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Then on the ground, while trumpets peal their loudest point of war, Fling the red shreds, a foot-cloth meet for Henry of Navarre.

Ho, maidens of Vienna! ho, matrons of Luzerne!

Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall return.
Ho! Philip, send for charity thy Mexican pistoles,

That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen's souls.
Ho! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be bright;
Ho! burghers of St. Généviève, keep watch and ward to-night:
For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave,
And mocked the counsel of the wise and valor of the brave.
Then glory to his holy name, from whom all glories are;
And glory to our sovereign lord, King Henry of Navarre!

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JUSTIN MCCARTHY

(1830-)

LTHOUGH Justin McCarthy is not without reputation as a Home Rule politician, he is primarily a literary man; his adventures into the fields of history and fiction having preceded his Parliamentary career. He is perhaps a novel-writer rather than a historian in the strict sense of the term. His histories are clever and astute accounts of comparatively recent events, but bear little evidence of the patient scholarship, the critical research, which are characteristic of modern historical scholarship. Yet the History of

Our Own Times' (a record of English political and social life in this century), the Four Georges,' and the Epoch of Reform, are not without the value and interest attached to the writings of a man of affairs whose dramatic sense is well developed. Mr. McCarthy writes of the first Reform Bill, of Lord Grey, of Lord Palmerston, of Disraeli, of Gladstone, of Home Rule politics, in the spirit of one who has been in the swing of the movements which he describes, and who has known his heroes in person or by near repute. Mr. McCarthy's talents as a novelist are of use to him as a historian. He is quick to grasp the salient features of character, and he is sensitive to the dramatic elements in individuality. His 'Leo XIII.,' and his 'Modern Leaders, a series of biographical sketches, are successful portraits of their kind. That Mr. McCarthy does not always see below the surface in his estimates of famous contemporaries detracts little from the picturesque character of his biographies. He is capable of giving to his reader in a sentence or two a vivid if general impression of a personality or of a literary work; as when he says that "Charlotte Bronté was all genius and ignorance, and George Eliot is all genius and culture"; or when he says of Carlyle's 'French Revolution' that it is "history read by lightning."

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JUSTIN MCCARTHY

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Justin McCarthy has been a journalist as well as a writer of fiction and of history. Born at Cork in 1830, he connected himself with the Liverpool press in 1853, and in 1860 became a member of the

staff of the Morning Star. In 1864 he became chief editor. His newspaper experience has had not a little influence upon his style and methods of literary composition, as his political life has guided him in his treatment of historical subjects. Since 1879 he has represented Longford in Parliament as a Home-Ruler. Since that year,

also, many of his novels have been written. They show the quick observation of the man of newspaper training, and his talents as a ready and clever writer. Mr. McCarthy's novels, like his histories and biographies, are concerned mainly with the England of his own day. Occasionally the plot is worked out against the background of Parliamentary life, as in 'The Ladies' Gallery' and 'The Right Honorable.' Among his other novels-he has written a great numberare 'Miss Misanthrope,' 'A Fair Saxon,' 'Lady Judith,' 'Dear Lady Disdain,' 'The Maid of Athens,' and 'Paul Massie.' Mr. McCarthy's style is crisp, straightforward, and for the most part entertaining. Of all his works, the 'History of Our Own Times' will perhaps retain its value longest as a vivid, anecdotal, and stimulating record of English national development in the nineteenth century.

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THE KING IS DEAD-LONG LIVE THE QUEEN

From A History of Our Own Times'

EFORE half-past two o'clock on the morning of June 20th, 1837, William IV. was lying dead in Windsor Castle, while the messengers were already hurrying off to Kensington Palace to bear to his successor her summons to the throne. The illness of the King had been but short, and at one time, even after it had been pronounced alarming, it seemed to take so hopeful a turn that the physicians began to think it would pass harmlessly away. But the King was an old man-was an old man even when he came to the throne; and when the dangerous symptoms again exhibited themselves, their warning was very soon followed by fulfillment. The death of King William may be fairly regarded as having closed an era of our history. With him, we may believe, ended the reign of personal government in England. William was indeed a constitutional king in more than mere name. He was to the best of his lights a faithful representative of the constitutional principle. He was as far in advance of his two predecessors in understanding and acceptance of the principle as his successor has proved herself beyond him. Constitutional government has developed itself gradually, as

