And yet-0, I can well credit that the King had an earlier towardness to serve God than other children."

Then she kissed Dame Botler, who cried this was too great an honour for a poor woman.

"Nay," the Queen said; "surely you kissed the King many times, and so his wife may well kiss you."

"I must confess," Dame Botler replied, "that sometimes the sweet King's little arms were thrown about my neck, and then I could not forbear to kiss his fair cheek. God defend his grace, and you, madame, also!"

The Queen said to me afterwards that she liked to converse with Dame Alice, for she reminded her of her own good nurse, Théophanie. And then she harped on the words of the late King touching Henry born at Windsor, and let drop somewhat which showed me she hath fears which others little wot of, and so judge her wrongfully. Yea, Meg, as I said before, this Queen our sovereign lady hath as brave a heart as any woman alive.

I was not often with the Queen betwixt the time of the Duke of Suffolk's arrest and that of his departure from the Tower. But that day I stood by her side at a window in the palace at Westminster, and she said to me, with tears in her eyes, "Our most true and leal friend Suffolk is banished for five years. This sentence the King hath signed to save the Duke's life, and I pray God this merciful intent succeeds; but I am of opinion that yielding an inch to save an ell in matters of justice on the one side and popular clamour on the other is an ill policy, as was shown forth when Pilate ordered the Lord Jesus to be scourged; the end of which was what we all know."

""Tis reported," I replied, "that your majesty urged the King at the last to sign that order."

The Queen did not answer for a moment; then she fixed her eyes on me, and said, "Yea, I did so. God only knoweth the

cause."

As she uttered those words, a noise beneath the windows of rushing footsteps was heard, and we saw crowds of ruffianly men hurrying towards the Tower, whence the Duke of Suffolk was to depart that morn. A rumour was spread shortly afterwards that his grace had been attacked and maltreated by the mob; but this proved to be false only his servants had been intercepted and beaten. He himself escaped to his estates in Suffolk, whence he was to embark at Ipswich. The Queen had a bad headache in the evening; and as I was ministering to her, and chafing her brows with distilled water, she broke forth in this wise:

"Jesu, how will all this end? Discontent is at its height; the people starve. Their sufferings remind me of the famine in Naples some years ago. Then the pestilent teachers of Lollardry lurk about, poisoning men's minds, and teaching them to ascribe their sufferings to the sins of the clergy and the nobles. They provoke rebellion against the Church and the throne, and promise that the lands of the rich shall be divided amongst the poor. And there are none

that I can see so good, or so wise, or so strong, that they can stem this torrent, which rises more and more, like the tide of the sea when it comes up. The Cardinal is dead, Suffolk is banished, Shrewsbury is old and feeble. Waynfleet and Beckington are holy men, I trow; but as was said of the few loaves when thousands hungered, 'what be they amongst so many?"

"God be thanked," I said, "that the King is wise and good."

She pushed my hand away from her forehead in an impetuous manner, and, sitting in her bed with her fair white arms crossed on her bosom, and her hair falling disordered about her face, exclaimed:

"The King! Do you too accuse me of small esteem for him? I tell you there is not one alive that would rule a kingdom so beneficently as my lord if . . . . . Ah, perhaps you are one of those who think that I desire to govern alone,-that I am pleased he should pray and study like a monk, so that I may throne it as an absolute Sovereign? Yes, I am blamed on every side; enemies slander, and friends blindly advise. From France my kinsfolk send me letters which cause me to smile and weep in turn; they write so unwittingly of what happens here. One only in all the world knoweth what I suffer. God help me! if I disburthened not my soul in shrift, methinks my brain would give way. Those Lollards teach the damnable doctrine that none should confess. If the day should come when pent-up hearts are debarred this comfort, I promise you madness shall increase."

A short time passed, and then again I was sent for by the Queen. She was going abroad, and commanded me to accompany her. Her visage was pale, save one crimson spot on each cheek. She laid her cold hand on mine, and said,

"Suffolk is dead-murthered! I go to condole with the duchess. Would I could carry to her the head of Exeter! That should be her best comfort."

"The head of the Lord Admiral!" I exclaimed, affrighted. "Good God! what hath he done?"

"Done!" the Queen bitterly repeated. "This is what he hath done. He, the servant of the King, the minister of the Crown, gave vessels to the false lords, poor Suffolk's adversaries. They sent miscreants on board the Nicholas to pursue him on the seas. They bore down on his ship, snatched him from it, and hailed him on one of theirs, with the mocking cry, Welcome, traitor!' and the worse mockery of a feigned trial. Then they lowered him into a boat, and with an old rusty sword cut off his noble head. I tell thee, if I was his wife, I would die, or have their blood; and being his Queen, who owed him all and loved him well, I can only mourn for him with hot useless tears, which shame impotent royalty! Heavens, to be so used! To see the King raise to heaven his meek eyes with an anguish which words cannot express! And this poor soul I am about to see submerged in bottomless grief. What can I say to her?"

