wine was brought to his bedside, but in vain. Sometimes he said there was no hurry, and sometimes that he was too weak. * * "Charles had never been a sincere member of the Established Church. When his health was good and his spirits high he was a scoffer. In his few serious moments he was a Roman Catholic." A life of frivolity and vice had not extinguished in the Duchess of Portsmouth all sentiments of religion, or all that vividness which is the glory of her sex. She therefore tells Barillon, the French ambassador, that the king is really at heart a papist, and bids him hasten to the duke and urge him to give orders for the expulsion of the protestant divines in order for the due administration of extreme unction. The duke went to the chamber of his brother, and having ascertained the sentiments of the king, resolved, whatever was the risk, to fulfil his dying wishes. The charm of this narative is apparent-all things fall into their proper places, and a perfect picture is presented to the mind. The mantle of romance is thrown over the forbidding form of history. She moves and talks with a grace that was supposed wholly to belong to fiction, and while she delights, she instructs. It is quite impossible, despite the solemnity of the occasion, not to smile at the courteous banter of the expiring king, uttered almost "in articulo mortis," apologizing for the trouble he is giving, and begging them to excuse the unconscionable time he is in dying. It seems to be the opinion of many men that all that is requisite, for an historian is a plodding, impartial man. The fallacy of this is apparent-for although Byron asserts that "Truth is stranger than fiction," it yet requires a rare union of faculties to write it properly. Were history written as it ought to be it would take an author who comprised the patience and research of Bayle, the philosophical and logical powers of Bacon, the style of Burke, the political sagacity of Tallyrand, and Washington's pa triotism and nobility of soul. Since these are somewhat out of human reach, we cannot be too thankful that a writer combining so many excellencies as Mr. Macaulay, sits down to the drudgery of exploring the past. History enables a man to exist from the first ages of the world: he becomes the fellow-citizen of Demosthenes; assists in the expulsion of the tyrant Tarquin; stands beside Brutus as he plunges his dagger into Cæsar's heart, and is invested with a retrospective life: in a word, history presents every man with the freedom of the world, and gives to him a national interest in every country. It is not enough that a dramatist should give the plot and the costume, he must give his characters language and life. It must not be done in words, it must be done in deeds. Mr. Macaulay has accomplished this. He has clothed the skeletons of the past with flesh, and thrown blood into their veins: they become again animated with the bygone passions of olden days, and inoculate us with their feuds. But Mr. Macaulay has the awkward habit of looking at things with a liberal eye; hence Mr. Croker's indignation. It is not our intention generally to enter into any dispute that may exist between an author and a critic, but the recent attack on the work now before us in the " Quarterly," is too marked to escape us. We shall not do the conducters of that Review the injustice of believing that personal motives had any influence in the criticism in question. We are willing to believe that Mr. Croker's indignation at outraged historical truth has impelled him to the rescue of his " beloved abuses," from the vigorous assault of the historian; but at the same time the Rigby of Coningsby should have some respect for the judgment of the readers of the periodical he is employed to write in. We quote the following as a specimen of the fairness of his attack on his ancient enemy. "It may seem too epigrammatic, but it is in our serious judgment STRICTLY TRUE to say, that his history seems to be a kind of combination and exagge ration of the peculiarities of all his former efforts. It is as full of political prejudices, and partisan advocacy as any of his parliamentary speeches. It makes the facts of English history as fabulous as his lays do those of Roman tradition, and it is written with as captious, as dogmatical, and as cynical a spirit as the bitterest of his reviews." We have only one word of advice to Mr. Croker, let him set to work and write the History of England, and shame Mr. Macaulay to the end of time. Let him do this, so that all future critics may say as they turn from Croker to Macaulay, "Look on this picture and on that, We are inclined to hope that the satyrical Croker will take the advice we tender him, and devote himself henceforth to the truth of history. A little anecdote of the great critic of the "Quarterly" is not out of place here. Some few years ago, the Review in question now and then executed a poet for the especial delight of their readers; Tennyson, Browning, Keats, and others scarcely less illustrious, have been gibbeted (fortunately only in effigy,) from their new patent drop, the Jack Ketch being Mr. Croker. It reached Mr. Allan Cunningham's ears that the Maid of Elvar, his poetical child, was to undergo capital punishment in the forthcoming number of the Review. The indignant bard, who was a stalwart man of above six feet, with an arm accustomed to wield the mason's mallet, intimated to Mr. Croker that the day after the publication of the attack he would personally chastise him. The valorous Rigby was alarmed, but having announced a "slashing poetical article," he substituted the meek and small Moxon for the gigantic Highlander, who was equally good as a sculptor and a pugilist. ROBERT BROWNING. Robert Browning, the author of some of the most singular poems in the English language, was born at Camberwell, a village near London, in 1812. His father, who is a clerk in the Bank of England, seems to have had prophetic impression of his son's poetical genius, for he resolved to set him apart for a life of study. His family abound with little anecdotes of the poet's precocity, and we were told by his mother that at four years old, when compelled by her to take some medicine, he said, with much heroic gravity, "Good people, if you wish to see A boy take physic, look at me." These little anecdotes may be considered as trifling, but they show the current of the early mind, and are sure evidences of the existence of the poetical vein. Till his fourteenth year he was educated at a daily school in Dulwich, where he made great progress in his studies. Even in his eighth year some of his translations from Horace are remarkable for that peculiarity of mirth which he has since carried out to a fatal mannerism. From this school he was removed to the London University, where he completed his routine of classical education. So far as our recollection serves, he is the only man of genius that college can boast. In his twentieth year he published a poem called "Pauline," which he has never acknowledged, and of which he now appears to be ashamed. It has little merit beyond a certain faint evidence of sensuous feeling running through it; that kind of murmuring music which ever accompanies a poet in his walk through life. In 1836 his first acknowledged poem appeared, called "Paracelsus," and it is the opinion of many of the critics of the day that this will be the work by which he will be the most remembered. A critic has remarked, that one of the finest thoughts of modern times is embalmed in three lines in this poem. "There are two points in the adventure of a diver, Then when a prince he rises with his pearl. An eminent poet remarked that Mr. Browning had lost the chief force of the thought by the first line, which he maintained was very prosaic; he suggested that it ought to be altered, as "There are two moments in a diver's life," &c. This is a point for the author. We named this to Mr. Browning, who acknowledged his own line was feeble. Mr. Browning's Paracelsus excited little attention. Mr. Forster, of the Examiner, praised it, Mr. Fox, of the Monthly Repository, and Heraud's New Monthly Magazine-and there was an end of the matter. It, however, gave the poet a quiet pedestal for his future station, and he is now so proud of his young creation that he generally places it as his peculiar characteristic, and calls himself author of Paracelsus. To Paracelsus succeeded a tragedy, called Strafford, which, owing to Mr. Forster's influence with Mr. Macready, was performed. The great tragedian acted Strafford-but all his efforts were unavailing. It was the tragedy of spasms; the want of personal interest is too deeply felt to allow of any doubt, and the work of a strong mentality |