told that their manner of travelling as he is at his installing, saving was suspicious and not like that that as everything then is most of other people, having lanterns at rich and costly, so everything in night, and striking into unusual this is of canvas and old clouts, paths. Three days successively with a mitre and a pall of the same they underwent examination, and suit, done upon him in mockery, on the third they resolved to wit- and then the crosier-staff was put ness the good confession, and there- in his hand. This done, after the fore made the following declaration, Pope's pontifical form and manner, through Andriamanana, one of Bonner, who, by the space of many their number, whom they had ap-years, had borne, as it seemeth, no pointed as their spokesman: "Since great good will towards him, and you ask us again and again, we now rejoiced to see this day wherein will tell you. We are not banditti he might triumph over him, and nor murderers; we are impivavaka take his pleasure at full, began to (praying people); and if this makes stretch out his eloquence, making us guilty in the kingdom of the his oration to the assembly after Queen, then whatever the Queen this manner of sort: This is the decrees, we submit to suffer." "Is man that hath ever despised the this, then," said the interrogator, Pope's holiness, and now is to be "your final reply, whether for life judged by him. This is the man or death?" "It is our final reply," who hath pulled down so many they said, "whether for life or churches, and now is come to be death." "Who," asked the examiner, "sent you from Tananarivo?" "No one," they replied; 66 we went forth of our own free will." After the Christians made these declarations, it is said that they felt inexpressible peace and joy. They had prayed, they had confessed Christ, and now that concealment was at an end, and they could freely open their overburdened hearts, they said to each other, "Now we are in the situation of Christian and Faithful when they were led to the city of Vanity Fair." And so it proved when a majority of them underwent the martyr's death after the example of Faithful. 829. Vindictive Malice.-Persecution for religious opinions assumed the most terrific form in the reign of the sanguinary Mary. Among the proceedings of the furious Bonner, there is none more affecting than the trial of Archbishop Cranmer for treason and heresy. The following extract from the "State Trials" exhibits a lively portrait of the degradation of Cranmer, and the exulting pride of his enemy:-"Then they invest ed him (Cranmer) in all manner of robes of a Bishop and Archbishop, judged by the church. This is the man that condemned the blessed sacrament of the altar, and now is come to be condemned before that blessed sacrament hanging over the altar. This is the man that, like Lucifer, sat in the place of Christ upon an altar to judge others, and now is come before an altar to be judged himself.' The story of Cranmer's recantation, signed by him on a promise of life, which was afterwards violated, is known to most readers. After he had signed it, Dr. Cole received secret orders from the court to preach in Cranmer's presence, in one of the churches at Oxford, an anticipation of his funeral sermon. On the day appointed, the Archbishop was placed upon a stage in front of the pulpit in a ragged gown, with an old square cap, to hear the sermon, which was performed by Dr. Cole to admiration. After expatiating on the justice of his sentence, the preacher addressed the audience, and bade them take warning by the fate of so great a man; then, directing himself personally to Cranmer, he lauded him for his conversion, and exhorted him to imitate the "rejoicing" of St. Andrew on the cross, and the "patience" of St. Lawrence in the lively in him expressed. More than fire. The account of Cranmer's twenty several times the tears shame and remorse during this gushed out abundantly, dropping edifying harangue is very pathetic down his fatherly face. They which and striking. It is a powerful speci- were present do testify that they men of old English writing. " Cran- never saw in any child more tears mer in all this meantime, with than burst out from him at that what grief of mind he stood hearing time, all the sermon while, but the sermon, the outward show of especially when they recited his his body did better express than prayers before the people. It is any man can declare; one while marvellous what commiseration lifting up his hands and eyes unto and pity moved all men's hearts, heaven, and then again for shame that beheld so heavy a countenance letting them down to the earth. and such abundance of tears in an A man might have seen the very old man, and of so reverend a image and shape of perfect sorrow | dignity." PERSEVERANCE. 1 Sam. xii. 20; Prov. iv. 18, 25-27; Matt. xxiv. 13; Luke xxi. 19; 1 Cor. xvi. 13; Phil. iv. 1; 2 Thess. iii. 13. 830. Bruce and the Spider. Robert Bruce, the restorer of the Scottish monarchy, being out one day reconnoitring the enemy, lay at night in a barn belonging to a loyal cottager. In the morning, still reclining his head on the pillow of straw, he beheld a spider climbing up a beam of the roof. The insect fell to the ground, but immediately made a second essay to ascend. This attracted the notice of the hero, who with regret saw the spider fall a second time from the same eminence. It made a third unsuccessful attempt. Not without a mixture of concern and curiosity, the monarch twelve times beheld the insect baffled in its aim; but the thirteenth essay was crowned with success-it gained the summit of the barn; when the King, starting from his couch, exclaimed, "This despicable insect has taught me perseverance! I will follow its example; have I not been twelve times defeated by the enemy's superior force? On one fight more hangs the independence of my country.' In a few days his anticipations were fully realised by the glorious result to Scotland of the battle of Bannockburn. 