no common race, gallant and haughty, dark-eyed Norman barons, ready to keep, as their fathers had won, with their own good swords, power and nobility upon British soil. Years have come and gone. The great ones of the earth have felt their power slip from them. Crowns and sceptres have turned to dust. Thrones have tottered to their fall; but there was then that evolving itself of which succeeding ages have witnessed but the more full development. In that procession there were symptoms of a coming change—signs, and warning voices, that told the noble that the power and pride of the individual man was being torn from him—that he had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The trading companies—the sons of the Saxon churl—THE MIDDLE CLASSES—for the first time appeared upon the scene, and were deemed a fitting escort to royalty. History herself has deigned to tell us of their show and bravery—how, on horseback, with blue gowns and embroidered shoes, and red hoods, they joined the nobles and prelates of our land. Four hundred years have but seen the increase of their wealth, of their respectability, and power. Their struggle upwards has been long and tedious, but it has been safe and sure. The wars of the red rose and the white—wars which beggared the princes of England, and spilt the blood of its nobles like water—were favourable to the progress of the middle class. The battle of Barnet witnessed the fall and death of the kingmaker, and with her champion feudalism fell. The power passed from the baron. The most thoughtless began to perceive that a time was coming when mere brute strength would fail its possessor. Dim and shadowy notions of the superiority of right to might were loosened from the bondage of the past, and set afloat; discoveries, strange and wonderful, became the property of the many; the fountains of knowledge, and thought, and fame were opened, and men pressed thither, eager to win higher honour than that obtained by the intrigues of court, or the accidents of birth. With all that was bright and good did the middle classes identify themselves. In them was the stronghold of civilization. The prince and peer were unwilling to admit of changes in polity, in religion, or in law, which to them could bring no good, and might possibly bring harm. Conventional usage had stamped them with a higher worth than that which by right belonged to them; their adulterated gold passed as current coin; hence it was their interest to oppose every attempt to establish a more natural test. The aristocracy ceased to be the thinkers of the age. From the middle classes came the men whose words and deeds we will not willingly let die. Shakspere, Milton, and Cromwell shew what of genius, and power, and divine aim, at one time the middle classes contained.