the advantage, however, of steadying ourselves by pressing our legs against the ice. Having in this manner got nearly over, and to where it began to rise, the greatest caution was necessary in rising on his feet, in order to draw himself up upon the block of solid ice.

I watched his progress with intense anxiety, and then it was my turn to follow. My heart sunk within me-my companion stood on the other side and encouraged me. I threw my pole over to him, and then sate down on the edge of this awful chasm. My sensations were horrible indeed; nothing short of absolute despair would have tempted me to undertake it. However, I stretched my legs over this icy saddle: the pelting rain was running off in numberless rills; the rough, uneven, jagged edge struck a chill upon my very heart; my clothes were stiff and frozen on me; my hands and feet benumbed with cold; almost shoeless, and the skin torn off my fingers by the rough ice and small stones scattered over the glacier. I moved slowly and steadily onwards; I looked down on either side the yawning gulf below me I felt the necessity of collecting all my energies-it was the calmness of despair. I uttered no sound; poised as I was, the slightest swerve either way and I should lose my balance, and then all would be over. I drew myself along, and steadied myself by pressing my legs against the glassy ice; and then, when almost over, I had to raise myself upon my feet to mount the solid block-the most nervous of all. I gathered one foot up, and by the help of the pole which my companion extended to me slowly rose and stood upon the narrow, slippery edge, and gained the block in safety. Once more together, what was next to be done? The storm raged in unabated fury-the sun was sinking:-in these regions the daylight quickly fades were darkness to overtake us, far from assistance, uncertain of what we might yet have to undergo,only overcoming one danger to encounter another,—had any accident happened to my companion, I feel convinced I should have been unable to make an effort to assist him; indeed, from the nature of the place, without ropes and ladders, it would have been useless.-Reflections, like these, although they urged us to desperate undertakings, tended but little to comfort us;-my companion's iron mind gave way to bitterness.

We made the best of our way onwards, with tolerable ease, for some time, often however, after having proceeded an hundred paces, obliged to return, and take another direction, it being impossible to see the difficulties until we came to them. In many instances we had to jump down upon a block, and over a narrow chasm, and were unable to return, as well from the slipperiness and the unyielding nature of the material, as from the impossibility of jumping up and over a crevice at the same time, as a glance at the sketch will show.

At last we leaped down upon a large block of this description, and, to our horror, found it quite isolated-chasms fairly all round us— ghastly icy walls-horrible to contemplate. The chasm which separated the block nearest to us, was fully six feet across. It was not so much the distance, as the uncertainty of being able to keep our footing when over:-we could not of course take a standing leap, and there was great difficulty in running on the surface, slippery with rain.

My companion thought it could not be done: however, as I had for some time conceived our escape hopeless, I became careless of what might befall me. I threw my staff over, and, retiring a few paces, sprang over, and came with nose and knees on the ice with considerable violence, too happy in having accomplished the main object to care much about the minor evil of peeling my "flippers" against the sharp corners, and alighting upon the ice with a force which shook me to the centre. My companion followed, and fortunately this proved the last of our dangers; and so powerfully had we been excited for the last three hours, that difficulties and disagreeables were now passed by unheeded. We found the remaining part of the glacier tolerably connected, and, after floundering about for some time, had the happiness to come to terra firma, at the bottom of the rocks, near the spot where we stopped for refreshment in the morning.

We hurried along as fast as the rude track would allow us, my fingers and legs smarting from the wounds they had received; but although our progress was far from pleasant, (it poured a deluge still,) the dangers we had so wonderfully escaped, impressed our minds with indescribable feelings of thankfulness, we seemed almost miraculously to have been rescued from an inevitable and awful death. And now the pangs of hunger assailed us; we had eaten nothing since six o'clock in the morning; it was at this time four in the afternoon, and we had far to go. We had been too earnestly engaged for some hours to think of eating, or indeed to feel an appetite. My friend had a little wine left, which we shared. Our road lay along the edge of the glacier, and at last we came to the "barefaced rock" we passed in the morning. This was a difficulty-in fact, a danger, though not equal to what we had overcome; so we thought less of it-once over, we knew all would be well. It had been made very slippery by the wet. Mr. M. went first, and with his assistance I got over too; that done, he pushed on for the Chalet, which shortly after appeared in sight. I followed as quickly as I could, and about five o'clock got safely housed.

