Being infirm with age, and diseased with the gout, he was necessitated, for a nurse, to marry a second wife, a matron of years proportionable to himself. But this was by his court enemies (which no bishop wanted in that age) represented to the queen, to his great disgrace. Yea, they traduced him to have married a girl of twenty years of age, until the good earl of Bedford, casually present at such discourse: "Madam," said he to her Majesty, "I know not how much the woman is above twenty; but I know a son of hers is but little under forty."

SIR JOHN NORRIS must be resumed, that we may pay a greater tribute of respect to his memory. He was a most accomplished general, both for a charge which is the sword, and a retreat which is the shield of war. By the latter he purchased to himself immortal praise, when in France he brought off a small handful of English from a great armful of enemies; fighting as he retreated, and retreating as he fought; so that always his rear affronted the enemy; a retreat worth ten victories got by surprise, which speak rather the fortune than either the valor or discretion of a general.

He was afterwards sent over with a great command into Ireland, where his success neither answered to his own care, nor others' expectation. Indeed, hitherto Sir John had fought with right-handed enemies in France and the Netherlands; who was now to fight with left-handed foes, for so may the wild Irish well be termed (so that this great master of defense was now to seek a new guard), who could lie on the coldest earth, swim through the deepest water, run over what was neither earth. nor water, I mean bogs and marshes. He found it far harder to find out than fight his enemies, they so secured themselves in fastnesses. Supplies, sown thick in promises, came up thin in performances, so slowly were succors sent unto him.

At last a great lord was made lieutenant of Ireland, of an opposite party to Sir John; there being animosities in the court of Queen Elizabeth (as well as of later princes), though her general good success rendered them the less to the public notice of posterity. It grieved Sir John to the heart, to see one of an opposite faction should be brought over his head, insomuch that some conceive his working soul broke the cask of his body, as wanting a vent for his grief and anger; for, going up into his chamber, at the first hearing of the news, he suddenly died, anno Domini 1597.

Queen Elizabeth used to call the Lady Margaret, his mother, her own crow, being (as it seemeth) black in complexion (a color which no whit unbecame the faces of her martial issue); and, upon the news of his death, sent this letter unto her, which I have transcribed from an authentic copy.

TO THE LADY NORRIS.

22d Sept. 1597.

MY OWN CROW,-Harm not yourself for bootless help, but show a good example to comfort your dolorous yokefellow. Although we have deferred long to represent to you our grieved thoughts, because we liked full ill to yield you the first reflection of misfortune, whom we have always rather sought to cherish and comfort; yet knowing now that necessity must bring it to your ear, and nature consequently must move both grief and passion in your heart, we resolved no longer to smother, neither our care for your sorrow, or the sympathy of our grief for your loss. Wherein, if it be true that society in sorrow works diminution, we do assure you by this true messenger of our mind that nature can have stirred no more dolorous affection in you as a mother for a dear son, than gratefulness and memory of his service past hath wrought in us his sovereign apprehension of our miss for so worthy a servant. But now that nature's common work is done, and he that was born to die hath paid his tribute, let that Christian discretion stay the flux of your immoderate grieving, which hath instructed you, both by example and knowledge, that nothing in this kind hath happened but by God's divine providence. And let these lines from your loving and gracious sovereign serve to assure you that there shall ever appear the lively character of our estimation of him that was, in our gracious care of you and yours that are left, in valuing rightly all their faithful and honest endeavors. More at this time we will not write of this unpleasant subject; but have dispatched this gent to visit both your lord and you, and to condole with you in the true sense of your love; and to pray that the world may see, what time cureth in a weak mind, that discretion and moderation helpeth in you in this accident, where there is so just cause to demonstrate true patience and moderation.

Your gracious and loving sovereign,

E. R.

Now, though nothing more consolatory and pathetical could be written from a prince, yet his death went so near to the heart of the lord, his ancient father, that he died soon after.

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK.

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PÈRE.

(From "The Viscount of Bragelonne.")

[For biographical sketch, see Vol. 13, page 296.]

HIGH TREASON.

