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though it will be a disappointment to brethren of the trade, who think a man may turn out historicals, like romances and calicoes, by the yard. Macauley's first draft-very unlike Scott's-is absolutely illegible from erasures and corrections. He showed me a sheet just written. I found cle an abridgement of castle, and all on that plan. This draft he copies always, with alteration, &c. This shows more care than I had supposed. He tells me he has his moods for writing. When not in the vein he does not pass it. Johnson, you remember, ridiculed this in Gray. H-told me that Lord Jeffrey once

told him that, having tripped up Macaulay in a quotation from "Paradise Lost," two days after Macaulay came to him and said, "You will not catch me again in the 'Paradise ;'" at which Jeffrey opened the volume and took him up in a great number of passages at random, in all of which he went on correctly repeating the original. Was not this a miraculous tour d'esprit? Macaulay does not hesitate to say now that he thinks he could restore the first six or seven books of the "Paradise" in case they were lost.-Life of W. II. Prescott.

The Sunday School.

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.

"WHAT does this commandment mean, boys?" asked the teacher.

"We must mind when we are told to do anything," said Sam.

"And when we are told not to do anything," added Frank.

"There are two ways of minding," said the teacher. 66 You may obey at once, and cheerfully, or you may do it unwillingly, and with a pout and a frown. Which is the right way ?"

"The first," they all replied.

"You may mind when your parents are looking at you; but when you are away from them take no pains to obey. Is this right ?”

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'No, indeed," said the boys. "You may mind because you are afraid of being punished. Is this right?"

"I suppose it's right enough," answered Sam, "but it isn't the best way."

What is the best way ?" asked the teacher.

"To mind because we ought to," said one.

"Because God has told us to," said another.

"Because we love our father and mother," answered Frank.

"Yes: love and duty are the best motives-duty to God, and duty to your parents. Are you to do everything they tell you ?"

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"Yes, everything," answered the boys. Everything that is right. But, supposing your parents should tell you to do what is wicked; must you do it?"

"No," "I don't know,"-" How can we help ourselves?"-said several of the class together.

"No; you must do nothing wicked. The Bible says, 'We must obey God rather than man.' If a boy's father should command him to steal or swear, or break the Sabbath, he must not obey; no, not if he has to suffer very much. But every command that is not wicked you must obey, though it be ever so hard."

"I haven't got no father nor mother to mind," murmured one of the boys.

"Then," answered the teacher, in a kind voice, "you must obey those that take care of you, just the same as if they were your parents. And, now, boys, there is a promise connected with this commandment. You may repeat it."

They did so.

"This is the first and only commandment with a promise. God will surely bless the affectionate, grateful, obedient child; and I hope everyone of you will receive this blessing. A well-ordered home, where the parents are kind and the children obedient, is the happiest place on earth. Now, the parents take care of the children: by-andby the children will take care of them in their old age. This is God's wise and good arrangement.

THE NAME OF OUR LORD'S MOTHER.

THERE are at least six Marys mentioned in the New Testament.

1. Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus, who is mentioned by name nineteen times.

2. Mary, the wife of Cleophas, and mother of James and Joses, who is mentioned eight times.

3. Mary Magdalene, who is mentioned fourteen times.

4. Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who is mentioned eleven times.

5. Mary, the mother of John Mark, who is mentioned only once. -Acts xii. 12.

6. Mary of Rome, who is also mentioned but once.-Romans xvi. 6.

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THE TEN FRIENDS. "I WISH I had good friends to help me on in life," cried lazy Dennis, with a yawn.

"Good friends! why, you've ten," replied his neighbour.

"I'm sure I've not half so many, and those that I have are too poor to help me."

Count your fingers, my boy," said the neighbour.

Dennis looked down on his big, strong hands.

"Count thumbs and all," added the neighbour.

"I have, there are ten," said the lad.

"Then never say you have not ten good friends, able to help you on in life. Try what those true friends can do, before you go grumbling and fretting, because you do not get help from others."

BIRDIE IN THE SHELL.

