Tiernay, and if he cannot stand up, you certainly should be the last to find fault with him. Pray sit quiet, Tiernay," added he, pressing me down on my seat; and if you won't look so terrified, my sister will remember you."

"We must both be more altered than I ever expect if I cease to remember M. de Tiernay," said the Archduchess, with a most courteous smile. Then leaning on the back of a chair, she bent forward and inquired after my health. There was something so strange in the situation: a young, handsome girl condescending to a tone of freedom and intimacy with one she had seen but a couple of times, and from whom the difference of condition separated her by a gulf wide as the great ocean, that I felt a nervous tremor I could not account for. Perhaps, with the tact that Royalty possesses as its own prerogative, or, perhaps, with mere womanly intuition, she saw how the interview agitated me, and, to change the topic, she suddenly said

"I must present you to one of my ladies, Colonel de Tiernay, a countrywoman of your own. She already has heard from me the story of your noble devotion, and now only has to learn your name. Remember you are to sit still."

As she said this, she turned, and drawing her arm within that of a young lady behind her, led her forward.

It is to this gentleman I owe my life, Mademoiselle D'Estelles."

I heard no more, nor did she either; for, faltering, she uttered a low, faint sigh, and fell into the arms of those behind her.

"What's this, Tiernay!-how is all this?" whispered Prince Louis; "are you acquainted with Mademoiselle ?" But I forgot everything; the presence in which I stood, the agony of a wounded leg and all, and with a violent effort sprung from my seat.

Before I could approach her, however, she had risen from the chair, and

in a voice broken and interrupted, said:

"You are so changed, M. de Tiernay-so much changed-that the shock overpowered me. We became acquainted in the Tyrol, Madame," said she to the Princess, "where Monsieur was a prisoner."

What observation the Princess made in reply I could not hear, but I saw that Laura blushed deeply. To hide her awkwardness perhaps it was, that she hurriedly entered into some account of our former intercourse, and I could observe that some allusion to the Prince de Condé dropped from her.

"How strange, how wonderful is all that you tell me!" said the Princess, who bent forward and whispered some words to Prince Louis; and then, taking Laura's arm, she moved on, say. ing in a low voice to me, "Au revoir, Monsieur," as she passed.

"You are to come and drink tea in the Archduchess's apartments, Tiernay," said Prince Louis; "you'll meet your old friend, Mademoiselle D'Es telles, and of course you have a hundred recollections to exchange with each other."

The Prince insisted on my accepting his arm, and, as he assisted me along, informed me that old Madame D'Ac greville was dead about a year, leaving her niece an immense fortune at least a claim to one-only wanting the sanetion of the Emperor Napoleon to become valid; for it was one of the es treated but not confiscated estates of La Vendée. Every word that dropped from the Prince extinguished some hope within me. More beautiful than ever, her rank recognised, and in possession of a vast fortune, what chance had I, a poor soldier of for tune, of success?

"Don't sigh, Tiernay," said the Prince, laughing; "you've lost a leg for us, and we must lend you a hand in return;" and with this we entered the salon of the Archduchess.

I HAVE been very frank with my readers in these memoirs of my life. If I have dwelt somewhat vain-gloriously on passing moments of success, it must be owned that I have not spared my vanity and self-conceit, when either betrayed me into any excess of folly.

I have neither blinked my humble be ginnings, nor have I sought to attribute to my own merits those happy accidents which made me what I am. I claim nothing but the humble character-s Soldier of Fortune. It was my intention to have told the reader somewhat more

than these twenty odd years of my life embrace. Probably, too, my subsequent career, if less marked by adventure, was more pregnant with true views of the world and sounder lessons of conduct; but I have discovered to my surprise that these revelations have extended over a wider surface than I ever destined them to occupy, and already I tremble for the loss of that gracious attention that has been vouchsafed me hitherto. I will not trust myself to say how much regret this abstinence has cost me ;-enough if I avow that in jotting down the past I have lived my youth over again, and in tracing old memories, old scenes, and old impres sions, the smouldering fire of my heart. has shot up a transient flame so bright as to throw a glow even over the chill of my old age.

