RALEIGH, Sir Walter, born in Devonshire, 1552; died, 1618. He was a soldier, a scholar, and a discoverer; was favoured by Elizabeth; but in James I.'s reign was accused of high treason, imprisoned twelve years in the Tower, where he wrote his "History of the World;" released, and afterwards, on a wretched and unfounded charge made many years before, was beheaded, at the instigation of the Spanish ambassador. RAMSAY, Allan, born in Peebles shire, 1696; died, 1763. He was a Scotch poet, and author of the "Gentle Shepherd." REYNOLDS, Sir Joshua, born in Devonshire, 1723; died, 1792: a celebrated portrait and historical painter. 66 His ROBERTSON, William, an eminent historian and divine, born in Scotland, 1721; died, 1793. His great works are, the tory of Charles V., Emperor of Germany," and the "History of America;" he wrote also a "History of Scotland." RODNEY, Lord George, a gallant admiral, born in Wales, about 1718; died, 1792. He obtained a great victory over the French fleet, commanded by the Count de Grasse, 12th April, 1782. SCOTT, Sir Walter, Bart., born in Edinburgh, 1771. He was brought up for the bar, but early distinguished himself as a poet, and abandoned his profession for literature. In 1814 he began to turn novel writer, and having published his tale called "Waverley," established his fame in that line beyond any other writer before him. The number of his works of various kinds is prodigious. Being involved in the bankruptcy of his bookseller and others, with whom he had connected himself commercially, he made the most astonishing efforts to free himself from his difficulties, but his mental exertions and anxieties shortened his days, and he died, regretted alike by his personal friends and by the literary world throughout Europe, in 1832, in the 61st year of his age. SHAKSPEARE, William, born in Warwickshire, 1564; died, 1616. The greatest poet of England or the world. Johnson thus admirably describes his genius : "When learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes First rear'd the stage, immortal Shakspeare rose! Each change of many-coloured life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new; Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil'd after him in vain; His powerful strokes presiding Truth confess'd, And unresisting passion stormed the breast." SHENSTONE, William, an English poet, born in Shropshire, 1714; died, 1763. His taste for simplicity and elegant rural pleasures appeared in his poems, some of which still remain popular. SHERIDAN, Richard Brinsley, born at Dublin, in 1751; died, 1816. His eloquence in parliament, and his wit in private life, and published plays, were very marked. He is the author of some of the best comedies in the English language, "The Rivals," "School for Scandal," "Duenna," &c. His speech on the trial of Warren Hastings was considered one of the finest orations ever delivered. SIDNEY, Sir Philip, born in Kent, 1554; died, 1586. He was distinguished alike for his wit, learning, politeness, and courage. Under Queen Elizabeth he was general of the horse, and died of a wound he received at the battle of Zutphen, universally mourned. He wrote the "Arcadia," a classical romance, and some poems. This SMOLLET, Dr. Tobias, born in Scotland, 1720; died, 1771. He practised as a physician, but is chiefly known as the author of "Roderick Random" and other works of fiction. SPENSER, Edmund, born in London, 1553; died, 1598. great poet was patronized by Sir Philip Sidney, and, through him, appointed secretary, in Ireland, to Lord Grey de Wilton. His chief poem is the "Fairie Queen," which is imperfect, six books being lost on his return to England, by his servant. He died in great destitution. STEELE, Sir Richard, born in Dublin, 1676; died, 1729. A distinguished writer; the friend of Addison. He was the editor and partly the author of the "Tatler," "Spectator," "Guardian," and Englishman; and also wrote several plays, and an excellent little tract called the "Christian Hero." STERNE, Laurence, born in Tipperary, Ireland, 1713; died, 1768. He was a man of great genius, which reveals itself in his "Tristram Shandy," Sermons, Letters, &c. SWIFT, Doctor Jonathan, born in Dublin, 1667; died, 1745. A celebrated wit and admirable master of English. He was Dean of St. Patrick's, in Dublin, but lived rather as a party politician than a clergyman. Three years before his death he experienced that most dreadful of all human calamities, insanity. He appears to have had a presentiment of the trial he was destined to undergo, and left all his fortune (some legacies excepted) towards building an hospital for idiots and lunatics. SYDNEY, Algernon, born, 1622; died, 1683. This patriot had much of the old Roman in his composition, and during the civil wars in Charles the First's time sided with the parliament. He had studied the polity of his own country deeply, and wrote some discourses on government. When Cromwell assumed the reins, Sydney opposed his measures with great violence, as his wishes were for a republican form of government; on the restoration of Charles the Second his friends wished to intercede for a pardon, but he refused it, and continued his apostolic labours in England. He was a voluminous writer, his collected works occupying 32 volumes. WHITEFIELD, George, the founder of the Calvinistic