THE ungovernable fury which took possession of the king at the sight and at the perusal of Fouquet's letter to La Vallière by degrees subsided into a feeling of pain and extreme weariness. Youth, invigorated by health and lightness of spirits, requiring soon that what it loses should be immediately restored - youth knows not those endless, sleepless nights which enable us to realize the fable of the vulture unceasingly feeding on Prometheus. In cases where the man of middle life, in his acquired strength of will and purpose, and the old, in their state of natural exhaustion, find incessant augmentation of their bitter sorrow, a young man, surprised by the sudden appearance of misfortune, weakens himself in sighs, and groans, and tears, directly struggling with his grief, and is thereby far sooner overthrown by the inflexible enemy with whom he is engaged. Once overthrown, his struggles cease. Louis could not hold out more than a few minutes, at the end of which he had ceased to clench his hands, and scorch in fancy with his looks the invisible objects of his hatred; he soon ceased to attack with his violent imprecations not M. Fouquet alone, but even La Vallière herself; from fury he subsided into despair, and from despair to prostration. After he had thrown himself for a few minutes to and fro convulsively on his bed, his nerveless arms fell quietly down; his head lay languidly on his pillow; his limbs, exhausted with excessive emotion, still trembled occasionally, agitated by muscular contractions; while from his breast faint and infrequent sighs still issued. Morpheus, the tutelary deity of the apartment, towards whom Louis raised his eyes, wearied by his anger and reconciled by his tears, showered down upon him the sleep-inducing poppies with which his hands are ever filled; so presently the monarch closed his eyes and fell asleep. Then it seemed to him, as it often happens in that first sleep, so light and gentle, which raises the body above the couch, and the soul above the earth - it seemed to him, we say, as if the god Morpheus, painted

on the ceiling, looked at him with eyes resembling human eyes; that something shone brightly, and moved to and fro in the dome above the sleeper; that the crowd of terrible dreams which thronged together in his brain, and which were interrupted for a moment, half revealed a human face, with a hand resting against the mouth, and in an attitude of deep and absorbed meditation. And strange enough, too, this man bore so wonderful a resemblance to the king himself, that Louis fancied he was looking at his own face reflected in a mirror; with the exception, however, that the face was saddened by a feeling of the profoundest pity. Then it seemed to him as if the dome gradually retired, escaping from his gaze, and that the figures and attributes painted by Lebrun became darker and darker as the distance became more and more remote. A gentle, easy movement, as regular as that by which a vessel plunges beneath the waves, had succeeded to the immovableness of the bed. Doubtless the king was dreaming, and in this dream the crown of gold, which fastened the curtains together, seemed to recede from his vision, just as the dome, to which it remained suspended, had done, so that the winged genius which, with both its hands, supported the crown, seemed, though vainly so, to call upon the king, who was fast disappearing from it. The bed still sank. Louis, with his eyes open, could not resist the deception of this cruel hallucination. At last, as the light of the royal chamber faded away into darkness and gloom, something cold, gloomy, and inexplicable in its nature seemed to infect the air. No paintings, nor gold, nor velvet hangings, were visible any longer, nothing but walls of a dull gray color, which the increasing gloom made darker every moment. And yet the bed still continued to descend, and after a minute, which seemed in its duration almost an age to the king, it reached a stratum of air black and chill as death, and then it stopped. The king could no longer see the light in his room, except as from the bottom of a well we can see the light of day. "I am under the influence of some atrocious dream," he thought. "It is time to awaken from it. Come let me wake."

Every one has experienced the sensation the above remark conveys; there is hardly a person who, in the midst of a nightmare, whose influence is suffocating, has not said to himself, by the help of that light which still burns in the brain when every human light is extinguished, "It is nothing but a dream.

after all." This was precisely what Louis XIV. said to himself; but when he said, "Come, come! wake up," he perceived that not only was he already awake, but still more, that he had his eyes open also. And then he looked all round him. On his right hand and on his left two armed men stood in stolid silence, each wrapped in a huge cloak, and the face covered with a mask; one of them held a small lamp in his hand, whose glimmering light revealed the saddest picture a king could look upon. Louis could not help saying to himself that his dream still lasted, and that all he had to do to cause it to disappear was to move his arms or to say something aloud; he darted from his bed, and found himself upon the damp, moist ground. Then, addressing himself to the man who held the lamp in his hand, he said:

"What is this, monsieur, and what is the meaning of this jest?"

"It is no jest," replied in a deep voice the masked figure that held the lantern.

"Do you belong to M. Fouquet?" inquired the king, greatly astonished at his situation.

"It matters very little to whom we belong," said the phantom; "we are your masters now, that is sufficient."

The king, more impatient than intimidated, turned to the other masked figure. "If this is a comedy," he said, "you will tell M. Fouquet that I find it unseemly and improper, and that I command it should cease."

The second masked person to whom the king had addressed himself was a man of huge stature and vast circumference. He held himself erect and motionless as any block of marble. "Well!" added the king, stamping his foot, "you do not

answer! "

"We do not answer you, my good monsieur," said the giant, in a stentorian voice, "because there is nothing to say."

"At least, tell me what you want?" exclaimed Louis, folding his arms with a passionate gesture.

"You will know by and by," replied the man who held the lamp.

"In the mean time tell me where I am."

"Look."

Louis looked all round him; but by the light of the lamp which the masked figure raised for the purpose, he could perceive nothing but the damp walls, which glistened here and