unhappy king live in their mournful beauty on the canvass of Vandyke. Once indeed, when the painter was ill, Charles promised his own physician three hundred guineas if he could cure him. Vandyke married a Scottish lady, the daughter of the earl of Ruthven. He travelled with his bride through France and Holland, visiting his native Antwerp for the last time. They had one child, a daughter, who died soon after their return to England, at two or three years old. Vandyke's health had been for some time failing, and this affliction was too much for him to bear. He expired at the age of forty-two, and was laid next his little daughter in the church of St. Paul. After his death, his wife married again, but did not long survive him. Vandyke may be regarded as the last great painter of the Flemish school. He bears the same relation to Rubens that Virgil does to Homer; he astonishes less and pleases more; he is less grand and more polished. Had he lived longer, he would probably have achieved still greater things; and, as it is, Sir Joshua Reynolds has pronounced Vandyke to be the first and greatest portrait painter in the world. HOW MY UNCLE WAS TAUGHT CIVILITY. My uncle is a respectable fishmonger in London. We all think he has made his fortune, and must be near seventy. Old Stilton our neighbour, who was not very wise in his youth, they say, often wonders how he can attend to business at such an age; but, having led a temperate life, my uncle is still a robust, active man, and likes to keep the old shop. It is not, however, for the love of gain that he does so. My uncle's trust has been long set in the wealth that cannot waste or "flee away;" but forty years of honest and successful trade has made both place and habit familiar; besides, it enables him to bestow more on needy friends, missionary funds, and charitable institutions. I have heard my uncle say as much, by way of explanation, to old Stilton; but he wonders on, and doubtless will to the end of the chapter. It is in my remembrance that our whole family had once a wondering point of their own concerning my uncle. He had helped my mother when suddenly left a widow, apprenticed my three brothers at creditable houses, and took me into the shop; but none of us could ever make out why a man so old and rich should serve the most shabby-looking stranger, who bought a sole or a mackerel, with the same respectful civility he showed his best customers. This problem puzzled me in particular, because it caught my attention most frequently in the shop; and once, when I had in a manner gained my uncle's confidence, and was helping him to take stock-which he did regularly once a year, in a quiet, old-fashioned way-we had some talk on the subject, which he finished with the following story. When I was a boy-that is, more than fifty years ago-nobody had a greater notion of good manners; my ambition was to be quite genteel and polite; but, unhappily, these good intentions never extended beyond my superiors, and they were known to me only by fine clothes or a grand equipage. It is to be feared that, in this great and wealthy London, there is still a strong inclination to such estimates; and though a worthy man in weightier matters, it was among the weak points of Mr. Sampson Huggins, with whom I served my apprenticeship in Covent-garden. Mr. Sampson Huggins was the very model of a fishmonger. He knew to an hour how long a cod had been in pickle, or a salmon out of the water; as for crabs and eels, no man understood them better; and in icepacking I never saw his equal. Moreover, Mr. Sampson was proud of his business. He pretended, indeed, to have had an ancestor who had kept shop in Billingsgate when it was in its early days, and who, for aught that could be proved to the contrary, might have supplied Whittington, lord mayor of London, with pieces of whale for Lent dinners, and sent eels every Saturday to his celebrated cat; at all events, the fishmongers' company -so he would assure his friends-had never since wanted one of his family, and he himself was the third of his name in Covent-garden. Touching the certainty of these particulars I know nothing; but none of Mr. Sampson's predecessors, even he who furnished the whale, might have been ashamed of him. To me he was a just and kindly master, though somewhat exacting and consequential. His premises were kept like a man of war. There was a place for everything, and everything in its place. Better oysters, turbot, or turtle could be found nowhere in London; at least the west-end gentry and rich city people thought so. I have seen aldermen's ladies and French cooks at the shop by half dozens, in a morning of the dinner-giving season, looking out for choice fish; and, next to his superior goods, my master's glory was set on the distinguished customers who bought them. My belief is, that