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however, was received with the utmost composure, and no one seemed in the least surprised at it; only a man dressed in black wrote down something on a piece of paper he had brought with him, and several people present signed it. Not till the end of the ceremony did I obtain any explanation of the enigma. Had I understood it sooner I should not have failed to raise my voice, with all the authority my holy calling could give it, against so hateful a practice, the sole object of which was to establish, in case of a divorce at any future time, a pretence that the marriage had only taken place in consequence of compulsion exercised upon one of the contracting parties.

After the religious ceremonial, I thought it my duty to speak a few words to the young couple, doing my best to let them see the full gravity and sacred nature of the pledges that bound them together; and as Mlle. Jwinska's ill-judged postscript to the Count's letter still weighed on my mind, I took occasion to remind her that she was entering upon a new path, and one that would be no longer begirt with pleasure and youthful joys, but full of serious responsibilities and grave trials. It seemed to me that this part of my discourse produced a powerful effect upon the bride, as well as on all those who understood German.

Salvos of firearms and shouts of joy greeted the procession as it emerged from the chapel; and then we passed into the dining-hall. The entertainment was magnificent, and every one was hungry, so that at first nothing was heard but the noise of knives and forks. Soon, however, thanks to champagne and Hungarian wines, people began to talk and laugh, and even to shout. The health of the bride was drunk with enthusiasm, and scarcely had the guests resumed their seats when an

old pane with white moustachios stood up, and exclaimed in a loud voice, “I see with sorrow that our old customs are dying out. Our forefathers would never have drunk that toast in crystal goblets. We used to drink it in the bride's slipper, or rather, in her boot, for in my day ladies wore red morocco boots. Let us show that we are still true Lithuanians, my friends. And you, madame, will you deign to yield me your slipper ?"

The bride coloured, and answered with a stifled laugh, "Come and take it, sir; I shall not return the compliment with your boot."

The pane needed no second bidding; he went down on his knees gallantly, and drew off the little white satin shoe with a red heel; then filling it with champagne, drank so quickly and adroitly that not more than half the wine ran over his clothes. The shoe passed from hand to hand, and all the men drank out of it, but not without difficulty. The old gentleman claimed the shoe as a precious relic, and Mme. Dowghiello ordered a maid to make good its loss to her niece.

This toast was followed by many others, and soon the guests became so noisy that it seemed no longer becoming for me to remain with them. I escaped from table without any one noticing my departure, and went out of doors to breathe some fresh air; but there again I found anything but an edifying spectacle. The servants and peasants had had as much beer and brandy as they could drink, and most of them were already drunk in consequence. There had also been quarrels and broken heads, as a matter of course, and here and there all over the grass the drunkards lay sprawling, and in its general appearance the place somewhat resembled a battle-field. I might have been curious to get a close view of some

of the popular dances, but as most of them were performed by brazenfaced gipsies, I thought it would not do for me to mix myself with such a throng. I accordingly retired to my own room and read for some time; then undressing, I went to bed, and soon, was sound asleep.

When I awoke the castle clock struck three. The night was fine and light, although the moon was a little clouded by a thin haze. I tried to fall asleep again, but could not succeed. According to my usual practice on such occasions, I set about getting a book to read, but could not find a match. I got up, and was feeling my way cautiously about the room, when some large dense object passed before my window, and fell with a heavy noise into the garden. My first idea was that some drunken person had fallen out of a window. I accordingly opened mine and looked out, but could see nothing. At last I succeeded in lighting a candle, and having got back into bed I studied my glossary till tea was brought to me in the morning.

At about eleven o'clock I went to the drawing-room, where I saw a good many heavy eyes and washedout countenances, and learned that the entertainment had been kept up till very late the night before. Neither the Count nor the young Countess had yet appeared, and at half-past eleven people began to complain, first in whispers, but scon pretty loudly, so that Doctor Froeber took upon himself to send the Count's valet to knock at his master's door. After about a quarter of an hour the man came downstairs, somewhat agitated, and told Doctor Froeber that he had knocked more than a dozen times without getting any answer. Then Mme. Dowghiello, the Doctor, and I held consultation. The valet's anxiety had communicated itself to me. We all three went upstairs to

gether, and found the young Countess's maid quite bewildered, and declaring that some misfortune must have happened, for her mistress's window was wide open. Then I remembered, with terror, the heavy body that I had seen falling before my window. We knocked loudly, but got no answer. At last the valet brought an iron bar and broke open the door for us. No, I have no strength to describe the horrid spectacle that met our eyes. The young Countess was stretched dead on her bed, covered with blood, her face dreadfully torn, and her throat cut open. The Count was nowhere to be seen, and since that day he has never been heard of.

