sigh, who does not feel that there is a charm which will not depart about early youth? Longfellow knew that he would reach the hearts of most men when he wrote such a verse as this— "The green trees whispered low and mild; As if I were a boy!" Such readers as are young men, will understand what has already been said as to the bitter indignation with which the writer, some years ago, listened to self-conceited elderly persons who put aside the arguments and the doings of younger men with the remark that these younger men were boys. There are few terms of reproach which I have heard uttered with looks of such deadly ferocity. And there are not many which excite feelings of greater wrath in the souls of clever young men. I remember how in those days I determined to write an essay, which should scorch up and finally destroy all these carping and malicious critics. It was to be called A Chapter on Boys. After an introduction of a sarcastic and magnificent character, setting out views substantially the same as those contained in the speech of Lord Chatham in reply to Walpole, which boys are taught to recite at school, that essay was to go on to show that a great part of English literature was written by very young men. Unfortunately, on proceeding to investigate the matter carefully, it appeared that the best part of English literature, even in the range of poetry, was in fact written by men of even more than middle age. So the essay was never finished, though a good deal of it was sketched out. Yesterday I took out the old manuscript; and after reading a bit of it, it appeared so remarkably vealy, that I put it with indignation into the fire. Still I observed various facts of interest as to great things done by young men, and some by young men who never lived to be old. Beaumont the dramatist died at twenty-nine. Christopher Marlowe wrote Faustus at twenty-five, and died at thirty. Sir Philip Sidney wrote his Arcadia at twentysix. Otway wrote The Orphan at twenty-eight, and Venice Preserved at thirty. Thomson wrote the Seasons at twentyseven. Bishop Berkeley had devised his Ideal System at twenty-nine; and Clarke at the same age published his great work on the Being and Attributes of God. Then there is Pitt, of course. But these cases are exceptional; and besides, men at twenty-eight and thirty are not in any way to be regarded as boys. What I wanted was proof of the great things that had been done by young fellows about twoand-twenty; and such proof was not to be found. A man is simply a boy grown up to his best; and of course what is done by men must be better than what is done by boys. Unless in very peculiar cases, a man at thirty will be every way superior to what he was at twenty; and at forty to what he was at thirty. Not indeed physically; let that be granted. Not always morally; but surely intellectually and æsthetically. Yes, my readers, we have all been Calves. A great part of all our doings has been what the writer, in figurative language, has described as Veal. We have not said, written, or done very much on which we can now look back with entire approval. And we have said, writ ten, and done a very great deal on which we can not look back but with burning shame and confusion. Very many things which, when we did them, we thought remarkably good, and much better than the doings of ordinary men, we now discern, on calmly looking back, to have been extremely bad. That time, you know, my friend, when you talked in a very fluent and animated manner after dinner at a certain house, and thought you were making a great impression on the assembled guests, most of them entire strangers, you are now fully aware that you were only making a fool of yourself. And let this hint of one public manifestation of vealiness, suffice to suggest to each of us scores of similar cases. But though we feel, in our secret souls, what calves we have been, and though it is well for us that we should feel it deeply, and thus learn humility and caution, we do not like to be reminded of it by any body else. Some people have a wonderful memory for the vealy sayings and doings of their friends. They may be very bad hands at remembering any thing else; but they never forgot the silly speeches and actions on which one would like to shut down the leaf. You may find people, a great part of whose conversation consists of repeating and exaggerating their into oxen. neighbor's Veal; and though that Veal | dual who, when a man is doing creditably may be immature enough and silly enough, and Christianly the work of life, is ever it will go hard but your friend Mr. Snarl- ready to relate and aggravate the moral ing will represent it as a good dear worse delinquencies of his school-boy and stuthan the fact. You will find men who dent days, long since repented of and while at college were students of large corrected. Remember not," " said a man ambition but slender abilities, revenging who knew human nature well, "the sins themselves in this fashion upon the clever of my youth." But there are men whose men who beat them. It is easy, very nature has a peculiar affinity for any thing easy, to remember foolish things that were