y Greenfield to send me faithfully word, by writing. how Clement Paston his devoir (or duty) in learning. And if he hath not done well, nor will , pray him that he will truly be-lash him till he will amend: and so did the , and the best he ever had, at Cambridge. And say (to) Greenfield that if e upon him to bring him into good rule and learning, that I may verily oth his duty, I will give him ten marks for his labour: for I had liefer he buried than lost for default.

O see how many gowns Clement hath; and they that be bare, let them be He hath a short green gown, and a short musterdevelus (2) gown, were never d a short blue gown that was raised, and made of a syde (3) gown, when I London; and a syde russet gown, furred with beaver, was made this time and a syde murry (4) gown was made this time tweimonth.

O do make me (get me made) six spoons, of eight ounce of Troy weight, ned, and double gilt.

(to) Elizabeth Paston that she must use herself to work readily, as other en (hath) done, and somewhat to help herself therewith.

O pay the Lady Pole 26s. 6d. for her board.

Greenfield have done well his duty to Clement, or will do his duty, give him 5). AGNES PASTON.

ollowing affecting farewell letter (the spelling modernised) s historical interest:

The Duke of Suffolk to his Son, April 30, 1450.

AR AND ONLY WELL-BELOVED SON-I beseech our Lord in heaven, the all the world. to bless you, and to send you ever grace to love Him and to ; to the which as far as a father may charge his child, I both charge you you to set all spirits and wits to do, and to know His holy laws and coms, by the which ye shall with His great mercy pass all the great tempests es of this wretched world. And that also wittingly, ye do nothing for love of any earthly creature that should displease Him. And thus as any frailty ou to fall, beseecheth His mercy soon to call you to Him again with repensfaction, and contrition of your heart never more in will to offend Him. ly, next Him, above all earthly thing, to be true liegeman in heart, in will, in deed. unto the king our aldermost high and dread sovereign lord, to h ye and I be so much bound to; charging you as father can and may, lie than to be the contrary, or to know anything that were against the welosperity of his most royal person, but that, as far as your body and life ch, ye live and die to defend it, and to let his Highness have knowledge all the haste ye can.

, in the same wise, I charge you, my dear son, alway, as ye be bounded by andment of God, to do, to love, to worship your lady and mother, and also ey alway her commandments, and to believe her counsels and advices in orks, the which dreaded not, but shall be best and truest to you. And if body would stir you to the contrary, to flee the counsel in any wise, for ye It naught and evil.

rmore, as far as father may and can, I charge you in any wise to flee the and counsel of proud men, of covetous men, and of flattering men, the cially and mightily to withstand them, and not to draw nor to meddle with n all your might and power. And to draw to you and to your company virtuous men, and such as be of good conversation, and of truth, and by 1 ye never be deceived, nor repent you of. Moreover, never follow your in no wise, but in all your works, of such folks as I write of above,

nap or pile raised m the bare cloth, Thus in Shakspeare: Jack Cade the ans to dress the commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.'-Hen.

d of mixed gray woolen cloth. which continued in use to Elizabeth's reign.

ELL.

gown-a low-hanging gown. See Sir David Lindsay, ante. For Murray colour was a dark red.

ble, a gold coin. value 6s. 8d.

asketh your advice and counsel, and doing thus, with the mercy of God, ye shall do right well, and live in right much worship and great heart's rest and ease. And I will be to you as good lord and father as my heart can think.

And last of all, as heartily and as lovingly as ever father blessed his child in earth, 1 give you the blessing of our Lord and of me, which of His infinite mercy increase you in all virtue and good living. And that your blood may, by His grace, from kindred to kindred multiply in this earth to His service, in euch wise as, after the departing from this wretched world here, ye and they may glorify Him eternally among His angels in heaven.

Written of mine hand the day of my departing from this land. Your true and loving father,

6

HENRY HALLAM.

SUFFOLK.

