of offending and alienating the very soldiers, who had already, in more than one instance, testified their abhorrence of Popery, and on whom he mainly relied for the forced conversion of his subjects. Service was here daily performed with all the imposing pomp of the Romish ritual, and as Walter reached the enclosure of the tents, he saw monks, priests, and barefooted friars, passing towards the sacred building, heard the tolling of the bell, and soon afterwards could distinguish at intervals the chanting of the choir, a startling anomaly, when the hallowed sounds of piety and peace thus came upon the ear, mingled with the lively strains of military music, the rattling of musketry, and the deafening roar of cannon.

Although Lord Dover's ministerial duties prevented him from executing any military command, he had complied with the prevailing fashion, by keeping up a magnificent tent. On being admitted into it, Walter was not less struck with the incongruity, that had placed in juxtaposition, articles of the most refined

and consummate luxury, with all the sterner apparatus of war. Fierce-looking sentries, sta. tioned at the entrance, had challenged him as he approached. Against the costly silk hangings, hung numerous Atlases and plans of different fortifications, interspersed with glittering arms and armour, disposed apparently rather with a view to picturesque effect than to purposes of utility. Swords, helmets, maps, and regimental books, were displayed upon one table, while upon another were to be seen, cards, dice, snuff-boxes, musical instruments, and knick-knacks of all sorts, huddled confusedly together. Amid all the formalities of rigorous military observance, it was manifest that good cheer was not forgotten; for in an interior division of the tent, he perceived a long table, decorated with rich plate, and sumptuously prepared for a large dinner-party, while a servant was breaking ice into large silver wine-pails. "I doubt whether Lord Feversham, our commander-in-chief," thought Walter to himself, "learned this style of encamping from his uncle,

Monsieur de Turenne; nor do I know whether the ancient Sybarites ever engaged in hostilities; but if they did, they could hardly display a more studied luxury in their military appointments than the modern warriors of Hounslow Heath."

Lord Dover having, in the phraseology of the day, "bowed the knee to Baal," or in other words having imitated the profitable example of Lord Sunderland and others, by becoming a convert to Popery, was attending service in the chapel at the time of Walter's arrival, but he soon made his appearance, and received his visitant with the courtesy that belonged to his character. To the great surprise of the young soldier, who expected rather to be interrogated as to his competency for military duty, almost one of the first questions put to him by his officer was the inquiry whether he were red or blue, a demand which he deemed to have reference to his uniform, and answered accordingly. Smiling at his mistake his Lordship explained, that he meant to ask whether he were a Catholic

or a Protestant, and Walter when he had declared that he was of the latter persuasion, could not help fancying that he perceived a diminished cordiality in his Lordship's manner, and indeed a reserve and indifference such as he had little expected to find in a nobleman who had always been famed for his distinguished elegance and urbanity. After a short interview he received his dismissal, and was conducted by an orderly serjeant to his proper quarters, where his brother-officers, after the very first salutations, repeated the same question that had been put to him by his noble superior. "Are you a true blue ?" cried several at once" then you are doubly welcome:" when taking him apart they quickly let him into some of the arcana of the camp, and enabled him to perceive that it was deeply imbued with a spirit of disunion and disaffection, whatever might be the external manifestations of concord and loyalty. Quickly too did he discover that it was enervated by moral corruption, most of the officers being abandoned to

gambling, drunkenness, and other dissolute habits, practices which the soldiery were by no means slow to imitate; while there were frequent squabbles and acts of insubordination from their unwillingness to render to the monks and friars, with whom the camp was infested, those marks of reverence and homage which they had been peremptorily commanded to pay by the express orders of the King.

Very few hours elapsed before Walter made a commencement of his military duties. The monarch who had been aptly characterized by Pepys as a busy man rather than a man of business, and whose profound sense of royal supremacy and prerogative persuaded him that every thing, even to the most trifling details, should emanate from himself, could hardly sleep in his bed from his anxiety to discharge these multifarious self-imposed duties. He offered the solitary instance of an English sovereign being his own First Lord of the Admiralty; and if he did not command the army in person, he chose to engross all the patronage, and to dis