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lovers and propagators of scandal do not | Hence he appears to be very firm; but the gain the smallest shred of honour or repu- firmness is that of blind favouritism, like tation by their scandal-mongering, and that of the ape-mother in the fable, who at consequently they feel much less shame a moment of danger, instead of letting all and meet with much less reproof, as their her little ones climb up her back, seized evil sayings are attended by no personal one favourite ape-child, and, running advantage. It is only very nice and sen- straight on, intent alone on that one's presitive consciences that enable their owners servation, dashed herself and the child to suffer remorse when they have heed- against the wall. lessly invented or furthered scandal.

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It is very curious to observe the way in which anger is wont to make use of the plural. No sooner is any man injured, or thinks himself injured, by some one person belonging to a body, than the injured man attaches the blame to the whole of the body. He is injured, we will admit, by one person belonging to a family, or a government, or any section of mankind. Forthwith he goes about saying, "They are abominable people; They used me shamefully." This practice seems at first sight only ludicrous, but it often leads to most serious consequences. The injured man puts himself into an attitude of hostility to the whole body. They hear of it, and are prompt to take up the quarrel; and so, in the end, he really has to contend against the injustice, if it be injustice, not only of one man, but of many men; and thereby has not furthered his

cause.

It is not a subtle conceit, but is consistent with observed fact, that men who are prone to praise and commend others are mostly men of a melancholy character. At any rate, they are men who take a very high view of the difficulties and troubles of life. Hence they think much of small suecesses. Considering the faultiness of education, the strength of passion, the hardness of the world, the difficulty of making any impression upon it, and the many embarrassments which beset a man's progress in life, persons of the character I have described are rather surprised at anybody's behaving well, or doing anything rightly. That laudation which, when uttered by other men, is merely praise of an ordinary kind, is, when uttered by these men, a large appreciation of trials and difficulties overcome - perhaps an exaggerated appreciation, by reason of an excess in the sad and desponding view they take of human life.

Following up somewhat of the same Rules are the inventions and the safe- train of thought, we may observe that the guards of mediocrity.

The

censure which men pronounce upon the conduct of others is mostly a censure proStrength of resolve is often the result of ceeding from lofty expectations. poverty of imagination, or rather perhaps young especially abound in censure of this of fixedness of imagination. A man al- kind. They blame severely, because they lows himself to dwell upon one train of look forward so hopefully both for themthought, to magnify the merits of the ad- selves and others; and have as yet so little vantages of a certain course; and he in-apprehension of the trials, struggles and sists upon keeping his mind closed against difficulties in this confused and troubled all other contending trains of thought. world.

CHANGE OF HABITS IN A PLANT. - We lately recorded (Academy, vol. ii. p. 522) a singular instance of a change of habit of comparatively recent occurrence in the case of the Kea or mountain-parrot of New Zealand. The same observer, Mr. Thos. H. Potts, has noted in Nature (No. 118, Feb. 1st) a somewhat similar instance of the change of habit in a plant. The Loranthus micranthus is one of the most showy parasites belonging to the New Zealand flora, and is nearly allied to our mistletoe. Originally

parasitic on native trees belonging to the orders Violaries and Rutaces, it appears now to have nearly deserted these in favour of trees introduced since the colonization of the islands by Europeans, especially the hawthorn, plum, peach, and laburnum. The latter tree was only introduced in 1859, and appears now to be one of its most favourite resorts, where it is abundantly visited by the (also introduced) European honey-bee. Academy.

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From The Quarterly Review. AN ENGLISH INTERIOR IN THE 17TH CENTURY.*

FROM the library of the late Mr. Law, of King's Cliff, near Bristol-author of the "Serious Call". a curious MS. diary of a Noncomformist chaplain has come into the possession of the writer of these lines, through the kindness of a friend into whose collection the interesting MSS. of Mr. Law (including those of Dr. Lee, the son-in-law of the celebrated visionary Mrs. Jane Lead) have passed. This singular relic, written in the minutest character and in very fair Latin, presents so vivid a picture of an English interior at the close of the seventeenth century, and that in a family of the highest rank, that a brief notice of this record of the daily life of a domestic chaplain during this transition period cannot but possess features of interest for the general reader. Elias Travers appears to have been one of the many "waifs and strays" of that bloodless but too fatal massacre of St. Bartholomew, which formed so sad a spiritual commentary on the sanguinary persecution of its earlier namesake. A Nonconformist of Nonconformists (for he was a cousin of the great Howe, and so highly esteemed by him as to be thought meet to succeed him on his own recommendation as Chaplain to Viscount Massareene), he was one of those pious and faithful men whom the severe Act of 1662 had cut off from the Church, and who yet, by that singular providence which transferred their ninistrations to the families of the nobility and higher gentry, were preserved to the Church for a work of much higher and more lasting utility than any they could have effected through their pastoral office. But for this strong spiritual influence which was thus secretly leavening the mass of English society, it is difficult to imagine how far any portion of evangelical truth could have survived the chilling and almost paralyzing reaction of the period of Charles II. In these faithful men, whose influence was thus unconsciously extended,

