Rutland, while innocent like him ?" asked Edward. "Oh! yes, but we should never become wicked as our uncle Gloucester."

as

"Ah! Richard, how can you speak so confidently?" replied the king. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can

know it?' We have never experienced the temptations to which that unhappy man has yielded, and doubtless it is in mercy to us both that we are removed from the allurements of pleasure, the seductions of ambition, and the intoxications of power, for which perishing delusions we might have imperilled our immortal souls, and forfeited that incorruptible inheritance which fadeth not away, for the enjoyment of which I humbly hope our Heavenly Father is preparing us, through the chastening of many sorrows. Let us, my brother, acknowledge his goodness in all his dispensations, and count the loss of all earthly things as gain, for the hope that is set before us; for the light afflictions of this present time are not to be compared with the eternal weight of glory that shall be revealed."

And now the royal brothers appeared forgotten by the whole world; ignorant of every thing that passed beyond the narrow confines of their lonely chamber, they passed their time in prayer and devotional exercises there, for they were no longer permitted to attend divine service in the chapel, lest their appearance should continue to remind people that they were in existence, which their usurping uncle was desirous of having wholly forgotten; and

well he calculated on the fickleness of popular feeling, which, however powerfully excited for a time, is so evanescent in its nature, that it rarely outlives the nine days' wonder.

The mild and heavenly demeanour of the captive king had created a strong interest for him in the heart of Sir Robert Brackenbury, who was accustomed to see him every day, and to offer him many little courtesies, which were very acceptable to those deserted children of royalty at a time when they felt themselves abandoned by every former friend. But his visits were suddenly discontinued, and when the captive princes inquired of their attendant why they did not see Sir Robert Brackenbury as usual, he replied,

"He is no longer lieutenant of the Tower."

"And who has succeeded to his office ?" demanded the king.

"One master James Tirrell has the keys now," replied the man, with a look of peculiar meaning: "I don't think he is called the lieutenant of the Tower, though we are to obey his orders."

A fearful suspicion of the cause for which Sir Robert Brackenbury had been removed, and a person of no reckoning inducted into an office of such responsibility as the control of the Tower, involving as it did the charge of state prisoners of their importance, flashed at once on the minds of both the princes; and exchanging a look of mournful intelligence, as soon as the attendant had withdrawn they enfolded each other in a long and sad embrace; then kneeling down together, they solemnly pre

pared themselves for the awful change which they felt awaited them.

The king had long been convinced of the vanity and insufficiency of all earthly things; he had experienced many a bitter lesson of the fickleness and treachery of a world which had at first appeared in such flattering colours, and as ifonly made for him, but which had abandoned him on the first reverse of changing fortune. His young heart was now weaned from its delusions, and had learned to fix its hopes where only true joys are to be found. Yet the immediate prospect of death, either by open violence or midnight murder, was terrible to him, and the thought that his little brother would undoubtedly be involved in the same dismal fate, increased the agony with which shuddering nature contemplated the probability of their impending doom. The anguish too with which the fond heart of his afflicted mother would be pierced, when the dreadful intelligence should reach her, recurred to his mind, and the idea of her unprotected desolate state, and that of his helpless sisters, filled his eyes with tears, and increased in a tenfold degree the bitterness of death. Yet in that hour of sore distress, though sorrowful he was not forsaken; a calm, a heavenly calm, the result of deep and fervent prayer, succeeded in his soul to the tumultuous tempest of earthly griefs and earthly cares with which it had been agitated. The dove-like wings of hope and faith were then expanded, and his heavenward spirit appeared eager to flee away and be at rest.

His devotions, and those of his little brother, were prolonged that night to a very late hour, and after recommending themselves, their widowed mother, their orphan sisters, and all friends who might still remember them or who suffered for their sakes, to the protection of that merciful God whose all-seeing eye watches over the meanest of his creatures, likewise entreating his forgiveness for all who had injured them, not excepting their cruel uncle, in behalf of whom King Edward, after some little difficulty, at length prevailed upon his less placable brother to join him in a solemn petition for forgiveness at the throne of grace, they both sought that bed which was so soon to be their grave.

"The peace of God, which passeth all understanding," was in the hearts of the youthful twain. Fatigued with the unusual length and fervency of their devotions, in spite of their consciousness that the snares of death encompassed them about, they soon, entwined in each other's arms, sunk into a sleep so calm and profound, that the entrance of the murderous ruffians who came commissioned to cut short the thread of their pure and harmless lives disturbed them not. And so touching, so beautiful was the picture of brotherly love and holy innocence which the gentle pair presented in their serene repose, their heads resting on the same pillow, on which laid the breviary book they had been so lately perusing, that, as one of the murderers afterwards confessed, "it shook his guilty purpose," and had it not been for the taunts and threats of

his more obdurate companion, he could not have perpetrated the crime of crushing two such sweet and hopeful blossoms in the bud. Yet both the ministers of death agreed in performing their barbarous commission with a comparative exercise of mercy, for they were careful not to alarm their gentle victims by rudely startling them from that calm repose, which the murderous work of one irrecoverable moment converted into the sleep of death, and dismissed the pure spirits of these royal brothers to the enjoyment of that heavenly kingdom, for which the perilous, and to them fatal distinctions of earthly greatness, had been cheaply exchanged.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY.

EDWARD the Fifth nominally reigned over England for two months and thirteen days. His imaginary rule began and ended in his thirteenth year. In that brief space revolutions of government occurred, of which not one was unstained by faithless, deliberate, and cruel murder; and it was closed by a dark and bloody scene.

Scarcely had the wars of the roses been extinguished, when new factions sprung up from the jealousy always felt, towards court favourites, by the ancient nobility. Such factions characterize the Plantagenet reigns, and more especially those of the princes of York, who, having been long subjects, continued their habits of intermarrying with sub