Doctor Froeber examined the poor young woman's terrible wound. "It is not a steel instrument," he exclaimed," which inflicted that wound. It is a bite."

The Professor shut up his book, and looked thoughtfully into the fire.

"Is the story finished?" asked Adelaide.

"Yes!" replied the Professor, in a mournful voice.

"But why did you call it Lokis? " she continued, "not one of the characters has that name."

"It is not a man's name," said the Professor. "Let us see if you know what lokis means, Theodore.” "I have not the faintest idea."

"If you had studied the change of Sanscrit into Lithuanian, you would have recognized in lokis the Sanscrit arkcha or rikscha. In Lithuanian lokis is the animal which the Greeks called prog, the Romans ursus, and the Germans lär. Now you can see the meaning of my

motto:

Miszka zu Lokiu Abu du tokiu.

"You know that in the story of

Reynard, the bear is called damp Brun. Among the Slaves he is called Michel, Miszka in Lithuanian; and this surname almost always takes the place of his generic name, lokis. Thus, the French have forgotten their neo

Latin term of goupil or gorpil in substituting that of renard. I could give you many other similar examples."

But Adelaide remarked that it was late, so we said good night and separated.

ENGLISH GENTLEWOMEN OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

FEW narratives have ever been written that have excited so much admiration and provoked so much criticism as that chapter of Macaulay's history which details the social state of England from the year 1600 to the accession of James II. I have neither the desire nor the ability to plunge into this controversy. I merely wish, in this paper, to give some idea of the life of an English gentlewoman during the first half of the seventeenth centuryof which, it appears to me, Lord Macaulay has given a false impression. The gentlewoman who was "in tastes and acquirements below a housekeeper or a still-room maid of the present day, who stitched and spun, brewed gooseberry wine, cured marigolds, and made the crust for the venison pasty" *-this description, so terse and epigrammatic, pleases and satisfies the indolent

fancy of that numerous class of readers who care not to study and form their own opinions, but are content to take them at second hand. To any one who desires to sift the truth, and does not put his faith implicitly in any historian, but compares statements carefully, and then draws practical conclusions, the question will naturally arise, was the gentlewoman of the seventeenth century so vulgar and illiterate as represented by the brilliant but hasty critic? Undoubtedly, the chief recommendations of a lady at that period were "religion, housewifery, and estate," and she certainly excelled in practical usefulness; yet I trust I shall also be able to show that she lacked neither the graces nor the tenderness of her sex-though Laud ungallantly called them "an unquiet and troublesome generation." To form a wrong

"History of England," Vol. I., p. 153.
+ Strafford's "Letters and Despatches," Vol. I., p. 133.

estimate of the gentlewomen of this period is the more inexcusable as we have such ample materials for forming a correct one. The manorhouses of England abound in such records, which, after remaining for generations unknown and unread, have been dragged into the glare of daylight by the laudable curiosity of the antiquarians of the nineteenth century.

In the letters of Sir George Radcliffe (Strafford's friend) there are the portraits of two ladies— Radcliffe's mother and his wifegentlewomen living in the quiet Yorkshire manor-house, a useful, charitable, somewhat sombre existence. The elder sewed, spun, gardened, and ministered to the wants of her poorer neighbours. She also read much, not cookery books, but such solid reading as Biblical commentaries, sermons, Camden's Britannica, and Daniel's poems-an admirable assortment of divinity, history, and poetry. Her sisters and her daughters shared in these literary tastes, and with books, needlework, gardening, and their village charities these ladies possessed in the fullest degree all the occupations and enjoyments women should crave for.*

Dur

The younger Mrs. Radcliffe (Strafford's cousin) is a depressing study, yet she certainly does not strike the reader as either vulgar or illiterate. She was housewifely exceedingly, and much more. ing her husband's long and frequent sojourns in London (for he was a barrister) she managed his estate for him, cleverly and well. Of a nervous temperament in those stormy days, she was much cumbered with earthly cares and anxieties, not for herself, but for her

husband and only child. Sorer trials awaited her elder years. As Royalists, her husband and son were obliged to live in exile and penury on the Continent. The estate in Yorkshire was confiscated by the Puritan government, and out of it a wretched pittance was doled to Mrs. Radcliffe. Even this she was not suffered to enjoy in quietness, for she was constantly harassed as a "malignant," and on one occasion underwent a lengthened imprisonment. Thus lived in much misery, but greater patience, Mistress Anne Radcliffe, until death terminated her sufferings in the fiftyninth year of her age, and she was then, as if in mockery of her fate, buried in Westminster Abbey.t

