de Porthilho, who had been put in prison and accused as a heretic. And the kings had arrested all his property, for which reason the ambassadors were very ill lodged," * etc. This is a very early instance of the intolerance of Ferdinand and Isabella. A few years before, they had begun to introduce the Inquisition into Spain, and as they seem to have been at Valladolid only a month or two before the ambassadors were there, the imprisonment of Porthilho was probably an act of their own. If not, it was one of the innumerable instances which obtained their hearty confirmation and their warmest approval. That dread and hatred of schism, to which we have adverted, arising as it did from the theory of the necessity of outward unity in the church, and the duty of the civil power to maintain it, virtuous as it undoubtedly was, logically led to intolerance. And it needs no words of ours to show why Gerson, who was so zealous a reformer, that he carried reform * Memorials of Henry VII., 339. over the heads of popes, and deposed them to preserve the unity of the church, at the same moment was exerting all his power to crush Huss and Jerome of Prague-why Henry VII., and Ferdinand and Isabella, and Morton and Ximenes, zealously engaged in the reform of the monasteries, and ready to combine even to reform the morals of the pope, were equally zealous in the persecution of heretics, whether their faith were that of the Moor, the Lollard, or the Jew. Here we must abruptly take leave of the "Memorials of Henry VII." The review of detached materials must necessarily partake of a somewhat desultory character; but in thus glancing at some of the points, which the perusal of the volume has suggested to ourselves, we have wished to bear testimony to the value of its contents and, at the same time, to enlist the interest of our readers in the history of a period hitherto little explored, and much standing in need of further investigation. RAPIDITY OF PHOTOGRAPHY.-We have heard it affirmed that a fly is a medium-sized object amongst living beings-meaning that there are objects as much smaller than a fly as an elephant or a whale is larger, and this we believe to be perfectly true. But what shall we say to a second in respect to photographic time of action? Taking six hours as the maximum time of exposure, we can show differences in times of exposure, and variations in active action on the other side of a second of time, far exceeding any thing ever dreamed of in the ordinary practice of photography. In taking photographs of rapidly moving objects-the waves of the sea, for instance-we have been obliged to judge of the proper exposure requisite to bring out the half-tints, and estimate differences of time varying between the 1-50th and 1-20th of a second. Exposures like these are, however, enormous when compared with the time occupied in other photographic experiments. Thus, in solar photography, according to experiments of Mr. Waterhouse, an image was impressed in a space of time no longer than 1-9000th part of a second, even when a slow photographic process was used; and, when wet collodion was employed, one-third of the above time, or This duration, however, inconceivably short as 1-27000th of a second, was all that was needed. it appears, will be seen to be a tolerable length, when we try to bring the mind to appreciate the rapidity with which Mr. Talbot performed his crucial experiment at the Royal Institution, where he photographed a rapidly revolving wheel, illuminated by one single discharge of an electric battery. To a casual observer or reader of this experiment, the wonderful part appears to be that the wheel appeared perfectly sharp and stationary in the photograph, although, in reality, it was being rotated with as great a velocity as multiplying wheels could communicate to it. A little further consideration will, however, show that the time occupied in a revolution of the wheel was as a planetary cycle when compared with the time of duration of the illuminating spark, which, according to the most beautiful and trustworthy experiments of Prof. Wheatstone, only occupied the millionth part of a second in its duration.—Photographic News. HOPES AND FEARS: OR, SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF A SPINSTER. BY THE AUTHOR OF THE "HEIR OF REDCLYFFE," "HEARTSEASE," Erc. PART I.-CHAPTER I. squares after the pattern of Somerset House, "Who ought to go then and who ought to stay? with the like ponderous sashes, and on a smaller scale, the Louis XIV. pediment, ap Where do you draw an obvious border line?"parently designed for the nesting-place of -CECIL AND MARY. AMONG the numerous steeples counted from the waters of the Thames, in the heart of the city, and grudged by modern economy as cumberers of the soil of Mammon, may be remarked an abortive little dingy cupola, surmounting two large round eyes which have evidently stared over the adjacent roofs ever since the fire that began at Pie Corner and ended in Pudding Lane. Strange that the like should have been esteemed the highest walk of architecture, and yet Honora Charlecote well remembers the days when St. Wulstan's was her boast, so large, so clean, so light, so Grecian, so far surpassing damp old