sin should be destroyed, and good life and peace an alms or voluntary offering. Endowments, and charity shoulden reign among Christian men. as such, whether by individuals or by the And so when all the ground is sought, Friars State, he does not appear to have disapproved saien thus, indeed: "Let old curates wax rotten of, provided care were taken to keep up their in sin, and let them not do their office by God's character as only an alms repeated or continlaw, and we will live in lusts so long, and waste

vainly and needless sixty thousand mark by year ued, a gift bestowed on certain conditions, of the poor Commons of the land, and so at the and revocable if these conditions ceased to be last make dissension between them and their fulfilled. childer for dimes and offerings that we will get privily to us by hypocrisy, and make dissension between lords and their commons. For we will maintain lords to live in their lusts, extortions, and other sins, and the commons in covetise, lechery, and other deceits, with false swearing, and many guiles; and also the curates in their damnation for leaving of their ghostly office, and to be the procurators of the Fiend for to draw all men to hell." Thus they done, indeed, however they feignen in hypocrisy of pleasing words.

This notion of the revocability of endowments, either by individual temporal lords, or by the Crown, was the notion upon the propagation of which he evidently placed greatest reliance as the means of sapping the existing constitution of the Church, and bringing the Church and the State into better relations. He did not excuse the people from paying tithes; but he said it was a greater sin for the clergy not to preach than for the people to withhold tithes, even if the clergy did This may be characterized as the style of preach. When pushed to its highest speculaplain hard-biting; and most of Wycliffe's tive generality, however, the notion assumed popular writing is in the same style. Ob- a form which made it as applicable to the serve, too, the thorough practical Englishman, State as to the Church. It is one of the accusaalmost the Englishman of the popular Radical tions of Lingard and other Catholic writers school, in the telling allusion over and over against Wycliffe, that he preached a doctrine again to the pecuniary argument of the "sixty which they express by the proposition that thousand mark by year." Wycliffe was an all dominion is founded on grace;' the educated man, and a man of high scholastic meaning of which we suppose to be, that men, attainments, a man, too, of courtly con-as fallen beings, have absolutely no right in nections and acquaintanceship; hence there is themselves to any power or property, and nothing in his pleadings for economy of that that whatever right they have is a gift of coarseness which we often find in such plead-grace, and is a correlative of a required duty. ings by our modern democratic friends. Evi- Dr. Vaughan defends Wycliffe against certain dently, however, there was in him a fibre of calumnious representations of his opinions on that Radicalism in Church and State which this head. We think it clear, however, from has found its modern representatives in such much of Wycliffe's language, and especially men as Cobbett and Cobden. This, indeed, from such "conclusions" of his as those alis a part of his character which requires ready quoted,- "God cannot give civil dofarther clearing up. From the nature of minion to any man for himself and his heirs some of Wycliffe's speculations it is clear that for ever." "Charters of human invention he would have made very levelling reforms, concerning civil inheritance for ever are imat all events in the political constitution of possible," that Wycliffe did regard this as the Church, and that he was one of those who one of his fundamental speculations; and that regarded the immense accumulation of pro- though, in accordance with the necessities of perty and power in the hands of the Church, the time, he used it chiefly against the Church which had resulted from the civil alliance be- and the Papacy, he knew very well that it tween the spiritual and the temporal in the was a two-edged sword, capable of being used different countries of Europe, (in England also for ordinary political service. Nor is one half of all the landed property was pos- there anything derogatory to Wycliffe in this. sessed by the Church,) as a great political and religious evil. He held and maintained that the clergy should be torn down from this position of temporal lordship and independence in the heart of the community; that they should be reduced to their natural functions and status as a spiritual ministry; and When we say, then, that there was in Wythat, if it was inexpedient that they should cliffe, over and above all else that was in him, again exhibit the spectacle of laborious a vein of Radicalism both in Church and poverty presented by the Apostles and foun- State, we are not very far wrong. This it is ders of the primitive Church, their temporal that has prevented such men as the Churchprovision should at least be moderate, and historian Milner from doing him full justice. should never be of that fixed character which With all his disposition to applaud a man would disguise the fact that it was essentially whose views on the whole were more "Evan