petty, mean, and bad. They fly upon it said and done even by the senior wran- as a vulture on carrion. Their memory gler or the man who takes a double first is of that cast, that you have only to class; and candid folk will think that such make inquiry of them concerning any of foolish things were not fair samples of the their friends, to hear of something not at men; and will remember, too, that the all to their friends' advantage. There are men have grown out of these, have grown individuals, after listening to whom you mature and wise, and for many a year think it would be a refreshing novelty, past would not have said or done such almost startling from its strangeness, to things. But if you were to judge from hear them say a word in favor of any huthe conversation of Mr. Limejuice, (who man being whatsoever. wrote many prize essays, but through the malice and stupidity of the judges never got any prizes,) you would conclude that every word uttered by his successful rivals was one that stamped them as essential fools, and calves which would never grow I do not think it is a pleasing or magnanimous feature in any man's character, that he is ever eager to rake up these early follies. I would not be ready to throw in the teeth of a pretty butterfly that it was an ugly caterpillar once, unless I understood that the butterfly liked to remember the fact. I would not suggest to this fair sheet of paper on which I am writing, that not long ago it was dusty rags and afterward dirty pulp. You can not be an ox without previously having been a calf; you acquire taste and sense gradually; and in acquiring them you pass through stages in which you have very little of either. It is a poor burden for the memory, to collect and shovel into it the silly sayings and doings in youth of people who have become great and eminent. I read with much disgust a biography of Mr. Disraeli, which recorded, no doubt accurately, all the sore points in that statesman's history. I remember, with great approval, what Lord John Manners said in Parliament in reply to Mr. Bright, who had quoted a well-known and very silly passage from Lord John's early poetry. "I would rather," said Lord John, "have been the man who in his youth wrote those silly verses, than the man who in mature years would rake them up." And with even greater indignation I regard the indivi It is not a thing peculiar to immaturity; yet it may be remarked, that though it is an unpleasant thing to look back and see that you have said or done something very foolish, it is a still more unpleasant thing to be well aware at the time that you are saying or doing something very foolish. If a man be a fool at all, it is much to be desired that he should be a very great fool, for then he will not know when he is making a fool of himself. But it is painful not to have sense enough to know what you should do in order to be right, but to have sense enough to know that you are doing wrong. To know that you are talking like an ass, yet to feel that you can not help it; that you must say something, and can think of nothing better to say; this is a suffering that comes with advanced civilization. This is a phenomenon frequently to be seen at public dinners in country towns, also at the entertainment which succeeds a wedding. Men at other times rational, seem to be stricken into idiocy when they rise to their feet on such occasions; and the painful fact is, that it is conscious idiocy. The man's words are asinine, and he knows they are asinine. His wits have entirely abandoned him: he is an idiot for the time. Have you sat next a man unused to speaking at a public dinner; have you seen him nervously rise and utter an incoherent, ungrammatical, and unintelligible sentence or two,_and then sit down with a ghastly smile? you heard him say to his friend on the other side, in bitterness: "I have made a fool of myself!" And have you seen him Have sit moodily through the remainder of the top of stairs, and the description was feast, evidently ruminating on what he vague. I spoke to two humble decentsaid, seeing now what he ought to have looking women who were passing, thinksaid, and trying to persuade himself that ing they might gain the little thing's conwhat he said was not so bad after all? fidence better than me; but the poor litWould you do a kindness to that misera-tle man's great wish was just to get away ble man? You have just heard his friend from us, though when he got two yards on the other side cordially agreeing with off he could but stand and cry. You what he had said as to the badness of may be sure he was not left in his trouble, the appearance made by him. Enter into but that he was put safely in his father's conversation with him; talk of his speech, hands. And as I was coming home, I congratulate him upon it; tell him you thought that here was an illustration of were extremely struck by the freshness something I have been thinking of all and naturalness of what he said, that this afternoon. I thought I saw in the there is something delightful in hearing poor little child's desire to get away from an unhackneyed speaker, that to speak those who wanted to help