have one pleasant period of his life to look back upon, whatever the future should bring forth. So that's it! Poor little chap! But a man's a man for a' that,' you know, Mrs. Wray; and I don't think we have any right to make one person responsible for the sins of another."

"Nay, doctor; but the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children--the Bible says so, and I believe my Bible, every word of it."

"So do I, dear lady-though I don't know about every word of our English translation as it stands; but referring to the passage in question, I think it is very much misunderstood. Sins are visited on unborn generations in a thousand ways by the law of consequences-and God is the Author of law. I can't be a drunkard, and my son and grandson not be the worse for it; I can't be a murderer or a forger without entailing certain results of disgrace upon my posterity. All things have their consequencesour good deeds as well as our worst crimes, and when and where these consequences terminate no mortal man can ever know. But that visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children is the vengeance which God takes for the offence against Himself, is what I never can believe. Good heavens, madam! you would make our Lord God no better than a bloodthirsty Corsican, who pursues his revenge through several generations; and worse than many an honest Englishman, who would no more carry on the feud with his enemy's innocent children, than he would rob a church or filch the public money! No, no, no! God permits sin to bring sorrow and shame—and it would be a very bad thing for mankind if He didn't-for sin ought to cause its own punishment, in order that we may see and feel its guilt and hideousness, and learn to hate it, as it is hateful to God. But trust me, our loving Father does not take pleasure in the death of a sinner-I think the Bible says that, too; nor can it be any satisfaction to Him that I am suffering the consequences of my ancestor's sin, which yet the natural law that He Himself has imposed compels me to suffer. At any rate, let us leave the visiting of sins to GodHe knows how much discipline a man or woman needs; we don't! I have known ill-conditioned children taunt and persecute a schoolfellow in distress-possibly, well-deserved distress -with the idea of propitiating the stern teacher, who might put them under punishment, if he chose. Ah! I am afraid that is how we sometimes regard God, when we show our disfavour to our fellow-creatures who have sinned, or whose parents have left them a legacy of sin and shame."

Mrs. Wray puckered up her lips. She evidently thought that she had a right, in God's sacred name, to visit my mother's sin on

me.

Not that she would be wilfully cruel to me; but that she would, as it were, set me apart, and make me know and feel that in consequence of an error, in which I could not possibly be included, though I must pay my share of the penalty, I must go softly, and in the bitterness of my soul, all my days. I do not mean that I knew this then; but I did afterwards, as well as why Dr. Smallwood took up the subject of inherited shame with so much warmth and earnestness, and why he was so much interested in my own small self. The fact was, he and I were in the same boat, though nobody in Castle Coleshill guessed it; but he was approaching the end of his career while I was only just beginning mine.

Finally the doctor gave orders that I should be kept very quiet -of course my return to school was out of the question till the Midsummer holidays were over,—and that I should on no account be teased with any lessons, or allowed to fret. I continued ill for several weeks, and was very feeble and strange in my head for more than two months. I could not count, and inanimate objects had a curious habit of getting up, and spinning round and round, if I looked at them steadily for any length of time, and I slept a good deal, and had scarcely any appetite.

When I came downstairs, I was allowed to do very much as I liked, and encouraged to lie lazily on the hearthrug. I was forbidden to touch a book, but Polly was allowed to read to me, and Mrs Wray provided us with several of Mrs. Sherwood's tales, and with one of Mrs. Hofland's, called "The Clergyman's Widow," which I enjoyed extremely. But in a few days I went out of doors. Dr. Smallwood had desired that I should be as much in the open air as possible; and then, as I lay on a cushion, under the apple-trees, Polly indulged me with the conclusion of "Ivanhoe;" and when that was finished, with "Kenilworth." My appetite grew with what it fed on, and I could have listened to Polly's " English History" all day long. Mrs. Wray did not often come near us; indeed, about that time she was a good deal absent on business. Aunt Maria never troubled us; and Aunt Rebecca liked nothing better than settling herself with her embroidery-frame within earshot of the reading, which she occasionally interrupted with strictures on the conduct of her great ancestress, Elizabeth I.; "or," as she once said, "Elizabeth Tudor. I of course am Elizabeth Guelph ;" and then, in a hurried aside, "is it Guelph or Ghebelline, Polly? I always confuse one with the other."

On the whole, she admired Elizabeth Tudor very much, and vehemently justified the execution of the unlucky Mary Queen of Scots, which Polly protested against with all the eloquence of which she was mistress. I fancy, too, that Elizabeth II. somehow confused herself with her royal namesake, for one day, when Polly

was going into the High-town, as we called the top of the steep street and the road beyond, she gave her a note, without any address, which she was to deliver to "that minx, Amy Robsart," who was staying at the castle, together with Lord Burleigh and Sir Philip Sydney! A few days afterwards, Polly was created Duchess of Castle Coleshill, and I received the promise of an earldom, as the reward of future merit.

"Go on as you have begun, Oliver," said His Majesty, "and your grateful Queen will never forget your services. Our good Duchess, too, will find the recompense of her fidelity."

And so we kept our Court at Lilac Cottage; and the stool of repentance brought me a good deal of happiness, notwithstanding the misery I had endured, perched on it like a melancholy statue. For a long while both Polly and I looked back with pleasure on those long, bright summer days of my convalesence. The cloud had been a black one certainly, but it had turned out most unexpectedly a silver lining.

(To be continued.)

LOUVAIN.

BY J. EWING RITCHIE.

