Not a single Briton, during the Protectorate, but could demand and receive either reparation or revenge for injury, whether it came from France, from Spain, from any open foe or treacherous ally;--not an oppressed foreigner claimed his protection but it was immediately and effectually granted. Were things to be compared to this in the reign of either Charles? England may blush at the remembrance of the insults she sustained during the reigns of the first most amiable, yet most weak--of the second most admired, yet most contemptible--of these legal kings. What must she think of the treatment received by the Elector Palatine, though he was son-in-law to King James? And let her ask herself how the Duke of Rohan was assisted in the Protestant war at Rochelle, notwithstanding the solemn engagement of King Charles under his own hand! But we are treading too fearlessly upon ground on which, in our humble capacity, we have scarcely the right to enter. Alas! alas! the page of History is but a sad one! and the Stuarts and the Cromwells, the Roundheads and the Cavaliers, the pennons and the drums, are but part and parcel of the same dust--the dust we, who are made of dust, animated for a time by a living spirit, now tread upon! Their words, that wrestled with the winds and mounted on the air, have left no trace along that air whereon they sported;--the clouds in all their beauty cap our isle with their magnificence, as in those by-gone days;--the rivers are as blue, the seas as salt;--the flowers, those sweet things! remain fresh within our fields as when God called them into existence in Paradise--and are bright as ever. But the change is over us, as it has been over them: we, too, are passing. O England! what should this teach? Even three things--wisdom, justice, and mercy. Wisdom to watch ourselves, and then our rulers, so that we neither do nor suffer wrong;--justice to the memory of the mighty dead, whether born to thrones or footstools;--mercy, inasmuch as we shall deeply need it from our successors. We must not longer trifle with or mingle among forbidden themes, but turn to that which lightens many a heart, and creates of its own power a magic world of pure and perfect enjoyment. Many there were, before and during those troublous times, who, heedless of the turmoils that were taking place around them, sang, as birds will sometimes sing, during the pauses of a thunder-storm. We would fain con over the names of a few of those who live with the memories of peace, and hope, and love, and joy--as so many happy contrasts to the wars and intrigues, that sin, and its numberless and terrible attendants, have brought upon this cheerful, and beautiful, and abundantly gifted earth.