The greatest historical name in this period, and one of the most learned of our constitutional writers and critics, was MR. HENRY HALLAM, Son of Dr. Hallam, Dean of Wells. He was born in 1778, was educated at Eaton and Christ Church, Oxford, and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple. He was early appointed a Commissioner of Audit, an office which at once afforded him leisure and a competency, and enabled him to prosecute those studies on which his fame rests. Mr. Hallam was one of the early contributors to the Edinburgh Review.' Scott's edition of Dryden was criticised by Mr. Hallam in the Review for October, 1808, with great ability and candour. His first important work was a View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages,' two volumes quarto, 1818, being an account of the progress of Europe from the middle of the fifth to the end of the fifteenth century. To this work he afterwards added a volume of Supplemental Notes.' In 1827 he published The Constitutional History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II.,' also in two volumes; and in 1837-38 an 'Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries,' in four volumes. With vast stores of knowledge, and indefatigable application, Mr. Hallam possessed a clear and independent judgment, and a style grave and impressive, yet enriched with occasional imagery and rhetorical graces. His Introduction to the Literature of Europe' is a great monument of his erudition. His knowledge of the language and literature of each nation was critical, if not profound, and his opinions were conveyed in a style remarkable for its succintness and perspicuity. In his first two works, the historian's views of political questions are those generally adopted by the Whig party, but are stated with calmness and moderation. He was peculiarly a supporter of principles, not of men. Mr. Hallam, like Burke, in his latter years lived in an inverted order: they who ought to have succeeded him had

The duke embarked on Thursday the 30th April 1450, having been sentenced to five years' banishment from England. He was accused of having. in his communications with the French been invariably opposed to the interests of England. and in particular that he had been bribed to deliver up Anjou and Maine to France. The pinnace in which he sailed was boarded off Dover by a ship called Nicholas of the Tower, the master of which saluted him with the words. Welcome trator,' and he was barbarously murdered, his body brought to land, and thrown upon the sands at Dover.

efore him; they who should have been to him as posterity the place of ancestors.' His eldest son, Arthur Henry HalLe subject of Tennyson's 'In Memoriam '-died in 1833; and son, Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, was taken from him, shortly had been called to the bar, in 1850. The afflicted father colnd printed for private circulation the 'Remains, in Verse and of Arthur Henry Hallam' (1834), and some friend added meof the second son. Both were eminently accomplished, , and promising young men. The historian died January 21, aving reached the age of eighty-one.

of the Feudel System.-From the View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages.'

e previous state of society, under the grandchildren of Charlemagne, which always keep in mind, if we would appreciate the effects of the feudal system welfare of mankind. The institutions of the eleventh century must be I with those of the ninth, not with the advanced civilisation of modern times. of anarchy which we usually term feudal was the natural result of a vast arous empire feebly administered, and the cause, rather than the effect, of al establishment of feudal tenures. These, by preserving the mutual rethe whole, kept alive the feeling of a common country and common duties; ed, after the lapse of ages, into the free constitution of England, the firm y of France, and the federal union of Germany.

tility of any form of policy may be estimated by its effects upon national and security, upon civil liberty and private rights, upon the tranquillity and society, upon the increase and diffusion of wealth, or upon the general tone sentiment and energy. The feudal constitution was little adapted for the of a mighty kingdom, far less for schemes of conquest. But as it prevailed everal adjacent countries, none had anything to fear from the military superits neighbours. It was this inefficiency of the feudal militia, perhaps, that rope, during the middle ages, from the danger of universal monarchy. In en princes had little notions of confederacies for mutual protection, it is say what might not have been the successes of an Otho, a Frederic, or a gustus, if they could have wielded the whole force of their subjects whenr ambition required. If an empire equally extensive with that of Charlend supported by military despotism, had been formed about the twelfth or h centuries, the seeds of commerce and liberty, just then beginning to shoot, ve perished; and Europe, reduced to a barbarous servitude, might have fore the free barbarians of Tartary.

