and the Medici and Napoleon brought forth a crop of genius that is unparalleled but by that produced under the energies of Elizabeth.

Mr. Barrow's position at the Admiralty gives him advantages over other writers in this department of literature, and he has not thrown them away. The lives selected are, Sir Martin Frobisher, Captain John Davis, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir John Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake, John Oxenham, Captain Edward Fenton, Mr. Thomas Cavendish, Sir Richard Hawkins, Lord Charles Howard of Effingham, Captain Thomas Fenner, The Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, Lord Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk; George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland; Sir William Monson, Captain James Lancaster.

The aim of the book, however, it must be said, is better than its execution; there is, doubtless, diligence in gathering the materials, and accuracy in the details, but it wants that power of writing which, making these aids subservient to it, breathes into each biography a creative spirit that resuscitates the man, with all his hopes and passions, to raise a cordial interest in the reader. Of this power Mr. Barrow has none, and considering how few have it, as was noticed in reviewing Lord Brougham's late biographies, it would seem that this kind of faculty is as rare as that required to produce the finest fiction. Indeed, a dramatic power is required for both. A great biographical writer would be one of the greatest blessings the literature of the country could have. The work, however, is worthy of perusal, and in every way interesting, both biographically and as portraying the rise and growth of our unrivalled naval power. Two lives are introduced that might well have been spared, from having been the one so frequently and the other so lately written; namely, those of Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake. In the life of the latter some additional information as to Doughty's condemnation and death, which tends to relieve Drake from the charge sometimes made against him of arbitrary if not criminal conduct in causing his execution.

DOUGLAS JERROLD'S

SHILLING MAGAZINE.

THE HISTORY OF ST. GILES AND ST. JAMES. *

BY THE EDITOR.

CHAPTER XIV.

"AND now," thinks the reader, "St. Giles is free. There is no charge against him; he is not the murderer, men, in his wretchedness, took him for. St. James, with his injuries upon him, has withdrawn himself; and once again the world lies wide before St. Giles." Not so. There still remains, to his confusion, a hard accuser. St. Giles is destitute. In the teeming, luxurious county of Kent, amidst God's promises of plenty to man, he is a guilty interloper. He may not grasp a handful of the soil, he cannot purchase one blade of wheat; he is a pauper and a vagrant; a foul presence in the world's garden, and must therefore be punished for his intrusion. Every rag he carries is an accusing tongue he is destitute and wandering: he has strayed into the paradise of the well-to-do, and must be sharply reproved for his whereabout. And therefore St. Giles will be committed for a season to the county gaol, as a rogue and vagabond. The roguery is not proved upon him, but it has been shown that whilst decent people have goose-beds and weather-proof chambers, he, at the best, has straw and a barn. It is, too, made a misdemeanor against mother Earth to sleep upon her naked breast, with only the heavens above the sleeper; and as St. Giles had often so offended -he could not deny the iniquity-he was, we say, committed to gaol by Justice Wattles, as rogue and vagabond. Now, to punish

a man for having nothing, is surely a sport invented by Beelzebub for the pleasure of the rich; yes, to whip a rascal for his rags is to pay flattering homage to cloth of gold. Nothing was proved against St. Giles but want; which, being high treason against the majesty of property, that large offence might be reasonably supposed to contain every other.

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Something, I've no doubt, will be brought against him," said Justice Wattles; "in the mean time, he stands committed as a rogue and vagabond." And Tipps, the constable, led away his prisoner, preceded by the host of the Lamb and Star, and the dispirited barber, who very dolorously expressed his disappointment, "that he left his business and all, and only for a ragamuffin as wasn't worth salt! If he hadn't thought him a murderer, he'd never have troubled his head with such rubbish." 66 No, and you'd never have had my cart," said the landlord to Tipps. "I thought the fellow would turn out somebody,—and he 's nothing but a vagrant. Come up! cried the Lamb and Star; and sharply whipping his horse, to ease his own bad temper, he drove off, the barber vainly hallooing for a seat in the vehicle. Whereupon, Constable Tipps, casting a savagely inquiring look at St. Giles's handcuffs, with an oath bade his prisoner move on, and then railed at his own particular star, that had troubled him with such varmint.

Nevertheless, although St. Giles's hands were white, murder had done its worst. As yet none, save the homicide, already blasted with the knowledge, knew of the deed. How lovelily the sun shone-how beautiful all things looked and beamed in its light; the lark sang, like a freed spirit, in the vault of heaven: and yet beneath it, lay a terrible witness of the guilt of man; a mute and bloody evidence of another Cain! St. Giles, however, was on his way to the county gaol, ere the deed was discovered. Not willing to give an account of himself, he was committed to imprisonment and hard labour in punishment of his destitution. That he was not, in addition, whipped for his poverty, testified strongly to the injudicious clemency of Justice Wattles. Such mercy went far to encourage rags and tatters.