Hiltonbury Church. That was at an age when her enthusiasm found indiscriminate food in whatever had a hold upon her affections, the nearer her heart of course the more admirable in itself, and it would be difficult to say which she loved the most ardently, her city home in Woolstone Lane, or Hiltonbury Holt, the old family seat, where her father was a welcome guest whenever his constitution required relaxation from the severe toils of a London rector. Woolstone Lane was a locality that sorely tried the coachmen of Mrs. Charlecote's westend connections, situate as it was on the very banks of the Thames, and containing little save offices and warehouses, in the midst of which stood Honora's home. It was not the rectory, but had been inherited from city relations, and it antedated the fire, so that it was one of the most perfect remnants of the glories of the merchant princes of ancient London. It had a court to itself, shut in by high walls, and paved with round-headed stones, with gangways of flags in mercy to the feet; the front was faced with hewn swallows and sparrows. Within was a hall, panelled with fragrant, softly-tinted cedar wood, festooned with exquisite garlands of fruit and flowers, carved by Gibbons himself, with all his peculiarities of rounded form and delicate edge. The staircase and floor were of white stone, tinted on sunny days with reflections from the windows' three medallions of yellow and white glass, where Solomon, in golden mantle and crowned turban, commanded the division of a stout, lusty child hanging by one leg; superintended the erection of a temple worthy of Haarlem; or graciously welcomed a recoiling stumpy vrow of a queen of Sheba, with golden hair all down her back. The river aspect of the house had come to perfection at the Elizabethan period, and was sculptured in every available nook with the chevron and three arrows of the Fletcher's Company, and a merchant's mark, like a figure of four with a curly tail. Here were the oriel windows of the best rooms, looking out on a grass plat, small enough in country eyes, but most extensive for the situation, with straight, gravelled walks, and low lilac and laburnum trees, that came into profuse blossom long before their country cousins, but which, like the crocuses and snowdrops of the flower borders, had better be looked at than touched by such as dreaded sooty fingers. These shrubs veiled the garden from the great river thoroughfare, to which it sloped down, still showing traces of the handsome stone steps and balustrade that once had formed the access of the gold-chained alderman to his sumptuous barge. Along those paths paced, book in 'and, a tall, well-grown maiden, of good, straight features, and clear, pale skin, with eyes and rich luxuriant hair of the same color, a peculiarly ous aspiring pines of America, gazing out on bright shade of auburn, such as painters of the blue waters of her limpid inland seas, in old had loved, and Owen Sandbrook called her fresh pure air, with the simple children golden, while Humfrey Charlecote would de- of the forest round him, their princely forms clare he was always glad to see Honor's car-in attitudes of attention, their dark soft liquid rots. eyes fixed upon him, as he tells them "Your Great Spirit, him whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you," and then, some glorious old chief bows his stately head, throws aside his marks of superstition. "I believe," he says, and the hearts of all bend with him; and Owen leads them to the lake, and baptizes them, and it is another St. Sacrament! Oh! that is what it is to have nobleness enough truly to overcome the world, truly to turn one's back upon pleasures and honors-what are they to such as this ?” So mused Honora Charlecote, and then ran indoors with bounding step, to her Schiller, and her hero-worship of Max Piccolomini, to write notes for her mother, and practice for her father the song that was to refresh him for the evening. Nothing remarkable! No; there was nothing remarkable in Honora, she was neither more nor less than an average woman of the higher type. Refinement and gentleness, a strong appreciation of excellence, and a love of duty had all been brought out by an admirable education, and by a home devoted to unselfish exertion, varied by intellectual pleas More than thirty years ago, personal teaching at a London parish school or personal visiting of the poor was less common than at present, but Honora had been bred up to be helpful, and she had newly come in from a diligent afternoon of looking at the needlework, and hearing Crossman's Catechism, and Sellon's abridgment from a demurely dressed race of little girls in tall white caps, bibs and tuckers, and very stout indigo blue frocks. She had been working hard at the endeavor to make the little cockneys, who had never seen a single ear of wheat, enter into Joseph's dreams, and was rather weary of their town sharpness coupled with their indifference and want of imagination, where any nature, save human nature, was concerned. "I will bring an ear of Hiltonbury wheat home with mesome of the best girls shall see me sow it, and I will take them to watch it growing up-the blade, the ear, the full corn in the