the arrival of the wardmasters, whom it had at last been thought expedient to summon. Upon intelligence of this riot, which the militia, if previously mustered, might have prevented, the senate determined to proceed to the cathedral in a body, with the hope of quelling the mob by the dignity of their presence. The margrave, who was the high executive officer of the little commonwealth, | marched down to the cathedral accordingly, attended by the two burgomasters and all the senators. At first their authority, solicitations, and personal influence produced a good effect. Some of those outside consented to retire and the tumult partially subsided within. As night, however, was fast approaching, many of the mob insisted upon remaining for evening service. They were informed that there would be none that night, and that for once the people could certainly dispense with their vespers.

A colossal and magnificent group of the Saviour crucified between two thieves adorned the principal altar. The statue of Christ was wrenched from its place with ropes and pulleys, while the malefactors, with bitter and blasphemous irony, were left on high, the only representatives of the marble crowd which had been destroyed. A very beautiful piece of architecture decorated the choir -the 'repository,' as it was called, in which the body of Christ was figuratively enshrined. This much-admired work rested upon a single column, but rose, arch upon arch, pillar upon pillar, to the height of three hundred feet, till quite lost in the vault above. It was now shattered into a million pieces. The statues, images, pictures, ornaments, as they lay upon the ground, were broken with sledge-hammers, hewn with axes, trampled, torn, and beaten into shreds. A troop of harlots, snatching waxen tapers from the altars, stood around the destroyers, and lighted them at their work. Nothing escaped their omnivorous rage. They desecrated seventy chapels, forced open all the chests of treasure, covered their own squalid attire with the gorgeous robes of the ecclesiastics, broke the sacred bread, poured out the draughts to the Beggars' health; burned all the splendid missals and manuscripts, and smeared their shoes with the sacred oil, with which kings and prelates had been anointed. It seemed that each of these malicious creatures must have been endowed with the strength of a hundred giants. How else in the few brief hours of a midsummer night, could such a monstrous desecration have been accomplished by a troop, which, according to all accounts, was not more than one hundred in number! There was a multitude of spectators, as upon all such occasions, but the actual spoilers were very few.

Several persons now manifesting an intention of leaving the cathedral, it was suggested to the senators that if they should lead the way, the population would follow in their train, and so disperse to their homes. The excellent magistrates took the advice, not caring perhaps to fulfil any longer the dangerous but not dignified func-sacramental wine into golden chalices, quaffing huge tions of police-officers. Before departing, they adopted the precaution of closing all the doors of the church, leaving a single one open, that the rabble still remaining might have an opportunity to depart. It seemed not to occur to the senators that the same gate would as conveniently afford an entrance for those without as an egress for those within. That unlooked-for event happened, however. No sooner had the magistrates retired than the rabble burst through the single door which had been left open, overpowered the margrave, who with a few attendants, had remained behind, vainly endeavouring by threats and exhortations to appease the tumult, drove him ignominiously from the church, and threw all the other portals wide open. Then the populace flowed in like an angry sea. The whole of the cathedral was at the mercy of the rioters, who were evidently bent on mischief. The wardens and treasurers of the church, after a vain attempt to secure a few of its most precious possessions, retired. They carried the news to the senators, who, accompanied by a few halberdmen, again ventured to approach the spot. It was but for a moment, however, for, appalled by the furious sounds which came from within the church, as if invisible forces were preparing a catastrophe which no human power could withstand, the magistrates fled precipitately from the scene. Fearing that the next attack would be upon the Town House, they hastened to concentrate at that point their available strength, and left the stately cathedral to its fate.