Methodists, was born at Gloucester, 1714, and educated at Pembroke College, Oxford. He was a most extraordinary man for zeal and eloquence, and laboured indefatigably both in England and America. He died at Newbury, in New England, in 1770. WOLFE, General James, born in Kent, 1726; died, 1759. He fought with honour in Austrian Flanders, when only twenty years of age, and being afterwards appointed, by the Earl of Chatham, brigadier-general, under General Amherst, he distinguished himself at the siege of Louisburg, in Cape Breton, which surrendered to the British arms. In 1759 he headed the expedition against Quebec, and on the 12th of September, having gained some steep ascents, called the heights of Abraham, near that city, a battle ensued with the French forces. Wolfe was shot by a marksman in the midst of victory, and when in the interval of fainting-fits, which preceded the agonies of death, he heard the cry, "They run!" and was told it was the French, "Then," said he, "thank God, I die contented." WOLSEY, Thomas, a cardinal, and Archbishop of York, born in extraordinary man attained, under Henry VIII., such a height of dignity and power as was never reached by any subject before he was long the chancellor, the minister, and the prime favourite of that monarch, but his insatiable pride and exactions rendered him obnoxious to the people. He was therefore impeached, and stripped of all his honours except his Archbishopric. Fifteen months after he died of a broken heart, at Leicester, while under arrest. Wolsey's vices were numerous, but he was the encourager of learning and the arts. WORCESTER, the Marquis of, flou rished in the seventeenth century. He may be esteemed the inventor of the steam-engine, the first notice of which he published in 1663, entitled, "A Century of the Names and Scantlings of the Marquis of Worcester's Inventions." Savery improved on this discovery, and by the genius of Watt, the steam-engine became the mighty power it now is. WREN, Sir Christopher, born in Wiltshire, 1632; died, 1723, was the greatest architect of the age, and a good mathematician and astronomer. His philosophical papers were printed in the "Transactions of the Royal Society." That magnificent fabric, St. Paul's Cathedral, which was thirty-five years in building; the Monument, built in commemoration of the Great Fire of 1666; the Church of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and the Theatre at Oxford, are proofs of his eminence in architecture. EVENING.-BYRON. O HESPERUS! thou bringest all good things- Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, Are gathered round us by thy look of rest; THE IMAGE-BREAKERS OF THE NETHERLANDS. MOTLEY. JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, who has only recently died, was born in Massachusetts in 1814, and was for many years Minister of the United States at various European Courts His historical writings are deservedly famous. Among these are, "The History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic," and "The History of the United Netherlands, from the Death of William the Silent to the Synod of Dort," from which this extract is taken. 1. UPON the 18th of August, 1566, the great and time-honoured ceremony of the Ommegang occurred. Accordingly, the great procession, the principal object of which was to conduct around the city a colossal image of the Virgin, issued as usual from the door of the cathedral. The image, bedizened and effulgent, was borne aloft upon the shoulders of her adorers, followed by the guilds, the military associations, the rhetoricians, the religious sodalities, all in glittering costume, bearing blazoned banners, and marching triumphantly through the streets with sound of trumpet and beat of drum. The pageant, solemn but noisy, was exactly such a show as was most fitted at that moment to irritate Protestant minds, and to lead to mischief. No violent explosion of ill-feeling, however, took place. The procession was followed by a rabble rout of scoffers, but they confined themselves to words and insulting gestures. The image was incessantly saluted, as she was borne along the streets, with sneers, imprecations, and the rudest ribaldry. "Mayken! Mayken! (little Mary) your hour is come. "Tis your last promenade. The city is tired of you," Such were the greetings which the representative of the Holy Virgin received from men grown weary of antiquated mummery. A few missiles were thrown occasionally at the procession as it passed through the city, but no damage was inflicted. When the image was at last restored to its place, and the pageant brought to a somewhat hurried conclusion, there seemed cause for congratulation that no tumult had occurred. 2. On the following morning there was a large crowd collected in front of the cathedral. The image, instead of standing in the centre of the church, where, upon all former occasions, it had been accustomed during the week succeeding the ceremony to receive congratulatory visits, was now ignominiously placed behind an iron railing within the choir. It had been deemed imprudent to leave it exposed to sacrilegious hands. The precaution excited derision. Many vagabonds of dangerous appearance, many idle apprentices and ragged urchins, were hanging for a long time about the imprisoned image, peeping through the railings, and indulging in |