Rightly interpreted the doctrine has a splendid meaning; and Wycliffe, in maintaining it, was but propounding, in a characteristic form, a notion which since the days of Turgot, has been gaining ground in the minds of political philosophers.

gelical" than was general at that time, and Wycliffism, or Lollardism of the fourteenth who so boldly denounced "the abominations century in England, was left out as unneces of Romanism," Milner evidently shrinks from sary, or set aside as inadmissible by the actual Wycliffe with the genuine instinct of a dutiful Reformation of the sixteenth, was not damson of the modern Church of England. And, med back and destroyed by that means, but from his point of view, Milner is right. has trickled down to our own times in certain There can be no doubt that the modern veins of sentiment and doctrine carefully Church of England is not such a Church as preserved by the Puritans, and now pervadwould have issued from a movement of re-ing those Non-conforming bodies which form formation conducted by men of Wycliffe's so large a portion of the pith of the English stamp, or animated by Wycliffe's principles. nation. It is in one of the chiefs of these Whether this is better, or whether it is worse, bodies, we repeat, that Wycliffe has naturally is a question on which much may be said on found his best, and, indeed, his only compeboth sides. It may be averred, however, as a tent biographer.

curious historical fact, that whatever of the

In the closing scene of Fuseli's long and hon- so that mortification supervened, and his life was orable career, a touching testimony was given the forfeit paid.-Lights and Shadows of Artist of the painter's attachment to a brother artist. Life. Fuseli was on a visit to the Countess of Guildford at the time he was stricken by an illness of the fatal termination of which the sufferer felt a thor of the Music of Nature," and other works, MR. WILLIAM GARDINER, the venerable austrong and clear presentiment. On the fifth day he died in Leicester in Nov. He had made an enperceived that the inevitable change was at handgagement at the time of his death, to read a paper "looked anxiously round the room, said seve- before the local Literary and Philosophical Socieral times in a low and agitated voice, Is Law-ty. Mr. Gardiner, some years ago, was in the habit rence come? is Lawrence come?' and then ap- of periodically visiting Newcastle as a commerpeared to listen for the sound of the chariot cial traveller on his own account, and that the wheels which brought his friend once a day from last time we saw him he told us that he used to London to his bedside." And so watching and supply stockings to Mr. Bragg at 5s. 6d. per pair. waiting, death fell upon him like a deep sleep. He abounded in information and anecdote, and In Opie the spirit of the artist triumphed to was an excellent table companion. He died at the last. Preparatory to the Annual Exhibition, the advanced age of eighty-three years. Often, at Somerset House, he had executed, partially at in his youth, he carried his playfellow, Daniel least, a portrait of the Duke of Gloucester, the Lambert, on his back. He showed the "lions" completion of which he confided to his friend of Leicester to John Howard. When singing at Henry Thomson. The picture was placed at the a local glee club, Egalité, father of Louis Phifoot of the bed, from which it was decreed that lippe, dropped in to listen. He heard Warren Opie should never more arise, and as the fit of Hastings begin his defence in Westminster Hall. delirium, from which he had been suffering, Of a vivacious temperament he cried "Bravo!" passed off, "he lifted his head and said, There to Fox from the gallery of the Commons; and is not color enough in the back-ground. More only escaped Newgate or the Tower by the intercolor was added: Opie looked at it with great cession of the Prince of Wales. He was in Pa satisfaction, and said with a smile, Thomson, it ris during the Peace of Amiens; saw the guillowill do now; it will do now; if you could not tine; was introduced by Marshal Mortier to Soult do it, nobody could.' The delirium returned, and Menou; saw Bonaparte surrounded by his and took its hue from the picture he had just Mamelukes; received civilities from Fouché; looked at. He imagined himself employed in and was hurried out of France for too freely his favorite pursuit, and continued painting in hinting that Napoleon would aim at a throne idea until death interposed." Watteau may be said to have died at his easel. guished honors at the inauguration of Beetho He was intimate with Moore; received distin The last work to which he applied his hand was ven's statue; Was reviewed by Kit North is an illustration of that scene in "Le Malade Imag-Blackwood;" slept in his boyhood with a disinaire," which concludes by the interment of the sick man, in presence of the faculty ranged father, whose musical genius he inherited, and tinguished authoress; and now sleeps with his about his grave. When the picture was completed, the pencil fell from his hand, and his who died in green youth at 90.- Gateshead Obdeath ensued very shortly afterwards.