Leave

Leave we for a while the desolate home of Dovesnest. we that miserable old man, Snipeton, writhing at his hearth; now striving to seek for hope, for confidence, in the meek and wretched face of his wife, and now starting at her look as at a dagger's point.

A few hours had passed, and again the Lamb and Star was a scene of tumult. And this time, there was no doubt of the atrocity. It was now impossible that the worthy folks, assembled in the hostelry, could be tricked into useless sympathy. There was now no doubt that a man was killed; and if St. Giles had escaped the charge of former homicide, why such escape only the more strongly proved his guilt of the new wickedness. "He'll be hanged, after all!" cried the landlord, with the air of a man, foretasting an enjoyment. "The villain! he was born for the gibbet," said the barber; "if I wouldn't walk over glass bottles to see him hanged, I'm not a Christian." Whilst the barber and others were thus vehemently declaiming their Christianity, there arrived at the Lamb and Star, a most important person. Up to that hour, he had been a rustic of average insignificance; but he suddenly found himself a creature of considerable interest-a man, heartily welcomed, as a boon and a treasure. This happy man was one Pyefinch; and was known to the surrounding country as a mole-catcher of tolerable parts. It was he who had discovered the body of the murdered man; and had he discovered some great blessing to the human family, it is very questionable whether he would have been so heartily welcomed by many of its members. It had, however, been his good fortune for we must still call it so-to light upon the body of Farmer Willis, bloody and stark in his own meadow-and again and again was he pressed to rehearse the tale, whilst mugs of ale rewarded the story-teller. Instantly was Pyefinch fastened upon by Mrs. Blink, and it was hard to deny such a woman anything. After short preparation, did the mole-catcher-stimulated by malt and hops-begin his terrible

history.

Why, you see, it was in this manner," said Pyefinch. "I was a goin' along by Cow Meadow, 'bout four in the mornin' wi' my dog Thistle, just to look after the snares. Cruel sight of varmint there be along that meadow to be sure. Well, I was a thinking of nothing-or what I was a thinking on, for I scorns a lie, is nothin' to nobody. Well, goin' along in this manner, Thistle running afore me, and ahind me, and a both sides o' me

"Never mind Thistle," cried the landlady, "come to the murder, Tom."

"Ax your pardon, missus. I shall have to tell all this story at 'Sizes; I know what them chaps, the lawyers, be, to bother a poor man who's no scholard,—so I've made my mind up, never to tell

the story, but after one way; then I'm cocksure not to be caught off my legs nohow." And Pyefinch drank, doubtless, to his sagacity.

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"Thistle

Very right, Tom," cried the landlord; and then he turned with knit eyebrows to his wife. "Be quiet, will you; like all women-want the kernel without cracking the nut. Be quiet." And Blink gave a conjugal growl. "Go on, Tom." "As I was a saying," continued the mole-catcher, was a running afore me, and ahind me, and a both sides o' meand barking as though he wished he could talk; just to say, how comfortable he felt, now that the spring was come-for depend upon it, dumb creatures have their notions of spring just as well as we well, where was I?"

"Thistle was barking," prompted the landlady, fidgetting and casting about impatient looks.

"To be sure he was. Well, all of a sudden he held his tongue ; he was then a good way on afore me, down in the pitch o' the field. I thought nothing o' that; when on a sudden he give cry agin, but quite a different bark to t'other. That didn't stagger me, neither; for I thought he'd lit on a hedgehog; and of all varmint o' the earth, Thistle hates a hedgehog; ha! worse than pison, that he do. Well, arter a while, Thistle runs up to me. You should ha' seen that dog," cried the mole-catcher, rising bolt from his seat, "his face was as full o' sense as any Christian's: his eyes if they didn't burn in 's head like any blacksmith's coals; and his jaw was dropt as if he couldn't shut it, it were so stiff wi' wunder-and all his hairs upon his back right away down to the end o' his tail stood up like hedge-stakes-and he looked at me, as much as to say- what do you think?'"

"Bless us, and save us!" cried the landlady, wondering at the discrimination of the dog.

"I didn't make him no answer," said the mole-catcher," but walks on arter him, he looking behind him now and then, and shaking his head sometimes terrible, until I came to the pitch o' the field; and there-oh, Lord!" Here Pyefinch seized the mug, and, emptying it, was newly strengthened. "There, I saw Master Willis in his best clothes-and you know he was always particlar like in them matters-there I saw him, as at first I thought, fast asleep, looking so blessed happy, you can't think. Howsumever, Thistle puts his nose to the grass, and sets up sich a howl, and then I sees a pool of blood, and then I run away as