any case. We have already heard the whole tale of this most damnable and execrable attempt many times over. The men in the dock before your Lordship have for the most part confessed to their guilt, and of those who hold out, there is not one who has given us any reason to believe that he is innocent of the foul crime laid to his charge. The gentlemen of the long robe are therefore unanimously of opinion that the jury may at once be required to pronounce a single verdict upon the whole of the prisoners."

99

"Which is?" asked Jeffreys, glancing round at the foreman.

66

Guilty, your Lordship," said he, with a grin, while his brother jurymen nodded their heads and laughed to one

another.

"Of course, of course! guilty as Judas Iscariot!" cried the judge, looking down with exultant eyes at the throng of peasants and burghers before him. "Move them a little forward, ushers, that I may see them to more advantage. Oh, ye cunning ones! Are ye not taken? Are ye not compassed around? Where now can ye fly? Do ye not see hell opening at your feet? Eh? Are ye not afraid? Oh, short, short shall be your shrift!" The very devil seemed to be in the man, for as he spoke he writhed with unholy laughter, and drummed his hand upon the red cushion in front of him. I glanced round at my companions, but their faces were all as though they had been chiseled out of marble. If he had hoped to see a moist eye or a quivering lip, the satisfaction was denied him.

"Had I my way," said he, "there is not one of ye but should swing for it. Ay, and if I had my way, some of those whose stomachs are too nice for this work, and who profess to serve the king with their lips while they intercede for his worst enemies, should themselves have cause to remember Taunton assizes. Oh, most ungrateful rebels! Have ye not heard how your most soft-hearted and compassionate monarch, the best of men - put it down in the record, clerk on the intercession of that great and charitable statesman, Lord Sunderlandmark it down, clerk- hath had pity on ye? Hath it not melted ye? Hath it not made ye loathe yourselves? I declare, when I think of it"-here, with a sudden catching of the breath, he burst out a sobbing, the tears running down his cheeks" when I think of it, the Christian forbearance, the ineffable mercy, it doth bring forcibly to my mind that great

Judge before whom all of us-even I render an account. Shall I repeat it, down?"

"I have it down, your Lordship."

shall one day have to clerk, or have you it

"Then write 'sobs' in the margin. 'Tis well that the king should know our opinion on such matters. Know, then, you most traitorous and unnatural rebels, that this good father whom ye have spurned has stepped in between yourselves and the laws which ye have offended. At his command we withhold from ye the chastisement which ye have merited. If ye can indeed pray, and if your soul-cursing conventicles have not driven all grace out of ye, drop on your knees and offer up thanks when I tell ye that he hath ordained that ye shall all have a free pardon." Here the judge rose from his seat, as though about to descend from the tribunal, and we gazed upon each other in the utmost astonishment at this most unlookedfor end to the trial. The soldiers and lawyers were equally amazed, while a hum of joy and applause rose up from the few country folk who had dared to venture within the accursed precincts.

"This pardon, however," continued Jeffreys, turning round with a malicious smile upon his face, "is coupled with certain conditions and limitations. Ye shall all be removed from here to Poole, in chains, where ye shall find a vessel awaiting ye. With others, ye shall be stowed away in the hold of the said vessel, and conveyed at the king's expense to the Plantations, there to be sold as slaves. God send ye masters who will know by the free use of wood and leather to soften your stubborn thoughts and incline your mind to better things!" He was again about to withdraw, when one of the Crown lawyers whispered something across to him.

"Well thought of, coz," cried the judge. "I had forgot. Bring back the prisoners, ushers! Perhaps ye think that by the Plantations I mean his Majesty's American dominions. Unhappily, there are too many of your breed in that part already. Ye would fall among friends who might strengthen ye in your evil courses, and so risk your salvation. To send ye there would be to add one brand to another, and yet hope to put out the fire. By the Plantations, therefore, I mean Barbadoes and the Indies, where ye shall live with the other slaves, whose skins may be blacker than yours, but I dare warrant that their souls are more white." With this conclud

ing speech the trial ended, and we were led back through the crowded streets to the prison from which we had been brought. On either side of the streets, as we passed, we could see the limbs of former companions dangling in the wind, and their heads grinning at us from the tops of poles and pikes. No savage country in the heart of heathen Africa could have presented a more dreadful sight than did the old English town of Taunton when Jeffreys and Kirke had the ordering of it. There was death in the air, and the townfolk crept silently about, scarcely daring to wear black for those whom they had loved and lost, lest it should be twisted into an act of treason.