look at the feudal polity as a scheme of civil freedcm, it bears a noble counTo the feudal law it is owing that the very names of r ght and privilege swept away, as in Asia, by the desolating hand of power. The tyranny n every favourable moment, was breaking through all barriers, would have thout control, if, when the people were poor and disunited, the nobility had brave and free. So far as the sphere of feudality extended. it diffused the liberty and the notions of private right. Every one will acknowledge this siders the limitations of the services of vas salage, so cautiously marked in -books which are the records of customs; the reciprocity of obligation bee lord and his tenant; th consent required in every measure of a legislative al nature; the security, above all, which every vassal found in the administraustice by his peers, and even-we may in this sense say-in the trial by come bulk of the people, it is true, were degraded by servitude; but this had no on with the feudal tenures.

eace and good order of society were not promoted by this system. Though vars did not originate in the feudal customs. it is impossible to doubt that e perpetuated by so convenient an institution, which indeed owed its unitablishment to no other cause. And as predominant habits of warfare are reconcilable with those of industry, not merely by the immediate works of

destruction which render its efforts unavailing, but through that contempt of peaceful occupations which they produce, the feudal system must have been intrinsically adverse to the accumulation of wealth, and the improvement of those arts which mitigate the evils or abridge the labours of mankind."

But, as the school of moral discipline, the feudal institutions were perhaps most to be valued. Society had sunk, for several centuries after the dissolution of the Roman empire, into a condition of utter depravity; where, if any vices could be selected as more eminently characteristic than others, they were falsehood, treachery, and ingratitude. In slowly purging off the lees of this extreme corruption, the fendal spirit exerted its ameliorating influence. Violation of faith stood first in the catalogue of crimes, most repugnant to the very essence of a feudal tenure, most severely and promptly avenged, most branded by general infamy. The feudal law-books breathe throughout a spirit of honourable obligation. The feudal course of jurisdic tion promoted, what trial by peers is peculiarly calculated to promote, a keener feeling, as well as a readier perception, of moral as well as of legal distinctions. In the reciprocal services of lord and vassal, there was ample scope for every maghanimous and disinterested energy. The heart of man, when placed in circumstances that have a tendency to excite them, will seldom be deficient in such sentiments. No occasions could be more favourable than the protection of a faithful supporter, or the defence of a beneficent sovereign, against such powerful aggression as left little prospect except of sharing in his ruin.

The Houses and Furniture of the Nobles in the Middle Ages.-From the

same.

It is an error to suppose that the English gentry were lodged in stately, or even in well-sized houses. Generally speaking, their dwellings were almost as inferior to those of their descendants in capacity as they were in convenience. The usual arrangement consisted of an entrance-passage running through the house, with a hall on one side, a parlour beyond, and one or two chambers above; and on the opposite side, a kitchen, pantry, and other offices. Such was the ordinary manor-house of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as appears not only from the documents and engravings, but, as to the latter period, from the buildings themselves-sometimes, though not very frequently, occupied by families of consideration, more often corverted into farm-houses, or distinct tenements. Larger structures were erected by men of great estates during the reigns of Henry IV. and Edward IV.; but very few can be traced higher; and such has been the effect of time, still more through the advance or decline of families, and the progress of architectural improvement, than the natural decay of these buildings, that I should conceive it difficult to name a house in England, still inhabited by a gentleman, and not belonging to the order of castles, the principal apartments of which are older than the reign of Henry VII. The instances at least must be extremely few.

