earthquake and storm are not less necessary in the physical world, than the upheavings of society before the establishment of any great principle. Yea, "Paradise itself," in the words of the prophet of the Koran, "lies under the shadow of swords."

But to return to the thread of our narrative. After the capitulation to Ireton, we find William landing in Ireland, the city invested by him in person, and twenty thousand men encamped under its walls. His first position was at Singland, where his Danish countrymen some centuries before were placed, from whence his field-pieces had full command of the city: a summons to surrender being sent, many in the town, among which were Boiseleau and Sarsfield, opposed it, and the envoy was sent back. Next day a French soldier deserting into the town, acquainted Sarsfield of some artillery coming to William; Sarsfield crossed the Shannon, lay all day concealed in the mountains in the line of their march, and coming up with them, fixed the cannon, loaded to the mouths, in the earth and blew them up. This accident interrupted William's operations for some time; but receiving cannon from Waterford, he renewed the attack, which on both sides was maintained with desperate bravery for some time. A breach was made at length near John's Gate, and the king ordered the counterscarp and two towers on each side of the gate to be assaulted; five hundred grenadiers rushed to the attack, the besieged defending_the breach with desperate firmness. The regiment ordered to the support of the besiegers, stopped at the counterscarp, but some driving the Irish before them were killed; the latter rallied, surrounded the breach, and defended it more vigorously than before; and here the women of Limerick gained a title to celebrity equal to that of the Maid of Saragossa, for, mingling with the besieged troops, they pushed to the front and assailed the enemy with stones! During three hours a tremendous hot fire was kept up; a regi ment of William's seizing what was called the "black battery," thought all was right, but being full of powder, it was blown up; the defence of the breach still continued as obstinate as ever, and after having fifteen hundred men numbered amongst the dead and dying, the English withdrew. William

An

now determined to raise the siege, and after offering very advantageous terms, which were refused, he left the command of the forces to Solmes and Ginkle. During a long interval which succeeded after the dismantling of the English batteries, Sarsfield was engaged repairing his fortifications; his army amounted to fifty thousand men. Ginkle in the meantime not idle, was engaged at another point on the Shannon-Athlone. A little after, however, we find him securing the passes of the river at Limerick, and waiting anxiously for his artillery and baggage. English squadron of nineteen ships, lying in the Shannon, being ordered to sail up the river, and every preparation made, he advanced on the town; the garrison commenced the attack outside the walls, but after one tremendous volley they retired within the town; trenches were opened and batteries thrown up, and shot and shell poured into the city; the terrified inhabitants fled in every quarter, and next day the garrison made a tremendous sally, but were almost immediately driven back. A breach was now made in the town wall, but a gun being placed on the steeple of the cathedral, many of the besiegers were killed; the gunner on the steeple, however, did not escape their vigilance, and this venerable edifice was in a fair way of demolition when Ginkle ordered the cannonading to cease, thinking it a pity the chief ornament of the city should be destroyed.

After standing out for some time, Ginkle at length conceived the only way for reducing the town was to invest it on the Thomond side, and concealing his design, he pretended to leave off the attack; but what was the amazement of those in the town on finding a bridge thrown across the river in one night, and Ginkle, with ten regiments of foot and fourteen guns, at the foot of Thomond bridge; a fearful action ensued, the cannon of John's Castle playing on them across the Shannon; the besieged fought desperately, filling the bridge; but being at length routed, a French officer in the city, fearing the enemy would enter along with them, raised the draw-bridge, leaving them to the mercy of the besiegers. A scene horrible to contemplate ensued; six hundred were run through with the sword, and one hundred and fifty were driven into the river and drowned. Grown tired of

war, and exasperated at the dissensions growing up every hour, the besiegers at length capitulated; a treaty was signed, and a general cessation of hostilities agreed on. In these memorable engagements on the banks of the Shannon, history seems unanimous in lauding the prudence of Ginkle not less than the intrepid bravery of Sarsfield; each, supporting those rights and immunities which he considered best, exhibited a zeal and energy worthy of a better cause; and the surrender of Limerick was one of those remarkable eventsone of those turning points in human affairs, which One alone can comprehend, and which is not permitted the participators to look into; indeed, under the wise arrangements of Providence, the prospect now brightens, and where English, and Dane, and Irish once met in deadly hostility, the land is now given up to social improvement.