On the River Dyle, about sixteen miles east of Brussels, and the same distance south-east of Malines, stands the old dead-alive town of Louvain. It was said to have been founded by Julius Cæsar. In the fourteenth century it was celebrated for the manufacture of its woollen cloths, which gave employment to a population of nearly 200,000 inhabitants; and there is an ancient tradition that at the time of leaving work, the great bell of St. Peter's was tolled as a warning to mothers to keep their children within doors that they might not be thrown down and trodden under foot by the immense crowds traversing the streets. It is now chiefly noted for its beer, which, if Baedeker is an authority, is a very sickly beverage. In the suburb of the railway station there are many modern houses. It is, however, only on account of its old buildings that it has any claim on the tourist. They are the Hotel de Ville, one of the richest and most beautiful examples of the late Gothic architecture, and the Gothic church of St. Pierre, with its fine pulpit and its chapels full of paintings, amongst which may specially be noted the Holy Family, by Quentin Matsys, carried off by the

French, and restored in 1815. A large emigration took place from Louvain to England. In the castle, our Edward I. of England and his queen passed the winter in 1285. Only a few traces of the castle now remain-near the Porte de Malines.

The speciality of the place is its University, founded in 1426. So extensive were its privileges that at one time no one could hold a public appointment in the Austrian Netherlands without having taken a degree at Louvain. After having been closed by the French Republicans, it was re-established by the Dutch Government in 1817. Since 1836 it has been reorganised, and has assumed an exclusively ecclesiastical character. It is one of the Université Libres, independent of Government, and supported entirely by the Roman Catholic Church. It possesses five faculties, and about eight hundred and fifty students.

Perhaps the figure in connection with the University most interesting at the time is that of Erasmus, the clever, learned, sarcastic little Dutchman, who, as the Romanists say, laid the egg which Luther hatched. In the winter of 1503-4 Erasmus was at Louvain, stopping at the house of John Paludanus, the orator of the University. It was in compliance with the solicitations of the latter that he wrote, and afterwards delivered in the Ducal Hall at Brussels, a congratulatory address to Philip of Burgundy, son of the Emperor Maximilian, on his happy return from Spain. At a later time he made Louvain his head-quarters, in consequence of the desire of the members of the University to have him among them. "I find," he writes to Tonstall, "the divines of Louvain frank and agreeable, and especially John Artenus, a man of incomparable learning, and the greatest possible kindness. There is not less theological learning here than at Paris; but there is less sophistry, and less pride." Erasmus was received with open arms by Dorpius, and made the acquaintance of Ludovicus Vives, a Spaniard, who subsequently gained high reputation as a scholar, and was invited to England by Cardinal Wolsey, when he read lectures at Oxford, and was subsequently appointed tutor to the Princesss Mary. At that time Louvain almost rivalled Paris in its University, and boasted as many as three thousand students. While Erasmus was there Jerome Busteiden left several thousand ducats to found a college for the three learned languages, and Erasmus was consulted as to its establishment. It was on his recommendation that the Hebrew chair was offered to Adrian, a converted Jew; and that of Greek to James Ceratinus. Of the Latin professor, Conrad Goclenius, a Westphalian, Erasmus writes to one Sir Thomas More: "He has plenty of wit, but of the most refined sort; and in story-telling you will find him nearly a match for yourself. He has quite a special talent for poetry, and is always clear and sweet;

nor is there any subject, however unattractive, round which he cannot throw a charm. And yet he writes prose so admirably that you would think it quite impossible for him to write a verse." It was at Louvain that Erasmus made the acquaintance of Ulrich von Hutten, the celebrated German reformer and man of letters. Over their red Rhine wine-for they both loved a cheerful glass-how these two must have laughed at the monks and Hochstraten, the Inquisitor, who were attacking the new learning, as the study of the classics was then deemed, in the person of the illustrious Richelieu. Many a pleasant hour must they, too, have spent over the famous" Epistolæ Obscurorum Vivorum," or letters of obscure persons, of which Hutten is known to have been in part the author, and which in popularity almost rivalled the "Praise of Folly " of Erasmus himself. It was not long, however, that Louvain was so pleasant a resting-place, although Erasmus speaks more than once in his letters of the agreeable situation and the healthiness of the climate. When Leo X. issued his bull against Luther, the fury of the monks against all who were not as ignorant as themselves was intense. It was in vain that Erasmus protested he was not a Lutheran. He had shown up the ignorance, the folly, the licentiousness of the monks; that was enough. His chief enemy at Louvain was a Carmelite priest, named Egmund. Being asked what fault he had to find with Erasmus, he replied, "He has written the Testament." "And what then?" was asked. "Why, then our whole system is at an end." Louvain became too hot for Erasmus. "Such is the fury of certain monks here," he writes in 1521, "against polite letters, that my studious hours are now become mere weariness." Again, he says that the monks consider every one favouring Gospel truth, or polite literature, as of Luther's faction; and adds, "I am so pelted with their abuse in their sermons, at their supper parties, in their conversation, that I think Stephen himself scarcely endured more."

Louvain was ever ready to condemn the theses of that Augustinian monk, whose utterances, nevertheless, moved Europe. of its professors, especially active in the matter, was made Pope of Rome on the death of Leo X. Born at Utrecht, he had formerly been professor at Louvain, had then become tutor to Charles V., and, in 1517, through Imperial influence, had been clothed with the Roman purple. In his way, Adrian VI.—for such was the title of the new Pope-was a good man. He arrived in the Vatican with his old housekeeper, whom he ordered to provide as before for his simple wants. For the luxury around him he had no taste; as little did he care for the sculpture and paintings of which his predecessors had been fond. When he was shown the splendid group of the Laocoon, discovered some years before, and