831. Discovery of India. The discovery of India, to which such great advances had been made by Prince Henry of Portugal, was, thirty-four years after his death, accomplished through the heroic intrepidity of the illustrious Vasco de Gama. The voyage of Gama has been called merely a coasting one, and therefore much less dangerous and heroical than that of Columbus or Magellan. But this, it is presumed, is an opinion hastily taken up and founded on ignorance. Columbus and Magellan undertook to navigate unknown oceans, and so did Gama, who stood out to sea for upwards of three months' tempestuous weather in order to double the Cape of Good Hope, hitherto deemed impassable. The tempests which afflicted Columbus and Magellan are described by their different historians as far less tremendous than those which attacked Gama. From every circumstance, it is evident that Gama had determined not to return unless he discovered India. Nothing less than such a resolution to perish, or attain his point, could have led him on. It was this resolution which inspired him when, on the general mutiny of his crew, he put the chief conspirators and all the pilots in irons, while he himself, with his faithful brother Coello, and a few others, stood night and day to the helm, until they doubled the Cape and beheld the road to India before them. It was this which made him still persevere when he fell into the strong current off Ethiopia, that drove him for a time he knew not whither. How different the conduct of Columbus! When steering southward in search of a continent, he met great currents, which he imagined were the rising of the sea towards the canopy of heaven, which, for aught he knew, he might touch towards the South; he therefore turned his course, and steered to the West, from which, after all, he returned, without being certain whether the land he discovered at the mouth of the Oronoko was an island or a continent! 832. Early Struggles.-Dr. Isaac Milner, who rose to be Dean of Carlisle and Master of Queen's College, Cambridge, was the son of a poor weaver at Leeds, who died while he was a boy. The support of a mother depended on Isaac and his brother Joseph, who redoubled their industry in cottonspinning, and employed their vacant time in the study of a few books which chance had thrown in their way. This singularity attracted much notice among the neighbours; a subscription was at length set on foot, to educate and send to college one of these young men, and Joseph, as the elder and one who, as yet, they thought displayed the most talent, was fixed upon as the object of their patronage. Isaac was after this for some time thrown into the background, though destined at last to come forward and to exceed even the fortunes of his brother. Joseph was sent to the grammar-school at Leeds, and the lessons he learnt in the day, on his return home at night, he taught Isaac, who dis covered not only a liking for this novel study of the classics, but great quickness of parts, memory, and judgment. Joseph was sent to Cambridge, when, after finishing his studies, he was appointed to a curacy and the mastership of the Free Grammar-school in Hull. In the meantime, Isaac was bound apprentice to a weaver, but having gained a tolerable knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, it may be supposed that the loom did not better agree with his disposition than the distaff with that of Hercules; he had, however, like the old Theban, the soft influence of attendant charms to reconcile him to his temporary captivity; for the Muses, both in the hour of labour and recreation, were his constant companions. When his brother had got the appointment at Hull, Isaac, who had long compared, with no high degree of satisfaction to himself, the inglorious toils of a mechanic-life with the splendid honours of a literary one, thought this a good opportunity to attempt an emancipation from a trade no way congenial to his disposition, and wrote therefore to his brother, stating his progress in literature, at the same time requesting to become an assistant in his school. Joseph resolved to proceed on sure grounds, and wrote to a clergyman of Leeds, requesting that he would examine his brother, and if he found his attainments considerable or his genius at all promising, to send him to Hull. The clergyman waited upon young Isaac, whom he found at the loom, with a "Tacitus" lying by his side. He was now nineteen years of age; and after undergoing an examination of some length, in the course of which he displayed much general knowledge, and a great command of language, he was thought perfectly eligible to be sent to Hull, and in a few days he bade a final adieu to the humble occupation of weaving. He soon rose from the obscurest rank in life, and in addition to all his other literary distinctions, filled the chair of the immortal work was done; he often continued Newton, as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. it by moonlight, and heard the clock strike twelve before he withdrew from an occupation in which his heart was engaged; this, too, when he had to rise at four the next morning, walk to Cambridge (nearly four miles distant) to his work, and return in the evening. If his constitution had not been unusually strong, it must have sunk under these extraordinary exer 833. Economy, Industry, and Perseverance.