles, with which their sides were covered. At the foot of them he found many men of his own regiment lying dead. These had been slain by the fire of a few field pieces, which the French had brought to bear upon them while moving towards Puebla. The moon broke forth when he reached the bank of the Zadorra, which he forded, the water rising up to his waist.

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"No shrieks now saluted his ears as he passed over the plain; but groans, deep and harrowing groans of agony, and half-muttered cries for water, or pious ejaculations, were heard on every side; while the ghastly and distorted faces, the glazed and upturned eyes, the black and bloody wounds of the dead, appeared horrible as the pale light of the moon fell on them. The vast field, although so many thousand men lay prostrate upon it, was, comparatively speaking, still; and to Ronald there seemed something sad and awful in the silence which succeeded the ear-deafening roar of the battle which had rung there the livelong day. Many a strong hand was stretched there powerless, and many a gallant heart, which had beat high with hope and bravery in the morning, lay there cold enough at night.

"Little think the good folk at home-those who for days would be haunted by the memory of some sudden death which possibly they had witnessed in the streetslittle do these good people imagine, or perhaps care for, the mighty amount of misery accumulated on a single battle-field, and the woe it may carry into many a happy

home and domestic circle. But the agony of dying men and the tears of women are alike forgotten and unheeded, when forts fire, cities illuminate, balls are given, and mails sweep along decorated with flags and laurels in honour of a victory."

JOAN OF ARC.

In reference to M. Michelet's History of France.

BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

WHAT is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that-like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judæa ---rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victorious act, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pretender: but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them from a station of good will, both were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose-to a splendour and a noon-day prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and became a bye-word amongst his posterity for a thousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judah. The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. She never sang together with the songs that rose in her native Domrémy, as echoes to the departing steps of invaders. She mingled not in the festal dances at Vaucouleurs which celebrated in rapture the redemption of France. No! for her voice was then silent: No! for her feet were dust. Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl! whom, from earliest youth, ever I believed in as full of truth and self-sacrifice, this was amongst the strongest pledges for thy side, that never once-no, not for a moment of weakness-didst thou revel in the vision of coronets and honour from man. Coronets for thee! Oh no! Honours, if they come when all is over, are for those that share thy

blood. Daughter of Domrémy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, King of France, but she will not hear thee! Cite her by thy apparitors to come and receive a robe of honour, but she will be found en contumace. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up all for her country-thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaf for five centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life; to do never for thyself, always for others; to suffer— never in the persons of generous champions, always in thy own :-that was thy destiny; and not for a moment was it hidden from thyself. Life, thou said'st, is short and the sleep, which is in the grave, is long! Let me use that life, so transitory, for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to comfort the sleep which is so long. This pure creature-pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious-never once did this holy child, as regarded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw not in vision perhaps the aërial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end on every road pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints; these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death, that she heard for ever.

Great was the throne of France even in those days, and great was he that sate upon it: but well Joanna knew that not the throne, nor he that sate upon it, was for her; but, on the con

Are:-Modern France, that should know a great deal better than myself, insists that the name is not d'Arc, i. e. of Arc, but Darc. Now it happens sometimes, that if a person, whose position guarantees his access to the best information, will content himself with gloomy dogmatism, striking the table with his fist, and saying in a terrific voice "It is so; and there's au end of it,"-one bows deferentially, and submits. But if, unhappily for himself, won by this docility, he relents too amiably into reasons and arguments, probably one raises an insurrection against him that may never be crushed; for in the fields of logic one can skirmish, perhaps, as well as he. Had he confined himself to dogmatism; he would have entrenched his position in darkness, and have hidden his own vulnerable points. But, coming down to base reasons, he lets in light, and one sees where to plant the blows. Now, the worshipful reason of modern France for disturbing the old received spelling, is-that Jean Hordal, a descendant of La Pucelle's brother, spelled the name Dare, in 1612. But what of that? Beside the chances that M. Hordal might be a gigantic blockhead, it is notorions that what small matter of spelling Providence had thought fit to disburse amongst man in the seventeenth century, was all monopolised by printers: in France, much more so.