And now, as the shadows of night were deepening the perpetual twilight of the church, the work of destruction commenced. Instead of vespers rose the fierce music of a psalm yelled by a thousand angry voices. It seemed the preconcerted signal for a general attack. A band of marauders flew upon the image of the Virgin, dragged it forth from its receptacle, plunged daggers into its inanimate body, tore off its jewelled and embroidered garments, broke the whole figure into a thousand pieces, and scattered the fragments along the floor. A wild shout succeeded, and then the work, which seemed delegated to a comparatively small number of the assembled crowd, went on with incredible celerity. Some were armed with axes, some with bludgeons, some with sledgehammers; others brought ladders, pulleys, ropes, and levers. Every statue was hurled from its niche, every picture torn from the wall, every painted window shivered to atoms, every ancient monument shattered, every sculptured decoration, however inaccessible in appearance, hurled to the ground. Indefatigably, audaciously endowed, as it seemed, with preternatural strength and nimbleness, these furious iconoclasts clambered up the dizzy heights, shrieking and chattering like malignant apes, as they tore off in triumph the slowly-matured fruit of centuries. In a space of time wonderfully brief, they had accomplished their task.

The noblest and richest temple of the Netherlands was a wreck, but the fury of the spoilers was excited, not appeased. Each seizing a burning torch, the whole herd rushed from the cathedral, and swept howling through the streets. 'Long live the Beggars!' resounded through the sultry midnight air, as the ravenous pack flew to and fro, smiting every image of the Virgin, every crucifix, every sculptured saint, every Catholic symbol which they met with upon their path. All night long they roamed from one sacred edifice to another, thoroughly destroying as they went. Before morning they had sacked thirty churches within the city walls. They entered the monasteries, burned their invaluable libraries, destroyed their altars, statues, pictures, and, descending into the cellars, broached every cask which they found there, pouring out in one great flood all the ancient wine and ale with which those holy men had been wont to solace their retirement from generation to generation. They invaded the nunneries, whence the occupants, panic-stricken, fled for refuge to the houses of their friends and kindred. The streets were filled with monks and nuns, running this way and that, shrieking and fluttering, to escape the claws of these fiendish Calvinists. The terror was imaginary, for not the least remarkable feature in these transactions was, that neither insult nor injury was offered to man or woman, and that not a farthing's value of the immense amount of property destroyed was appropriated. It was a war, not against the living, but against graven images, nor was the sentiment which prompted the onslaught in the least commingled with a desire of plunder. The principal citizens of Antwerp, expecting every instant that the storm would be diverted from the ecclesiastical edifices to private dwellings, and that robbery, rape, and murder would follow sacrilege, remained all night expecting the attack, and prepared to defend their hearths, even if the altars were profaned. The precaution was needless. It was asserted by the Catholics that the Confederates, and other opulent Protestants, had organised this company of profligates for the meagre pittance of ten stivers a day. On the other hand it was believed by many that the Catholics had themselves plotted the whole outrage in order to bring odium upon the Reformers. Both statements were equally unfounded. The task was most

thoroughly performed, but it was prompted by a furious fanaticism, not by baser motives.

Two days and nights longer the havoc raged unchecked through all the churches of Antwerp and the neighbouring villages. Hardly a statue or picture escaped destruction. Yet the rage was directed exclusively against stocks and stones. Not a man was wounded nor a woman outraged. Prisoners, indeed, who had been languishing hopelessly in dungeons were liberated. A monk who had been in the prison of the Barefoot Monastery for twelve years, recovered his freedom. Art was trampled in the dust, but humanity deplored no