The two most essential improvements in architecture during this period, one of which had been missed by the sagacity of Greece and Rome, were chimneys and glass windows. Nothing apparently can be more simple than the former; yet the wisdom of ancient times had been content to let the smoke escape by an aperture in the centre of the roof: and a discovery, of which Vitruvius had not a glimpse, was nade, perhaps, by some forgotten semi-barbarian! About the middle of the fourteenth century the use of chimneys is distinctly mentioned in England and in Italy; but they are found in several of our castles which bear a much older date. This country seems to have lost very early the art of making glass, which was preserved in France, whence artificers were brought into England to furnish the windows in some new churches in the seventh century. It is said that, in the reign of Henry III., a few ecclesiastical buildings had glazed windows. Suger, however, a century before, had adorned his great work, the Abbey of St. Denis, with windows not only glazed but painted; and I presume that other churches of the same class, both in France and England, especially after the lancet-shaped window had yielded to one of ampler dimensions, were generally decorated in a similar manner. Yet glass is said not to have been employed in the domestic architecture of France before the fourteenth century; and its introduction into England was probably by no means earlier. Nor, indeed, did it come into general use during the period of the middle ages. Glazed windows were considered as movable furniture, and prob

e a high price. When the Earls of Northumberland, as late as the reign of 1. left Alnwick Castle, the windows were taken out of their frames and laid by.

the domestic buildings of the fifteenth century would not seem very spaconvenient at present. far .ess would this luxurious generation be content ir internal accommodations. A gentleman's house containing three or four s extraordinarily well provided; few probably had more than two. The ere commonly bare, without wainscot, or even plaster, except that some 1ses were furnished with hangings, and that, perhaps, hardly so soon as the Edward IV. It is unnecessary to add, that neither libraries of books nor could have found a place among furniture. Silver-plate was very rare, and sed for the table. A few inventories of furniture that still remain exhibit a e deficiency. And this was incomparably greater in private gentlemen's han among citizens, and especially foreign merchants. We have an inventhe goods belonging to Contarini, a rich Venetian trader, at his house on St. 's Lane, A.D. 1481. There appears to have been no less than ten beds, and ndows are especially noted as movable furniture. No mention, however, is chairs or looking-glasses. If we compare his account, however trifling in nation, with a similar inventory of furniture in Skipton Castle, the great of the Earls of Cumberland, and among the most splendid mansions of the ot at the same period-for I have not found any inventory of a nobleman's furnancient-but in 1572, after almost a century of continual improvement, we astonished at the inferior provision of the baronial residence. There were e than seven or eight beds in this great castle, nor had any of the chambers airs, glasses, or carpets. It is in this sense, probably, that we must underEneas Sylvius, if he meant anything more than to express a traveller's disconen he declares that the Kings of Scotland would rejoice to be as well lodged second class of citizens at Nuremberg. Few burghers of that town had s. I presume, equal to the palaces of Dunfermline or Stirling; but it is not that they were better furnished.

as been justly remarked, that in Mr. Hallam's Literature of there is more of sentiment than could have been anticipated the calm, unimpassioned tenor of his historic style. We may ate this by two short extracts.

Shakspeare's Self-retrospection.

re seems to have been a period of Shakspeare's life when his heart was il! at d ill content with the world and his own conscience; the memory of hours t, the pang of affection misplaced or unrequited, the experience of man's nature, which intercourse with unworthy associates, by choice or circum, peculiarly teaches; these, as they sank into the depths of his great mind, ot only to have inspired into it the conception of Lear' and 'Timon,' but that primary character, the censurer of mankind. This type is first seen in the phic melancholy of Jaques, gazing with an undiminished serenity, and with a of fancy, though not of manners, on the follies of the world. It assumes a cast in the exiled Duke of the same play, and next one rather more severe in ke of Measure for Measure.' In all these, however, it is merely contemplailosophy. In Hamlet,' this is mingled with the impul es of a perturbed heart he pressure of extraordinary circumstances; it shines no longer, as in the characters, with a steady light, but p'ays in fitful coruscations amidst feigned and extravagance. In Lear,' it is the flash of sudden inspiration across the ruous imagery of madness; in 'Timon,' it is obscured by the exaggerations of hropy. These plays all belong to nearly the same period: As You Like It' isually referred to 1600, Timon' to the same year,Measure for Measure' to nd Lear' to 1604. In the later plays of Shakspeare, especially in Macbeth' Tempest,' much of moral speculation will be found, but he has never re to this type of character in the personages.