+ Those that share thy blood;—a collateral relative of Joanna's was subsequently ennobled by the title of du Lys.

bud, bell nor blossom, would ever bloom for her.

Two strong

trary, that she was for them; not she by them, to the inevitably-political man of this day-withbut they by her, should rise from the dust. Gor-out perilous openings for assault. If I, for ingeous were the lilies of France, and for centuries stance, on the part of England, should happen to had the privilege to spread their beauty over land turn my labours into that channel, and (on the and sea, until, in another century, the wrath of model of Lord Percy going to Chevy Chase)— God and man combined to wither them; but "A vow to God should make well Joanna knew, early at Domrémy she had My pleasure in the Michelet woods read that bitter truth, that the lilies of France Three summer days to take," would decorate no garland for her. Flower nor-propably from simple delirium, I might hunt M. Michelet into delirium tremens. angels stand by the side of History, whether French History or English, as heraldic supporters: the angel of Research on the left hand, that must read millions of dusty parchments, and of pages blotted with lies; the angel of Meditation on the right hand, that must cleanse these lying records with fire, even as of old the draperies of asbestos were cleansed, and must quicken them into regenerated life. Willingly I acknowledge that no man will ever avoid innumerable errors of detail: with so vast a compass of ground to traverse, this is impossible: but such errors (though I have a bushel on hand, at M. Michelet's service) are not the game I chase: it is the bitter and unfair spirit in which M. Michelet writes against England. Even that, after all, is but my secondary object: the real one is Joanna, the Pucelle d'Orleans, for herself.

But stop. What reason is there for taking up this subject of Joanna precisely in this spring of 1847 Might it not have been left till the spring of 1947? or, perhaps, left till called for? Yes, but it is called for; and clamorously. You are aware, reader, that amongst the many original thinkers, whom modern France has produced, one of the reputed leaders is M. Michelet. All these writers are of a revolutionary cast; not in a political sense merely, but in all senses: mad, oftentimes, as March hares; crazy with the laughing-gas of recovered liberty; drunk with the wine-cup of their mighty Revolution; snorting, whinnying, throwing up their heels, like wild horses in the boundless Pampas, and running races of defiance with snipes, or with the winds, or with their own shadows, if they can find nothing| else to challenge. Some time or other, I, that have leisure to read, may introduce you, that have not, to two or three dozen of these writers; of whom I can assure you beforehand that they are eften profound, and at intervals are even as impassioned as if they were come of our best English blood, and sometimes (because it is not pleasant that people should be too easy to understand) almost as obscure as if they had been suckled by transcendental German nurses. But now, confining our attention to M. Michelet-who is quite sufficient to lead a man into a gallop, requiring two relays, at least, of fresh readers;—we in Eng-compare. There have been great actors on the and-who know him best by his worst book, the stage of tragic humanity that might, with the book against Priests, &c., which has been most cir- same depth of confidence, have appealed from calated-know him disadvantageously. That book the levity of compatriot friends too heartless for is a rhapsody of incoherence. M. Michelet was the sublime interest of their story, and too imlight-headed, I believe, when he wrote it and it is patient for the labour of sifting its perplexities--well that his keepers overtook him in time to in- to the magnanimity and justice of enemies. To tercept a second part. But his History of France this class belongs the Maid of Arc. The Romans is quite another thing. A man, in whatsoever were too faithful to the ideal of grandeur in craft he sails, cannot stretch away out of sight themselves not to relent, after a generation or when he is linked to the windings of the shore by two, before the grandeur of Hannibal. Mithritowing ropes of history. Facts, and the conse- dates--a more doubtful person-yet, merely for quences of facts, draw the writer back to the the magic perseverance of his indomitable malice, falconer's lure from the giddiest heights of specu- won from the same Romans the only real honour lation. Here, therefore-in his France-if not that ever he received on earth. And we English always free from flightiness, if now and then off have ever shown the same homage to stubborn like a rocket for an airy wheel in the clouds, M. enmity. To work unflinchingly for the ruin of Michelet, with natural politeness, never forgets England; to say through life, by word and by deed that he has left a large audience waiting for him-Delenda est Anglia Victrix that one puron earth, and gazing upwards in anxiety for his pose of malice, faithfully pursued, has quartered return: return, therefore, he does. But History, some people upon our national funds of homage though clear of certain temptations in one direc- as by a perpetual annuity. Better than an intion, has separate dangers of its own. It is impos-heritance of service rendered to England herself, sible so to write a History of France, or of England has sometimes proved the most insane hatred to →works becoming every hour more indispensable England. Hyder Ali, even his far inferior son