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everything else has done in English politics. The written principle and code of its system it would be as vain to look for as for the British Constitution itself. King William still held to and exercised the right to dismiss his ministers when he pleased, and because he pleased. His father had held to the right of maintaining favorite ministers in defiance of repeated votes of the House of Commons. It would not be easy to find any written rule or declaration of constitutional law pronouncing decisively that either was in the wrong. But in our day we should believe that the constitutional freedom of England was outraged, or at least put in the extremest danger, if a sovereign were to dismiss a ministry at mere pleasure, or to retain it in despite of the expressed wish of the House of Commons. Virtually therefore there was still personal government in the reign of William IV. With his death the long chapter of its history came to an end. We find it difficult now to believe that it was a living principle, openly at work among us, if not openly acknowledged, so lately as in the reign of King William.

The closing scenes of King William's life were undoubtedly characterized by some personal dignity. As a rule, sovereigns. show that they know how to die. Perhaps the necessary consequence of their training, by virtue of which they come to regard themselves always as the central figures in great State pageantry, is to make them assume a manner of dignity on all occasions when the eyes of their subjects may be supposed to be on them, even if dignity of bearing is not the free gift of nature. The manners of William IV. had been, like those of most of his brothers, somewhat rough and overbearing. He had been an unmanageable naval officer. He had again and again disregarded or disobeyed orders; and at last it had been found convenient to withdraw him from active service altogether, and allow him to rise through the successive ranks of his profession by a merely formal and technical process of ascent. In his more private capacity he had, when younger, indulged more than once in unseemly and insufferable freaks of temper. He had made himself unpopular, while Duke of Clarence, by his strenuous opposition to some of the measures which were especially desired by all the enlightenment of the country. He was, for example, a determined opponent of the measures for the abolition of the slave trade. He had wrangled publicly in open debate with some of his brothers in the House of Lords; and words had been inter

changed among the royal princes which could not be heard in our day even in the hottest debates of the more turbulent House of Commons. But William seems to have been one of the men whom increased responsibility improves. He was far better as a king than as a prince. He proved that he was able at least to understand that first duty of a constitutional sovereign, which to the last day of his active life his father, George III., never could be brought to comprehend,- that the personal predilections and prejudices of the king must sometimes give way to the public interest.

Nothing perhaps in life became him like the leaving of it. His closing days were marked by gentleness and kindly consid eration for the feelings of those around him. When he awoke on June 18th he remembered that it was the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. He expressed a strong, pathetic wish to live over that day, even if he were never to see another sunset. He called for the flag which the Duke of Wellington always sent him on that anniversary; and he laid his hand upon the eagle which adorned it, and said he felt revived by the touch. He had himself attended since his accession the Waterloo banquet; but this time the Duke of Wellington thought it would perhaps be more seemly to have the dinner put off, and sent accordingly to take the wishes of his Majesty. The King declared that the dinner must go on as usual; and sent to the Duke a friendly, simple message, expressing his hope that the guests might have a pleasant day. He talked in his homely way to those about him, his direct language seeming to acquire a sort of tragic dignity from the approach of the death that was so near. He had prayers

read to him again and again, and called those near him to witness that he had always been a faithful believer in the truths of religion. He had his dispatch-boxes brought to him, and tried to get through some business with his private secretary. It was remarked with some interest that the last official act he ever performed was to sign with his trembling hand the pardon of a condemned criminal. Even a far nobler reign than his would have received new dignity if it closed with a deed of mercy. When some of those around him endeavored to encourage him with the idea that he might recover and live many years yet, he declared with a simplicity which had something oddly pathetic in it that he would be willing to live ten years yet for the sake of the country. The poor King was evidently under the sincere

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