victims.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

of the clans, which listened to Powhatan as their leader or their conqueror, comprehended about eight thousand square miles, thirty tribes, and twenty-four hundred warriors; so that the Indian population amounted to about one inhabitant to a square mile. The natives, naked and feeble compared with the Europeans, were nowhere concentrated in considerable villages, but dwelt dispersed in hamlets, with from forty to sixty in each company. Few places had more than two hundred; and many had less. It was also unusual for any large portion of these tribes to be assembled together. An idle tale of an ambuscade of three or four thousand is perhaps an error for three or four hundred; otherwise, it is an extravagant fiction, wholly unworthy of belief. Smith once met a party that seemed to amount to seven hundred; and so complete was the superiority conferred by the use of firearms, that with fifteen men he was able to withstand them all. The savages were therefore regarded with contempt or compassion. No uniform care had been taken to conciliate their goodwill; although their condition had been improved by some of the arts of civilised life. The degree of their advancement may be judged by the intelligence of their chieftain. A house having been built for Opechancanough after the English fashion, he took such delight in the lock and key, that he would lock and unlock the door a hundred times a day, and thought the device incomparable. When Wyatt arrived, the natives expressed a fear lest his intentions should be hostile; he assured them of his wish to preserve inviolable peace; and the emigrants had no use for firearms except against a deer or a fowl. Confidence so far increased, that the old law, which made death the penalty for teaching the Indians to use a fowlers and huntsmen. The plantations of the English were widely extended in unsuspecting confidence, along the James River and towards the Potomac, wherever rich grounds invited to the culture of tobacco; nor were solitary places, remote from neighbours, avoided, since there would there be less competition for the ownership of the soil.

The history of the United States has been ably and copiously related by a native historian, MR GEORGE BANCROFT. This gentleman was born in 1800, at Worcester, in Massachusetts. His father, Dr A. Bancroft, a Congregational or Unitarian minister, had written a Life of Washington, 1807, and the paternal tastes and example had probably some effect in directing the literary labours of the son. Having graduated with distinction at Harvard College, he afterwards studied in Germany, and on his return entered the Church. A love of literature, however, prevailed, and Mr Bancroft commenced author by publishing a volume of Poems. Some translations from the German, chiefly the historical manuals of Professor Heeren, next engaged Mr Bancroft, and he added to these precarious literary gains by open-musket, was forgotten; and they were now employed as ing a school at Northampton. He seems next to have tried public employment, and was successively collector at the port of Boston and secretary of the navy. In 1846, he was appointed minister plenipotentiary to England. The latter appointment may be considered as due to the literary reputation of Mr Bancroft, who had then entered on his great historical work. In 1834 appeared his History of the Colonisation of the United States, volume i. A second volume was published in 1837, and a third in 1840. The success of this work induced the author to continue his researches, and he commenced the History of the American Revolution. From 1852 to 1858, four volumes were published, making seven in all, devoted to the history of the United States. There was much new information in these volumes, for manuscript and unpublished sources were thrown open to their author; his style was lively and energetic, and his democratic prejudices, though sometimes unnecessarily brought forward, gave a warmth and individuality to the narrative. The historian was in earnest-a hearty lover of his country, and of the founders of its independAt the same time, his narrative must be pronounced fair and candid, and free from any attempt to awaken old animosities.

ence.

Massacre of English Colonists by Indians. Between the Indians and the English there had been quarrels, but no wars. From the first landing of colonists in Virginia, the power of the natives was despised; their strongest weapons were such arrows as they could shape without the use of iron, such hatchets as could be made from stone; and an English mastiff seemed to them a terrible adversary. Nor were their numbers considerable. Within sixty miles of Jamestown, it is computed, there were no more than five thousand souls, or about fifteen hundred warriors. The whole territory

Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas, remained, after the marriage of his daughter, the firm friend of the English. He died in 1618; and his younger brother was now the heir to his influence. Should the native occupants of the soil consent to be driven from their Should their feebleness submit ancient patrimony? patiently to contempt, injury, and the loss of their lands? defence, seemed to demand an active resistance; to preThe desire of self-preservation, the necessity of selfserve their dwelling-places, the English must be exterminated; in open battle the Indians would be powerless; conscious of their weakness, they could not hope to accomplish their end except by a preconcerted surprise. The crime was one of savage ferocity; but it was sug gested by their situation. They were timorous and quick of apprehension, and consequently treacherous; for treachery and falsehood are the vices of cowardice. The attack was prepared with impenetrable secrecy. of friendship; they borrowed the boats of the English To the very last hour the Indians preserved the language to attend their own assemblies; on the very morning of the massacre, they were in the houses and at the tables of those whose death they were plotting. 'Sooner,' said they, shall the sky fall, than peace be violated on our part.' At length, on the twenty-second of March (1622), at midday, at one and the same instant of time, the Indians fell upon an unsuspecting population, which was scattered through distant villages, extending one hundred and forty miles on both sides of the river. The onset was so sudden, that the blow was not discerned till it fell. None were spared; children and women, as well as men; the missionary, who had cherished the natives with untiring gentleness; the liberal benefactors, from whom they had received daily benefits, all were murdered with indiscriminate barbarity, and every aggravation of cruelty. The savages fell upon the dead

bodies, as if it had been possible to commit on them a fresh murder.