Of the modern city of Limerick, we purpose not to speak at any length, referring rather to the work of a Rev. friend, a perfect miracle of industry and research. The improvement of the city for several years, has been steadily progressive. The capabilities of their noble river have also engaged the attention of the citizens, and docks of some extent are likely at length to result from their solicitous endeavours; to one quainted with the magnificent works of this kind in the western capital of the sister island, the neglect of our "Irish Liverpool" is a social and geographic anomaly scarcely within the limits of ordinary credibility. Half way in point of time between our very amiable friends, Jonathan and John Bull, each seems to have been studying a chart from which

ac

our

country has been washed away, and thousands emigrating to the western world, spend somewhat facetiously half the allotted period like pilgrims to Mecca, with their "faces to the east." What some of our future archæologists will think of the "logs" kept on such voyages, it is not easy to anticipate, and when told of the little river Mersey being nearer New York, than our patriarchal acquaintance the Shannon, our friend" near the equinoctial line," will be brought to corroborate some theory of the world having turned upside down, or inside out.

Our readers in Galway have been telling us of the charms of Lough Corrib, and Con, and Mask; our neighbours on the Lee, of the beauties of Cove and Passage-matters we should be the last to question-still we would fain concentrate attention on Kerry point and Loop Head. The thousand islands off Clew Bay and Sline Head, and the tremendous roll of the Atlantic in Mal Bay, are beyond every thing beautiful; we cannot recommend them, however, to the "understandings" of our American barks or to the hawsers of our India

men.

There is a certain Briarean indi

vidual called " every body," whose business has been, time out of mind, left to another worthy gentleman; we think this negative personage has had his finger in the subject; we are, therefore, the more anxious to direct the attention of our rulers to the un

dertaking of the matter. The construction of proper and spacious docks at Limerick, indeed, cannot fail to prove an essential step in the experiment of bringing the two countries nearer together; of the unexplored industrial resources of our noble river, we have spoken before-these alone should decide the matter. Some recent evidences of the advantage taken of these capabilites are not wanting, and the polishing of marble, and manufacture of some woollen fabrics in the vicinity of the city, are proofs that we only want cotton to set our entire unemployed population at work. Anchored in the Shannon, in a spot where a French general once said he could take the city with "roasted apples," we had ample opportunity of spying the beauties of the land but they are to be seen, not described.

The new part of Limerick exhibits no little elegance and taste, being little inferior to many parts of the metropolis. The city has been celebrated, time out of mind, for the beauty and blandishments of the fairer part of creation-a distinction we feel happy in still conceding to it. walls and wallnut shells, bid fair indeed to go down to posterity together; nor must we forget its lace, only equal to its ladies. To enumerate its fishing hooks and flies, were clearly a work of supererogation, not to mention its salmon, chroniclers of its ce

Its

lebrities; however, we should not fulfil our office to our friends of both arms of the service, were we not to tell them there are two other things they value to be got here also the oldest wines and newest news; wishing for the best bottle of wine in the service, or a hint of the earliest brevet, turn towards Limerick.

The city is, of course, governed by a mayor and corporation, and the former tell it not in the gun-roomis admiral of the Shannon, his jurisdietion extending as far as an arrow can shoot beyond Scattery. Several improvements are in progress in the old part of the city, especially one to embank the original island on which the city was founded, let our friends only avoid commissioners. A very epistolary abstraction termed "Woods and Forests," whose acquaintance with the locality is something like Mark Tapley's of Eden, very much confined to paper-has hitherto done much in wax and queen's heads, let us hope equal activity will be shown in providing an outlet for the tired citizen along his beautiful river. The only available exit at the opposite side of the river where, by accident, he might escape to fill his lungs with the freshness of the country, is of course blocked up, your genuine commissioner forming his plans on the curt maxim-"nothing for nothing"-a third walk, where he was accustomed whilome to wander at his own free will, without the ghost of a commissioner stalking across his path, was too much to indulge in; and now, if found riding without special liberty, he is subject to the solicitous attentions of the Shannon Commissioners and Court of Queen's Bench. We hope our friends will keep a jealous eye on the Palace of Donald O'Brien and John's Castle, lest any of these red-tape apparitions, smit with a love of these old relics, should linger in their precincts, and Mary's Steeple be found eloping some fine morning, or John's Castle discovered on its way across the river.