the same amount of profit coming from inferior rank or riches would not have had half such value in his eyes. The feeling is not so uncommon as you may think it. Mr. Sampson's gentility rose in proportion to that of the families he supplied, and the grandeur of every house to which he sent a turtle seemed somehow or other reflected on himself. My master's great customers were, therefore, much talked of. There was seldom a great dinner given at any of their houses, throughout the season, that he could not describe, from soup to wines; but the chief subject of his discourse and reverence was sir Joseph Banks. However scholars may hold sir Joseph now, he had a great name for learning in those days, when it was scarcer among the gentry than at present. I have heard, too, that he was a worthy gentleman, and the private friend of our good king, George the Third. But it was none of these distinctions that called forth Mr. Sampson's respect. It was founded on far different considerations. Sir Joseph kept a large retinue and a fine carriage. He bought expensive fish, was particular in selecting them at my master's shop, and gave splendid dinners to the Royal Society. Being then young and foolish, I took strongly to Mr. Sampson's way of thinking; in spite, too, of the admonitions of my good mother, who, while she encouraged a proper respect for my superiors in station, as a rational and christian duty, could The premises which Mr. Sampson Huggins occupied in Covent-garden consisted of a shop and a back parlour, with cellars below for storeage. His family lived in a country house near Hackney, though few fishmongers put up so high in my apprentice days. Omnibuses were not invented then, cabs hadn't been heard of in London, and the hackney-coaches being rather expensive, Mr. Sampson saved money by sleeping in an old fashioned cupboard he had kept in the said back parlour for that purpose, and going home only late on Saturday evenings, during what is called the He was sure to be back early on Monday morning; for no man was more attentive to business, on which account but few helpers were kept about the shop-a salesman, the senior apprentice, William Jones, myself, and two porters, being his entire retinue. season. One Wednesday, in the beginning of May, the salesman was sick, Jones had got a holiday to see his grandmother in Paddington, the porters were out on their duty, and I was alone in the shop. Mr. Huggins had attended a city dinner the evening before, but he rose in time to superintend the unpacking of a magnificent turbot sent express from Brighton for the glory of his establishment. Turbot were particularly dear and fashionable that season. This was one of the finest specimens ever caught; so Mr. Sampson triumphed over surrounding fishmongers, wished sir Joseph could only see it, and retired to shave-an operation which he always performed in the back parlour. As for me, my apprentice pride was high. I had set forth the splendid fish where it could be seen to the best advantage, and early as it was (not yet nine in the morning) a sort of crowd had collected to gaze at it. I felt myself magnified in that turbot, and was wondering which of my master's grand customers would buy the fish, when a little old man, looking decidedly shabby, in an old beaver hat and gray overcoat, paused at the door, took a long, keen look, and walked in. What could such a | person want in our shop? I had half made up my mind to say we didn't keep such things, if he asked for smoked herrings or a lobster; and fairly laughed out when, pointing to the splendid fish, he inquired, "What's the price of that turbot ?" "Too dear for you, old fellow!" said I, without moving from my stand. "We have cod and haddock here." "I asked you the price of the turbot, child," said the old man, quietly. 66 Only five guineas! Will you take it home under your arm ?" said I, wishing my master to hear what smart things I could say, as he had often commended my wit; and not only was every word audible through the thin partition, but, by means of a glass pane and a small mirror, Mr. Huggins could see all that went on. Boy, does your master keep you to offer impertinence to customers ?" said the old man, getting warm. "Go and tell Mr. Huggins I wish to see him." "He is too busy to attend the like of you," I would have said; but at that moment, with a face half shaved and soapy, ont rushed my master, exclaiming, "You young jackanapes, I'll teach you to talk so to sir Joseph;" and seizing me by the collar, he cuffed me soundly and shoved me into the street. The boys began to shout and the crowd to thicken. I had no chance but to run home and tell my mother. On my way I saw a handsome carriage with two footmen drive up to the shop, and when my mother went to intercede for me, she learned that sir Joseph had bought the turbot for