him, though with entire fluency looks professional-it not knowing where to go when left to is like a barrister or a clergyman. Thus himself, something analogous to what the you may lighten the mortification of a immature human being is always disposed disappointed man; and what you say will receive considerable credence. It is wonderful how readily people believe any thing they would like to be true. to. The whole teaching of our life is leading us away from our early delusions and follies, from all those things about us which have been spoken of under the similitude which need not be again reI was walking this afternoon along a peated. Yet we push away the hand that certain street, coming home from visiting would conduct us to soberer and better certain sick persons, and wondering how things, though when left alone we can but I should conclude this essay, when, stand- stand and vaguely gaze about us; and we ing on the pavement on one side of the speak hardly of the growing experience street, I saw a little boy of four years old, which makes us wiser, and which ought crying in great distress. Various indivi- to make us happier too. Let us not forduals, who appeared to be Priests and Le- get that the teaching which takes somevites, looked as they passed at the child's thing of the gloss from life is an instrudistress, and passed on without doing any ment in the kindest Hand of all; and let thing to relieve it. I spoke to the lit-us be humbly content if that kindest tle man, who was in great fear at being Hand shall lead us, even by rough means, spoken to, but told me he had come away to calm and enduring wisdom-wisdom from his home and lost himself, and could by no means inconsistent with youthful not find his way back. I told him I would freshness of feeling, and not necessarily take him home if he could tell me where he lived; but he was frightened into utter helplessness, and could only tell that his name was Tom, and that he lived at the top of a stair. It was a poor neighborhood, in which many people live at the fatal even to youthful gayety of mood; and at last to that Happy Place, where worn men regain the little child's heart, and old and young are blest together! A. K. H. B. From Bentley's Miscellany. THE CONSTABLE OF THE TOWER. AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE. BY WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH. THE LORD HIGH ADMIRAL OF ENGLAND. HOW I. EDWARD PASSED HIS TIME WHILE LEFT TO HIMSELF THE three days devoted to the solemnization of Henry's obsequies were passed by his son in strictest privacy at the Tower. The freedom from restraint afforded the youthful monarch by the absence of his court was especially agreeable to him at this juncture. Not only had he to mourn for his father, but to prepare, as he desired to do by meditation and prayer, for the solemn ceremony, in which he him self would soon be called upon to play the principal part. The near approach of his coronation, which was fixed for the Sunday after the funeral, filled him with anxious thought. It might naturally be supposed that one so young as Edward would be dazzled by the magnificence of the show, and lose sight of its real import; but such was not the case with the devout and seriousminded Prince, who, as we have already shown, possessed a gravity of character far beyond his years, and had been too well instructed not to be fully aware of the nature of the solemn promises he would have to make to his people while assuming the crown. Daily did he petition Heaven that he might adequately discharge his high and important duties, and in no wise abuse the power committed to him, but might exercise it wisely and beneficently, to the maintenance and extension of true re ligion, and to the welfare and happiness of his subjects. Above all, he prayed that he might be made the instrument of establishing the Protestant Church on a secure foundation; of delivering it entirely from its enemies; and purifying it from the idolatries and superstitious practices that still clung to it. VOL. LIV.-No. 2 The bustle and confusion lately prevailing within the Tower had now ceased. All the nobles and important personages who had flocked thither to do homage to the young King, had departed, taking with them their troops of attendants. The courts were emptied of the crowd of esquires and pages who had recently thronged them. No merry hubbub was heard; but, on the contrary, a general gloom pervaded the place. Orders had been given by the King that the three days of his father's funeral were to be observed as a period of deep mourning, and consequently every countenance wore an expression of griefwhether simulated or not, it is needless to inquire. Edward and all his household were habited in weeds of woe, and their sable attire and sad looks contributed to the somber appearance of the place. Ushers and henchmen moved about like ghosts. Festivity, there was none, or if there were, it was discreetly kept out of the King's sight. Edward's time was all most entirely passed in devotional exercises. He prayed in secret, listened to long homilies from his chaplain, discoursed on religious matters with