THE CATHOLIC HIND.

(From "The Hind and the Panther.")

BY DRYDEN.

[For biographical sketch see page 156.]

A MILK-WHITE Hind, immortal and unchanged,
Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged;
Without unspotted, innocent within,

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin.

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds

And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds
Aimed at her heart; was often forced to fly,
And doomed to death, though fated not to die.

Not so her young; for their unequal line
Was hero's make, half human, half divine.
Their earthly mold obnoxious was to fate,
The immortal part assumed immortal state.
Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood,
Extended o'er the Caledonian wood,
Their native walk; whose vocal blood arose
And cried for pardon on their perjured foes.
Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed,
Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed.

Panting and pensive now she ranged alone,
And wandered in the kingdoms once her own.
The common hunt, though from their rage restrained
By sovereign power, her company disdained,
Grinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye
Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity.

'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light,
They had not time to take a steady sight;
For truth has such a face and such a mien
As to be loved needs only to be seen. . .

What weight of ancient witness can prevail,
If private reason hold the public scale?
But, gracious God, how well dost Thou provide
For erring judgments an unerring guide!
Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light,
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.
O teach me to believe Thee thus concealed,
And search no farther than Thyself revealed;
But her alone for my director take,

Whom Thou hast promised never to forsake!
My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires;
My manhood, long misled by wandering fires,

Followed false lights; and when their glimpse was gone,
My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.
Such was I, such by nature still I am;

Be Thine the glory and be mine the shame!

Good life be now my task; my doubts are done;

What more could fright my faith than Three in One? Can I believe eternal God could lie

Disguised in mortal mold and infancy,

That the great Maker of the world could die?
And, after that, trust my imperfect sense
Which calls in question His omnipotence?
Can I my reason to my faith compel,

And shall my sight and touch and taste rebel?
Superior faculties are set aside;

Shall their subservient organs be my guide?
Then let the moon usurp the rule of day,
And winking tapers show the sun his way;
For what my senses can themselves perceive
I need no revelation to believe.

Can they, who say the Host should be descried
By sense, define a body glorified,

Impassible, and penetrating parts?

Let them declare by what mysterious arts

He shot that body through the opposing might

Of bolts and bars impervious to the light,

And stood before His train confessed in open sight.

For since thus wondrously He passed, 'tis plain

One single place two bodies did contain,
And sure the same omnipotence as well
Can make one body in more places dwell.

Let Reason then at her own quarry fly,
But how can finite grasp infinity?

'Tis urged again, that faith did first commence By miracles, which are appeals to sense,

And thence concluded, that our sense must be
The motive still of credibility.

For latter ages must on former wait,
And what began belief must propagate.

But winnow well this thought, and you shall find
'Tis light as chaff that flies before the wind.
Were all those wonders wrought by power divine
As means or ends of some more deep design?
Most sure as means, whose end was this alone,
To prove the Godhead of the Eternal Son.
God thus asserted: man is to believe
Beyond what Sense and Reason can conceive,
And for mysterious things of faith rely
On the proponent Heaven's authority.
If then our faith we for our guide admit,
Vain is the farther search of human wit;
As when the building gains a surer stay,
We take the unuseful scaffolding away.
Reason by sense no more can understand;
The game is played into another hand.
Why choose we then like bilanders to creep
Along the coast, and land in view to keep,
When safely we may launch into the deep?
In the same vessel which our Saviour bore,
Himself the pilot, let us leave the shore,
And with a better guide a better world explore.
Could He His Godhead veil with flesh and blood
And not veil these again to be our food?
His grace in both is equal in extent;

The first affords us life, the second nourishment.
And if He can, why all this frantic pain
To construe what His clearest words contain,
And make a riddle what He made so plain?
To take up half on trust and half to try,
Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry.
Both knave and fool the merchant we may call
To pay great sums and to compound the small,

For who would break with Heaven, and would not break for all?
Rest then, my soul, from endless anguish freed:

Nor sciences thy guide, nor sense thy creed.

Faith is the best insurer of thy bliss;

The bank above must fail before the venture miss.