I am not going to write the History of La Pucelle: to do this, or even circumstantially to report the history of her persecution and bitter death, of her struggle with false witnesses and with ensnaring judges, it would be necessary to have before us all the documents, and, therefore, the collection only now forthcoming in Paris. But my purpose is narrower. There have been great thinkers, disdaining the careless judgments of contemporaries, who have thrown themselves boldly on the judgment of a far posterity, that should have had time to review, to ponder, to

throats to be cut.

Tippoo, and Napoleon-have all benefitted by this But could she do less? No: disposition amongst ourselves to exaggerate the I always say so; but still you never saw a permerit of diabolic enmity. Not one of these men son kill even a trout with a perfectly "Chamwas ever capable, in a solitary instance, of prais-pagne" face of "gentleness and simplicity," ing an enemy-[what do you say to that, reader?] though often, no doubt, with considerable" acuteand yet, in their behalf, we consent to forget, not ness." All your cooks and butchers wear a Lortheir crimes only, but (which is worse) their hideous | raine cast of expression. bigotry and anti-magnanimous egotism; for nationality it was not. Suffrein, and some half dozen of other French nautical heroes, because rightly they did us all the mischief they could, [which was really great] are names justly reverenced in England. On the same principle, La Pucelle d'Orleans, the victorious enemy of England, has been destined to receive her deepest commemoration from the magnanimous justice of Englishmen.

These disputes, however, turn on refinements too nice. Domrémy stood upon the frontiers; and, like other frontiers, produced a mixed race representing the cis and the trans. A river (it is true) formed the boundary line at this point— the river Meuse; and that in old days might have divided the populations; but in these days it did not-there were bridges, there were ferries, and weddings crossed from the right bank to the left. Here lay two great roads, not so much for travellers, that were few, as for armies that were too many by half. These two roads, one of which was the great high road between France and Germany, decussated at this very point; which is a learned way of saying that they formed a St. Andrew's cross, or letter of X. I hope the compositor will choose a good large X, in which case the point of intersection, the locus of conflux for these four diverging arms, will finish the reader's geographical education, by showing him to a hair's breadth where it was that Domrémy stood. These roads, so grandly situated, as great trunk arteries between two mighty realms, and haunted for ever by wars or rumours of wars, decussated (for anything I know to the contrary) absolutely under Joanna's bed-room window; one rolling away to the right, past Monsieur D'Arc's old barn, and the other, unaccountably preferring, (but there's no disputing about tastes), to sweep round that odious man's odious pigstye to the left.