A little way above the city, the tidal wave of the river terminates, and the rushing waters of the Upper Shannon meet those of the Lower; and here we would beg leave to part from thee, gentlest reader, for the present. Yet "parting is such sweet sorrow," we would fain draw out our verbosity longer than the "staple of our argu

ment," and keep babbling of green fields, but that we hope to meet thee amongst the witchery of Lough Derg in another number. We have been diverted into the current of history in the present one, by the castellated ruins of the capital of the Shannon; diverted into that stream of events so full of interest

"That river, on whose banks are found Sweet pastoral flowers, and laurels that have crowned Full oft the unworthy brow of lawless force; And for delight of him who tracks its course, Immortal amaranth and palms abound."

Yes, let the practical people of the world prattle as they please, there is a world about and around us, on the confines of the present, where we may acquire lessons of deepest wisdom. Some one speaks of standing high upon this vantage-ground of the present, and looking at the past, and Milton of the "bright countenance of truth shining amid the still air of such delightful studies."-Beautiful, indeed, on the mountain tops, are the feet of those bringing tidings from the past; beautiful, indeed, the privilege to be permitted to think and feel in concert with such pure minds. The revelations of history bring us into contact with those endowed with like passions, and thoughts, and sentiments to ourselves; gifted with that divine and sublimating spirit, we but too often neglect; and when we find those passions and thoughts linked with the purest love, as in the early teachings of our great saint, breathing the kindliest affections of the unchanging heart of man, every wall and ruin becomes hallowed by such associations. History is the great connecting-link of the soul with the feelings of the past, and what a well-spring of delight in those pure sympathies thus awakened; what freshness in the old truths ever gushing up; what a pervading soul of happiness, could we but perceive it! Yes, Schiller

"Sanft und eben rinnt der Lebens fluss,

Durch der schonheit stille Schattenland."

Spite the destroying finger of Time -the crumbling of rock and ruin— softly flows yet ever the calm undercurrent of life, "gliding through the "shadow land" of the beautiful. Nearly six thousand years have the trees of the forest waved in the sweet breath of heaven-have the flowers been renewed in all their beauty and strength. So with the charities of life-ever different, yet the same.

D'AUBIGNE'S History of the Reformation is one of those books of which it is impossible that we should omit giving an account; and yet, as it has almost the interest of a romance-such is the power with which the author exhibits in actual picture, every scene which he has to describe-we cannot but hope that the volume which now demands our attention must be already in the hands of many of our readers. The book has been more popular in England than on the continent. Of the English translations of the three first volumes, from 150,000, to 200,000 have been sold, while the sale of the original did not exceed 4,000. Dr. D'Aubigné says, that great and serious inconvenience has arisen from inaccuracies in the translations-in one instance, likely to have led to the dissolution of the American Tract Society. The American booksellers, it appears, circulated 75,000 copies of D'Aubigné's work, in one

or more

English translations, but the scattered population in the New Settlements cannot be reached by ordinary booksellers, and among these the American Tract Society undertook to circulate an edition of 24,000 copies through the instrumentality of more than a hundred hawkers (Colporteurs).

The

Tract Society were accused by two presbyterian synods, of mutilating the work, and the effect of the accusation was so detrimental to the society, that Dr. D'Aubigné found it necessary to interpose.

The Tract Society, it would appear, altered the translation which they circulated in a few passages, but the context showed that what they printed was more in accordance with D'Aubigne's views than the passages in the version which they were pirating and paring for their public. In one passage vol iii. book ix. chap. 4, the committee of the Tract Society found these words "It is the Episcopal authority itself that Luther calls to the bar of judgment, in the person of the German

primate." On the committee were episcopalians, and they altered the phrase, "it is the authority of Rome itself, that Luther calls to the bar of judgment in the person of the German primate." On this D'Aubigné says "this is no doubt an important alteration, but the first translator had himself changed my idea. The French reads thus"c'est l'episcopat tout entier que Luther traduit à sa barre dans la personne du primat Germanique."

