them in that strong sense, solid judgment, and those discriminating powers which were the characteristics of her intellectual attainments, as heroic fortitude, Christian humility, unshaken trust in God, and submission to his dispensations, were of her religious character. Such a combination of tenderness the most exquisite, magnanimity the most unaffected, and Christian piety the most practical, have not often met in the same mind. An acute, but sceptical French writer, calls "Magnanimity the good sense of pride, and the noblest way of obtaining praise." How well has the prince of pagan philosophers, by anticipation, corrected this tinsel phrase! "If thou art not good, thy magnanimity is ridiculous, and worthy of no honour." But how did our sublime Christian sufferer practically improve upon both! "Seek not the honour which cometh from men, but that which cometh from God." Whether we view this illustrious daughter of the virtuous Southampton taking notes on the public trial of her noble consort, concealing the tender anguish of the wife under the assumed composure of the secretary; whether we behold her, after his condemnation, prostrate at the feet of the unfeeling monarch, imploring a short reprieve for her adored husband, while the iron-hearted king heard the petition without emotion, and refused it without regret ; whether we behold her sublime composure at their final separation, which drew from her dying lord the confession, "the bitterness of death is past; "whether we behold her heroic resolution rather to see him die, than to persuade him to any dishonourable means to preserve his life; whether we see her superiority to resent→ ment afterwards towards the promoters of his execution, no expression of an unforgiving spirit; no hard sentence escaping her, even against the savage Jefferies, who pronounced his condemnation, adding insult to cruelty; no triumph when that infamous judge was afterwards disgraced and imprisoned; - if we view her in that more than temperate letter to the king a few days after her dear lord's execution, declaring that, if she were capable of consolation, it would only be that her lord's fame might be preserved in the king's more favourable opinion: had long habits of voluptuousness left any sense of pity in this corrupt king, or, rather, if a heart had not been forgotten in his anatomy, it must have been touched at her humble entreaty, that he would grant his pardon to a woman amazed with grief, to the daughter of a man who had served his father in his greatest extremities, and his majesty in his greatest perils:" if we view this extraordinary sufferer under all these trials, while we admire the woman, we must adore the Divine grace which alone could sustain her under them. After this imperfect sketch, may we not say, that, for an example of conjugal tenderness, we need not go out of our own country for a perfect model? Portia, swallowing fire because she would not survive her Brutus, the Pate non dolet of the faithful Arria, as she stabbed herself, and then pre 236 ENGLISH OPINION OF FRENCH SOCIETY. sented the sword to her husband, to set him an example of dying bravely; these heroic instances of conjugal affection, which have been the admiration of ages, are surpassed by the conduct of Lady Russell: they died a voluntary death rather than outlive their husbands; Christianity imposed on her the severer duty of surviving hers—of living to suffer calamities scarcely less trying, and to perform duties scarcely less heroic. After weeping herself almost blind, after the loss of her only son the Duke of Bedford, let us view her called to witness the death of her daughter, the Duchess of Rutland. After seeing her dead corpse, let us behold her going to the chamber of her other daughter, the Duchess of Devonshire, then confined in child-bed, of which the other had just died. When her only surviving daughter enquired after her sister, the mother cheerfully replied, "I have just seen her out of bed!" It was in her coffin! In whatever attitude, then, we consider the portrait of this illustrious lady, it is with fresh admiration. Each lineament derives additional beauty, from its harmony with the rest, the symmetry of the features corresponding with the just proportions of the whole figure. -- 237 ENGLAND'S BEST HOPE. We have dwelt on the present and the past, as well with reference to our neighbours as ourselves. If we have shown that we have little regret in any still remaining difference between the inhabitants of the opposite shores, and much to fear from a growing resemblance between them; — if we have successfully hinted at the grounds of our own real superiority, and the possibility of maintaining, and even increasing our greatness, to any extent consistent with human imperfection; - if we have, in the two preceding chapters, anticipated what might be our ultimate degradation, whilst in the first we had pointed at the heights to which we may reasonably aspire; let us not think it unworthy our attention to enquire how we can alone answer our high destination, revive what we have lost, attain what more is within our reach, or, having attained it, how we may perpetuate the inestimable blessing. We have at length, though with a slow and reluctant movement, begun to provide a national education for the children of the poor. Prejudice held out against it with its accustomed pertinacity, - knowledge would only make them idle, ignorance would preserve subordination, the knowledge of their duty would impede the performance of it. This last we did not perhaps say in so many words, but was it not the principle of our conduct? We put off the instruction of the poor, till the growth of crime made the rich tremble. We refused to make them better, till they grew so much worse as to augment the difficulty, as to lessen the probability of their reform. The alarm came home to the opulent. They were afraid for their property, for their lives; they were driven to do what it had long been their duty not to have left undone. But they did it not, till "the overflowings of ungodliness made them afraid." They discovered, at length, that ignorance had not made better subjects, better servants, better men. This lesson they might have condescended to learn sooner from the Irish rebels, from the French revolutionists. We have at length done well, though we have done it reluctantly. We have begun to instruct the poor in the knowledge of religion. But there is another class, a class surely of no minor importance, from whom too many still withhold the same blessing. If, as is the public opinion, it is the force of temptation which has produced so much crime among the poor, are not the rich, and especially the children of the rich, exposed to at least as strong temptations, not indeed to steal, but to violate other commandments of equal authority? Laws, without manners, will not do all we expect from them; manners, without religion, will be but imperfectly reformed. And who will say that religious reformation will be complete whilst it is chiefly confined to a single class, or deemed at least a work of supererogation by some among the higher ranks? There are, however, |