Notwithstanding the spy-system which was brought to so great a perfection under the Tudors, the study of human nature was in their days yet in its infancy. The world had long ceased to be ingenuous, but nations had not yet learned civilised methods of guarding themselves against their enemies. At a time when distrust was general, it was easier, like Machiavelli, to erect deceit and fraud into a science, and to teach the vile utility of lying, than to scrutinise character and weigh motives. It wa

The history of the first two marriages of Henry VIII. is of such vital importance, affecting as they did the whole course of religion in England, from the first whisperings of the divorce down to the present day, that it is not to be wondered at if the royal Bluebeard's subsequent matrimonial alliances have been considered negligible quantities. And yet, at least one of them was of extreme political, and even religious, importance, and was fraught with so much mystery that until the most recent

While Edward's Council thought that they had effectually closed every issue through which news of the king's death might transpire, before their seditious plans were completed, the Princess Mary was already on her way into Norfolk, calling all loyal men and true to rally round her standard. Two Norfolk gentlemen were mainly instrumental in placing her on the throne. These were Sir Henry Jerningham and the subject of this memoir, Sir Henry Bedingfeld of Oxburgh, who came in to her assistance at F

In spite of the valiant efforts of isolated Catholic reformers in Germany, to stem the tide of corruption which threatened to sweep the Church into a vortex of ruin, for a long time little impression was made on the vast sea of abuses, and but little permanent good was effected. It almost seemed as though the Poor Clares of Nuremburg, the brave Dominicanesses of Strassburg, Johannes Busch, Johannes Geiler, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, St. John Capistran, the Brethren of the Common Life, and the ce

Lacordaire once wrote in a letter to Madame Swetchine these remarkable words concerning the disciples of St. Ignatius: "Tout ce qui m'a tombe sous la main m'a toujours revolte par l'emphase ridicule de l'eloge, ou par l'impudeur du blame. II semble que cette nature d'hommes ait toujours ote la raison a ses amis et a ses ennemis. Je voudrais leur consacrer dix annees d'etudes, ne fut ce que pour mon plaisir propre; mais Dieu nous donne et nous prepare une bien autre besogne, et il faut dire avec

The revolt from Scholasticism in the sixteenth century, led by Erasmus of Rotterdam, John Colet, and other apostles of the new learning, reached farther, and was productive of other results than these had intended or anticipated. Erasmus was called an infidel by the friars, but he always stoutly protested his adherence to the Church of which the Pope was the head; and Colet has been considered by many as a herald of the Reformation, although he died a Catholic. Erasmus, by his own showing, was n

"A fine rare show arrives from Rome, and it is all a present for the Queen, and the news of it reaches London, and the King is impatient to see it; and the Queen is lying in, and Mr. Panzani brings all the fine things to the Queen's bedchamber; and all the ladies of quality crowd in to see them; and the King with all his nobles hastens to the Queen's palace; and the boxes are opened, and the pieces are viewed one by one; and Mr. Conn comes in (though still without a red hat) to satisfy the Queen

There is at the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington a remarkable plaster cast, the facsimile of one of the two beautiful obelisks of Anglo-Saxon workmanship, which like far-reaching voices speak to us across the gulf of at least nine centuries. The interest which surrounds these ancient crosses is of a twofold nature. There is the marvellous art expressed in the sculptured stones themselves, and there is the mysterious charm of the runes with which the stones are inscribed. The art is

Although the Norte d'Arthur was one of the first books printed in the English language, the great semihistorical figure of Arthur, together with his Knights of the Round Table, and all their romantic exploits, had wellnigh died out of the memory of the English people when Tennyson published his Idylls of the King The Morte d'Arthur was translated, according to Caxton, by Sir Thomas Malory, who took it "out of certain books of French and reduced it into English." But it is no mere translation of

To take the Acts and Monuments, and as far as it might be possible after upwards of three hundred years, test the accuracy of each circumstance which Foxe proposes for the edification of his readers, would necessitate a work as voluminous as his own immense undertaking. To sift the chaff from the wheat, and to bind up the latter into one acceptable whole would perhaps result in a book not larger than one of his own eight thick octavo and closely printed volumes. All that can be done here is to i

The great, perhaps the sole repositories of the early historical and topographical records of England, Scotland, and Ireland, from the introduction of Christianity until the introduction of printing, were the monasteries. Throughout the middle ages these libraries were the homes, in many instances the birthplaces of treasures which would have been hopelessly lost or destroyed in those rough times but for the shelter thus afforded them. The monks were constantly employed in writing, copying, and

The Royal library is in many ways the most splendid of our national manuscript collections. Had it been fortunate enough, like the Harleian library, to number a Wanley among its custodians and biographers, the history of its formation would read like a fairy-tale. But, unhappily, we have to depend for our chief data on what Casley, the "dry as dust" pay excellence of librarians could tell us, and though his knowledge of the age of MSS. was admirable, he was remarkably uncommunicative regarding t

When Robert Harley laid the foundation of his magnificent library in t 7o5, so many collectors were already in the field that the prospect of getting together any large number of choice manuscripts did not seem promising. But contrary to expectation, this very fact proved fortunate, for whereas Cotton had built up his library, book by book, laboriously, Harley had the advantage of forming his, to a great extent, by the purchase of other well-known collections, either at the death of their origin