The same may be also said of Murillo, who, at the age of seventy-three, while mounting a scaffold to make a painting of St. Catherine for the Convent of Capuchins at Cadiz, fell to the ground, and aggravated a rupture from which he had been previously suffering, and which the sensitive delicacy of his nature prevented him from exposing to the examination of a surgeon,

server.

A QUESTION.

Suppose that, hot from carnest holding forth
On all the mighty worth
Of arbitration, you were mobb'd and robb'd in
Exeter Hall: say, would you hold your peace;
Or-waiting the police-

Use your own fist as arbitrator? Cobden!

The Living Age would want one feature of tressing key, which Shakspeare certainly did not likeness, if we had not a sketch of Table Rap- refer to when he commended the gentleness of ping. Our readers of ten years hence may be woman's voice. Habit, however, is a second nature; and if a lady is in the domestic custom of assured that nothing is exaggerated in this story. making herself heard from the garret to the kitThe coarseness of the cheatery, the entire ab-chen, it is not easy for her, on other occasions, to sence of every reason for credulity cannot be cari-lapse into a softer modulation. There was of catured. This determination, by reputable peo- benches for the relief of fatigued parties; as also course, the usual forcible transportation of ple too, to believe without any semblance of the delay in procuring ices, at three times the leproof, this biting at the bare hook (as fisher-gitimate charge. men say), is the most wonderful exhibition we "Hallo, Tiverton! Son of the Muses! have ever known. The only difference between that you?" said a gentleman, who for a quarter of an hour had been supplicating in vain for the real life and the picture here given is, that the meagre refreshment of a lemon-water ice, to a latter is undercolored. Mrs. Nightshade is too still younger individual, who was desperately ateasily undeceived. The real believers still hold tempting to attract the notice of a waiter. "What on to their faith, after Mrs. Fox's fraud had been has brought you here to-day?" There is hardly a face that I know in the gardens, and nothing confessed and explained by one of her confeder-likely to beget inspiration. Are you alone, or The story is from Blackwood's Maga- doing duty to some respectable dowager?"

ates!

zine:

RAPPING THE QUESTION.

A TALE OF MODERN MAGIC.

66

Is

Help me, if you can, like a good fellow, to a couple of ices," said the other," and I'll tell you all about it in half an hour. In fact I want to speak to you."

have been unavailingly pouring my sorrows. However, I shall try a spell. say, my man, are you aware that this shilling, which you seem to despise, is intended solely for yourself?"

"As to helping you to ice, I can only refer THERE seems to be a fatality attached to the you to that respectable individual in the dirty flower exhibitions at Chiswick Gardens. How-cravat opposite, to whom, like another Werter, I ever brilliant may be the promise of the morning however cloudless may be the sky at midday-it rarely happens that the dense assemblage of the worshippers of Flora can make their escape from the carriage-thronged portals without receiving the bounties of a thunder-plump. "Beg pardon, sir! Didn't hear you before! These fêtes are, in fact, regarded by the milli- Sorry to have kept you waiting, sir!" said the ners, manteau-makers, and haberdashers of the now aroused waiter. "Three ices, sir- lemonmetropolis, as special days set apart in the calen-water? three shillings-all right, sir!"— and dar for their encouragement and benefit; and indeed they appear to be honored in a marked "Now, Tiverton, be off with that acidulated manner by the peculiar patronage of St. Swithin, snow; and if you can get rid of your penance who, as all the world knows, followed, in his ear- within half an hour, meet me here, and I shall lier years, the occupation of a gardener at Win-drive you back to town. If not, I shall do the chester. sulky by myself. By Jove, though," he added, Some of these fêtes are rather brilliant, others as he followed his departing friend with his eye, are miraculously dull. In all human probability," that is certainly a very pretty girl! I could not one out of a thousand of the visitors has any hardly blame Master Harry if he gave me the slip taste for floriculture, or possesses sufficient botan-altogether."

