ship of Erkel, which is situated on the borders of Holland, about three miles from Utrecht. His father, by name Radewin, was a man of notable fame among his own people, suitably adorned with property and talents according to the exigency of his state; and gave his pious assent and help to his son Florentius, on his setting out for his studies to Prague. For, at that time, learning flourished at Prague in Boheinia, and many from the low countries went thither. He soon became a good artist, who was as clear in his wit as he was studious among the scholars in making good progress; and as pious to the domestics, as he was reverent towards the masters. After this, he returned to his own country and kindred, and took with honour the degree of master.

3. All his friends and neighbours rejoiced exceedingly for that his happy presence was given again to them with such good success, and that after having travelled so far away, and encountered so many dangers, they were now to enjoy his presence, and to be consoled by him once more. If, indeed, his return, ripe in learning, from so famous a university, gave great joy to his friends, yet, by God's better disposal, was this made the happy preparation for his eternal salvation, seeing that, not long afterwards, he became a true servant of Christ, from the instructions of his master, as our merciful Lord, on his return from Prague, showed to him in a marvellous manner. For when he had come to a certain deep valley, there followed him a chariot, coming down the hill with great velocity, the which he could not avoid; and being in bodily terror, he, who had no human help, fled to the Lord. When having called on the Almighty Lord, forthwith the great grace of our Saviour was with him; for presently, which was a great marvel, as he called on the Lord, he saw the chariot had passed on before, and that all danger was over: which miracle he wholly ascribed to GOD, who healeth those that are troubled at heart, and freeth from all straits those that call upon him.

CHAP. V. ON THE GOODNESS OF HIS MORALS AMONGST SEculars.

1. Now he was notable for the honesty of his morals, joyful among his companions, affable in his speech, liberal in his expenses, comely in countenance, of a graceful bearing, and of the middle size. Him did GOD permit for some time to live in the world, and to have experience of its false follies, but not to be in the end endangered; that no one desirous of being converted should despair, when he knows that he was so soon changed for the better.

For once upon a time he was invited, with many other friends, to a secular marriage. And when they journeyed together, for the solace of his friends, by ready courtesy and showing mirth, he cut down some boughs from the trees, with which he shaded those that sat with him in the carriage, so that they might come to the bridal with more bravery. For he knew not yet what the Lord would do with him, nor thought with what care he ought to adorn his conscience within with holy virginity, so that he might be worthy to be admitted to the heavenly espousals. Nor as yet did he know of the spiritual banquet at the marriage-feast of Christ, so he took joy in going to worldly banquetings; but, by God's mercy, he remained not long in this vanity, but attained unto a great grace of devotion, and overcame all the sweetness of this world by a happy vocation.

3. Thus, that worldly action prefigured in him a certain future good; seeing that he, by the grace of GOD, being changed to a spiritual man, invited several of his fellow-guests to the marriage-feast of the heavenly inhabitants, where the immortal spouse, JESUS Christ, with all his saints, feasteth for ever and ever. And this was made most verily apparent afterwards, by the devout conversion of several of his brethren by him, as I have seen manifestly with mine own eyes, and as all Daventry knoweth.

END OF CHAP. V.

CRUDITIES OF NATIONAL CHARACTER.

AMONGST the most striking, and certainly least attractive of these, is that reserve or sullenness so peculiar to Englishmen, in which we, as it were, entrench ourselves against every possibility of extending our ac quaintance with our fellow-creatures, by any other than the formally accredited medium of personal presentation.

"I never was introduced to him," observed somebody in palliation of his not having rushed forward to aid a gentleman who had tumbled into the water in his efforts to save himself from drowning; and the story,

with due allowance, represents pretty accurately the spirit of what the French call "la morgue Britannique."