-There once lived, in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, a bricklayer named Joseph Austin, who had often looked with a longing eye upon a bit of ground by the roadside, part of what is calledby a term which reflects little credit upon manorial rights, or parochial tions, a fate more frequent than is management-the lord's waste. generally supposed among the inWhenever he looked at this spot, dustrious poor; but he seems to he used to think what a nice place have possessed an unweariable it would be for a house; and being frame of body, as well as invincible a house-builder by trade, and some- spirit. When the building was one thing of a castle-builder by nature, storey high, and the beams were to he used, as soon as he fell asleep be laid on, the carpenter discovered at night, to dream that he was at that the timber from the old cotwork there with his brickbats and tage would not serve for so large a trowel. At length he applied to place. This was a severe disapthe manor court, and got a verbal pointment; nothing, however, disleave to build on the spot. Two of couraged him; he covered it over his neighbours, moved by envy, as with a few loads of haum, and he says, threatened that if he be- immediately began a small place gan his house, they would pull it in the same manner at the end, down; upon this he applied a working at this with such persesecond time to the court, and ob-verance, that he got his family in tained a legal permission, with the within four months after the founconsent of all the copyholders, dations were laid. This great paying for the entry of his name object being accomplished, he went on the court rolls, and sixpence a on leisurely with the rest, as he year quit-rent. Austin was at this could save money for what he was time about forty-two years of age; wanting; after five years he raised he had a wife and four children, the second storey, and in ten it was and his whole stock of worldly tiled and coated. There was house riches amounted to fourteen shil- room in it for himself and his lings; but men who really deserve family, and another apartment was friends are seldom long without let for a guinea a year. In this them; and a master with whom manner did Joseph Austin, with he usually worked at harvest, sold him an old cottage for nine guineas, which he was to work out. Austin had for some time, in his leisure hours, been preparing "bats," a sort of bricks made of clay and straw, well beaten together, eighteen inches long, twelve wide, and four thick, not burnt, but dried in the sun. With these, and the materials of the old cottage, he went to work. As he had to live and support his family by his daily labour, this building could only be carried on when his regular day's singular industry and economy, build himself a house, which he began with only fourteen shillings in his pocket. During that time his wife had four children, and buried as many more. The money which it cost him was about fifty pounds, the whole of which was saved from the earnings of daily labour. The house and garden occupied about twenty poles of ground, and the garden was as creditable as the house to the industry and good sense of the owner. One of the fences was made of sweet-briar and roses, house will, we trust, long remain a mixed with woodbine, and the splendid monument. other of dwarf plum-trees; and against the back of the house he had planted a vine, a nectarine, and a peach-tree. 835. Good Son.-James Hopwood, the engraver, possessed but slender talents as an artist. Unacquainted with the principles of the art, he might be said to work in the dark, and every gleam of light which he obtained served but to show some deviations from the right path. His struggle to advance was thus in some measure actually impeded by accessories of partial knowledge. It was principally by the exertions of his eldest son, who was called William Hopwood, that the name of the father became identified with so many works before the public, and nothing could exceed the exemplary perseverance and patient industry with which 834. Eddystone Lighthouse and its Engineer. The celebrated engineer John Smeaton discovered great strength of understanding and originality of genius at a very early age. His playthings were not the baubles of children, but the tools with which men work; and he appeared to have greater pleasure in seeing the men in the neigh bourhood work, and asking them questions, than in anything else. One day he was seen, to the distress of his family, on the top of his father's barn, fixing up some-he seconded the efforts of his father. thing like a windmill. Another time he attended some men who were fixing a pump at a neighbouring village; and, observing them cut off a piece of broad pipe, he procured it, and actually made with it a working pump that raised water. All this was done while he was in petticoats, and before he had reached his sixth year. About his fourteenth or fifteenth year, he had made for himself an engine to turn rose work, and presented several of his friends with boxes of ivory or wood, turned by him in that way. He made a lathe, by which he cut a perpetual screw in brass-a thing little known at that day, and which is supposed to have been the invention of Henry Hindley, of York, a great lover of mechanics, and a man of the most fertile genius. Smeaton soon became acquainted with him, and they frequently spent whole nights together, conversing on such subjects until daylight. Smeaton had thus, by the strength of his genius and indefatigable industry, acquired at the age of eighteen an extensive set of tools, and the art of working in most of the mechanical trades, without the assistance of any master. Of his talents as an engineer in after life, the Eddystone Light liam was only fifteen years of age, 836. Inventor of Ship's Timekeeper.-John Harrison, the inventor of the time-keeper which procured him the reward of the Board of Longitude, was the son of a carpenter in Yorkshire, and assisted his father in the business until he was twenty years of age. Occasionally, however, he was employed in measuring land, and mending clocks and watches. He was from his childhood attached to |