It is, after all, no small privilege to have lived and borne one's part in stirring times; to have breasted the ocean of life when the winds were up and the waves ran high; to have mingled, however humbly, in eventful scenes, and had one's share in the mighty deeds that were to become history afterwards. It is assuredly in such trials that humanity comes out best, and that the character of man displays all its worthiest and noblest attributes. Amid such scenes I began my life, and, in the midst of similar ones, if my prophetic foresight deceive me not, I am like to end it.

Having said this much of and for myself, I am sure the reader will pardon me if I am not equally communicative with respect to another, and if I pass over the remainder of that interval which I spent at Komorn. Even were love-making-which assuredly it is not as interesting to the spectator as to those engaged, I should scruple to recount events which delicacy should throw a veil over; nor am I induced,

even by the example of the wittiest periodical writer of the age, to make a "feuilleton" of my own marriage. Enough that I say, despite my shattered form, my want of fortune, my unattested pretension to rank or station, Mademoiselle D'Estelles accepted me, and the Emperor most graciously confirmed her claims to wealth, thus making me one of the richest and the very happiest among the Soldiers of Fortune.

The Pére Delamoy, now superior of a convent at Pisa, came to Komorn to perform the ceremony; and if he could not altogether pardon those who had uprooted the ancient monarchy of France, yet did not conceal his gratitude to him who had restored the Church and rebuilt the altar.

There may be some who deem this closing abrupt, and who would wish for even a word about the bride, her bouquet, and her blushes. I cannot afford to gratify so laudable a curiosity, at the same time that a lurking vanity induces me to say, that any one wishing to know more about the "personnel" of my wife or myself, has but to look at David's picture, or the engraving made from it, of the Emperor's marriage. There they will find, in the left hand corner, partly concealed behind the Grand Duke de Berg, an officer of the Guides, supporting on his arm a young and very beautiful girl, herself a bride. If the young lady's looks are turned with more interest on her companion than upon the gorgeous spectacle, remember that she is but a few weeks married. If the soldier carry himself with less of martial vigour or grace, pray bear in mind that cork legs had not attained the perfection to which later skill has brought them.

I have the scene stronger before me than painting can depict, and my eyes fill as I now behold it in my memory!

THE biographer of Chalmers has added two volumes to his work since we gave to our readers an account of the first. The arrangement of the subject, originally contemplated, was a division of Dr. Chalmers's biography into three periods. "The first from his birth, in 1780, to the close of his ministry in Kilmany in 1815; the second from the commencement of his ministry at Glasgow to the termination of his professorship at St. Andrew's in 1828; the third from the time of his appointment to the chair of Theology at Edinburgh to his death in 1847." And Dr. Hanna imagined that he could include the account of each of these periods within a single volume. His materials have proved more abundant than he had at first calculated, and he has been compelled to extend the work to a volume more than he had originally purposed. No reader of the book will regret this. It is one the interest of which increases with every page. There is a calm and subdued eloquence in Dr. Hanna's style which, more than that of any writer we know, impresses us with the feeling of his entire earnestness in every word he writes. We feel that we know Chalmers more and more as the work advances. He has grown not alone on our admiration, but on our affections. We believe him to have been the greatest and the best man of his age. Is this to say that we assent to all his views? Surely not; but it is to say, that whatever we can learn of him satisfies us that he was a true and single-hearted man; that we can read no part of his works without feeling that they are filled with the spirit of truth. It is impossible, we think, for any fair-minded man, whatever may be his views as to questions of episcopacy and presbyterianism, not to regard Chalmers as a man doing more for our common Christianity than any other man of our time; and effecting what he has done by the energies of his own powerful mind, with little of human aid. We know of no man who so often brings to our mind the apostleship of Paul-affectionate, earnest, single-minded, prudent, with a belief in good that never waver