he appropriated his tip.

ical knowledge to enable him to approximate in! Harry Tiverton, however, contrary to the anpronunciation to the hideous names inscribed on ticipation of his friend, was punctual; and the the zinc pegs of the flower-pots. Few, from their two, who were fast allies, were on their way toown personal acquirement, could venture confi-gether to town, before the verge of the thunderdently to distinguish between an azalea and a cloud appeared. rhododendron. But every one likes flowers in the abstract; and it certainly is a great pleasure on a fine summer day to escape for an hour or two from the closeness of London to turf and trees, even though the place of refuge is scarce beyond the boundary of a suburb.

"Nice girl, that," said Mr. Augustus Reginald Dunshunner, for the gentleman in question bore no less conspicuous a name. "Is it a case of intention, or flirtation, Harry?"

"I don't want to beat about the bush with you, Dunshunner. It is intention of the most serious So thought not the fashionable world on a certain kind. There are awful obstacles in the way; yet day in June last, for hardly any one of note or cele- if I do not succeed in my suit to Mary Night brity appeared in the gardens. There was, how-shade, I shall be miserable for ever." ever no lack of attendance, such as it was; and in The experienced Augustus slightly coughed. and round the tents there was such a violent display "It's of no use anticipating miseries," said he. of gaudy silks and satins as almost eclipsed the "It strikes me that you have a capital foundaflowers. Cockneydom was loose for the day. and tion. Independently of your legal prospects, shone with exceeding brightness. Very large (which we may as well put out of view alto women in very small bonnets strode confidently gether, since it is clear that, if you can't bully a along, under the convoy of whey-faced cavaliers, waiter, you need never expect to browbeat a witpitching their remarks and criticisms in that dis-ness), you have some seven hundred a-year, with

expectations; and undoubtedly, as times go, you
are valuable in the matrimonial market. For
a poet, you are remarkably well off; and, depend
upon it few mammas regard seven hundred with
indifference. I presume that elderly lady in
sky-blue figures in the capacity of mamma?"
"Mrs. Nightshade? - yes."

"Then, Harry Tiverton, though no lawyer, you are a very lucky fellow. If, under the auspices of such a mother, she can keep herself free from the prevailing idiocy of the age, you may rely upon her sense and discretion. But I don't exactly as yet see the obstacle. All stratagems are fair in love. Why do n't you humor the loathly lady- I crave pardon - your future

"Hum-I have no doubt she is an excellent person, but rather cadaverous for my taste. Is mother-in-law?" she the obstacle?

"Partly not altogether.

story."

of."

But it's a long "Never mind; I have nothing else to think

"My dear friend, the mahogany has pronounced against me; as also, I am sorry to say, have the sanctified shades of Tom Paine and Jean Jacques Rousseau. These two respectable sprites have recommended, in the most forcible language, the union of Mary Nightshade with a certain Dr. Reuben Squills."