A woman of kindred virtues was Grace Grenvile, wife of the chivalrous Sir Bevil Grenvile, addressed by her husband as his "best friend." Grace was a very lovely character. It must have been a noble woman and a perfect wife of whom her husband could write:-" She hath ever drawn so evenly in her yoke with me, as she hath never prest before or hung behind me, nor ever opposed or resisted my will, and yet truly I have not in this or anything else endeavoured to walk of reason, and though her love will in the way of power with her but submit to either, yet truly my respect will not suffer me to urge her with power, unless I can convince with reason." In her busband's various manor-houses she spent her married life, surrounded by her children and her servants, performing earnestly and unostentatiously all the duties and all the gentle charities of home. Оссаsionally the veil that hides Grace Grenvile from us is lifted, and we

* "The Life and Correspondence of Sir George Radcliffe," edited by Whitaker. London, 1810.

+ Ibid.

"Life of Hampden," by Lord Nugent.

catch as in a mirror her fair lineaments. But these hurried glimpses of her in her husband's letters, and in those of his friend, Sir John Eliot, do not satisfy our curiosity, and only awaken a fruitless desire to hear and see more.

The first two wives of Strafford, Margaret Clifford and Arabella Holles, do not come within the scope of this article, for they were the daughters of earls; and the children of peers in that age commonly received a higher, wider education than the children of knights and squires, and Arabella Holles was educated under the personal superintendence of her father, the Earl of Clare, described by contemporaries as "the most exactly accomplished gentleman in Christendom."+ Strafford's third wife, Elizabeth Rhodes, was only the daughter of a Yorkshire squire, and her marriage to a Wentworth was a nine days' wonder to society in that age. None of her letters have been preserved, but a sentence written by her on the back of one of her husband's letters shows sufficiently that she possessed, at least, one accomplishment-delicate and beautiful penmanship which, judging from the numerous almost illegible scrawls that have come down to us as the handwriting of great statesmen, § was not common in her day. She studied heraldry and wrote poetry, but of this latter talent it ought, perhaps, to be added that Strafford did not think highly: "Your wits lie a graver way than sorts with mating of verses." For Elizabeth Rhodes Strafford abandoned a more brilliant and useful alliance with the Lady Lettice, a

daughter of the Earl of Cork, and he never had reason to regret his choice. Lady Wentworth was a most loving, devoted wife, to whom her husband was everything, and his title and wealth not a feather's weight in the balance. A rarer virtue was her tender love and care of her husband's motherless children -an affection that sprang from a higher and purer source than that of instinct. Her love, half awe, half adoration, and her naïve simplicity, charmed and amused her husband. Her tender pity to the Irish tempered somewhat her husband's severity, as a silvery summer cloud softens the too penetrating light of the sun. Her fears for Strafford's health, his safety-lest he should cross the Channel in the autumn gales-lest the Irish should worry him-these things absorbed her thoughts. She secretly wondered why all the world should not fall down and worship her hero, and regarded the world half with pity and half with scorn because it could not.**

Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, resembled Strafford in one respect, and in one only: he married beneath him-much against the wishes of his friends. His wife was only a simple gentlewoman-her name was Lettice Morison. Though beneath her accomplished husband in rank, she was in all other respects his equal. Clarendon says she was "a lady of most extraordinary wit and judgment, and of the most signal virtue and exemplary life.†† She was an adoring mother, and her boundless generosity to her children's attendants somewhat crippled her husband's estate, which

"Life of Sir John Eliot," by J. Forster, Vol. II. Biographia Britannica," Vol. IV., p. 2643.

"Statesmen of the Commonwealth," by J. Forster, Vol. II., p. 278, note. "Diary of Sir Symonds D'Ewes." "Life of Sir John Eliot," by J. Forster. "Life of Strafford," by Elizabeth Cooper, Vol. II.

"Strafford Letters," Vol. I., p. 74.

"Life of Strafford," by Elizabeth Cooper.

++"Life of Clarendon," Vol. I., p. 40.

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