having assigned to them certain waste lands in the bailiwicks of Maulbronn and Leonberg, with special privileges and immunities. Within four years afterwards, a large body again moved off from Piedmont to join their friends. These consisted chiefly of those descendants of the old Waldenses who most tenaciously adhered to their native country, and were only driven from it by feeling the insuperable character of the pressure brought against them. They were received in the district of Heilbronn, near that occupied by the previous colony, but more Italian in its character, being more clear of forest, and affording better growth to the vine and mulberry. This second colony named their new valleys after those they had left; and their Italian character, far more distinct than in the mixed colony which preceded them, is said to be noticeable at the present day.

The great difficulty in properly settling these immigrants appears to have arisen from a notion that their religion was exceptional from that of the great. Protestant communions; and much pains appear to have been taken to satisfy the authorities that they were virtually Calvinists. Among the special privileges conceded to them, however, there was one which sounds strange, as a condition demanded by Protestants: it was, that their pastors and deacons should be exempt from disclosing in courts of justice secrets committed to them under the seal of confession, unless when involving high treason.

But the reader asks: What has become of the priestly general of the Glorious Return? His subsequent history is a brief one. Arnaud had tempting offers of military command made to him by King William, and from several other quarters; but he preferred the service of that Master whose kingdom is not of this world, and went with his flock. He officiated for them as pastor in a small rude church in the town of Schömberg, in Würtemberg, where he died in 1721. There the fane in which he served, and a monument to his memory, are still piously preserved by the descendants of his people.

Those of the Waldenses who remained in Piedmont, although no longer persecuted, continued to be subjected to numerous disabilities; and the exercise of their worship was confined to the original valleys. At last, in 1848, they were put on a footing of equality with Roman Catholics in the kingdom of Sardinia; and since the union of Italy, they enjoy the same status throughout the peninsula, except in Rome. Since this emancipation, they have organised congregations in various cities of the kingdom, and have a theological seminary in Florence.

32

GREAT poet has said

'Honour and shame from no condition rise;

Act well your part-there all the honour lies.' How much truth there is in this saying, is strikingly shewn in the history of Grace Darling; for, being in what is called a humble station in life, she, acting well her part in it, and having on one occasion manifested some of the highest qualities which belong to human nature, became, for these reasons, an object of respect and admiration to persons of every rank and condition, and acquired a celebrity which may be said to have spread over the greater part of the civilised world. Nobles of the highest rank, and even royalty itself, felt the demands which the singular worth of this young woman made upon them, and vied with individuals of her own class in doing her the honour she deserved.

Grace Darling was one of a numerous family born to William No. 94.

I

Darling, light-house keeper. Her grandfather, Robert Darling, originally a cooper at Dunse, in Berwickshire, removed to Belford, in Northumberland, and finally settled as keeper of the coal-light on the Brownsman, the outermost of the Farne Islands, on the coast of the last-mentioned county. William Darling succeeded his father in that situation, but in 1826 was transferred to the light-house on the Longstone, another of the same group of islands. The qualities required in the keeper of a light-house are of no common kind: he must be a generally intelligent, as well as steady and judicious man. Moreover, in so solitary a situation as the Longstone light-house, where weeks may pass without any communication with the mainland, he would need to be of that character which has resources within itself, so as to be in a great measure independent of the rest of society for what may make life pass agreeably. In such a situation, the mind of an ordinary man is apt to suffer from the want of excitement and novelty; while a superior mind only takes advantage of it for improving itself. Of this superior character seems to be William Darling, the father of our heroine. He was described as uncommonly steady and intelligent, and of extremely quiet and modest manners. It speaks great things for him, that his children have all been educated in a comparatively respectable mannerhis daughter Grace, for example, writing in a hand equal to that of most ladies.

Of

Grace was born, November 24, 1815, at Bamborough, on the Northumberland coast, being the seventh child of her parents. the events of her early years, whether she was educated on the mainland, or lived constantly in the solitary abode of her parents, first at the Brownsman, and afterwards on the Longstone island, we are not particularly informed. During her girlish years, and till the time of her death, her residence in the Longstone light-house was constant, or only broken by occasional visits to the coast. She and her mother managed the little household at Longstone. She is described as having been at that time, as indeed during her whole life, remarkable for a retiring and somewhat reserved disposition. In person she was about the middle size—of fair complexion and a comely countenance-with nothing masculine in her appearance; but, on the contrary, gentle in aspect, and with an expression of the greatest mildness and benevolence. William Howitt, the poet, who visited her after the deed which made her so celebrated, found her a realisation of his idea of Jeanie Deans, the amiable and true-spirited heroine of Sir Walter Scott's novel, who did and suffered so much for her unfortunate sister. She had the sweetest smile, he said, that he had ever seen in a person of her station and appearance. 'You see,' says he, 'that she is a thoroughly good creature, and that under her modest exterior lies a spirit capable of the most exalted devotion-a devotion so entire, that daring is not so much a quality of her nature, as that the most perfect sympathy with suffering or

endangered humanity swallows up and annihilates everything like fear or self-consideration-puts out, in fact, every sentiment but itself.'