In one hour three hundred and forty-seven persons were cut off. Yet the carnage was not universal; and Virginia was saved from so disastrous a grave. The night before the execution of the conspiracy, it was revealed by a converted Indian to an Englishman, whom he wished to rescue; Jamestown and the nearest settlements were well prepared against an attack; and the savages, as timid as they were ferocious, fled with precipitation from the appearance of wakeful resistance. In this manner, the most considerable part of the colony was saved.

The Town of Boston in the Last Century. The king set himself, and his ministry, and parliament, and all Great Britain, to subdue to his will one stubborn little town on the sterile coast of the Massachusetts Bay. The odds against it were fearful; but it shewed a life inextinguishable, and had been chosen to keep guard over the liberties of mankind.

The Old World had not its parallel. It counted about sixteen thousand inhabitants of European origin, all of whom learned to read and write. Good public schools were the foundation of its political system; and Benjamin Franklin, one of their grateful pupils, in his youth apprenticed to the art which makes knowledge the common property of mankind, had gone forth from them to stand before the nations as the representative of the modern plebeian class.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, the poet, and SYDNEY HOWARD GAY, was commenced in 1876, to be completed in four volumes. This will be a very splendid work, finely illustrated and printed, and written in a pleasing style.

Three Periods in American History.

The

The history of the United States (says Mr Bryant) naturally divides itself into three periods, upon the third of which we lately, at the close of our civil war, entered as a people with congruous institutions in every part of our vast territory. The first was the colonial period; the second includes the years which elapsed from the Declaration of Independence to the struggle which closed with the extinction of slavery. colonial period was a time of tutelage, of struggle and dependence, the childhood of the future nation. But our real growth, as a distinct member of the community of nations, belongs to the second period, and began when we were strong enough to assert and maintain our independence. To this second period a large space has been allotted in the present work. Not that the mere military annals of our Revolutionary War would seem to require a large proportion of this space, but the various attendant circumstances, the previous controversies with the mother-country, in which all the colonies were more or less interested, and which grew into a common cause; the consultations which followed; the defiance of the mother-country in which they all joined; the service in an army which made all the colonists fellow-soldiers; the common danger, the common privations, sufferings, and expedients, the common sorrow at reverses and rejoicing at victories, require to be fully set forth, that it may be seen by how natural a transition these widely-scattered communities became united in a federal republic, which has rapidly risen to take its place among the foremost nations of the world, with a population which has increased tenfold, and a sisterhood of States enlarged from thirteen to thirty-seven.

As its schools were for all its children, so the great body of its male inhabitants of twenty-one years of age, when assembled in a hall which Faneuil, of Huguenot ancestry, had built for them, was the source of all municipal authority. In the meeting of the town, its taxes were voted, its affairs discussed and settled; its agents and public servants annually elected by ballot; and abstract political principles freely debated. A small property qualification was attached to the right of suffrage, but did not exclude enough to change the character of the institution. There had never existed a considerable municipality approaching so nearly to a pure democSo crowded with events and controversies is this racy; and, for so populous a place, it was undoubtedly second part of our history, and the few years which the most orderly and best governed in the world. have elapsed of the third; so rapid has been the accumIts ecclesiastical polity was in like manner republican.ulation of wealth and the growth of trade; so great The great mass were Congregationalists; each church was an assembly formed by voluntary agreement; selfconstituted, self-supported, and independent. They were clear that no person or church had power over another church. There was not a Roman Catholic altar in the place; the usages of 'papists' were looked upon as worn-out superstitions, fit only for the ignorant. But the people were not merely the fiercest enemies of 'popery and slavery;' they were Protestants even against Protestantism; and though the English Church was tolerated, Boston kept up its exasperation against prelacy. Its ministers were still its prophets and its guides; its pulpit, in which, now that Mayhew was no more, Cooper was admired above all others for eloquence and patriotism, by weekly appeals inflamed alike the fervour of piety and of liberty. In the Boston Gazette, it enjoyed a free press, which gave currency to its conclusions on the natural right of man to self-government.

