pered colloquy took place, followed by a stifled sob,-"sinking fast;" "end not far off now," she heard as in a dream, and she wondered dimly what they were talking about.

A placid curiosity excited her to interest; she would like to know what was meant without the trouble of inquiring. She had not the energy to ask questions now, there were so many to be asked, and then she was so weary, so inexpressibly tired! Of course that was only to be expected after such a long illness; she was very weak yet, but every day would bring increased strength; then all the questions could be asked and answered at leisure.

Her mother came and kissed her with twitching lips, and left hot tears upon her face. Strange that mother should be crying-that was very unusual with her; could anything have annoyed her? she wondered, but was too tired to ask. Next Sunday she would be down-stairs. to dinner anyhow, and could find out all about it then.

Her sisters came in, sad-eyed and weeping. What could be the sorrow? Had they heard ill news? Again she wondered, and wanted to ask, but weariness overcame her. A delicious peaceful languor, sweet and clinging, was chaining all her senses. Her lips were moving, but she could make no sound; her hearing was getting dulled; the eyelids she strove so bravely to keep open, drooped steadily in spite of her. She felt herself being lulled to sleep by sweet

sounds and soothing motions, and yet it was a sleep such as she had never known before.

She seemed to be gliding along a beautiful river, whose wavelets sparkled in the sun, and rocked her gently and sung a lullaby to her as they swept along. Her mother and sisters kept pace with her on the shore, making signs to her and encouraging her. But she felt no fear-why should she?-and they were near. Amidst the rippling of the water she heard, as from a great distance: "Lord have mercy on her." "Christ have mercy on her." "Holy Mary, pray for her."

"All ye holy angels and archangels, pray for her."

And now the rushing of the water increased, it roared and foamed about her; no longer could she hear the friendly voices. She did not understand, but above all she was so tired.

But now, the noise was already dying away, and she was gliding calmly into a peaceful harbor. She saw through halfclosed eyelids a shore of enchanting beauty, an inland sea studded with islands, overhead the spotless blue, the glorious sunshine flooding all.

She was perfectly satisfied and happy,. she felt that she was going home. By a great effort she raised herself; her eyes opened wide; she stretched out her poor wasted arms. "Oh, mother!" she said, quite loudly, then one longdrawn sigh, when she lay back and all was still.

T

O succor the wretched is one of the high pleasures of the potent and the affluent; it is the pride of Christian chivalry. To rescue the fair name of the unjustly accused is a cognate privilege. Partisan history, penned at a time when the odor of gunpowder filled the air and the smoke of battle still lingered above the field, has handed down to contempt or execration many a name that has stood for misfortune, or mistaken confidence, or other human failing, rather than an evil or craven heart. The true-hearted student and scholar will take pride in coming to the help of truth with regard to such victims of snatched verdicts, whenever he finds the evidence of defective indictments or malicious animus in the prosecution. Most of those who take pen in hand for the public service know what it is to suffer at times from misrepresentation of motives and procedure, and they will therefore willingly join in the work of reparation. As Dido says in the "Aeneid," "Haud ignara mali, miseris succurere disco."

Andrew Lang is one of those unprejudiced reviewers. He has taken up from time to time some notables whom some other Scotchmen have held up to odium and subjected the evidence on which the judgment was based to the microscope of dispassionate inquiry. He has placed. the characters of John Knox and Queen Mary in their true light before the world, and reversed the verdict of many of his own nationality. He has now added the character of King James II to the gallery of the rehabilitated.

To few characters, observes a thoughtful and dispassionate reviewer in Blackwood's Magazine, has history been more unjust. Why is this? Because

most historians from the time of the religious wars until now belonged to the ranks of the reformers or the group of the atheists. In his early life James, as Duke of York, was beloved of the Scotch for his affability and courtly dignity what time he kept state at Holyrood Palace, but later on he was cursed and denounced, and would have been killed by the populace of Edinburgh, because as King he sought to restore Catholic worship. He attempted to have Holyrood Abbey made once more a temple of Catholic worship, but the mob, hearing the news, marched forth from Edinburgh and stormed the palace and abbey, leaving both a heap of charred ruins. The intense "odium theologicum" of that stirring period is a phenomenon not easily to be realized in this quiet piping time of peaceful commerce and industrious pursuit of money. We have to read of the prosecutions of the Popish Plot epoch, of the astounding rascalities of Oates and his fellow conspirators, of the wars of the Covenanters against Prelacy, of "Bonnie Dundee" and the "bloody Duke of Cumberland," to get a faint idea. The popular ballads sung in the streets and hawked about in fairs and at race meetings reeked with vile allusions to the respective religions, "Papist" or "swaddler" as the case might be. Some of the more capable poets of the time occasionally descended so low as to write some of this poisonous stuff, whether to gratify their innate prejudice. or gain a little money it may be hard to decide. Prior, for instance, who was a prominent literary man of Goldsmith's era, and who wrote that author's biography, is given as the composer of some doggerel on King James and his favorites which will serve as an illustration of

the tendency of religious rancor to debase the noblest of arts. James was personified as Nero in the screed:

"Nero, without the least disguise,
The Papists at all times
Still favored, and their robberies
Looked on as trivial crimes.

"The Protestants whom they did rob
During his government

Were forced with patience, like good Job, To rest themselves content.

"For he did basely them refuse

All legal remedy;

The Romans still he well did use,

Still screened their roguery."