There is something, unquestionably, in the scene of Grace's early years, which was calculated to nurse an unobtrusively-enthusiastic spirit. The Farne Islands, twenty-five in number at low tide, though situated at no great distance from the Northumbrian coast, are desolate in an uncommon degree. Composed of rock, with a slight covering of herbage, and in some instances surrounded by precipices, they are the residence of little besides sea-fowl. On the principal one (Farne), in an early age, there was a small monastery, celebrated as the retreat of St Cuthbert, who died there in the year 686. 'Farne,' says Mr Raine, in his history of Durham, certainly afforded an excellent place for retirement and meditation. Here the prayer or the repose of the hermit could only be interrupted by the scream of the water-fowl, or the roaring of the winds and waves; not unfrequently, perhaps, would be heard the thrilling cry of distress from a ship breaking to pieces on the iron shore of the island; but this would still more effectually win the recluse from the world, by teaching him a practical lesson of the vanity of man and his operations, when compared with the mighty works of the Being who rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm.'

Through the channels between the smaller Farne Islands the sea rushes with great force; and many a shipwreck of which there is no record must have happened here in former times, when no beacon existed to guide the mariner in his path through the deep. Rather more than a century ago, a Dutch forty-gun frigate, with all the crew, was lost among the islands. In the year 1782, a large merchant-brig, on her return-voyage from America, was dashed to pieces amongst them, under peculiarly distressing circumstances. During the dreadful gale which continued from January 31 to February 8, 1823, three brigs and a sloop were wrecked in their vicinity, but all the crews were saved except one boy. Another brig was dashed to pieces on Sunderland Point, when all on board perished; and a large brig and a sloop were wrecked on the Harker. Mr Howitt, speaking of his visit to Longstone, says: 'It was like the rest of these desolate isles, all of dark whinstone, cracked in every direction, and worn with the action of winds, waves, and tempests since the world began. Over the greater part of it was not a blade of grass, nor a grain of earth; it was bare and iron-like stone, crusted round all the coast, as far as high-water mark, with limpet and still smaller shells. We ascended wrinkled hills of black stone, and descended into worn and dismal dells of the same; into some of which, where the tide got entrance, it came pouring and roaring in raging whiteness, and churning the loose fragments of whinstone into round pebbles, and piling them up in deep crevices with seaweeds, like great round ropes and heaps of fucus. Over our heads

screamed hundreds of hovering birds, the gull mingling its hideous laughter most wildly.'

Living on that lonely spot in the midst of the ocean-with the horrors of the tempest familiarised to her mind, her constant lullaby the sound of the everlasting deep, her only prospect that of the widespreading sea, with the distant sail on the horizon-Grace Darling was shut out, as it were, from the active scenes of life, and debarred from those innocent enjoyments of society and companionship which, as a female, must have been dear to her, unaccustomed though she was to their indulgence.

She had reached her twenty-second year when the incident occurred by which her name has been rendered so famous.

The Forfarshire steamer, a vessel of about three hundred tons burden, under the command of Mr John Humble, formerly master of the Neptune, sailed from Hull, on her voyage to Dundee, on the evening of Wednesday the 5th of September 1838, about half-past six o'clock, with a valuable cargo of bale goods and sheet-iron; and having on board about twenty-two cabin and nineteen steerage passengers, as nearly as could be ascertained-Captain Humble and his wife, ten seamen, four firemen, two engineers, two coal-trimmers, and two stewards; in all, sixty-three persons.

The Forfarshire was only two years old; but there can be no doubt that her boilers were in a culpable state of disrepair. Previous to leaving Hull, the boilers had been examined, and a small leak closed up; but when off Flamborough Head, the leakage reappeared, and continued for about six hours; not, however, to much extent, as the pumps were able to keep the vessel dry. In the subsequent examinations, the engineman, Allan Stewart, stated his opinion, that he had frequently seen the boiler as bad as it was on this occasion. The fireman, Daniel Donovan, however, represented the leakage as considerable, so much so, that two of the fires were extinguished; but they were relighted after the boilers had been partially repaired. The progress of the vessel was of course retarded, and three steam-vessels passed her before she had proceeded far. The unusual bustle on board the Forfarshire, in consequence of the state of the boilers, attracted the notice of several of the passengers; and Mrs Dawson, a steerage passenger, who was one of the survivors, stated, that even before the vessel left Hull, so strong was her impression, from indications on board, that 'all was not right,' that if her husband had come down to the packet in time, she would have returned with him on shore.

In this inefficient state the vessel proceeded on her voyage, and passed through the 'Fairway,' between the Farne Islands and the land, about six o'clock on Thursday evening. She entered Berwick Bay about eight o'clock the same evening, the sea running high, and the wind blowing strong from the north. From the motion of the vessel, the leak increased to such a degree, that the firemen could