light a candle at your eye." And truly the fine old man's eye kindled and almost flashed as he narrated the anecdote, while his fingers tightly grasped the arm of his chair as in imagination he "clutched the seals."

Hé

In the midst of Wolsey's occupation with his tower a longcoated serving man, mounted on a superb horse, arrives from Suffolk with a letter from Lord De Freston, couched in the kindest terms, reminding him of a promise made in some merry moment that he would marry Ellen, and requesting him to come to Freston to join the hands of Ellen and Latimer in the bonds of wedlock! Here was a trial for a lover; but Wolsey's haughty heart instantly determined to go through it, in order to show his perfect self-controul and superiority over the feelings of ordinary mortals. He proceeds to Ipswich, informs his mother of his intention, who tries to dissuade him from such dreadful self-torture, but in vain. had schooled himself severely and acted his painful part admirably on his visit to Freston Tower prior to the ceremony. He was gentlemanly, easy in his manner, and most studiously courteous in conversation; but there was in all he said and did so little heart that Ellen could have burst into tears at the strange alteration of the man who once was her liveliest companion. So altered, indeed, were his words and manners, that although he had come so far to marry her-and a journey from Oxford to Ipswich was not in the days of Henry VIII. the easy and rapid affair it is now--she heartily regretted that she had disturbed his college pursuits. On the marriage morning he avoids the wedding breakfast on pretext of a vow, and passes the intervening time kneeling on the steps of the altar: whether in devout prayer for strength from on high to mortify every fleshly feeling in pursuance of his priestly vows, or in sullen heart-eating thoughts, none ever knew except that God to whom "all desires are known and from whom no secrets are hid."

The murmur of an approaching crowd, and the steps of the bridal attendants along the nave of the church, warned Wolsey that he must arouse himself for the coming trial. He rose from his knees, and after summoning all the pride of his heart to his aid he commenced the service, but with a countenance so ghastly pale that Lord De Freston thought him ill, and was upon the point of asking an attendant priest to take the duty, when the firm, strong, clear, and singularly sweet voice of Wolsey gave evidence that he was not so ill as to require any assistance, though his face was white as marble and his lips livid as death.

"Just as the parent delivered up his child for ever into the hands of her future husband, and Wolsey received that fair hand to unite it with that of his friend, he was observed to shed a tear which fell upon the hand he was then holding. The maiden lifted her eye to meet that of the priest's. There was agony depicted in it-intense agony— that struck deeply into the tender heart of Ellen, and so completely overpowered her as to make her lean upon the arm of Lord De Freston for support. She looked not again at Wolsey: she heard his voice now softer and more subdued; and, whilst she was united to Latimer in the bonds of matrimony, she became for the first moment conscious that Thomas Wolsey might have loved her. She felt a pang-not for herself, but in the thought that Wolsey might be suffering from disappointment. He did not give way: he performed the ceremony, pronounced the blessing, ended the service, and returned to the altar, and simply told the verger he had a vow to complete; so that the whole party returned without him to the festive scene at the house of the opulent merchant and Ellen's kinsman, Edmund Daundy."

Wolsey turned his back upon his native town on the very day of its most worthy rejoicing, and felt himself cut off from it for ever. He did not so much as take leave of his mother, nor acquaint any one with his intention to depart so abruptly. He wore a face of lamentation as if he were going into exile or on a penitential pilgrimage, and he would willingly have forgot his childhood, his mother, kindred, and every early tie: he felt himself henceforward doomed to tread the earth a lonely disconsolate man. But all he felt he felt for himself: all he had done had been to gratify himself: all he looked forward to was for himself.

His mother was nothing to him-his friends and townsmen nothing-Lord De Freston nothing-Latimer nothing; and, if for Ellen he once felt every thing, she now was nothing. He tried to spurn the past, and rushed forwards with the selfishness of ambition to fulfil his future.

On his arrival at Oxford, while passing over Magdalenbridge, he throws the silver-mounted shin-bone into the Cherwell. We will not cavil at the fact of Magdalen-bridge not having been thrown over Cherwell-ford in Wolsey's days; but we think the act too French, resembling a Parisian coup de theatre-reminding us of Paul de Kock's Frere Jacques dropping his cherished cross of the Legion of Honour into his suicide brother's grave.

Shortly after Wolsey's return to residence at Magdalen, he quitted Oxford to go and reside upon the living at Lymington to which the Marquis of Dorset had presented him for the pains Wolsey had bestowed on the education of his sons. When Wolsey left Oxford he seemed to break off from the

accustomed restraint of scholastic discipline to which he had decorously submitted while tutor and schoolmaster of Magdalen, and became the free and boon companion of the gentry of Hampshire and the life and soul of their festivities. Mr. Cobbold describes his meeting, at the table of the Marquis of Dorset, a dull and prosaic justice of the peace, Sir Amias Paulet, whom Wolsey, both on his first meeting with him and on all subsequent opportunities which his frequent visits to all the great houses of his vicinity too often presented, made the butt of his raillery. History has told us that, by a Sir Amias Paulet, Wolsey was committed to the stocks for being engaged in an ale-house brawl; and Mr. Cobbold's version of the disgraceful affair is graphically given, but we cannot afford room for its quotation. Wolsey's residence was intolerable after this affront to his dignity, and he accordingly soon resigned his living, and accepted the office of secretary to Sir John Nafant, who was then governor of Calais. From this time we lose sight of Wolsey in Mr. Cobbold's pages altogether, which are occupied with the dissolution of the monasteries, the increasing progress of the Reformation, and the persecution of its promoters. Among them Lord De Freston and his son-in-law Latimer occupy a prominent position-so prominent, indeed, that at length" orders were taken by the bailiffs and constables to seize the body of De Freston of Freston, and convey him without any further let or hindrance into my lord's Court at Westminster."

