crown commissioners were unable to contend, and the scheme ended with an acknowledgment of fault by Henry, who retired with a good grace from an impossible position. If the peasantry had been suffering under any real grievances, we should not have failed to have heard of them when the religious rebellions furnished so fair an opportunity to press them forward. Complaint was loud enough when complaint was just, under the Somerset protectorate.

The incomes of the great nobles cannot be determined, for they varied probably as much as they vary now. Under Henry IV. the average income of an earl was estimated at £2000 a year. Under Henry VIII. the great Duke of Buckingham, the wealthiest English peer, had £6000. And the income of the Archbishop of Canterbury was rated at the same amount. But the establishments of such men were enormous, their ordinary retinues in time of peace consisting of many hundred persons; and in war, when the duties of a nobleman called him to the field, although in theory his followers were paid by the crown, yet the grants of parliament were on so small a scale that the theory was seldom converted into fact, and a large share of the expenses were paid often out of private purses. The Duke of Norfolk, in the Scotch war of 1523, declared (not complaining of it, but merely as a reason why he should receive support) that he had spent all his private means upon the army; and in the sequel of this history we shall find repeated instances of knights and gentlemen voluntarily ruining themselves in the service of their country. The people, not universally, but generally, were animated by a true spirit of sacrifice; by a true conviction that they were bound to think first of England, and only next of themselves; and unless we can bring ourselves to understand this, we shall never understand what England was under the reigns of the Plantagenets and Tudors. The expenses of the court under Henry VII. were a little over £14,000 a year, out of which were defrayed the whole cost of the king's establishment, the expenses of entertaining foreign ambassadors, the wages and maintenance of the yeomen of the guard, the retinues of servants, and all necessary outlay not incurred for public business. Under Henry VIII., of whose extravagance we have heard so much, and whose court was the most magnificent in the world, these expenses were £19,894 168. 8d., a small sum when compared with the present cost of the royal establishment, even if we

adopt the relative estimate of twelve to one, and suppose it equal to £240,000 a year of our money. But indeed it was not equal to £240,000; for, although the proportion held in articles of common consumption, articles of luxury were very dear indeed.

Passing down from the king and his nobles, to the body of the people, we find that the income qualifying a country gentle. man to be justice of the peace was £20 a year, and if he did his duty, his office was no sinecure. We remember Justice Shallow and his clerk Davy, with his novel theory of magisterial law; and Shallow's broad features have so English a cast about them, that we may believe there were many such, and that the duty was not always very excellently done. But the Justice Shallows were not allowed to repose upon their dignity. The justice of the peace was required not only to take cognizance of open offenses, but to keep surveillance over all persons within his district, and over himself in his own turn there was a surveillance no less sharp, and penalties for neglect prompt and peremptory. Four times a year he was to make proclamation of his duty, and exhort all persons to complain against him who had occasion. Twenty pounds a year, and heavy duties to do for it, represented the condition of the squire of the parish. By the 2d of the 2d of Henry V., "the wages " of a parish priest were limited to £5 6s. 8d., except in cases where there was special license from the bishop, when they might be raised as high as £6. Priests were probably something better off under Henry VIII., but the statute remained in force, and marks an approach at least to their ordinary salary. The priest had enough, being unmarried, to supply him in comfort with the necessaries of life. The squire had enough to provide moderate abundance for himself and his family. Neither priest nor squire was able to establish any steep difference in outward advantages between himself and the commons among whom he lived.

The habits of all classes were open, free, and liberal. There are two expressions corresponding one to the other, which we frequently meet with in old writings, and which are used as a kind of index, marking whether the condition of things was or was not what it ought to be. We read of "merry England," - when England was not merry, things were not going well with it; we hear of "the glory of hospitality," England's preeminent boast, by the rules of which all tables, from the

table of the twenty-shilling freeholder to the table in the baron's hall and abbey refectory, were open at the dinner hour to all comers, without stint or reserve, or question asked. To every man, according to his degree, who chose to ask for it, there was free fare and free lodging; bread, beef, and beer for his dinner; for his lodging, perhaps, only a mat of rushes in a spare corner of the hall, with a billet of wood for a pillow; but freely offered and freely taken, the guest probably faring much as his host fared, neither worse nor better. There was little fear of an abuse of such license, for suspicious characters had no leave to wander at pleasure; and for any man found at large, and unable to give a sufficient account of himself, there were the ever-ready parish stocks or town jail. The "glory of hospitality" lasted far down into Elizabeth's time; and then, as Camden says, "came in great bravery of building, to the marvelous beautifying of the realm, but to the decay" of what he valued more.