None but those who had undergone the harassing fears and fatigues we had just encountered, could duly appreciate the value of the assistance afforded us by such an establishment in such a place, on the summit of a lonely mountain, high up above the habitable world. Fresh logs were piled upon the fire; stripped to the skin, and, wrapping myself in a blanket, discussed oceans of warm brandy and water, whilst my clothes were drying; safe and comfortable, and once more enlivened by human faces. The rain continued, and when the door was opened, the clouds were scudding past us with fearful rapidity-so great was our height

My companion, after resting a short time, set off for our quarters at Chamouni, to get dinner ready, and some dry clothes, against my arrival, leaving me to follow at leisure. Shortly after, five or six men arrived at the Chalet; they had been on the opposite mountains, gathering a flock of sixty sheep, which had been scattered the day before by a wolf who came down from the recesses of Mont Blanc. The men had ascended early in the morning from Argentiere, and had, like ourselves, been exposed to the elements, but had not encountered our dangers, being well acquainted with the place; they were dripping wet, and benumbed with cold, and had gathered all the flock but four. One man brought with him the remnants of a sheep, which had been torn in pieces. The shepherds said, they had seen two people on the ice in the morning, but conceived it an impossibility to cross the glacier where we did, and wondered at our

escape.

After staying some time, I again put on my half-dried clothes, and set off down the mountain for Chamouni; it rained heavily, and in ten minutes I was as wet as ever; the rain blew in my face, and made the clayey path very slippery. However, partly by sliding, and partly by scrambling and catching hold of the roots of the pine trees, in about three quarters of an hour I got to the bottom. The whole valley was enveloped with mist, through which the lower parts of the mountains alone were visible. A mile and a half farther, brought me to the inn, in as comfortless a plight as any poor devil needed to be, literally wringing wet. A tub of warm water, a change of clothes, and a good dinner, speedily set all to rights, and, bating my bruised legs and fingers, a little stiffness, and the fright, the next morning found me as well as ever.

Being in delicate health, I was fearful the long exposure to the rain, and being half frozen into the bargain, might be attended with serious consequences; but this time I came off "Scot free," and setting off next morning for Geneva, we walked the whole distance (sixty miles) in two days. C. W.D.

P.S. I have since heard the people in the Chalet considered our escape miraculous. I scrawled some lines in the Mountain Album, warning people NOT "to go and do likewise."

Thus I have had good cause to remember the lines of the poet,

"Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains

They crown'd him long ago,

On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of now.

DR. NARES'S LIFE OF LORD BURGHLEY.*

THE pursuit, the passion for private and personal anecdote, pushed into the retirements of the rulers of the world to discover the secret springs of political action, so prevalent of late years, has a very decided tendency to corrupt in its sources the stream of history. The political gets thus to be confounded with the personal, or considered as comparatively insignificant. The back-stairs becomes of more importance than the cabinet; and what essentially, perhaps, concerns nothing but the intrigues of a court, is made to rule the destinies of nations. All depends on the caprices of the monarch. The whims of princes occasionally, it is true, may disturb the orbit of a minister's politics; but notoriously in modern times, and probably at all times, the leanings, and feelings, and wishes of the sovereign, do and must yield, for the most part, to steadier and more comprehensive interests. It is of serious consequence, however, when the historian gets the wrong bias: for then history becomes just what he chooses to make it. The same act is often, in the absence of positive evidence, assignable to a private or a public source-to transient or permanent causes; and according to the bent of the writer, or his particular purpose, will the motive be assigned to one or the other. One man is of coarser perceptions, while another subtilizes. The resulting habit gives birth to systems, and one is for referring all to some disinterested source, and the other to a base and selfish one. One can see nothing but vice; another nothing but virtue. With one, again, mere association governs the judgment, without any settled plan or principle; his own experience and feelings are the standard, and then every thing, like objects seen through coloured glass, partakes of the tinge. On the other hand, a writer is perhaps the tool or the fool of a faction, and then whatever opposes must be passed over, or decried, or cunningly twisted in accordance to their views. The result of all which is, that the best established history is never secure, and a sort of necessity recurs, periodically, of doing all over again. For the makers of books this is a charming prospect; for, take up what book we will, we discern some personal bias, and we come, justified by abundant experience, rapidly to the conclusion that the writer has yielded to it too much, and the matter requires moulding afresh. But of all the sources of historical corruption, none, probably, has more betrayed writers than the passion of assigning public action to secret and unworthy motives. The distinction, broad as it is, of the political and personal, has come to be lost sight of. So many important points have been, apparently, traced to petty and pitiful sources, that with many, pursuing an empty analogy, every thing seems traceable to a similar origin. It is, however, one of the most degrading conceptions that ever took possession of man; it is one of the most narrowing and blinding too; we shall never see half the object by fixing our eyes upon points. One thing depends too much upon another in this world to refer all, and that systematically, to any thing so restless and irregular as the fancies of an individual. Instead of looking abroad, and taking in remoter, and not for that reason less influencing causes, we keep our eyes intent upon the single individual, and, what is worse, upon some single characteristic of that individual, and construe all accordingly. The death of Mary of Scotland is thus tracked to the vanity of Elizabeth, mortified by superior beauty. Vain enough, no doubt, she was; but the vanity, to any one who can grasp remoter causes, vanishes in the graver agencies that brought the national interests of the two queens into conflict.