a great dinner, at which the king and queen were to be present. In all his tales of grandeur and fish-buying, my master had forgotten to mention that his patron sometimes went about streets and shops in very plain attire; and my gentility never imagined that the great sir Joseph Banks could be seen in an old coat and a shabby beaver. My mother's intercession was successful-perhaps through the sale of the turbot. Mr. Huggins consented to take me back without further punishment, though at first he talked of cancelling the indentures and making an example of me. However, my former place in his favour was never regained. From that day William Jones became the genteel boy, and the hearer of his grandest stories. The neighbouring apprentices also knew that I "had been cuffed for giving sauce to sir Joseph Banks," and when the baronet or any of his servants came to the shop I felt ready to hide in a herring-barrel. In short, the day of the great turbot, which began in such pride, left, like many a man's proud days, a long train of petty vexations behind it; but it helped to teach me that civility should not be governed by appearances, and the wisdom of that text which says, "Honour all men.' Here my uncle's story closed; and, readers, it is a fact to which some old residents in the city of London could even yet testify. All the names are of course altered, excepting that of the celebrated naturalist; and I have written it, in hopes that some of the young or old may likewise learn by the same lesson which taught my uncle civility. ALNWICK CASTLE AND THE BORDER "The battled towers, the donjon keep, The loop-hole grates where captives weep, Seem'd forms of giant height: Ir was in the good old times of stage-coaching that apartments, the portraits of earls and countesses, dukes and duchesses, gorgeous and costly furniture, may be seen anywhere. Even the bed that was to have been used by George IV. on his return from his memorable journey to Scotland, and "the bowl that was provided for washing his majesty's head," (to which the housekeeper did not fail to direct our attention), produced no excitement in our cold heart! But the scene which presented itself from some of the windows riveted soul and body. The Alne, flowing more peacefully than it was allowed to do in days whose memory we could not dissociate from the scene, and a noble expanse of wooded hill and dale lying under a bright sunshine, exhibited points of beauty which it would be difficult to transcend. Leaving the precincts of the castle, we cross the Alne by the north road, and in a few minutes reach Malcolm's Cross, on which we find these inscriptions, on the east and west sides respectively : MALCOLM III, KING OF SCOTLAND, ALNWICK CASTLE, WAS SLAIN HERE AND K. MALCOLM'S CROSS, WAS HESTORED BY NORTHUMBERLAND, MDCCLXXIV. "The king of Scotland besieging Alnwick Castle." Alnwick is within thirty miles of the Scottish border. The whole country around, its people, its language, and its manners, are more Scottish than English. And yet the England of the eleventh century extended not merely to the Tweed, but to the Forth, and included the rich lands of Lothian, with their stronghold, Edinburgh Castle. Malcolm Great-Head (for such is the meaning of Canmore) resided originally at the town of Dunfermline, on the north side of the Forth, and there welcomed the Saxon exiles, who fled before the cruel power of William the Conqueror, among whom was the Saxon heir to the English throne, Edgar Etheling, and his two sisters, the princesses Margaret and Christian. The Scots king married the princess Margaret, who exercised great influence over her husband, and did much to soften his fierce and We have lately renewed and enlarged our ac- passionate nature. Totally illiterate, the king was quaintance with Alnwick Castle. Its gates opened unable to peruse his wife's missals and prayerto us on a recent visit without clang of arms or books; but it is said that he had them gorgeously bloody struggle. The huge old man, with that large bound, and expressed his veneration for what he stone which he has held in his hands for centuries, could not understand, by frequently kissing them. looked down upon us very innocently, and allowed His power gradually increasing, Malcolm ventured us to enter with an unbroken head. No portcullis across the Frith of Forth, and took possession of descended to exclude or crush us. The machicola- Edinburgh, the strength of whose castle, situated tions poured down no melted lead. A modern on a lofty rock, led him to choose that town for his porter opened the gate in peace, and our eye rested frequent residence, so that in course of time it besuddenly on a scene of beauty and grandeur. The came the metropolis of Scotland. His complete great body of the inner castle stood at sufficient conquest of Lothian encouraged