A LITTLE robin lay curled up, unhatched, in his small blue shell. Dim, very dim rays of light came through the small pores of the shell. He thus talked with himself:

"Well I am a very, very small fellow, aad I am in a narrow world. I seem to have parts and things about me which I cannot use. There is something that seems to be a mouth, but I have no food for it there; something that seems to be feet, but I cannot walk with them; something coiled up, that seems like wings, but what can I do with them? This is a narrow place, and I can't

use these things, and I can't understand why I have them. I am told, indeed, of another state, where the light is brighter and stronger, and where there is room, and where I can use all these things! But, oh dear! I can't now understand these sayings."

But in a few days his shell fell off, and his eyes opened, and his mouth received food, and feathers covered him, and his wings were complete, and his feet perfect, and he could run, and fly, and sing, as he rose up over the houses, and passed over rivers and high trees. He could now see and enjoy this new, this higher, this better state. He was made for this and not for the egg state. He now saw why he had the things called wings, legs, and the like.

Now, Mr. Robin, you are a happy fellow; but you must know that you have got to your highest place.

But for me, and every child that reads these lines, you bring a good lesson. You tell us that we are now in a world, in a condition, in a state, as unlike and as inferior to the new heaven and the new earth as your state in the egg was unlike and inferior to your present state. You now mount upon wings of gladness; so shall we. You are not wearied as you fly, as you run, as you sing; nor shall we be wearied. You see a clearer and more beautiful light; and so shall we. They need not the light of the sun, nor of the moon, nor yet of a candle, for the Lord God is the light thereof. There is no night there. You, O birdie, did you not know what you should become; nor do we know, for "it doth not yet appear what we shall be;" but we know that we shall be like Christ, see Him as He is, and enter into the joy of our Lord, if we love and obey Him now in this life.

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She from her pillow gently raised

Her head, to ask who there might be, And saw young Sandy shivering stand, With visage pale and hollow e'e. "O Mary, dear, cold is my clay; It lies beneath a stormy sea; Far, far, from thee I sleep in death; So, Mary, weep no more for me!

"Three stormy nights and stormy days

We tossed upon the raging main;
And long we tried our bark to save,
But all our efforts were in vain.

Even then when horror chilled my blood,

My heart was filled with love for thee:
The storm is past and I at rest,
So, Mary, weep no more for me!

DREAM.

"O maiden dear, thyself prepare; We soon shall meet upon that shore, Where love is free from doubt and care,

And thou and I shall part no more!" Loud crowed the cock, the shadow fled,

No more of Sandy could she see, But soft the passing spirit said, "Sweet Mary, weep no more for me!"

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God weighs the spirit; oh, beware,
Ye who by guile your sins would
shroud,
There is an eye you cannot 'scape;
A sun-ray rends the darkest cloud.

And when the gold the rust shall eat,
The tongue be silent in the tomb,
The motives of the secret soul
Give verdict in the day of doom.
MRS. SIGOURNEY.

Miscellaneous.

HISTORY FOR YOUNG PEOPLE.

THE 24th of the month of May was our beloved Sovereign Victoria's birthday. She was born at Kensington Palace in 1819. She succeeded to the throne 20th June, 1837; was crowned 28th June, 1838; was married 10th February, 1840; has givon birth to five daughters and four sons, and was grandmother before she had attained to forty years of age. Her father, Edward, Duke of Kent, was the fourth son of George III., who had in all fifteen children; her mother the estimable Duchess who died on the 16th March 1861. Our Queen was a child of but eight months old when her father died, to whose right she succeeds. Of her father's three elder brothers, the first reigned as George IV.; the next died in his father's lifetime; and the third succeeded to the crown as William IV. neither of these three left any direct heir. Just 100 years last October, the Queen's grandfather, George III., was proclaimed king, in regular succession to his grandfather, George II. It cannot fail to add to your store of useful knowledge if you note well the tracing of the succession to the British Crown.

In the first ages of Christianity, the Romans-that most powerful people came into Britain, at that time divided into several small nations, each governed by its own chief; and, when Britain became a province of the Roman empire, these were allowed to reign on, paying tribute to Rome. In the year 426 the Romans withdrew, and the kingly power reverted to the Britons; but they were so harassed by the Scots and Picts,

that twenty years after they complained to, and ineffectually asked aid from the Romans, in a document called "The Groans of the Britons." They then invited the Saxons, who came, and made themselves masters, driving the Britons into Wales. hence the term "Ancient Britons,' applied to the Welsh people. Wales was a separate kingdom till the reign of Edward I., who united it to England.