In fact, until the ceremonial of introduction has passed between us, how forbidding and mistrustful is our demeanour one with the other! Upon a stranger with whom casual circumstances may have brought us in close propinquity, how apt are we to look, and be looked at in turn by him, as if each had a design upon the other's pocket! Month after month do we not sometimes find ourselves in the almost daily habit of encountering persons whom, to use a common phrase, we well know by sight, that is to say, their names, standing, respectability, character, talents, and social qualities, may be perfectly well-known to us, ourselves, and all unto us relating, being perhaps equally familiar to them; yet the ice-cold code of English haughtiness forbids us to exchange one syllable of the most ordinary greeting, because a third person has not had an opportunity of reciting in our conjoined presence the requisite form of words for making us acquainted. Nowhere is this unsocial system of national reserve more observable than in the saloons and coffee-rooms of our London clubs, the members of which, having undergone the probation of ballot in order to gain admittance to them, might primâ facie be supposed to have sufficient reciprocal consciousness of respectability to venture upon an occasional interchange of thought, as the circumstance or convenience of the moment should suggest. Not at all;-the laws of silential etiquette reign perhaps more supreme in the club-room than anywhere else. We have witnessed in the coffee-room of the Athenæum (designated by a late eminent wit as "the Mental,” in contradistinction to “the Regimental," its opposite neighbour, the United Service) such a scene as the following: Some forty individuals eating their dinner at isolated tables in such profound disregard of each other's company, that beyond an occasional call to and response from the waiters, and the bustling tread of these functionaries, not a sound disturbed the almost solemn stillness of the place; resembling rather some gloomy banqueting room, in which ancient mourners might have met to partake with decent gravity of " funeral baked meats," than a miscellaneous assemblage of modern gentlemen brought by a common dinner-hour into casual juxtaposition. And how well even niceties of demeanour in that throng of casual guests harmonize with the prevailing English inclination doggedly to eschew intercourse with our fellow-beings! Let us watch A. B. and C. D. dining at small separate tables about a yard apart. A. B. has just finished reading the Globe newspaper, and laid it down beside him; and

C. D. wishes to look at it. Now a natural course would appear to be for C. D. to stretch out a hand, and quietly observe to A. B.: “If you have done with that paper, be good enough to give it me." But this would savour greatly too much of quasi-social familiarity; so the more regular and roundabout course is systematically adopted, of ringing for or calling a waiter, who being instructed by C. D. to ascertain whether "there be a Globe out of hand," forthwith pounces upon the "estray" sheet, and delivers it to him. We remember once sitting at dinner over our solitary mutton-chop at the Athenæum, when a gentleman similarly employed at an immediately adjoining table called out, "Waiter, bring me half-a-pint of sherry." "And me too," was our mechanical exclamation; when we chanced to encounter the angry glance of the first speaker, directed upon ourselves with an expression of injured pride, as though we had been delivered of some gross personal impertinence. In the estimation of our neighbour, we had doubtless unwittingly incurred that guilt, by presuming to husband, as it were, our parts of speech, and partly include the attainment of our own purpose within the terms of his particular mandate.

A characteristic anecdote has been told us of an Englishman, deeply impressed no doubt with that habitual sense of self-importance which we carry abroad with us, who found himself, in the course of his continental travels, at a ball given by a British ambassador. While pleasantly engaged in the refreshment room, a gentlemanly-looking individual approached him, and said, "I hope, sir, you find every thing to your liking;" to which courteous address the young man, with the sensitiveness of offended dignity, and drawing himself up at the same time into an attitude of withering hauteur, replied, "Sir, you have the advantage of me !" What his subsequent feelings may have been, upon discovering that the person whose advances he had so repulsed, was no other than the English minister himself, making the round of his " palazzo," and with high chivalrous politeness endeavouring to do its honours to the humblest as well as the most distinguished guests, our story does not say.

There are upon earth no greater wanderers than the English; in every part of Europe, and of the known world indeed, we are sure to encounter the faces of our countrymen. And yet, while appreciating pretty justly the many advantages resulting from various usages and practices of the continent, how slow and unaccountably averse we are to transplant them to England, although their convenience and utility may be indisputable. Take, for example, the grand social contrivance

of “tables d'hôte,” a system which prevails almost universally all over continental Europe, and by means of which a cheap and excellent dinner in good company is attainable, in lieu of an expensive bad one in solitude. To the maintenance of these public ordinaries, no class of persons, when abroad, more efficiently contribute the countenance of their company, than the English; yet all attempts to establish the same sort of thing in England have hitherto utterly failed. Even in the clubs of London, the experiment of a daily table d'hôte, backed even by the talents of such an artist in his line as M. Soyer, the famous French cook of “the Reform,” has failed to meet with the slightest encouragement. Why is this? Is there any reason why the benefits, if such they be, derivable from a dining association in France, should not be made available in England? What philosophy of living shall satisfactorily account for the fact that thirty persons partaking together of an excellent dinner at Boulogne, will the very next day, if transferred to a place only three hours' distance from that scene of convivial harmony, be content sulkily to chew tough beef-steaks in separate coffee-room boxes at Dover?

The only means of accounting for such anomalies, is by referring them to an anti-social spirit of native sullenness and reserve, the result, in the first instance, of geographical isolation from the great world of man, and, in the second, of a certain headstrong pride, and overweening confidence in our own superiority over all the rest of mankind, which make us scorn to appropriate to ourselves the institutions of others, however practical or self-evident their utility. Such peculiarities of national character, discoverable in a thousand other instances, appear to us to furnish forth the groundwork of many a lucubration, in which the divine, the man of the world, and the philosopher, might alike discover matter to prate about.

C.