"Well, the fact is, that Mrs. Nightshade is a very peculiar woman. She is, I believe, decidedly clever but has got among such a set of fana- Squills? Who, in the name of Hippocrates, tics or impostors, that her head is fairly turned. may he be ?" said Dunshunner. She began a long time ago with mesmerism; "Heaven forgive me if I wrong him,” replied from that she advanced to biology; then she Tiverton; but I hold him to be the most hypotook to table-turning and spiritual rappings, un-critical coxcomb extant. Nature intended him til she has worked herself into the belief that for an ass, but gave him so much cunning that her mattress is stuffed with ghosts, and that a he is able to conceal his true character. He gives whole legion of spirits is lodged in the drawers out that he possesses the secret of the alchemists, of the side-board." and has discovered the aurum potabile. He never "And you reckon that an extraordinary in-produced it, though; there was always one step stance of delusion, do you? Why, man, half wanting. But, as to puffing, Mercurius Trismethe people of London are possessed with the gistus was a perfect joke compared to him." same idea. You can't go into a drawing-room "And Mrs. Nightshade believes in his prenow, without finding the tables whisking round tences?" under the pressure of the conjoined hands! For Thoroughly and entirely. I heard him, not my own part, I rather like it than otherwise. It three days ago, volunteer to present her with a is an excellent apology for a little harmless flir-bottle of the genuine Devil's Elixir, as a cordial tation, seeing that each fresh magnetic impulse proper to be taken before the next seance. is accompanied with a gentle squeeze. I have sorry to say that, in matters of faith, Mrs. Nighthad some practice, and flatter myself that I am shade is not altogether orthodox." rather an expert spinner of the rose-wood." "Ave but can you make tables talk?" "I have no doubt I could, if I were to apply my mind to it - that is, in public; for I trust my own domestic mahogany knows better than to attempt any such impertinence. From what you say, presume Mrs. Nightshade possesses that inestimable gift?"

"Don't she? If you were to believe her own account, the moment she enters her boudoir the furniture begins to hop about, and chirp like a flock of chickens!"

66

I am

"I concluded as much from your account of her occupations," said Dunshunner. Your strongminded woman usually follows the Dudevant model. Rousseau is a natural spiritual correspondent for a lady with such impressions; but I must confess that even posthumous communications with such a beast as Thomas Paine are the reverse of creditable. Then Squills is your rival?"

"Clearly. The mother favors him; and if Mary marries without her consent, she loses her fortune."

"Which is "

Fifteen thousand pounds."

"Yes; the old miracles revive. Probably her upholsterer gets his material from the woods of Dodona. It is amazing how tenacious of life is "Tiverton - you know I have always had a the classical mythology! I presume that, when regard for you; but upon my honor, your conshe enters the kitchen, there is a practical refu-versation to-day has raised you greatly in my tation of the heretical doctrine, that the mighty estimation." Pan is dead?"

Why so?"

"Because most fellows, in your situation, would have behaved extremely ill to the girl. They would, if they had your means, and were imbued with the poetical temperament, have proposed an elopement at once; or otherwise, which would be equally bad, have quarrelled with the mother, and made a mull of it. Your fine practical sense-now do n't contradict me—has indicated the proper path of duty, which is to secure the lady, along with the requisite amount of stock in the three-per-cents, for the benefit not only of the present, but of the possible coming generation."

"Believe me, Dunshunner-"

ur affair

"I know what you are going to say. It is very "How should I? I never heard of amiable, touching, disinterested, and so forth. till half an hour ago. Do you suppose that diBut, please recollect that you have made me plomacy hatches eggs as rapidly as that machine your confidant, and that my honor is concerned in Regent Street? You really must have a little in seeing that you are put in possession, not only patience, my friend, until I make my dispoof the lady, but of her fortune. If you adopt sitions. Trust me, I shall lose no time. Good-by." the humble shepherd style, I've done with you; And Dunshunner drove off. but if you are ready to go forward for the whole prize, I don't mind if I lend you a helping hand."

"Done! and even should we fail, Dunshunner, it is worth while making the attempt."

"I presume so, else why this colloquy? I look upon the lady as yours already-I exert myself simply in respect to the funds. Now tell me, does the old lady traffic with any other magician except Squills?"

"O yes! There is a certain Mrs. Trapes, an American lady, who acts as the Witch of Endor. It strikes me very forcibly that she is in confederacy with Squills."