Joanna, as we in England should call her, but, according to her own statement, Jeanne (or, as M. Michelet asserts, Jean*) d'Arc, was born at Domrémy, a village on the marches of Lorraine and Champagne, and dependent upon the town of Vaucouleurs. I have called her a Lorrainer, not simply because the word is prettier, but because Champagne too odiously reminds us English of what are for us imaginary wines, which, undoubtedly, La Pucelle tasted as rarely as we English; we English, because the Champagne of London is chiefly grown in Devonshire; La Pucelle, because the Champagne of Champagne never, by any chance, flowed into the fountain of Domrémy, from which only she drank. M. Michelet will have her to be a Champenoise, and for no better reason than that she "took after her father," who happened to be a Champenois. I am sure she did not for her father was a filthy old fellow, whom I shall soon teach the judicious reader to hate. But, (says M. Michelet, arguing the case physiologically) "she had none of the Lorrainian asperity;" no, it seems she had only "the gentleness of Champagne, its simplicity mingled with sense and acuteness, as you find it in Joinville." All these things she had; and she was worth a thousand Joinvilles, meaning either the prince so called, or the fine old crusader. But still, though I love Joanna dearly, I cannot shut my eyes entirely to the Lor-glove was meant for. Whence the candid reader raine element of "asperity" in her nature. No; really now, she must have had a shade of that, though very slightly developed-a mere soupçon, as French cooks express it in speaking of cayenne pepper, when she caused so many of our English

* “ Jean”:—M. Michelet asserts that there was a mystical meaning at that era in calling a child Jean; it implied

a secret commendation of a child, if not a dedication, to St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, the apostle of love and mysterious visions. But, really, as the name was

so exceedingly common, few people will detect a mystery

Things being situated as is here laid down, viz. in respect of the decussation, and in respect of Joanna's bed-room; it follows that, if she had dropped her glove by accident from her chamber window into the very bull's-eye of the target, in the centre of X, not one of several great potentates could (though all animated by the sincerest desires for the peace of Europe) have possibly come to any clear understanding on the question of whom the

perceives at once the necessity for at least four bloody wars. Falling indeed a little farther, as, for instance, into the pigstye, the glove could not have furnished to the most peppery prince any shadow of excuse for arming: he would not have had a leg to stand upon in taking such a perverse line of conduct. But, if it fell (as by the hypothesis it did) into the one sole point of ground

common to four kings, it is clear that, instead of no

leg to stand upon, eight separate legs would have had no ground to stand upon unless by treading on each other's toes. The philosopher, therefore, sees clearly the necessity of a war, and regrets that sometimes nations do not wait for grounds of war so solid.

in calling a boy by the name of Jack, though it does seem mysterious to call a girl Jack. It may be less so in France, where a beautiful practice has always prevailed of giving to a boy his mother's name-preceded and strengthened by a male name, as Charles Anne, Victor Victoire. In cases where a mother's memory has been unusually dear to a son, this vocal memento of her, locked into the circle of his own name, gives to it the tenderness of a testamentary relique, or a funeral ring. I presume, therefore, that la Pu- *And reminding one of that inscription, so justly adcelle must have borne the baptismal Hames of Jeanne Jean;mired by Paul Richter, which a Russian Czarina placed on the latter with no reference to so sublime a person as St. a guide post near Moscow-This is the road that leads to John, but simply to some relative.

Constantinople.

In the eircumstances supposed, though the four childhood had re-opened the wounds of France, kings might be unable to see their way clearly Crécy and Poictiers, those withering overwithout the help of gunpowder to any decision throws for the chivalry of France, had been upon Joanna's intention, she-poor thing!-never tranquillised by more than half a century; but could mistake her intentions for a moment. All this resurrection of their trumpet wails made the her love was for France; and, therefore, any whole series of battles and endless skirmishes glove she might drop into the quadrivium must take their stations as parts in one drama. The be wickedly missent by the post-office, if it found graves that had closed sixty years ago, seemed its way to any king but the king of France. to fly open in sympathy with a sorrow that echoed their own. The monarchy of France laboured in extremity, rocked and reeled like a ship fighting with the darkness of monsoons. The madness of the poor King (Charles VI.) falling in at such a crisis, like the case of women labouring in childbirth during the storming of a city, trebled the awfulness of the time. Even the wild story of the incident which had immediately occasioned the explosion of this madness-the case of a man unknown, gloomy, and perhaps maniacal himself, coming out of a forest at noonday, laying his hand upon the bridle of the King's horse, checking him for a moment to say, "Oh, King, thou art betrayed," and then vanishing no man knew whither, as he had appeared for no man knew what-fell in with the universal prostration of mind that laid France on her knees as before the slow unweaving of some ancient prophetic doom. The famines, the extraordinary diseases, the insurrections of the peasantry up and down Europe, these were chords struck from the same mysterious harp; but these were transitory chords. There had been others of deeper and more ominous sound. The termination of the crusades, the