In such frank style the people lived, hating three things with all their hearts: idleness, want, and cowardice; and for the rest, carrying their heart high, and having their hands full. The hour of rising, winter and summer, was four o'clock, with breakfast at five, after which the laborers went to work and the gentlemen to business, of which they had no little. In the country every unknown face was challenged and examined— if the account given was insufficient, he was brought before the justice; if the village shopkeeper sold bad wares, if the village cobbler made "unhonest" shoes, if servants and masters quarreled, all was to be looked to by the justice; there was no fear lest time should hang heavy with him. At twelve he dined; after dinner he went hunting, or to his farm, or to what he pleased. It was a life unrefined, perhaps, but colored with a broad, rosy, English health.

THE ARAUCANA.

BY ALONZO DE ERCILLA.

(Translation and Summaries by William Hayley.)

[ALONZO ERCILLA Y ZUNIGA, Spanish poet, was born at Bermeo, Bay of Biscay, about 1530; entered the service of Philip II.; joined the expedition against the native Araucanians of Chile, and while campaigning, wrote his

famous epic "The Araucana" on scraps of paper and leather. After his return he was chamberlain to Emperor Rudolf II.; lived in Madrid, very poor, from 1580 on, and died in 1595.]

THE poem opens with the following exposition of the sub

ject:

I sing not love of ladies, nor of sights
Devised for gentle dames by courteous knights:
Nor feasts, nor tourneys, nor that tender care
Which prompts the Gallant to regale the Fair;
But the bold deeds of Valor's fav'rite train,
Those undegenerate sons of warlike Spain,
Who made Arauco their stern laws embrace,
And bent beneath their yoke her untamed race.
Of tribes distinguished in the field I sing;
Of nations who disdain the name of king;
Courage, that danger only taught to grow,
And challenge honor from a generous foe;
And persevering toils of purest fame,
And feats that aggrandize the Spanish name;
For the brave actions of the vanquished spread
The brightest glory round the victor's head.

The poet devotes his first canto to the description of that part of the New World which forms the scene of his action, and is called Arauco, a district in the province of Chile. He paints the singular character and various customs of its warlike inhabitants with great clearness and spirit. In many points they bear a striking resemblance to the ancient Germans, as they are drawn by the strong pencil of Tacitus. The first canto closes with a brief account how this martial province was subdued by a Spanish officer named Valdivia; with an intimation that his negligence in his new dominion gave birth to those important exploits which the poet proposes to celebrate.

CANTO II.

Many there are who, in this mortal strife,
Have reached the slippery heights of splendid life:
For Fortune's ready hand its succor lent;
Smiling she raised them up the steep ascent,
To hurl them headlong from that lofty seat
To which she led their unsuspecting feet;

E'en at the moment when all fears disperse,
And their proud fancy sees no sad reverse.
Little they think, beguiled by fair success,
That Joy is but the herald of Distress:

The hasty wing of Time escapes their sight,
And those dark evils that attend his flight:
Vainly they dream, with gay presumption warm,
Fortune for them will take a steadier form;
She, unconcerned at what her victims feel,
Turns with her wonted haste her fatal wheel.

The Indians first, by novelty dismayed,
As Gods revered us, and as Gods obeyed;
But when they found we were of woman born,
Their homage turned to enmity and scorn:
Their childish error when our weakness showed,
They blushed at what their ignorance bestowed;
Fiercely they burnt with anger and with shame,
To see their masters but of mortal frame.
Disdaining cold and cowardly delay,
They seek atonement, on no distant day:
Prompt and resolved, in quick debate they join,
To form of deep revenge their dire design.
Impatient that their bold decree should spread,
And shake the world around with sudden dread,
Th' assembling Chieftains led so large a train,
Their ready host o'erspread th' extensive plain.
No summons now the soldier's heart requires;
The thirst of battle every breast inspires;
No pay, no promise of reward, they ask,
Keen to accomplish their spontaneous task;
And, by the force of one avenging blow,
Crush and annihilate their foreign foe.
Of some brave Chiefs, who to this council came,
Well mayst thou, Memory, preserve the name;
Tho' rude and savage, yet of noble soul,
Justly they claim their place on Glory's roll,
Who, robbing Spain of many a gallant son,
In so confined a space such victories won;

Whose fame some living Spaniards yet may spread,
Too well attested by our warlike dead.

The poet proceeds to mention the principal chieftains, and the number of their respective vassals.

Tucapel stands first, renowned for the most inveterate