ear-poor dears, if they only had a Hiltonbury to give them some tastes that are not all this hot, busy, eager world! If I could only see one with her lap full of bluebells, but though in this land of Cockaigne of ours, one does notures. actually pick up gold and silver, I am afraid they are our flowers, and the only ones we esteem worth the picking; and like old Mr. Sandbrook, we neither understand nor esteem those whose aims are otherwise! O Owen, Owen, may you only not be withheld from your glorious career! May you show this hard, money-getting world that you do really, as well as only in word, esteem one soul to be reclaimed above all the wealth that can be laid at your feet! The nephew and heir of the great firm voluntarily surrendering consideration, ease, riches, unbounded luxury for the sake of the heathen-choosing a wigwam instead of a west-end palace; parched maize rather than the banquet; the backwoods instead of the luxurious park; the red Indian rather than the club and the theatre; to be a despised minister rather than a magnate of this great city; nay, or to take his place among the influential men of the land. What has this worn, weary old civilization to offer like the joy of sitting beneath one of the glori Other influences-decidedly traceable in her musings-had shaped her principles and enthusiasms on those of an ardent Oxonian of the early years of William IV., and so bred up, so led by circumstances, Honora with her abilities, high cultivation, and tolerable sense, was a fair specimen of what any young lady might be, appearing perhaps somewhat in advance of her contemporaries, but rather from her training than from intrinsic force of character. The qualities of womanhood well developed, were so entirely the staple of her composition, that there is little to describe in her. Was not she one made to learn, to lean, to admire, to support, to enhance every joy, to soften every sorrow of the object of her devotion? Another picture from Honora Charlecote's life. It is about half after six, on a bright, autumnal morning; and, rising nearly due east, out of a dark, pine-crowned hill, the sun casts his slanting beams over an undulating country, clothed in gray mist of tints differing with the distance, the further hills confounded HOPES AND FEARS. with the sky, the nearer dimly traced in pur-ways expecting. You shall teach me when "You'll never see that time, nor any other, My boots are quite thick, thank you." Nestled among the woods, clothing its hollows on almost every side rises a low hill, with a species of table-land on the top, scat- a contrast to his mighty nailed soles, and tered over with large thorns and scraggy oaks long, untanned bufkins, nor did they greatly that cast their shadows over the pale buff bents resemble the heavy, country-made galoshes of the short grass of the gravelly soil. Look-which, with an elder brother's authority, he ing southward is a low, irregular, old-fashioned forced her to put on, observing that nothing house, with two tall gable ends like eyebrows, so completely evinced the Londoner as her and the lesser gable of a porch between them, obstinacy in never having a pair of shoes that all covered with large chequers of black tim- could keep any thing out. ber, filled up with cream-colored cement. A straight path leads from the porch between beds of scarlet geraniums, their luxuriant horseshoe leaves weighed down with wet, and china-asters, a drop in every quilling, to an old-fashioned sundial, and beside that dial stands Honora Charlecote, gazing joyously out on the bright morning, and trying for the hundredth time to make the shadow of that green old finger point to the same figure as the hand of her watch. "Oh! down, down, there's a good dog, Fly; you'll knock me down! Vixen, poor little doggie, pray, look at your paws," as a blue greyhound, and rough black terrier came springing joyously upon her, brushing away the silver dew from the shaven lawn. "And where are you going?" "To Hayward's farm. Is that too far for you? He wants an abatement of his rent for some improvements, and I want to judge what they may be worth." 66 Hayward's-oh, not a bit too far!" and holding up her skirts, she picked her way as daintily as her weighty chaussure would permit, along the narrow, green footway that crossed the expanse of dewy turf in which the dogs careered, getting their noses covered with flakes of thick gossamer, cemented together by dew. Fly scraped it off with a delicate forepaw, Vixen rolled over and doubly entangled it in her rugged coat. Humfrey Charlecote strode on before his companion with his hands in his pockets, and beginning to whistle, but pausing to observe, over his roots! You're not getting wet, I hope ?" "I couldn't through this rhinoceros hide, thank you. How exquisitely the mist is curling up, and showing the church-spire in the valley." "Down, down, lie down, dogs!" and with an obstreperous bound, Fly flew to the new-shoulder, "A sweet day for getting up the comer, a young man in the robust strength of eight-and-twenty, of stalwart frame, very broad in the chest and shoulders, careless, homely, though perfectly gentlemanlike bearing, and hale, hearty, sunburnt face. It was such a look and such