On whatever side of the border chance had thrown Joanna, the same love to France would have been nurtured. For it is a strange fact, noticed by M. Michelet and others, that the Dukes of Bar and Lorraine had for generations pursued the policy of eternal warfare with France on their own account, yet also of eternal amity and league with France in case anybody else presumed to attack her. Let peace settle upon France, and before long you might rely upon seeing the little vixen Lorraine flying at the throat of France. Let France be assailed by a formidable enemy, and instantly you saw a Duke of Lorraine or Bar insisting on having his throat cut in support of France; which favour accordingly was cheerfully granted to them in three great successive battles by the English and by the Turkish Sultan, viz., at Crécy, at Nicopolis, and at Agincourt.

the tragedies caused or suffered by the House of Anjou, by the Emperor-these were full of a more permanent significance; but since then the colossal figure of feudalism was seen standing as it were on tiptoe at Crécy for flight from earth; that was a revolution unparalleled; yet that was a trifle by comparison with the more fearful revolutions that were mining below the Church. By her own internal schisms, by the abominable spectacle of a double Pope-so that no man, except through political bias, could even guess which was Heaven's vicegerent, and which the creature of hell

This sympathy with France during great eclipses in those that during ordinary seasons were always teasing her with brawls and guerrilla inroads, strengthened the natural piety to France of those that were confessedly the children of her own house. The outposts of France, as one may call the great frontier provinces, were of all loca-destruction of the Templars, the Papal interdicts, lities the most devoted to the Fleurs de Lys. To witness, at any great crisis, the generous devotion to these lilies of the little fiery cousin that in gentler weather was for ever tilting at her breast, could not but fan the zeal of the legitimate daughter; whilst to occupy a post of honour on the frontiers against an old hereditary enemy of France, would naturally have stimulated this zeal by a sentiment of martial pride, had there even been no other stimulant to zeal by a sense of danger always threatening, and of hatred always smouldering. That great four-headed road was a perpetual memento to patriotic ardour.—she was already rehearsing, as in still earlier To say, this way lies the road to Paris-and that other way to Aix-la-Chapelle, this to Prague, that to Vienna-nourished the warfare of the heart by daily ministrations of sense. The eye that watched for the gleams of lance or helmet from the hostile frontier, the ear that listened for the groaning of wheels, made the highroad itself, with its relations to centres so remote, into a manual of patriotic enmity.

The situation, therefore, locally of Joanna was full of profound suggestions to a heart that listened for the stealthy steps of change and fear that too surely were in motion. But if the place were grand, the times, the burthen of the times, was far more so. The air overhead in its upper chambers was hurtling with the obscure sound; was dark with sullen fermenting of storms that had been gathering for a hundred and thirty years. The battle of Agincourt in Joanna's

forms she had rehearsed, the first rent in her foundations (reserved for the coming century) which no man should ever heal.

These were the loftiest peaks of the cloudland in the skies that to the scientific gazer first caught the colours of the new morning in advance. But the whole vast range alike of sweeping glooms overhead, dwelt upon all meditative minds, even those that could not distinguish the altitudes nor decipher the forms. It was, therefore, not her own age alone, as affected by its immediate calamities, that lay with such weight upon Joanna's mind; but her own age, as one section in a vast mysterious drama, unweaving through a century back, and drawing nearer continually to crisis after crisis. Cataracts and rapids were heard roaring a-head; and signs were seen far back, by help of old men's memories, which answered secretly to signs now coming forward on the eye,

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