"O madame, tell her to pray, to be patient in her sorrow, to hope in God!" I cried.

"You might as lief bid the angry wind preach to the raging sea, as bid me exhort to patience the wife of murthered Suffolk. If the King sees her, then true comfort, heavenly wisdom, sweet hope, not of this earth, may perchance pass from his soul into hers. In his presence furious passions subside. I have seen this, yea, felt it at times."

Then we reached the house of the duchess, and the Queen went into her chamber. When she came out again, her eyes were red with

weeping.

Hans Hemling's Triptych,

"WHо painted that picture?"

The speaker was the great Master Johann van Eyck. He was walking through the Hospital of St. John, at Bruges, on the Feast of Easter, in the year of our Lord 1479, when his eye fell on a painting lying against an easel. Around it lay a few implements of the artist-but he was not visible. The picture seemed to belong to nobody.

"Who painted that picture?"

"A poor wounded soldier named Hans," was the reply of the sister. "He was brought to us dying of fever, and out of gratitude for his recovery he wished to paint something for our church. As his intention was good, we supplied him with materials, and accepted his offer, though indeed his work can hardly be of much merit."

"Not of much merit!" interrupted Van Eyck impatiently, shrugging his shoulders. "Where is this man?"

"There he is, poor fellow !" said the good religious, pointing to the bed in the corner of the room where the sick man lay, nearly unconscious of all around him; "and," she added, "he has taken so much to heart the ill success of his work, that it brought on a second attack of fever, from which we fear he will never recover." Van Eyck hastened to the sick man's bed, and respectfully lifted his cap. "Brother," he said with much emotion, "thank our blessed patron, the glorious St. John, who has guided me here to this his hospital. The gifts with which God has endowed you for His honour and glory will bring you fame and riches patronage of the Holy Church-the Mother of Art. great painter."

through the You are a

The sick man cast a melancholy and doubtful look at the speaker. "Rise up, brother," continued Van Eyck, "and come forth, like Lazarus, from the tomb in which you have been so long buried."

The man rose up, strengthened by those words of hope, and became the great painter Hans Hemling, the glory of Bruges, whose numerous works of art are to be found scattered through nearly all the great galleries of Europe-among the greatest of the treasures

there. They bear an unmistakable character of their own: even when, as in some cases, the hands of other artists of the time, and especially that of Hans's benefactor Johann Van Eyck, the inventor of oil-painting, have been employed on the same picture, Hans is always clearly distinguished, not only by the fineness and delicacy of his touch, and the lightness and gracefulness of his draperies, but also by the devotional character of his paintings, excelling even the great Van Eyck, who had predicted his career of fame and honour from his first glance at the famous triptych. It is still to be seen in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges; and in the present year the Arundel Society has made it familiar to many in England by an exquisite coloured engraving.

There is something very charming in the thought of a Christian painter, like the pure and angelical Giovanni da Fiesole,—a man of spotless life and unstained heart, on whose soul the sunshine of grace has ever fallen without a cloud to break it, who has known no love but that of God, whose thoughts have ever been occupied with heavenly beauty, and who has therefore had the gift first to catch with wonderful instinct its purest and most delicate reflections in nature and humanity, and then to set them forth in his works so tenderly and yet so vividly as to fill us with a sense of deep unearthly peace as we gaze upon them, as if he really were able to give us a glimpse of the home of eternal blessedness. We can hardly imagine that such a painter could ever have known the storms of passion, or at least have bent before them. Yet there is another kind of purity beside that of innocence-the purity of penitence. Such is that which we must claim for Hans Hemling.

The Superior was quite right in speaking of Hans as a poor soldier, who had been strangely brought to their doors by the charity of a woman. She had found him lying by the roadside wounded and dying, and had managed to convey him to the hospital, where he had been so carefully tended: but he had known better days, or at least more prosperous circumstances, before he had sunk to destitution. His father had been a wealthy butcher at Bruges. He and his wife lavished all their care and tenderness on the education of Hans, who was their only child-born about the year 1425. In his childhood and youth he had been too much indulged by his parents and his teachers. He was allowed to form bad acquaintances, who drew him into habits of dissipation and vice. At an early age he had shown a considerable talent for painting, and his father had placed him under the care of an artist named Rodgers, known as Rodgers de Bruges. But instead of applying himself to study, the youth spent the greater part of his time in