him to invade the distance to be well seen, in the centre of the in- great English province of Northumberland, to closed area, presenting a pleasing contrast to the which he no doubt thought he had a better right grass around it, which shone in all the freshness of in virtue of his connexion with the old English spring. Through massy towers we passed the royalty than any possessed by the Normans. His second and third courts into the inner court, the successes in Cumberland and Northumberland were very centre of this great citadel. Our journey considerable. But William Rufus, after establishthrough the interior, we confess, did not interesting himself on the throne of his father, the Conus much. Beautiful staircases, large suites of queror, prepared to dispossess him. Malcolm, in order to prevent hostilities, to which his age probably disinclined him, repaired to the court of the English king. On his arrival, Rufus treated him with great insolence and disdain, refused him access to his presence, and insisted that he should submit the matter in dispute to the judgment of the peers of England. The Scottish king was too proud to accede to this proposal, and retired in high displeasure to his own kingdom. The reader of English history will recollect the events that followed. Malcolm and his son Edward soon afterwards entered Northumberland with a great army, and, ravaging the country with fire and sword, laid siege to the castle of Alnwick. The castle, although too strong to be taken by assault, was on the point of surrendering, being cut off from all hopes of succour, when one of the garrison undertook its rescue by the following stratagem. He rode forth completely armed, with the keys of the castle tied to the end of his spear, and presented himself in a suppliant manner before the king's pavilion, as having come to surrender up the possession. Malcolm too hastily came forth to receive him, and was suddenly pierced in the eye with a mortal wound. The assailant escaped by the fleetness of his horse. The Scottish army fell into confusion, while their enemies made a fierce attack upon them and put them wholly to the rout. Prince Edward advanced to revenge his father's death, but received a wound of which he died three days after. Queen Margaret of Scotland, we are told, was extremely ill at the time her husband marched against England. When she was lying on her deathbed, she saw her second son, who had escaped from the fatal battle, approach her bed. How fares it," said the expiring queen, "with your father and your brother Edward ?" The young man stood silent. I conjure you," she added, "by the Holy Rood, and by the duty you owe me, to tell me the truth." "Your husband and your son are both slain." "The will of God be done," the queen answered, and expired. We return to Alnwick, from Malcolm's Cross, and direct our steps to the west of the town. A ten minutes' walk brings us to a small monument, almost hidden from view by overhanging trees. It bears this inscription: WILLIAM THE LION, KING OF SCOTLAND, BESIEGING ALNWICK CASTLE, WAS HERE TAKEN PRISONER, MCLXXIV. The story of this inscription also may be briefly told. William the Lion was the great-grandson of Malcolm Canmore. During an invasion of England which he attempted, he lay in careless security in the neighbourhood of Alnwick, while his numerous but barbarous and undisciplined army were inflicting their cruel pleasure on the country around, burning and destroying wherever they came. Some gallant Yorkshire barons assembled four hundred men-at-arms, and made a forced march of twentyfour miles from Newcastle to Alnwick, without being discovered. On the morning a thick mist fell, they became uncertain of their road, and some proposed to turn back. "If you should all turn back," said one of their leaders, "I would go forward alone." Thus stimulated, and concealed by the mist, they rode forward. On approaching Alnwick, they suddenly encountered the Scottish king, at the head of a small party of only sixty men. William so little expected a sudden attack of this nature, that at first he thought the body of cavalry which he saw advancing was a part of his own army. When he was undeceived, he had too much of the lion about him to fear. "Now shall we see," he said, "which of us are good knights;" and instantly charged the Yorkshire barons with the handful of men who attended him. But sixty men-at-arms could make no impression on four hundred; and as the rest of William's army were too distant to give him assistance, he was, after defending himself with the utmost gallantry, unhorsed and made prisoner. The English immediately retreated with their royal captive, after this bold and successful adventure. They carried him to Newcastle, and from that town to Northampton, where he was conducted to the presence of the English monarch, with