ed. We know of no man who has done so much to bring some of the more abstruse doctrines of Christianity within the compass of the understanding; and the more that is rescued from mysticism, inadequate as the intellect is to deal with what is properly spiritual, the more is the intellect itself raised, and something is thus gained for the cause of good by improving for its service the ministerial faculties of our nature. There is a feeling of freshness in the good sense of Chalmers. In this he reminds us of Paley and of Whately, though nothing can be more unlike than his style is to either of those writers. But in all these there is the appearance and, no doubt, the reality of their great power being derived from looking at things straightforward, and as they are in themselves; making them, as far as is possible, to stand out face to face before the mind. In Paley, and in the other writer whose name we have mentioned, the style is of almost scientific precision; not a word more or less than the occasion demands. Chalmers's style is, on the contrary, diffuse, and it would appear to us, from this cause, commanding less attention from his hearers than the justness and originality of his views deserve. We presume that the difference of style, as far as it does not depend on differences in the conformation of the respective minds of the writers, is to be referred to the fact that Chalmers's style was formed from his habit of addressing country congregations and half educated classes of students, and that the expansion of every thought into which he was led, for the purpose of rendering it intelligible to such auditors, led to a diffuseness which would have been fatal to effect if occurring in the writings of a man of less power.

In our review of the earlier part of Dr. Hanna's work, we had brought down the narrative of Dr. Chalmers's life to the period of his sister's Barbara's death. The next year was marked by the death of an uncle. In this case it was the ripe ear that had been gathered. The old man, who had appeared in his usual health through the

day, had been found dead in his own room in the evening in the attitude of prayer. The spirit, it would seem, had passed away without a struggle. When the account reached Kilmany, where Chalmers was now resident, it found him seriously ill; and, in the course of that year, disease which had been lurking about him for a long period, but which he refused to yield to as long as was possible, manifested itself so distinctly that he was obliged to give up all exertions of every kind for many months. For half-a-year he did not enter his pulpit, and more than a year elapsed before the duties of his parish were again regularly resumed by him.

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The illness was an affection of the liver. "I never saw any one," says Professor Duncan, "so much altered in the same course of time; being then greatly attenuated, while formerly he was corpulent. He had much the appearance of an old man, of one who would never again be equal to much exertion." In the interval between the death of his sister and his own illness, he had formed a connexion with the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, supplying it with some articles on mathematics and physics. He now asked to have the article "Christianity" entrusted to him. At no time could Chalmers have been described as a disbeliever, in the sense in which a disbelief of revelation exists in those who yet believe in God. There had been in his early days a scepticism which was deeply rooted, which alike refused assent to either natural or revealed religion. That scepticism is of a kind which can rarely last; the eternal power and godhead of the Creator are written in characters too distinct to have it possible for a fair mind to resist the evidence which everywhere meets the eye and mind, and the great work of Butler had long since taught Chalmers that the difficulties presented in revealed religion were not distinct in character from those which must be admitted to exist in nature. Still, it would seem, that the peculiar doctrines of Christianity were little appreciated by him at this stage of his progress, and that when he proposed to write the article on Christianity his thoughts were chiefly engaged by what Dr. Hanna calls "the credentials of the Bible." The visitations of death in his family, the duties arising from his

pastoral charge, the thoughtfulness forced upon him in long illness, produced in his mind what may be described as a serious change. Dr. Hanna has, in the posthumous works of Chalmers, published a volume of sermons; some written in the year he was ordained, some in the very last year of his life; and these certainly show, not alone increased power and increased spirituality, but there is, we think, a marked distinction in the doctrines taught, a distinction which becomes more marked when one endeavours-no easy task-to reduce to definiteness of statement the language of his earlier years. It is earnest, it is vehement, often powerful, but the power is as of some rich, ambitious music, affecting the senses or the less intellectual part of our mental being. We are by no means sure that, assuming the speaker to have himself definite views, and remembering that his sermons are but a small part of the means of instruction which a pastor brings to bear on his people, such oratory is not the most effective; but it is certainly that which least bears to be examined alone, and except for the purpose of enabling us to judge of what Chalmers was, and of the steps by which his great power was matured, we think the publication of some of those early discourses might have been spared. It would be unfitting for us, even did we feel ourselves competent to the task, to do more than allude to the change which appears to have taken place in Chalmers's mind, and the deeper seriousness with which it became impressed as life advanced, and as his acquaintance with Scripture and with his own heart increased; but we feel it necessary to say, that the evidence does not appear to us to authorise the statement that such change was other than gradual, or, if on such a subject we may use the language, other than in the natural order of sequence. We find him