"There," he adds, "is no question of episcopal authority but of the whole body of the Roman Catholic bishops. I pronounce neither for nor against the episcopal authority; I am content to point out an inaccuracy in the translation."

In vol. iii. book ix. chapter 2, the committee found the expression," the ancient structure of the Church was thus tottering," and they substituted "the ancient structure of Popery was thus tottering."

"In the French," says D'Aubigné, "there occurs neither Church nor Popery, but simply l'ancien edifice s'ecroulait,' nevertheless the committee's rendering is preferable. It is not the Church of Christ that was tottering, since the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. It is the Papal Church, as is evident from the context. Most of the other passages changed by the American society, were originally translated with tolerable fidelity; but it was sufficient that some were not so to make the author feel the necessity of a new edition, carefully revised by himself."

We think Dr. D'Aubigné quite right in doing what he can to secure his share of the profits, that cannot but arise from the large sales in England of his work; but a translation, no matter by whom produced, could never be secured from such corrections and alterations as he mentions. The implied presbyterianism of the work would for ever subject it to this kind

of word-paring, which cannot but create distrust of all popular editions of books circulated by tract societies, and we suspect, that had the translation revised by himself been that in the hands of the committee, it would not have fared much better.

To guard as far as he could against blunders of translators, and tract societies, seemed to Dr. D'Aubigné a duty. It was important too to secure to himself some part of the profits arising from the English sale. These joint considerations having led to a change in his plan of publication, he has examined Mr. White's translation of the three first volumes," line by line, and word by word,” in order to be able to authenticate its being every where faithful to the original, and the fourth volume, which has not appeared in any other than the English form, is the joint work of Mr. White and himself. The only mode in which he could secure to the publishers who have purchased the work from him, a fair return for their large expenditure, was to withhold from immediate publication the fourth volume in French. Throughout the three first volumes he has also introduced original matter, which has not yet appeared in any other form. Oliver and Boyd's edition of D'Aubigné's History of the Reformation is thus the most perfect form in which it can be obtained. We are glad that an arrangement has been made, securing to the author his fair remuneration, and giving the public the best guarantee for correctness that can be had under the circumstances.

We have said that Dr. D'Aubigné's style is singularly animated and picturesque. Indeed we know no book equal to those parts of his which give Luther's early life and struggles. It is far more authentic than Michelet's "Memoirs of Luther, written by himself," as he calls a book substantially made up from the "Table-talk," a work of very doubtful authority. Michelet, with great diligence and with great liveliness, is yet a writer that cannot be altogether relied on, as he does not seem to us to distinguish at all between the relative value of his authorities, and a theory will at any time mislead him. In all the circumstances that prepared

the

age in which he appeared for Luther and Luther for his age, D'Aubigné recognises and seeks to exhibit providential purpose. The argument is in substance the same as that illustrated by Dr. Miller in the "Philosophy of History," and by Mr. O'Sullivan in an early work of his on the disposition of events leading to the Reformation in England.

The former volumes of D'Aubigné's History have carried on the narrative to the period when Protestantism began to exist in institutions of its own; and the present volume, occupied with the History of the Protest of Spire, the Confession of Augsburg, and the Reformation in Switzerland, is scarcely less interesting or important than those that have preceded it.

The period of the Reformation is emphatically the commencement of modern history. All things have become new. In the parent Church of the West, no less than in the communities which had hitherto acknowledged a dependence, more or less modified,upon her, the 'spirit of change was operating; and Rome, no less than Germany, was influenced by the great scenes in which the people were beginning to be felt a powerful and influencing element in the constitution of society. It must be remembered that in these early struggles religious feeling, everywhere awake and active, had not yet fixed itself into adverse dogmas. There was nothing even to render improbable a silent correction of the startling abuses of practice, that presented a more formidable objection to the claims of Rome than conflicting theories. No council had given its sanction to the views with which Luther was at war. The doctrine of justification by faith was in words-and we have no reason to doubt in meaning-expressed as strongly by Contarini and Flaminio as by Luther himself. Cardinal Pole was of opinion that Scripture, taken in its profoundest connexion, preaches nothing but this doctrine. The doctrines which afterwards obtained the sanction of the Council of Trent had not, at the period of which we are speaking, been yet authoritatively expressed in language irreconcileable with the views of the reformers. The