"It is my interest that the discovery should
be made—and I at once acknowledge to you,
that I am determined to find the means of
secretly and certainly making it. My resolution
rests on other motives than the motives
which you might naturally suppose would
influence me. I only tell you this in case you feel
inclined to remonstrate. There is good reason
for what I say, when I assure you that
remonstrance will be useless.

"I ask for no assistance in this matter; I will
trouble nobody for advice. You shall not be
involved in any rash proceedings on my part.
Whatever danger there may be, I will risk it.
Whatever delays may happen, I will bear them
patiently. I am lonely and friendless and sorely
troubled in mind— but I am strong enough to
win my way through worse trials than these.
My spirits will rise again, and my time will
come. If that Secret Trust is in Admiral
Bartram's possession—when you next see me, you
shall see me with it in my own hands.

"Yours gratefully,

"MAGDALEN VANSTONE."

CRITICAL BULLS IN HISTORICAL
CHINA-SHOPS.

THE critical bull has got loose in the china-
shop of history. That infuriated animal has
committed frightful havoc among the chronological
crockery, and upset whole rows of traditional
figures. It is almost subject for decent rejoicing
that he has shivered the Olympiad jars, and
confounded lustres (the Roman period of enumeration),
and the era before Rameses the Second,
in one universal wreck. But it is of the cruel
mischief worked among the Sèvres, the Palissy,
the Dresdens, and Majolica of History, that
complaint is made. With all that repugnance
to the line of kings from the Norman Conquest,
and the respective dates of their accession
and happy departures (the most odious series
upon earth); with all that reasonable disgust
to the royal ladies and gentlemen who came
after Charlemagne, together with the bewildering
list who make up the House of Valois; with
all that sense of despairing break-down, under
the things known as pragmatic sanctions
(associated without reason with something pedantic
and self-sufficient) and quadruple alliances—
there was still left in tender breasts a softness
and tenderness for certain figures and episodes,
which went nigh to redeem the whole. The
intrepid youth who toasted his hands without
flinching; the daring act of equitation by the
bare-backed rider Curtius; the noble behaviour
of Regulus; the Tarquins generally; that
surpassing bit of cutlery of the augurs, which went
easily through a whetstone; the splendid
behaviour of other ladies and gentlemen; and, above
all, the noble speeches—short, but telling—with
which they rounded off their achievements, were
very precious, and almost atoned for the brutal
heart-breaking masses of quartz in which they
were embedded. Worked into the shape of
story-books, with finely-coloured pictures, the
charm reached almost to fascination. The critical
situation of Alfred in the neatherd's residence,
with that mistake in the treatment of the cakes,
when assisted by suitable high art, did not
fail even beside the attractions of the more
legitimate picture story-books. Affecting was the
tragedy of Lucretia; and though an unaccountable
mystery was, for obvious reasons, suffered
to hang over the character of the indiscretion of
the unfortunate lady, still it was accepted with
all short-comings, and recurred to with tender
recollections. These gentle oases redeemed the
iron thrall of figures and chronology.

Suddenly is heard the crash of falling historical
crockery. In rushes the grand German
steer Niebuhr, and demolishes Romulus and
Remus, the jumping over the walls, the seeing
the birds, and all the pretty scenery and
decorations of the first seven kings. The whole
thing becomes a wreck. If there was a tradition
that was fondly clung to, it was that of
the monster of the piece, the odious Harry, who
had married so many wives, and cut off their
heads so barbarously. This figure was necessary,
as the villain or foil, to excite virtuous emotions
—a fat bloated square-faced creature, with the
familiar cap. What a blank was left by the
removal of this monster, and his sudden transformation
into a smooth skilful monarch! When
rude profane hands are laid on such arks as
these, there is no speculating as to what may be
the next object on which the spoilers may vent
their rage. Is Canute in his arm-chair on the
sands, with the courtiers round him— is he safe?
Is Boadicea? Do we know how long we may
depend upon the Druids? Is our tenure of
Caractacus, and his noble demeanour under a
trying situation, worth an hour's purchase?

Still, the melting down of these fine old wax-
work groups might have been passed by. They
were effete and worn out. What, after all, is
Romulus to us, or we to Romulus, if it be
satisfactorily ascertained that that person is no
more than an accumulation of cold abstractions, a
mere historic vapour, unreal and unwholesome?

But there are certain legends of our own day
—noble utterances, bits of nineteenth-century
chivalry, which we are accustomed to think of
with enthusiasm, which quicken the pulse and
stimulate our children to noble deeds—on these
have the spoilers been also at work. Scenes
which have been within our own memory,
inexpressibly comforting amid whole cart-loads of
dry bones of history, are now to be wholly cut
out, taken down, and thrown aside like old
transparencies. We lift our voices in loud protest
against this desecration. A stand must be made
against this wanton demolition. The work must
be stopped before it is too late. See what
mischief has been done already!

Amid all the blood and horrors of the great
French Revolution, there break out now and
again fine patches of theatrical effect,
something grandly Roman and ennobling. Nothing
could be deemed more satisfactory and more
nearly approaching this type, than that famous