Its citizens were inquisitive; seeking to know the causes of things, and to search for the reason of existing Yet they controlled their speculative turn by practical judgment, exhibiting the seeming contradiction of susceptibility to enthusiasm, and calculating shrewdness. They were fond of gain, and adventurous, penetrating, and keen in their pursuit of it; yet their avidity was tempered by a well-considered and continuing liberality. Nearly every man was struggling to make his own way in the world and his own fortune; and yet individually, and as a body, they were public-spirited.

institutions in the laws of nature.

have been the achievements of inventive art and the applied sciences; with such celerity has our population spread itself over new regions, and so vehement have been the struggles maintained against its abuses, moral and political, that it has not been easy to give due attention to all of them, without exceeding the limits prescribed for this work.

We are not without the hope that those who read what we have written, will see in the past, with all its vicissitudes, the promise of a prosperous and honourable future, of concord at home, and peace and respect abroad; and that the same cheerful piety, which leads the good man to put his personal trust in a kind Providence, will prompt the good citizen to cherish an equal confidence in regard to the destiny reserved for our beloved country.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

of Erskine and Brougham, the great American
As we have noticed the popular forensic oratory
orator, DANIEL WEBSTER (1782-1852), should
He was the Chatham of the
not be overlooked.
New World, and Chatham could not have pro-
nounced a more glowing eulogium on England
than fell from the lips of this Western Republican.

Eloquent Apostrophe to England.

Our fathers raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, A Popular History of the United States, by in the height of her glory, is not to be compared-a

power which has dotted the surface of the whole globe | then, on the day which had fast linked for ever their with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun in his course, and keeping pace with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England. The remarkable fact of the simultaneous death of Adams and Jefferson-the second and third presidents of the United States-happening on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1826), could not but powerfully affect the mind of Webster, as it did that of the whole nation. Jefferson had written the Declaration, and Adams had proclaimed it in congress. Daniel Webster, speaking at Boston on the 2d of August following, thus characterised the departed

and calamities; that name shone, amid the storm of war, a beacon light, to cheer and guide the country's friends; its flame, too, like a meteor, to repel her foes. That name, in the days of peace, was a loadstone, attracting to itself a whole people's confidence, a whole people's love, and the whole world's respect; that name, descending with all time, spread over the whole earth, and uttered in all the languages belonging to the tribes and races of men, will for ever be pronounced with affectionate gratitude by every one in whose breast there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and human liberty.

We perform this grateful duty, gentlemen, at the expiration of a hundred years from his birth, near the place so cherished and beloved by him, where his dust now reposes, and in the capital which bears his own immortal name.

tion, and in all that relates to the civilisation of man. But it is the spirit of human freedom, the new elevation of individual man, in his moral, social, and political character, leading the whole long train of other improvements, which has most remarkably distinguished the era. Society, in this century, has not made its progress, like Chinese skill, by a greater acuteness of ingenuity in trifles; it has not merely lashed itself to an increased speed round the old circles of thought and action, but it has assumed a new character, it has raised itself from beneath governments, to a participation in governments; it has mixed moral and political objects with the daily pursuits of individual men, and, with a freedom and strength before altogether unknown, it has applied to these objects the whole power of the human understanding. It has been the era, in short, when the social principle has triumphed over the feudal principle; when society has maintained its rights against military power, and established, on foundations never hereafter to be shaken, its competency to govern itself.