"From good to better persevering still." The successive deaths in his family could not but have solemnised the feelings of Chalmers, and forced upon his thoughts that other world to which he beheld the removal of so many of his near relatives. For twenty years death had been a stranger to the family; a brother and sister had now been borne away, and two others were

threatened with the same fatal disease; then, suddenly, in the midst of life, his uncle was removed, and he himself seemed to be dying. "A panic seized the family, as if one after another they were doomed to fall." A letter of Chalmers's is preserved, which shows strongly that he partook of the feeling. The letter is written in a style too diffuse to admit of our quoting more than a sentence; but in that sentence he says:-"My confinement has fixed in my heart a very strong impression of the insignificance of time, an impres sion which I trust will not abandon me though I should again reach the heyday of health and vigour. This should be the first step to another impression still more salutary-the magnitude of eternity. Strip human life of its connexion with a higher state of existence, and it is the illusion of an instant, an unmeaning farce, a series of visions and projects, and convulsive efforts, which terminate in nothing." He then mentions Pascal, "who could renounce, without a sigh, all the distinctions which are conferred upon genius, and resolve to devote every talent and every hour to the defence and illustration of the gospel. This is superior to all Greek and all Roman fame."

Chalmers was not a man to do anything by halves; there can be no doubt that he soon began to acknowledge, what before had formed no part of his belief, new views of the utter depravity of human nature, which led to altered views of the atonement. One by one, it would seem, the truths of Scripture manifested themselves to him; not as parts of a system, but as truths which he sought to reconcile with earlier and imperfect views, and one by one, it would seem to us, that the parts of his earlier fabric of Theology were abandoned, till, long before the close of his life, his opinions became what are most often denominated evangelical.

There can be no doubt, we think, that throughout the writings of St. Paul there are references to the original elements of our nature; appeals to the principle of honour; to the feelings of indignation; to much that is within the heart of every man, whether a believer in revelation or not; to the sense of truth and justice; to much that is not peculiar to Christianity, and which many persons, and those of high repute,

too, would disconnect altogether from its teaching, as if Man was not the being to be taught, to be influenced; as if, when endowed with a life from above, no part of our original nature was to remain. So far from this being the character of Paul's preaching, we find that the moment any proposition violates a principle of natural justice, he at once infers that such proposition is untrue. We feel that in Paul his strength is irresistible when he appeals to feelings which modern religionists would shut out if they could altogether; that the ineffaceable handwriting of conscience, the faithful witness, confirms all that he thus utters. Admitted truths are everywhere made the basis of his argument; and while he enunciates new truths peculiar to Christianity, he everywhere presupposes a body of antecedent truth.

Such primary truths, presupposed in the teaching of Christianity, but not peculiar to it, were those most insisted on in Chalmers's earlier discourses; the doctrines peculiar to Christianity, if adverted to, were seen only through a dim mist of encumbering words. They embarrassed the preacher, and if they affected the audience it must have been rather through associations habitually connected with the language of Scripture, which he could not but use, than that the doctrines received any illustration from the preacher. It is, however, more reasonable to regard Chalmers's first sermons as exercises in composition and declamation than in any other point of view. To describe them as false in doctrine would, we think, be inaccurate. They are deficient, no doubt, but they are true as far as they go; they could not have been ineffective of good. Our impression is, that Chalmers's views of Scriptural truth were more clear as life advanced; that after the illness we have mentioned, and during the preparation of his article on "Christianity," the feeling of the depravity of human nature was for the first time distinctly pressed on him; his statement of which, however, would be far from satisfying the views of the high Calvinists. Dr. Hanna represents Dr. Chalmers's views on this subject as having been formed in the year 1810, and he preserves a sermon preached by Chalmers in 1813, in which are the germs of a discourse delivered afterwards in Glasgow, and published, if we remember rightly, in