"I do n't know very well what to make of this, mused Tiverton, as he ascended the steps towards his club. What does he mean by a Cracovian Scholasticus? He is a clever fellow, certainly, but still I have misgivings. I wonder, in spite of myself, whether the tables turn or not? And, then, these spirit-rappings! To be sure, if Trapes is a mounteback, as Dunshunner says he was, there must be imposition somewhere-in fact, I know the whole thing is a lie, but I can't find it out. Yes, by Jove!" said he, entering the lobby, "it must be an infernal lie! I wish I saw that monster Squills flattened by some locomotive mangle!"

"Ah, Tiverton!" said one of a party of friends, who emerged from a side-room," you are just in time. We are going up-stairs to have a shy at table-turning!

Not at all unlikely. Trapes? I have a strong impression that I have heard that name before. There was at Saratoga, two years since, a conjuring kind of fellow who fabricated pancakes in hats, multiplied pigeons, and made his When the acute Dunshunner reached his wife come through a table into a wicker-basket. chambers for he preferred that independent He levanted one day without paying his bills. If method of existence to every other-he folmy memory serves me right, his name was Jona-lowed the invariable example of the early hethan J. Trapes."

"Why, my dear friend, these are the very people! That's the name of the husband."

"And a shambling, knock-kneed, ill-favored Yankee he was. Ay, indeed! so Mrs. Trapes has taken to spiritual manifestations? She must, at all events, by this time have a perfect mastery of the tables."

roes, by summoning his little foot-page. From what quarter he obtained that imp, was a profound mystery. Some of his friends averred that he had selected him from jail; others supposed that he was an emanation from a ragged school; and one or two genealogists maintained that he was the superfluous child of a detective officer. His baptismal appellation was unknown. Dunshunner called him Katterfelto, and to that name

"That table-turning is a very curious thing. Do you know, Dunshunner, they say she is regu-alone he answered. larly consulted by several members of the Cabinet?"

He was as acute as a needle, and, when off duty, as full of tricks as a monkey; nevertheless, "Like enough. Old Sir Charles Wood, and a he stood in thorough awe of his master, who had few more of them, stand in woeful need of such educated him for service on precisely the same a Cassandra. Well, Tiverton, I think I begin to principles which a gamekeeper applies to a see my way. It will be necessary to get up a pointer. He was broken in to understand the counter-movement, and, in the first instance, de-significance of the slightest word, hint, or sign; molish the Trapes. That can only be done by and never allowed to exercise an atom of his the apparition of a superior magician. I pre-own judgment against peremptory orders. But sume that, if the spirits withdraw their certifi- that restriction withdrawn, he was invaluable as cates in favor of Squills, he will descend in Mrs. a scout. Put him upon a scent, with a definite Nightshade's estimation?" object, and he almost never failed; his powers, combinative, deductive, and stratagetic, were such as we might expect to find in the character of a youthful Fouché.

"Below zero! But do you really think, Dunshunner, that there is nothing in table-turning?" "Bah! I am amazed to hear you. When can we have a seance?

"There is to be one at Mrs. Nightshade's on Friday evening."

"That's rather short notice; but I think we may manage it. You can take me there, I presume?"

Certainly."

"I shall appear as a Cracovian Scholasticus." "Are you serious, Dunshunner?"

66

"Katterfelto," said his master, when he had called the page to his presence, do you know anything about spirit-rappings?"

'I've heerd on it," said Katterfelto.
"As how?" said Dunshunner.
"Gammon!" replied the page.

"Very good. Have you ever heard of a man of the name of Trapes, in Oxford street?" "Yes. Wife's a middy-wum, as they calls it. "Perfectly. And now, as we are in town, I He keeps a boy, Joe Parkes, that finds out who shall drop you at your club, and proceed to the company is, and splits on their friends as has make my arrangements. Let me see you to-gone to grass. Then the old un brings up their

morrow, at breakfast."

"But I say, Dunshunner, you have not told me yet what you mean to do."

ghostises."

"So you're acquainted with Joe Parkes, then? What sort of lad is he?"