All experience evinces that human sentiments are strongly affected by associations. The recurrence of anniversaries, or of longer periods of time, naturally freshens the recollection, and deepens the impression of events with which they are historically connected. A work on the Southern States of North Renowned places, also, have a power to awaken feel-America, by EDWARD KING, who, with a body ing, which all acknowledge. No American can pass by the fields of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, or Camden, as if they were ordinary spots on the earth's surface. Whoever visits them feels the sentiment of love of country kindling anew, as if the spirit that belonged to the transactions which have rendered these places distinguished still hovered round, with power to move and excite all who in future time may approach them.

But neither of these sources of emotion equals the power with which great moral examples affect the mind. When sublime virtues cease to be abstractions, when they become embodied in human character, and exemplified in human conduct, we should be false to our own nature, if we did not indulge in the spontaneous effusions of our gratitude and our admiration. A true lover of the virtue of patriotism delights to contemplate its purest models; and that love of country may be well suspected which affects to soar so high into the regions of sentiment as to be lost and absorbed in the abstract feeling, and becomes too elevated, or too refined, to glow either with power in the commendation or the love of individual benefactors. All this is immaterial. It is as if one should be so enthusiastic a lover of poetry as to care nothing for Homer or Milton; so passionately attached to eloquence as to be indifferent to Tully and Chatham; or such a devotee to the arts, in such an ecstasy with the elements of beauty, proportion, and expression, as to regard the master-pieces of Raphael and Michael Angelo with coldness or contempt. We may be assured, gentlemen, that he who really loves the thing itself, loves its finest exhibitions. A true friend of his country loves her friends and benefactors, and thinks it no degradation to commend and commemorate them. . . .

of artists, spent most of the years 1873 and 1874 on a tour of observation, will be found interesting and valuable. The party travelled more than twenty-five thousand miles, visiting nearly every city and town of importance in the southern and south-western States. The artist-in-chief, Mr Champney, furnished more than four hundred of the sketches which illustrate the work, all of which are well executed and constitute a gallery of pictures of American life, character, and scenery.

Condition of the Southern States since the War.

There is (says Mr King) much that is discouraging in the present condition of the south, but no one is more loth than the Southerner to admit the impossibility of its thorough redemption. The growth of manufactures in the southern states, while insignificant as compared with the gigantic development in the north and west, is highly encouraging, and it is actually true that manufactured articles formerly sent south from the north, are now made in the south to be shipped to northern buyers.

There is at least good reason to hope that in a few years immigration will pour into the fertile fields and noble valleys along the grand streams of the south, assuring a mighty growth. The southern people, however, will have to make more vigorous efforts in soliciting immigration than they have thus far shewn themselves capable of, if they intend to compete with the robust assurance of western agents in Europe. Texas and Virginia do not need to exert themselves, for Gentlemen, we are at the point of a century from the currents of immigration are now flowing steadily to birth of Washington; and what a century it has been! them; and as has been seen in the north-west, one During its course the human mind has seemed to pro-immigrant always brings, sooner or later, ten in his ceed with a sort of geometric velocity, accomplishing more than had been done in fives or tens of centuries preceding. Washington stands at the commencement of a new era, as well as at the head of the new world. A century from the birth of Washington has changed the world. The country of Washington has been the theatre on which a great part of that change has been wrought; and Washington himself a principal agent by which it has been accomplished. His age and his country are equally full of wonders, and of both he is the chief.

Washington had attained his manhood when that spark of liberty was struck out in his own country, which has since kindled into a flame, and shot its beams over the earth. In the flow of a century from his birth, the world has changed in science, in arts, in the extent of commerce, in the improvement of naviga

wake. But the cotton states need able and efficient agents in Europe to explain thoroughly the nature and extent of their resources, and to counteract the effect of the political misrepresentation which is so conspicuous during every heated campaign, and which never fails to do these states incalculable harm. The mischief which the grinding of the outrage mill by cheap politicians, in the vain hope that it might serve their party ends at the elections of 1874, did such noble commonwealths as Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, can hardly be

estimated.