Nevertheless, some "rags of popery" hung about her; she was very devout, and made long prayers: she had not her breviary indeed, but the psalms and chapters of the day served equally well: she doubted whether the gunpowder treason was a popish or a ministerial plot: the R. R. Dr. Milner had not yet written the dissertation, in his "Letters to a Prebendary," which proves that it was the latter. For want of this well-argued and convincing statement, I was called on to read, on the 5th of November, while squibs and crackers sounded in my ears, and Guy Faux, suspended over the Castle Hill, was waiting his fate,--to read, I say, the life of Sir Everard Digby in the Biographia Britannica, where his character is treated with some kindness and respect. Sir Kenelm Digby is, of course, the next article in the "Biography:" all this while I was detained from the dangerous explosions of the fire-works, which was in part my mother's purpose, though she had, no doubt, her gratification in the lecture. The youth of the present day are quite indifferent to the celebration of the 5th of November; they have not the grace to thank God for delivering them from "the hellish malice of popish conspirators;" few of them even know that this delicate phrase is to be found in their Book of Common Prayer. But five and forty or fifty years ago, before the repeal of the penal laws against catholics, when not a chapel was permitted to them, but by connivance, those of catholic ambassadors alone excepted; before the French Revolution had driven a catholic priest into almost every town in England,--the case was widely different: let the riots of 1780 bespeak the popular feeling of the people towards the religion of their forefathers. Here then, while they sung, O then the wicked papishes ungodly did conspire To blow up king and parliament with gun-pow-dire,-- I was taking a febrifuge draught, prepared by maternal caution and family pride.