his legs tied under the horse's belly, as if he had been a common malefactor or felon. The subsequent conduct of Henry 11. was equally harsh and ungenerous. He would not release his captive till he had agreed to do homage to the king of England, not only for his English possessions, but also for Scotland. may imagine to be real. The Mount Carmel of Hulne Park is a high, bold, bluff elevation of several hundred feet, now covered with heath and wood, all the more striking from the gentleness of the valley and stream at its base. The monk may have found no difficulty, as he gazed upon it across that gentle valley, in imagining it the Carmel of his early love. The order of Carmelites was founded in 1122, by Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem. They practised great austerities. Each friar had a coffin in his cell, in which he slept every night upon straw, and every morning dug a shovelful of earth for his grave. Those know little of life or of man who trust in the efficacy of such contrivances to produce any salutary result. We once lived next door to an aged gentleman who had had his coffin prepared many years before, and kept it carefully preserved in an outhouse. Yet we have heard this man swear round, rough oaths within hearing (as we were going to write) of his coffin-within a few feet of where the coffin lay! The walls of Hulne Abbey now alone remain. These are extensive, and kept in good order, and afford shelter for a well-stocked pheasant aviary, and a park-keeper's family, while they prove an agreeable resort for picnic parties from the good town of Alnwick. When gazing on the ivy mantle which covered them, we were forcibly reminded of the words of a popular writer: "A dainty plant is the ivy green, that creepeth o'er ruins lone and cold; The walls must be crumbled, the stones decayed, to pleasure his dainty whim, meal for him." "Whole ages have fled and their works decay'd, and But the stout old ivy shall never fade from his hale and For the stateliest building man can raise, is the ivy's food From the scene of William the Lion's capture we shall pursue our walk, and, being duly provided And the mouldering dust that years have made is a merry with the necessary passport, soon enter the park, whose inclosure measures fifteen miles. The deer and other game that are preserved here others speak of; we pass on to Hulne Abbey, which we find at a distance of three miles from the town. It stands on the summit of a gently-sloping green hill on the north bank of the river; and the beautiful views presented by the winding stream, amid the undulations of the surrounding country, constrained us, as we stood and gazed, to remark "These monks were fellows of a fine taste; you never find the remains of a monastery but in a choice situation." Among the crusaders of the 13th century was William de Vesey, lord of Alnwick. Led by curiosity or devotion, he visited the monks of Mount Carmel, and there unexpectedly found a countryman of his own, Ralph Fresborn, a Northumbrian gentleman, who had signalised himself in a former crusade, and, in consequence of a vow; had taken upon him the monastic profession in that solitude. The lord of Alnwick importuned the superior of the Carmelites to permit his countryman to accompany him on his return-a request which was granted on condition that he would found a monastery for Carmelites in England. The engagement was not forgotten. Ralph Fresborn, after examining all the solitudes around Alnwick, fixed at length on this spot, induced, it is said, by the great resemblance which a neighbouring hill, the nearest and most prominent object on which the eye rested from this place, bore to Mount Carmel. The resemblance we can very well before we leave this neighbourhood. This large We must pay a short visit to Alnwick Moor common has been witness to scenes of very different descriptions. The last time the plague prevailed in England, Alnwick was ravaged by it with great interment in carts, which traversed the town previolence. The dead were conveyed to the place of ceded by a person ringing a bell as a signal to the people to bring out their dead. The market was Howl, about a mile and a half from the town. removed to a place in the moor, called Branksmith's The country-people stood on one side of the valley, and the town's-people on the other. The articles they bartered were placed in the middle of the valley, and conveyed away by one party when the other had left them. This same moor is famous for a truly barbarous custom, which all the civilization of the age has initiation to the "freedom" of the town.* Early not sufficed to destroy. It is the ceremony of "I can testify," writes an Alnwick gentleman in April 19, observed. I had myself an opportunity on Monday last of 1852, "that the custom of going through the well is still |