question; but, going into every lane of the neighbourhood, asked what they called the name of that lane,—by which ingenious artifice he found out the place he inquired after without giving offence to any party.'

There is, I fear, no such ingenious artifice to help one in threading the avenues of history. I am tempted to add another illustration of the difficulty of discerning historic truth through the medium of party passion, which is given by Sir Francis Palgrave, the incident having occurred a few years ago in Dublin:

"A pleasure-boat, belonging to a party of Brunswickers, having been moored on the river Liffey, some of the bystanders on an adjoining quay were extremely incensed at the standard of defiance which the vessel displayed. The vane at the mast-head displayed an effigy-an Orangeman trampling on a green shamrock. This affront, aimed at the feelings of the multitude, was not to be borne. The Milesians attacked the hostile Saxon bark by hurling a furious volley of paving stones, and the unlucky crew, urged by danger or apprehension, discharged their firearms, and wounded some of the surrounding assemblage. A great commotion was excited, and the leaders of the belligerent parties were conducted to the police-office. Among the witnesses who were called was the tinman who had made the vane; and this worthy tradesman gave the most candid and unequivocal testimony in full proof of the pacific intention of the pleasure-boat, though certainly somewhat to his own discredit as an artist. The unlucky cause of so much dissension and bloodshed, -the supposed Orangeman

* Spectator, No. 125.

trampling on the green shamrock,-was, in truth, a flesh-coloured Mercury springing from a blue cloud."*

So it is in history; what is blue to one man's eye is green to another; and often, what is seen by one as the spotless purity of white, looks black and begrimed to another. For the lecturer who, in his limited time, must glance rapidly over his subjects without stopping cautiously to qualify his expressions,-for him I fear there is a special danger of his flying Mercuries being mistaken for something or other quite different.

But to return to St. Dunstan. I give him his title, notwithstanding the admonition of Sir Roger de Coverley's experience; for he stands, not only on the Romish Calendar, but his name is retained on the Calendar of the Anglo-Catholic Church.† Noble by birth, the young

* Palgrave's History of England. Preface, vol. i. p. xxxii.

† At a time when the merest justice to the Roman Catholic Church is hazardous, I will presume to deprecate the use of this word "Romish," which, kindred to the other nicknames, "Romanist” and "Papist," ought to be banished from the language of Christian scholars and gentlemen. They are words of offence and disrespect, and therefore unfit for use except as part of the Billingsgate of controversy. They are undescriptive and unsanctioned by authority. In speaking to a Roman Catholic, common courtesy forbids the use of such words. In speaking of him, surely, among scholars, the same rule of courtesy should prevail. My brother-a most resolute Protestant-was singularly free from sectarian animosities, and this slip of language was, I am satisfied, purely accidental. On the next page but one he avoids the epithet. The following words, written in confidence years before these lectures, describe his feelings and opinions to the last hour of his life,--and yet it suited vulgar and ignorant men for their own poor purposes to describe Henry Reed as an ultraist in church matters. I wish I could be sure that their eyes -those, I mean, who did him, on more than one occasion, practical injustice-would read his truthful, almost eloquent, words:

Saxon Thane exchanged his rank for the austerities of monastic life. A commanding intellect and an indomitable spirit, rare accomplishments, and a skill in the arts which excited the wonder and the awe of the people, form the character and attainments of this remarkable personage as described by all historians. But, beyond this, all is conflict and confusion of opinion, from which it is almost hopeless to attempt to draw a sure judgment. You find every variety of opinion, with no little uncertainty as to some of the facts whereon it is formed. Hume tells us that Dunstan's whole career was fraud and hypocrisy, of course he tells you so, for that is his "universal solvent" of all ecclesiastical questions.*