From Edward II., the eldest son of England's sovereign has borne the title of "Prince of Wales."

The Saxons divided England into seven kingdoms, called the Heptarchy:

1. The kingdom of Kent contained only the county of Kent. It began in 454, ended 828. Its first Christian king was Ethelbert, in 568.

2. The kingdom of South Saxons contained Sussex and Surrey. It began in 491, ended 685. Its first Christian king was Adelwach, in

649.

3. The kingdom of East Saxons contained Essex and Middlesex. It began in 527, ended 827. Its first Christian king was Stibert in 598.

4. The kingdom of Northumberland contained Yorkshire, Durham, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland and Northumberland. It began in 547, ended 827. Its first Christian king was Edwin, in 617.

5. The kingdom of Mercia contained the counties of Huntingdon, Rutland, Lincoln, Northampton, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Oxford, Chester, Salop, Gloucester, Worcester, Stafford, Warwick, Buckingham, Bedford, and Hertford. It

began in 582, ended 827. Its first Christian king was Peada, in 656.

6. The kingdom of East Angles contained the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, and the Isle of Ely. It began 575, ended 792. Its first Christian king was Redwald, in 599.

7. The kingdom of West Saxons contained Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wilts, Hants, and Berks. It began 519, ended 828. Its first Christian king was Kingillis, in 611.

These kingdoms were subject to one monarch, styled king of the English nation, he giving the law to the others. There were 19 in succession of these kings, from Hengist, in 454, to Egbert, in 800. Egbert was crowned sole monarch, at Winchester, in 823. In 827 he ordered the south of our island to be called England. He died in 837. The crown descended with little deviation till 1017, and indeed to Edward the Confessor, crowned at Winchester in 1042, who really was not the next heir, because Edmond II. had a son living, an outlaw. On Edward's decease, Harold II. usurped the throne, though the right remained in Atheling, son of the outlaw. Now William (the Conqueror), Duke of Normandy, claimed a right, from a grant of Edward the Confessor, and secured the crown. From him it descended to his second and third sons, William II. and Henry I., succeeded by Stephen, grandson of William I., his elder brother waiving the claim, and Maud, daughter of Henry I. and grand daughter of the outlaw, being excluded. Maud's son, Henry II., as heir to William I., succeeded Stephen, though the proper heirs in the Saxon line were the sons of Malcolm, King of Scotland, by Margaret, daughter of the outlaw. But Henry I. having married the daughter of Atheling-whose issue Maud was her son, Henry II., in some degree restored the Saxon line. From Henry II., the crown descended to his son, Richard I., on whose death it was seized by his brother John, in exclusion of the heir, Arthur. On the death of Arthur and

his sister Eleanor, without issue, the crown rightfully came to John's son, Henry III., and from him in an hereditary line of six generations to Richard II., who resigned the crown, which resulted to the issue of his grandfather, Edward III., and should then have fallen on the posterity of the first son of Edward III.; but Henry, who descended from the third son of Edward III., usurped it, under the title of Henry IV. Henry IV. was regularly succeeded by his son and grandson-Henry V. and VI. Under the last reign, the family (the house of York) descended from the first son of Edward III. on the mother's side, began to claim their dormant right, and Parliament established it in Edward IV., and his eldest son, Edward V., who was deposed by his father's brother Richard III. During this reign Henry VII., a descendant of the House of Lancaster, assumed the throne; and he marrying the daughter of Edward IV., heiress of William the Conqueror, thus united the Houses of York and Lancaster, in the person of Henry VIII., their son, who transmitted the crown to his three children-Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. On the death of Elizabeth succeeded James VI., king of Scotland, our James I., the lineal descendant of Margaret, daughter of Henry VII.; and in James were united the different competitors since William I., and also the right of the Saxon monarch-for he was the direct lineal heir of the Malcolm who married the granddaughter of Edmond II. From James I. the crown descended to his second son, Charles I., after whom the succession was interrupted by Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard, but restored in 1660, in Charles II., eldest son of Charles I. He dying without issue, it passed to his brother, James the II., whom Parliament excluded, and called in, in 1688, William III., Prince of Orange, whose wife, Mary, was eldest daughter of James II. On the deathof William III., Anne, second daughter of James II., reigned; and she

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