other, sat the seventy judges. In the centre, on a high chair, was their President, Bradshaw, robed in black, and wearing a high-crowned hat. In front of him was a table, on which lay the mace and sword of justice, and on the other side of which was a chair for the discrowned king—a king who looked sternly at all there, and all looked back dark defiance. Then gazing round, he saw armed soldiers everywhere, even packed close on leads and windows, where they had been posted to protect the judges. Behind a barrier drawn across the hall there crowded a dense mass of anxious, excited, watchful people; above all, a gallery crowded with ladies, sitting astonished at what was passing before their eyes.

Then began a strange trial, before a tribunal which the accused altogether refused to acknowledge as such, asking where were the peers who alone, by an ancient maxim of the constitution, could sit in judgment on a peer. At the end of seven days a decree of death was passed, and Bradshaw rose to say solemnly, "The sentence now published is the act, sentence, judgment, and resolution of the whole court." Upon which the seventy sitting behind also rose, as if to confirm his words; and the king, too, stood up, smiling and placid-no Stuart had ever yet paled before death-and would fain have spoken, but at a word from Bradshaw the armed guard advanced and surrounded their prisoner, who in three days was doomed to perish by the headsman's hands.

The warrant for his execution, which is now in the Bodleian Library, I believe, was made out, and given to the commander of the troops to be employed on the dread occasion, being signed by fifty-nine of the members. It is a strange document, of which, perhaps, an exact copy will interest "At the High Court of Justice for the Tryinge and Judginge off Charles Stewart, King of England. January xxix., Anno Dom., 1648.

you.

Whereas Charles Stewart, King of England, is and standeth convicted, attaynted, and condemned of High Treason and other high crimes, and Sentence upon Saturday last was pronounced upon him by this Court to be put to death by the severinge of his head from his body, of which Sentence execution yet remayneth to be done. These are therefore to will and require you to see the said Sentence executed in the open streets before Whitehall upon the morrow, being the thirtieth day of this instante month off January, between the hours of ten in the morninge and five in the afternoone of the same day, with full effect. And for soe doing this shall be your sufficient warrant. And these are to require all officers and souldiers, and other the good people of this Nation of England, to be asistynge unto you in this Service. Given under our Hands and Seales.".

So said, so done, and on the day after his execution his statue at the Royal Exchange was flung down, and on its pedestal was inscribed, "The tyrant is gone the last of the kings," and many rejoiced loudly thereat.

Once more, in the old Palace of St. James, Charles the First prepared to meet his evil fate with all resolution and dignity. He only asked to

see the two children who were still in England, and for the ministrations of Juxon, Bishop of London, who attended him to the last.

There was little time for shrift and parting; only on the night before his execution could the young Princess Elizabeth and the young Duke of Gloucester be brought to him. Bitter were the tears they wept, knowing that to-morrow they would be orphans in a world they had already found could be hard, and cold, and cruel: that to-morrow their kind and gentle father was to be led to the scaffold, like felons and traitors

they had heard and read of. Oh! it was too dreadful; and it seemed their poor hearts must break as they knelt before him for a last blessing.

But the king-all a king then-lifted them up tenderly, and kissing each damp young cheek, drew Elizabeth on to his knee, and begged of her to listen, and try to understand what he had to say at this solemn hour; and the little girl of twelve hushed her cries, and tried hard to compose herself, and obey the grave, low voice speaking to her for the last time.

"Sweetheart," it was saying, "I desire you to tell your brother James that he must no longer regard Charles as his elder brother, but as his sovereign. It is my dying wish that you should love one another, and forgive your father's enemies. Do not grieve for me, for I die for the laws and liberty of the land, and for the maintenance of the Protestant religion. Tell your mother that my thoughts have never strayed from her, and that my love has survived to the last. Convey my blessing to your brother and sister," and he paused to look into the soft eyes.

"I will," said the little girl, weeping now, so that he thought she scarce understood for tears.

"But I fear you will forget," said he, stroking her dishevelled hair tenderly, as she sobbed with her head against his loving heart.

"No, no; I shall never forget while I live." Poor child! that was not to be for many years.

All this time the little duke was looking at them with big, teartroubled blue eyes, when his father drew him also closer to his knee.

"And thou, sweetheart, they will cut off thy father's head; but mark what I say: they will cut off my head, and perhaps make thee a king. Thou must not be made a king as long as thy brothers Charles and James are alive, for they will cut off thy brothers' heads when they catch them, and cut off thy head at last; therefore I charge thee not to be made a king by them," and the little fellow flung himself closer to his father's breast, saying "I will be torn to pieces first." Put in that plain manner, there was no chance that he should misunderstand or forget his promise in the years to come.

The tender father then gave them the few jewels that he wore, the last blessing and fond kiss, and they passed from his sight, never, never

more to meet on earth. The boy duke was afterwards sent to the university at Heidelberg; Elizabeth faded away in the little chamber we look at with such melancholy interest at Carisbrook. As to the doomed king, a message soon came that it was time he should start for Whitehall, and then he at once, with Bishop Juxon by his side, took his way through the gardens and into the park, where a guard awaited to escort him to the death. It was a chilly January morning, and he strode along looking brave and cheery, bidding the guard to march apace, as pleasantly as though the errand had been of the happiest nature; truly, as he remarked to the sorrowing Bishop, he went to strive for a heavenly crown, experiencing less solicitude than when encouraging his soldiers to fight for an earthly diadem.

However opinions may differ as to Charles's conduct as a king, we must admire his steadfastness in those last hours, when, as Andrew Marvel, the friend and admirer of the Protector, in his Ode to Cromwell, wrote of the Monarch of England:

:

"He nothing common did nor mean

After that memorable scene;

But with his keener eye

The axe's edge did try.

Nor called the gods, with vulgar spite,

To vindicate his helpless right;

But bowed his comely head
Down as upon a bed."

JEREMY TAYLOR.

THE MAN WHO, STRETCH'D IN ISIS' CALM RETREAT,

TO BOOKS AND STUDY GIVES SEVEN YEARS COMPLETE."--Pope.

J

EREMY TAYLOR was a bishop and a very celebrated author, whose opinions and maxims we often hear quoted. One who knew him well said :

"This great prelate had the good humour of a gentleman, the eloquence of an orator, the fancy of a poet, the acuteness

of a schoolman, the profundities of a philosopher, the wisdom of a counsellor, the sagacity of a prophet, the reason of an angel, and the piety of a saint. He had devotion enough for a cloister, learning enough for a university, and wit enough for a college of virtuosi."

Fair words, fairly spoken. I wonder what the parents of the "great prelate" would have thought could they have known of them when they were nursing him in their poor home? For Jeremy's father was only a humble barber, living at the sign of the "Wrestlers," in an out-of-theway court in the tall shadow of St. Andrew's Church, Cambridge; but was, as his son afterwards proudly acknowledged, "reasonably learned," and himself able to ground his children in grammar and mathematics, which seems strange in one keeping a barber's shop; but then, the father came of gentle people, and had been well-to-do in his youth.

A barber's shop in those days was quite a different place from what it is now. Men of all conditions met there to gossip of the news, and not of the latest, seeing there were no newspapers, no magazines, nor other means of obtaining news, except by hearsay; but there was plenty of that in a university town, and no doubt little "Jeremie" picked up a good