All Ipswich was in commotion at the intelligence: the Reformers of that neighbourhood rose in a formidable body, marched to Freston, and would have rescued De Freston from his captors had it not been for his own earnest remonstrance against any such violent proceeding. The noble old lord, accompanied voluntarily by his daughter and son-in-law, was conveyed to London and committed to prison by Bishop Tonstal.

Twenty years must be supposed to have elapsed since Wolsey had joined the hands of Ellen De Freston and William Latimer in holy matrimony, and marvellous had been the alteration of their relative positions. No intercourse had taken place between Cardinal Wolsey and the friends of his youth; but Ellen, with a true woman's sagacity, felt sure that they had not been forgotten. That tear dropped upon her hand at the altar, that look of agony, that abrupt departure, that prolonged and apparently sullen separation from all whom he seemed once to love most warmly, were intelligible to woman's heart, though man's duller intellect regarded them

as indications of an upstart's ingratitude and priestly pride. Ellen determined to write to the great cardinal himself, and Mr. Cobbold writes a capital letter for her; for, as he does not mention this particular epistle as "in the possession of a gentleman who may publish it," we presume he will not repudiate its authorship.

Ellen's letter was handed to the cardinal the last day he ever presided in Westminster Hall as Lord Chancellor (the first day of Michaelmas Term, 1529), and he instantly summoned his faithful servant Cavendish to go and bring to his house forthwith Lord De Freston and all his retinue and entertain them well. During the remainder of the day the cardinal-chancellor was abstracted in court, as well he might be, for his thoughts were far away on the rippling waves of the Orwell, and the bower of Freston, and love's young dream. We must refer to the volumes of Mr. Cobbold for an account of the meeting between Wolsey and his early friends, for the description is too long for quotation and too good for abridgment. Suffice it to say, that Wolsey passed a day of friendship with his early friends--no pomp, no crowd: “Let us have no divisions (said Wolsey)-let us be friends. To-morrow ye shall go free-free to return whence ye came, to the banks of the Orwell, to my native place; and, if I could step back thirty years and forget all the interval, I would kiss again the waters of my childhood and dive into the waves."

Mr. Cobbold, in closing his narrative of this happy day in York-place, observes:-"Could Cavendish have revealed this, the world would truly have sympathized with a man, who, though raised to an eminence higher than that which any subject ever yet stood upon, was hurled down therefrom at the moment when his whole soul was full of pity and philanthropy." Has Mr. Cobbold then raked up any documentary or traditional evidence of a meeting which Cavendish might have recorded to his master's honour if he had been so minded? Cavendish's fidelity to his falling master is an historical fact. His interesting and affectionate tribute to the great cardinal's honour was published some years ago by Talboys, an enterprising Oxford publisher, under the editor. ship of the late Ambrose Barber, B.A., of Wadham College, who was prematurely called from this life a few weeks after its publication-prematurely we mean for society, which his gifts and graces were calculated to improve and adorn:

"Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus

Tam cari capitis ?

Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit:
Nulli flebilior quam mihi."

Since we wrote the preceding remarks we have had an opportunity of looking into Grainger's "Biographical History of England," and under the article Wolsey we find the following passage referring to the shin-bone crest:-"The profile of Wolsey which is carved in wood, in the central board of the gateway which leads to the butchery of Ipswich, has such an appearance of antiquity that it is supposed to have been done when he was living: by the side of it is a butcher's knife."

How does Mr. Cobbold account for the appearance of this emblem of the butcher's trade? Was it carved satirically in the days of Wolsey's decline, or how? Mr. Cobbold has, doubtless, access to all the archives of the town of Ipswich, and has had ample opportunities of collecting all the traditions which may be still floating among the Ipswich population relative to their remarkable townsman. We cannot refrain, therefore, from repeating our wish that he had either in notes or in his preface just indicated what portions of Freston Tower were founded on traditional facts. If we seem stupid in thus cavilling at what may be, after all, the mere ordinary machinery of a work of fiction, to lend it an aspect of vraisemblance, we can only say that "Freston Tower" looks as true as Margaret Catchpole" and "Mary Ann Wellington," which thousands have read, we believe, to their edification; and their simple faith may be shaken if they learn that Mr. Cobbold issues works of fiction with as grave an air of truthspeaking as when he publishes a narrative of facts, proveable by the oaths of living witnesses or the well authenticated evidence of written documents.

ART. V.-Legends of the Monastic Orders, as represented in the Fine Arts; forming the Second Series of Sacred and Legendary Art. By Mrs. JAMESON. Longmans.

IN this second series of illustrations of legendary art Mrs. Jameson comes nearer our own times, and has to deal with what we may term "the heroic age" of superstition, following upon "the mythic ages" contained in the former series of illustrations. She has now to deal with characters which none of us feel any repugnance in scrutinizing, and which all are invited to bring into comparison with other men and women. They moved in spheres similar to those in which men now move; and we can, without offence to any devotional feeling,