his tutors, and reg ularly attended the services performed for the repose of his father's soul within Saint John's Chapel. Built in the very heart of the White Tower, and accounted one of the most perfect specimens of Norman architecture. extant, the beautiful chapel dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist might still be beheld in all its pristine perfection, were it not so encumbered by presses and other receptacles of state records that even partial examination of its architectural beauties is almost out of the question. Consisting of a nave with a semi-circular termination at the east, and two narrow side-aisles, separated from the body of the fabric by twelve circular pillars of massive proportion, this ancient shrine 14 also possesses a gallery reared above the aisles, with wide semi-circular-headed openings, looking into the nave. The ceiling is coved, and the whole building is remarkable for extreme solidity and simplicity. It has long since been despoiled of its sacred ornaments, and applied to baser uses, but as most of our early monarchs performed their devotions within it while sojourning at the Tower, that circumstance alone, which confers upon it a strong historical interest, ought to save it from neglect and desecration. During the three days in question, masses were constantly said within the chapel. The pillars were covered with black cloth, and decked with pensils and escutcheons, while banners were hung from the arched openings of the gallery. Tall tapers burned before the altar, which was richly adorned with jewels, images, crucifixes, and sacred vessels. Edward never failed to attend these services, and was always accompanied by his tutors, to whom, as zealous Reformers, many of the rites then performed appear ed highly objectionable. But as masses for the repose of his soul had been expressly enjoined by the late King's will, nothing could be urged against them at this moment, and the two preceptors were obliged to content themselves with silent dis approval. Though sharing their feelings, reverence for his father's memory kept Edward likewise silent. Some observations, however, which he chanced to make while returning from mass on the third day, gave an opportunity to Sir John Cheke of condemning the practice of image-worship which was still tolerated. "Those Romish idols are an abomination in my sight," he cried, "and I hope to see our temples cleared of them, and of all pictures that have been abused by heathenish worship. The good work has begun, for I have heard this very day that the curate of Saint Martin's, in Ironmonger-lane, has caused all the images and picture to be removed from his church, and texts from Scripture to be painted on the walls. Peradventure, the man may be over-zealous, yet I can scarce blame him." "He has but anticipated my own intentions," observed Edward, "our temples shall no longer be profaned by false worship." gracious rule, I trust, the Romish missals and mass-books will be entirely abolished, and a liturgy in the pure language of Scripture substituted. Uniformity of doctrine and worship, uniformity of habits and ceremonies, abandonment of the superstitious and idolatrous rites of Rome, and a return to the practices of the Primitive Christian Church-these are what we of the Reformed Church seek for— these are what, under a truly Protestant King like your majesty, we are sure to obtain." "Fully to extirpate the pernicious doctrines of Rome, conformity among the clergy must be made compulsory," observed Cox; "otherwise, there will always be danger to the well-doing of the Protestant Church. I do not desire to recommend severe measures to your majesty, but coërcion must be applied. "I hope it will not be needed, good doctor," observed Edward. "I desire not to commence my reign with persecution." "Heaven forbid that I should counsel it, sire!" replied the doctor. "Far rather would I that your reign should be distinguished for too much clemency than severity; but a grand object has to be attained, and we must look to the end rather than to the means. Strong efforts, no doubt, will be made by the Bishop of Rome to regain his ascendency, and the adherents of the old doctrine, encouraged by the removal of the powerful hand that has hitherto controlled them, will strive to recover what they have lost. Hence there is much danger to the Protestant Church, of which your majesty is the supreme head, and this can only be obviated by the complete repression of the Popish party. Much further reform is needed, and this, to be thoroughly efficacious, ought to be proceeded with without delay, ere the adverse sect can have time to recruit its forces." "But you do not apprehend danger to the Church, good doctor?" inquired Edward, with some anxiety. "There is danger in delay," replied Cox. "Men's minds are unsettled, and advantage will certainly be taken of the present crisis to turn aside the ignorant and half instructed from the truth. His grace of Canterbury, I am aware, is for gradual reform, entertaining the belief that men must become accustomed to the new doctrines ere they will sincerely embrace them. Such is not my opinion. I |