an arm as would win the most timid to his side in certainty of tenderness and protection, and the fond voice gave the same sense of power and of kindness, as he called out, "Hollo, Honor, there you are! Not given up the old fashion?" "Not till you give me up," Humfrey, she said, as she eagerly laid her neatly gloved fingers in the grasp of the great, broad, horny palm, "or at least till you take your gun." "So you are not grown wiser?" "Nor ever will be." "Every woman ought to learn to saddle a horse, and fire off a gun.” "And I suppose you have been reading all manner of books?" "I hink the best was a great history of France." "France!" he repeated in a contemptuous John Bull tone. "Ay; don't be disdainful; France was the centre of chivalry in the old time." "Better have been the centre of honesty." "And so it was in the time of St. Louis and his crusade. Do you know it, Humfrey?" "Eh?" That was full permission. Ever since Ho "Yes, against the civil war squires are al-nora had been able to combine a narration, "Don't you understand, it had become the point for the blow at the Saracen power. Where was I? Oh! the Mameluke justified the murder, and wanted St. Louis to be king, but-" "Ha! a fine covey, I only miss two out of them. These carrots, how their leaves are turned-that ought not to be." Humfrey had been the recipient, though she | place French kings and all. What was this seldom knew whether he attended, and from one doing wool gathering in Egypt?" her babyhood upwards had been quite contented with trotting in the wake of his long strides, pouring out her ardent fancies, now and then getting an answer, but more often going on like a little singing bird, through the midst of his avocations, and quite complacent under his interruptions of calls to his dogs, directions to his laborers, and warnings to her to mind her feet and not her chatter. In the full stream of crusaders, he led her down one of the multitude of by-paths cleared out in the hazel coppice for sporting; here leading up a rising ground whence the tops of the trees might be overlooked, some flecked with gold, some blushing into crimson, and beyond them the needle point of the village spire, the vane flashing back the sun; there bending into a ravine, marshy at the bottom, and nourishing the lady fern, then again crossing glades, where the rabbits darted across the path, and the battle of Damietta was broken into by stern orders to Fly to come to heel, and the eating of the nuts which Humfrey pulled down from the branches, and held up to his cousin with superior good nature. Honora could not believe that any thing ought not to be that was as beautiful as the varied, rosy tints of the hectic beauty of the exquisitely shaped and delicately pinked foliage of the field carrots, and with her cousin's assistance she soon had a large bouquet where no two leaves were alike, their hues ranging from the deepest purple or crimson to the palest yellow, or clear scarlet, like sea-weed, through every intermediate variety of purple edged with green, green picked out with red or yellow, or vice versâ, in never-ending brilliancy, such as Humfrey almost seemed to appreciate, as he said, "Well, you have something as pretty as your weeds; eh, Honor?” "I can't quite give up mourning for my dear long purples." "All very well by the river, but there's no "A Mameluke rushed in with a scymitar beauty in things out of place, like your Louis streaming with blood, and—” in Egypt-well, what was the end of this "Take care; do you want help over this predicament ? " fence ?" So Humfrey had really heard, and been "Not I, thank you—And said he had just interested! With such encouragement, Homurdered the king—" nora proceeded swimmingly, and had nearly "Vic-ah! take your nose out of that. arrived at her hero's ransom, through nearly Here was a crop, Nora." "What was it?" a mile of field-paths, only occasionally interrupted by grunts from her auditor at farming "You don't mean that you don't know not like his own, when crossing a narrow footwheat stubble ?" "I remember it was to be wheat." "Red wheat, the finest we ever had in this land; not a bit beaten down, and the color perfectly beautiful before harvest, it used to put me in mind of your hair. A load to the acre; a fair specimen of the effect of drainage. Do you remember what a swamp it was ?" "I remember the beautiful loose-strifes that used to grow in that corner." bridge across a clear stream, they stood before a farmhouse, timbered and chimneyed much like the Holt, but with new sashes displacing the old lattice. "O Humfrey! how could you bring me to see such havoc? I never suspected you would allow it." "It was without asking leave; an attention to his bride, and now they want an abatement for improvements! Whew!" "You should fine him for the damage he "Ah! we have made an end of that trum- has done!" pery." "I can't be hard on him, he is more or less "You savage old Humfrey-beauties that of an ass, and a good sort of fellow, very they were." "What had they to do in my cornfields? A place for every thing and every thing in its good to his laborers; he drove Jem Hurd into the infirmary himself, when he broke his arm. No; he is not a man to be hard upon." |