necessarily suspended during the vacation. Suffice it to say, that upon it was grounded in the ensuing Session a Bill, which after considerable opposition was carried through Parliament, for making a certain proficiency in the study of the Law an indispensable part of every man's education. The good effects of this were soon perceived in every class of the community: for not only did those, who were destined for the profession of the Law, become sooner and more surely sound Lawyers; but even they, who were destined to no profession, found themselves acquitting themselves of their duties as magistrates and country gentlemen to tenfold advantage. Nor were the higher classes alone affected by the improvements. The poor perhaps principally reaped lasting benefits from them. Law had been hitherto something beyond their reach. Though inexcusable for transgressing it, they had hitherto never had the means of grasping and mastering it. But now a Law went forth, that the rights and duties of citizenship should be exhibited in characters ineffaceable, and free of charge, in every market-place and village-green. And a paid officer was to be at hand to explain to the unlettered applicant the remedy for his wrongs, and the extent of his duties. There hung the little summary of a Code that ruled an empire. It was a glorious thing to see displayed to view, wide spread, and free as air, the clue to a nation's liberties! It was a choice frequented spot in every town and hamlet. And soon around it grew a National pride and reverence, which protected it, like our own dear Churches, more safely than bayoneted guards. And there on summer eve, after the toils of the day, the rustic population flocked, if need were, to resolve their doubts, and gain, as tenants, landlords, tradesmen, burgesses, parishioners, lessons of Civil wisdom. And if men asked how this could be, 'twas answered; 'If the unlettered artizan, the little shopman, and the humble farmer, were called on by their country's laws to rule a parish-that little miniature of a city—or sit on juries, and arbitrate on life and death, they were not too illiterate to learn the part they had to act, or know the rules which ordered it.' 'Twas answered, that' if great Seminaries of learning show to their scholars the printed catalogues of their duties, and if great chartered companies expect the traveller to note their bye-laws, fixing them by the highway side, why should not England on a larger scale remind her subjects of her Laws?' And though there was this facility for litigation, men did not grow litigious, and though tribunals were at hand to counsel the perplexed but honest wayfarer, and oft suggest reconciliation, nor crime, nor discord multiplied. But on the contrary. Good citizens obeyed the Laws the more, which so well defended them, and bad ones were alarmed by their terrors thus constantly displayed before them. Law was no more a hidden art, profitable to the very few, and ruinous to the very many, but an unconditional and Catholic blessing. Open in part to the comprehension of the meanest, yet affording for those who studied it, in its whole length and breadth, rich mines of knowledge, which the longest life of the most learned failed fully to fathom. CHAPTER XXIV. "The waters heave around me: and on high manist. ATHERINE never married. It was true that she refused Lord Athelstane. It was not true that she turned RoOn the day succeeding the marriage of Harold and Mabel, the inheritance of three dukedoms was laid at her feet, and declined. Two souls alone were all that were ever privy to that offer. The lover had besought privacy: the loved one scrupulously fulfilled the request. The world would have stood aghast at the folly of her decision, but to her the case was a simple one. She would not wear the coronet, if she did not love the owner. And he generously forgave her the pain which she, who never pained a fellow creature before, was now unwillingly inflicting. Her brother's friend too; she would fain have loved him; she would, if she might, have mastered self, and espoused a half-loved husband. But she had a higher standard of the excellence and duties of human love; her mind too was grappling at the time with thoughts of even greater moment. She had not turned Romanist. The world in this had spoken her false. But she had been for months in agonies of doubt: and her's was a mind on which doubts never fastened, without an absorbing influence. She had beheld pastors, whom she had known and reverenced from infancy, abjuring the religion of which they had been the brightest ornaments, and the staunchest defenders. Among her own friends and neighbours, she could number several: she was not insensible to the magnificent ceremonial of the elder Church; her devotions chilled under the repulsive plainness of her own. There seemed |