Now, after the lapse of nearly two centuries and a half, it is given to a Scottish historian, animated by a sincere love of truth and fair play, to clear the character of the unfortunate victim of partisan aspersion and show him, by his administrative acts, to have been animated with as just a spirit as most monarchs of his cycle. Perhaps the most cynical feature. of all about his unfortunate fate is the fact that it is in Ireland, where he labored to bring about some redress for the longpersecuted Catholics, that his name is held in such contempt that the sobriquet which popular scorn bestowed on him may not be printed. He lives in the popular esteem as a dastard in war if not a laggard in love; and this is the most odious character which any one could be branded with among a rash-blooded people. Considering the reputation James acquired while acting as Admiral, in several important naval engagements, this verdict seems inexplicably unjust. The battle which began in Southwold Bay and ended after a couple of days off the Dutch coast, in the year 1672, was one of the severest and most obstinately contested in maritime war annals. There James was in supreme command, and he fought his flagships in the most gallant manner. The first one was the "Prince," a frigate of a hundred guns; and on board this he directed the fight until onethird of the crew were killed or wounded and the vessel lay a helpless hulk on the

water. Then he transferred his flag to the "St. Michael," after rowing in an open boat through the enemy's fire, and renewed the combat until this flagship, too, was in danger of sinking through injuries to her hull. Again he took to his open shallop and rowed through the firing ships to the "London," on board of which he directed the fleet until seven in the evening, when the enemy drew off toward the Nore. There the battle was renewed next day, and ended in the retreat and defeat of the attempt of De Ruyter, the Dutch Admiral, to interpose between the British and French fleets and prevent their junction as allies.

The combined force was much inferior in number of ships and weight of metal to that of the Dutch, which consisted of seventy sail of the line and several fire ships. But the skilful management of James and the obstinate bravery of his forces enabled the English to claim the victory against odds that at the outset seemed to make success a hopeless eventuality.

The chief accuser of James, on the score of pusillanimity, has been Macaulay. His description of the unfortunate monarch's conduct at the battle of the Boyne is saturated with malignant bias. None of the sights he beh ld there, remarks the historian, "moved that sluggish and ignoble nature. When it became clear that the day was going against Ireland, he was seized with an apprehension that his flight might be intercepted, and galloped towards Dublin." There is a story current in Ireland that when the King arrived in Dublin. Castle he was met by Lady Tyrconnell, and to her he said bitterly: "Madame, your countrymen are running away;" and that the lady retorted with Irish quickness of reply: "Your Majesty is the first fugitive I have seen."

Here the impartial reader is confronted by two opposing narratives. He is entertained with the accounts of the Irish campaign written by two very dif

Macaulay states that William's forces at the Boyne consisted of about 36,000 men, of all arms. James, he says, had about 30,000, but he declares them to have been inferior in quality as well as in number. James' position was superior, and this advantage is supposed to offset, one may suppose, in the historian's mind, the double drawback he allows for. Macgeoghegan puts the combined forces acting under William at 45,000 men. Those of King James only numbered 23,000; they were for the most part raw levies, badly armed and almost without training or experience; and the whole. of the Irish army had but 12 field pieces, while William's force was especially strong in artillery. The most reliable portion of James' force was the French auxiliary, commanded by the Duke of Berwick, and the Irish cavalry, commanded by the dashing Sir Neill O'Neill.

Macaulay's exact words, giving his opinion of the different armies, are here most useful, as they may be taken into account against himself when in other passages he sums up the results of the battle and estimates the causes contributory to William's success. "James," he says, "had probably thirty thousand men. About a third part of this force consisted of excellent French infantry and excellent Irish cavalry. But the rest of his army was the scoff of all Europe. The Irish dragoons were bad;"-in the sentence immediately preceding they were "excellent"-"the Irish infantry worse. It was said that their ordinary way of fighting was to discharge their pieces once, and then to run away, bawling 'Quarter' and 'Murder.' Their inefficiency was in that age commonly imputed, both by their enemies and their allies, to natural poltroonery." How little ground there was for such an imputation has since been signally proved by many heroic achievements in every part of the globe.

Now, why does Macaulay use the disgraceful word "poltroonery" in regard to these Irish troops if he did not intend thereby to cast dishonor on this particular levy of men? He must have known that the charge was utterly base as it was baseless, for this same army, after it was withdrawn from the Boyne, marched leisurely away, under the King's orders, and fell back in the best order on Athlone and Limerick, fought De Ginkle's forces and William's at Aughrim, where it had won the day when at the moment of victory it lost its brilliant but rash French commander, St. Ruth; and behind the walls of Limerick, where it made so splendid a defense that it was allowed to march out with arms and all the honors of war, and enlist under the banners of King Louis. The battle of Fontenoy had not been very long fought when Macaulay began to read up for the work wherein he applies that discreditable epithet to the Irish soldiers who fought at the Boyne for King James. The men who hurled back Cromwell's invincible "Ironsides" from the walls of Clonmel were not much like cowards; nor those who under Owen Roe O'Neill swept Marshal Bagenal's and General Monroe's hosts away at the battles of the Yellow Ford and Benburb. If the Irish army were really so wretched in spirit and discipline as the great English historian depicts it, the glory of defeating it at the Boyne by such a fanatical and well-trained host as followed William and Schomberg is not quite so apparent to the impartial reader as it is to the partial chronicler. There was, in reality, very little of a victory in the event of the Boyne. The vacillation of James, who was seemingly far more concerned for the safety of his son-in-law, William of Orange, than for that of his Irish forces, prevented the latter from gaining the victory when they could have killed William quite easily, but James prevented the fatal shot when the marks