To show how groundless is this judgment in the case of Elizabeth, is the main purpose of Dr. Nares's new volume; for though, ostensibly, the Life of Cecil is the subject, from the Queen's very accession, that is all but identified with the reign of Elizabeth. He was her earliest minister, and continued to be her chief and confidential adviser for forty years, to the very close of a long life. That

Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Hon. William Cecil Lord Burghley. By the Rev. Edward Nares, D.D. Vol. ii. 4to.

life was wholly public, and its story is inseparable from public measures-from the history of his country. He conducted her counsels, foreign and domestic; and though not professedly Premier-the distinction was, indeed, then unknown-he was from the first influential in every department, and eventually paramount. Dr. Nares, accordingly, whose object leads him to discuss the times, as the only means of fairly painting his hero, takes up the political history of the reign, and examines it, if not in the generalising spirit of a philosopher, with, what is better for his purpose, a hearty resolution to search and sift the truth. The tone of the apologist will be thought, perhaps, to prevail too much; but that tone in the end will prove to be the result of profound research, of laborious investigation on his part, and the imperfect measure that has been usually taken of Cecil and the Queen on the other. Inquiries were demanded at every turn, and he has been thus insensibly drawn into a defence, because, at every turn too, he had perversions to expose, blunders to correct, and contradictions to adjust. He himself commenced his undertaking with a prejudice against the minister and his mistress; but in the progress of his labours his impressions changed; he yielded to the force of evidence never before considered, and finally resolved, like a man, to state the results of his researches without flinching. Whatever might have been Elizabeth's vexation at being eclipsed by Mary's personal charms, Cecil's conduct, he finds, tending invariably to the safety of the Queen and the preservation of the state. Though he may not be able to justify some of the minister's acts, abstractedly, they are to be palliated on the recognized principles of the age, as acts of retaliation, or as precautions dictated by necessity. It was not because Mary was beautiful and herself was ugly, that Elizabeth finally get rid, by violence, of so annoying an object, and spent thirty years in plotting that destruction. Circumstances, over which neither she nor Cecil had any control, brought the two queens into collision. They began before Mary's beauty, or her virtues, or her vices were known; they were of political importance, of vital interest, involving the safety of the state, and the very existence of Protestantism. These circumstances Dr. Nares sets himself sedulously to illustrate; and he has, beyond all question, thrown more light upon the connection of events, upon the general spirit and bearings of the times, than any one writer that can be named. He has had recourse to all authorities; he has sifted, and sorted, and valued them, and finds the political influences to outweigh the personal immensely. This makes the book bulky and the work heavy; but the materials are extensive, the object is of importance, and the very heaviness is relieved by the earnestness with which the author urges and enforces the grounds of his own conviction. Though the reader may not think more harshly of Mary than before, he must think less so of Elizabeth, who was compelled to many invidious measures for the maintenance of her rights and the independence of her crown.

The commencement of the conflict-for conflict it was-between Mary and Elizabeth, is of far more importance than the conclusion; and the commencement is precisely that which has been least regarded. Elizabeth came to the throne under peculiar circumstances; the country was divided upon religious matters; Catholics and Protestants were not merely opposed, but struggling for superiority. Their ascendencies had alternated. The last reign had elated the Catholics; they had recovered much of the lost ground, and were active in maintaining it and advancing their cause. Elizabeth's title was disputed by one party, and, of course, supported by the other. Her mother, upon Catholic principles, was an adultress, and herself a bastard. Her own father, though he afterwards placed her in the line of succession, had also by act of Parliament bastardized her; and her sister, on the throne, at every quarrel, taunted her with the stain of her birth. Her rights, in short, were recognized only by a party, and into the hands of that party she naturally threw herself-their cause was inseparably coupled with hers. The death of her sister came upon the country, and both its factions, by surprise. Elizabeth was on the spot, and stepped into the vacant throne. She was beforehand with all competitors-she got possession and bravely kept it—but right she had none in the eye sof a large portion of her subjects. Her pretensions rested essentially on the wills and wishes of the