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the prophecy of Isaiah seems to have had one of its many fulfilments. "As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants' sake." (Isa. lxv. 8.) Our first introduction to our guide in this narrative is at "his chambers at the Three Blackbirds' in Holborn at Mr. Bransill's." Of the place or the host we know nothing more than that he met the latter when he revisited London in the days of his chaplaincy at Ketton. His diary, after a suggestive memorandum relating to the effects of his "Unkle Rous," which amounted to the modest sum of "nineteen pounds sixteen or six shillings, I am not well assured whether of the two," opens with an act of self-dedication, written on September 8th, 1675, in which he sets himself apart like Jacob to the service of God, and promises "of all that he shall have when his debts are paid, he will give the tenth to Him while he lives,". Witnesse," he adds, "my soul and conscience and my hand the day and year above-written." Certain entries in short-hand succeeded this record, and are occasionally interspersed among the pages of his diary. From a subsequent reference he makes to them, they would appear merely to consist of confessions of his broken resolutions, shortcomings, and backslidings, recorded in order to be read over from time to time as a kind of penance, and therefore not throwing any light u on the facts described in the diary. At some time between 1676 and February, 1678 (at which date the diary begins) and probably through the influence of his cousin Howe with the Viscountess Wimbledon, the mother of Lady Barnardiston, our friend becomes the chaplain and tutor to the family of Sir Thomas Barnardiston, of Ketton Hall, in Suffolk, into whose household his own graphic touches will, best introduce us, though it will not be amiss to avail ourselves, in the first instance, of the more formal introduction of Sir Bernard Burke, who, "in herald pomp and state," can best explain to us the full extent of the contrast between the lodging at the • An English Interior in the 17th Century (1675-81).Three Blackbirds" in Holborn, and the Illustrated from the unpublished diary of ELIAS TRAVERS, M.A., Chaplain to Sir Thomas Barnardis- half-baronial mansion of Ketton. "This," ton, M.P., of Ketton Hall. writes the great heraldic authority, “was

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one of the most ancient families of the, family," was five times knight of the shire equestrian order in the kingdom, having for the county of Suffolk, and died in 1653. flourished in a "direct line for twenty-sev- He was one of the greatest champions of en generations at least." Their estate in civil and religious liberty in the House of the time of Queen Elizabeth amounted to Commons, in which he represented Suffolk £4,000 a year,* and had been increased by in three Parliament. Connected with the a succession of great alliances, among Knightleys, Hampdens, Cromwells, Arwhich that with the old Norman family of mynes, Lucases, and other patriotic houses, Newmarch brought them the Lordship of he joined them in their political course Kedyton or Ketton, from which they de- refused to contribute to the ship-money, rived their local designation, while from alleging that "he was not satisfied therein the neighbouring town of Barnardiston in his conscience," submitting to imprisonthey had acquired their patronymic. The ment rather than sauctioning illegality. manor of Great Cotes, in the county of In his memoir by Fairclough, there is a Lincoln (a strange and wintry name), had very interesting and minute account of the devolved to them from the Willoughbys, manner of living which he instituted at a name equally redolent of the fen coun- Ketton, with all the strict religious observtry; but Ketton is to us the central point ances and regulations for the improvement of interest, as the scene of the chaplaincy of his children, servants, and neighbours. of Elias Travers, and of the stereoscopic These rules, however well adapted to a view which comes before us day by day in household which had "ten or more servants his diary. Through Vavasours and Wa-so eminent for piety and sincerity that tertons and other great alliances, the never was the like seen all at once in any "equestrian family" "carries on its his- family,"* became a somewhat severe code tory to the period of Sir Thomas Bar- to his successor who had rather the tastes nardiston, whose figure was to be seen (in of an old country gentleman than those of Weaver's time) in the south window of a saintly Puritan. They are rather groKedyton Church, kneeling in complete tesquely revealed in the pages of our chaparmour, his coat armour on his breast, and lain, and stand out in odd contrast to the behind him seven sons. In the next pane life of a hunting baronet and his not overof glass was seen Elizabeth (his wife) temperate companions. In fact, but for the the daughter of Newport kneeling with paramount influence of his mother-in-law, her coat armour likewise on her breast, and Viscountess Wimbledon, these traditional seven daughters behind her." Of these restraints would hardly have survived the good people, who flourished in the open- next generation. Sir Nathaniel's immediate ing of the sixteenth century, all other successor, Sir Thomas, did, however, more memorial has perished. But their succes-nearly resemble him, and it was to him sor, Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston, so united that Cromwell wrote: "It has pleased the goodness with greatness that he has been enshrined for all future generations in the famous funeral sermon and biography of Fairclough, to which our good chaplain very frequently refers. This worthy knight, the greatest ornament of his house, "one of the most eminent patriots of his time, and the twenty-third knight of his

* Probably exclusive of the great Lincolnshire estate, as Mr. Almack, in his admirable and exhaustive history of the family ("Kedington and the Barnardistons"). published by the Suffolk Archæo. logical Institute, has suggested (p. 13). I may here acknowledge my frequent obligations to this memoir, whose author, being nearly connected with the family, has written it with an interest which few others could import into the subject.

Lord to give your servant and soldiers a notable victory at Gainsbrawe after the taking of Burlye House" adding of Col. Cavendish, "my Captain Lieutenant slew him with a thrust under his short ribbs." Sir Thomas took an important part as a Parliamentary leader both in the field and in the house, but his opinions were modified at a later day, and he assisted so materially in the work of the Restoration, that, for the antiquity of his family and the virtues of his ancestors, he was created a baronet by the restored monarch in 1663. His eldest son of the same name, Sir

"Kedington and the Barnardistons," p. 8.

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