*

"I cannot find in my heart," he writes, "any sympathy with that kind of church feeling which, when it finds the door in good condition,-hung on strong hinges and with a stout latch,-does not look with a thankful and affectionate spirit to the family within, as much as with somewhat of insolence and superciliousness to those who are without. It is, I apprehend, something of this kind which too often characterizes the self-styled-boastfully self-styled-HighChurchmanship: there is a certain temper about it which is odious to me, and at variance with what I trust and believe is the genuine heart of the church. It carries with it that unchurchlike self-obtrusion which, extremes meeting, assimilates it to that which it professes its chief aversion to. The epithet "High," in this connection, is any thing but agreeable to my ears; and I am half-inclined to think that if it is important to 'unprotestantize the Reformation,' it may not be amiss to 'unhighchurchmanize' the church. There is danger of what Julius Hare calls 'ecclesiolatry.'" MS. Letter, March 31, 1843.

W. B. R.

This phrase, if I mistake not, will be found in a letter from Sir Walter Scott in Lockhart, in which he says that something "might be explained by the doctrine of the 'association of ideas,' or whatever other doctrine had taken the place of that which, in my day, had been the universal solvent of all metaphysical difficulties." W. B. R.

Roman Catholic historical writers-Lingard and Charles Butler uphold the probity and piety of St. Dunstan, and exhibit him as an ornament to his faith and his country. Southey denounces him as an arch miraclemonger, and as a complete exemplar of the monkish character in its worst form: he treats one of the alleged miracles as a piece of ventriloquism, and the other as a treacherous and most atrocious piece of wholesale murder. Milton, who had a hearty detestation of monastic character in every shape, must have been struck with admiration of the fearlessness with which Dunstan rebuked the vices of his king; for he speaks of him as "a strenuous bishop, zealous without dread of persons, and, for aught that appears, the best of many ages.' Palgrave explains part of Dunstan's career by a theory of partial insanity, and another writer cautiously intimates he was neither so good nor so bad as he is made out. Sir James Mackintosh characterizes Dunstan as a zealous and, perhaps, useful reformer of religious instruction, of commanding abilities, of a haughty, stern, and turbulent nature, without more personal ambition, perhaps, than is usually blended with public principle; and who, if he were proved guilty of some pious frauds, might not unreasonably pray that a part of the burden of such guilt might be transferred from him to his age.

Now, these are sorry materials to form an opinion out of, and I cannot but think how much better it would be if a Poet's charitable and catholic imagination had looked upon St. Dunstan's character, and left us a record of the vision.

We should then, I believe, have been far better

* Milton's History of Britain, p. 285.

able to form a just conception of St. Dunstan's character and the powers of the mind which made him the leading and master-spirit of the Anglo-Saxon empire throughout many reigns-the Wolsey of his age.* We should have seen fanaticism or ambition, or perhaps sterner and fiercer elements, making the dark side of his character; and with this we should behold him a fearless reformer in the church, and a triumphant statesman in the kingdom. He arrayed himself against what he proclaimed to be the vices of the secular clergy, and all the energy of his indomitable spirit was exerted to establish the rule of the Benedictine order in the Saxon monasteries. Certain is it that he wielded a mighty power, for people and priests and kings trembled before him. As Primate of England and chief counsellor of the king, he is identified with the fame of that reign in which the Anglo-Saxon dominion had greater extent and majesty than it had known before— when "Edgar the Peaceful" summoned the neighbouring sovereigns to bow before his supremacy, as Napoleon, at the height of his power, received at Dresden the homage of subject monarchs. It was the result of Dunstan's administration that Edgar received the homage of eight British kings; and, on one occasion, when he sat at the helm of his barge, each one of these royal vassals was plying an oar. Dunstan was in the councils of a reign when the Saxons breathed secure from the fierce inroads of the Danes. He was honoured and powerful by the side of a king who was thus lamented in what I may give you as a brief specimen of Saxon poetry:

Neither Henry Taylor, for Edwin the Fair had then appeared, nor Wordsworth himself appear to have fulfilled my brother's wish as to the poetic illustration of Dunstan's character. W. B. R.