Lord to comfort; and I send her my blessing, and to all her children, and pray her to pray for me. I send her a handkerchief, and God comfort my good son, her husband. My good daughter Dauncey* hath the picture in parchment, that you delivered me from my lady Coniers; her name is on the back. Shew her that I heartily pray her, that you may send it in my name to her again, for a token from me, to pray for me. I like special well Dorothy Colliet: I pray you be good to her. I would wot whether this be she that you wrote me of; if not, yet I pray you be good to the other as you may, in her affliction, and to my daughter Joan Alleyn too. Give her, I pray you, some kind answer, for she sued hither to me this day to pray you to be good to her. I cumber you, good Margaret, much; but I should be sorry if it should be any longer than to-morrow, for it is St. Thomas's eve, and the utas of St. Peter, and therefore tomorrow long I to go to God. It were a day meet and convenient for me. I never liked your manners towards me better than when you kissed me last, for I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath no leisure to stay for worldly

A beloved servant in the family, who married another. faithful retainer of Sir Thomas's, his secretary, John Harris. It is a redeeming trait in human nature that so many persons should have been affectionate and true in the trying hour of adversity.

+ His second daughter, Elizabeth.

↑ A servant of Mrs. Roper's, his god-daughter

courtesy. Farewell, my dear child, and pray for me, and I shall for you and all your friends, that we may merrily meet in Heaven. I thank you for your great cost. I send now to my good daughter Clementt, her algorisme stone, and I send her and my godson, and all her children, God's blessing and mine. I pray you, at time convenient, commend me to my good son John More. I liked well his natural fashiont. Our Lord bless him and his wife, my loving daughter, to whom I pray him to be good, as he hath great cause; and if that the land of mine come into his hand, he brake not my will concerning his sister Dauncey; and our Lord bless Thomas and Austin (his sons), and all that they have."

It was one of the last requests of Sir Thomas More to Henry the Eighth, that his daughter Margaret might attend his funeral. In defiance of the danger which attended the act, she bought the head of her honoured parent, when it was about to be thrown into the Thames; and when brought before the privy council, and harshly questioned concerning this act, and why she did it, she replied boldly, "That it might not become food for fishes." She died at the early age of thirty-six; and by her own desire she was buried with her father's head on her bosom.

In this beautiful sentence he alludes to their last interview on Tower Wharf.

The wife of Dr. Clement, his ward and relative, and be loved as a daughter.

A fine family picture of all these interesting personages, by Holbein, is still in existence, likewise engravings from it. In this picture is introduced the portrait of the beggar-girl's dog, on which the accompanying tale is founded.

Alice Lady More, although not a pleasant mannered or sweet tempered woman, must have possessed some good qualities, as she was an excellent stepmother to Sir Thomas's motherless children, as we learn from some verses of his, translated from the Latin, in which he wrote them, by Archdeacon Wrangham. They were meant for an epitaph on his first and second wives.

Within this tomb Jane, wife of More, reclines;
This, More for Alice and himself designs.
The first, dear object of my youthful vow,
Gave me three daughters and a son to know:
The next,-ah, virtue in a step-dame rare,-
Nursed my sweet infants with a mother's care.
With both my years so happily have pass'd,
Which most my love I know not-first or last.

The worthies of Sir Thomas More's family are not yet enumerated. Mrs. Roper's daughter, Mrs. Bazett, was one of the most accomplished and pious ladies of her time, and translated from the Latin her grandfather's "Exposition of our Saviour's Passion," in a style so like his own, that for some time many believed it to be his composition. England still possesses descendants from this most illustrious branch of a noble family.

233

LADY LUCY'S PETITION TO THE QUEEN.

"And is my dear papa shut up in this dismal place to which you are taking me, nurse?" asked the little Lady Lucy Preston, raising her eyes fearfully to the Tower of London, as the coach in which she was seated with Amy Gradwell, her nurse, drove under the gateway.

She trembled and hid her face in Amy's cloak, when they alighted and she saw the soldiers on guard, with their crossed partizans, before the portals of that part of the fortress where the prisoners of state were confined, and where her own father, Lord Preston, of whom she was come to take a last farewell, then lay, under sentence of death.

"Yes, my dear child," returned Amy, mournfully, "my lord, your father, is indeed within these sad walls. You are now going to visit him. Shall you be afraid of entering the place, my dear ?"

"No," replied Lady Lucy, resolutely, "I am not afraid of going to any place where my dear papa is." Yet she clung closer to the arm of her attendant, as they were admitted within the gloomy precincts of the building; her little heart fluttered fearfully as she glanced round her, and she whispered to the nurse, "Was it not here that the young princes, Edward the Fifth and his brother Richard Duke of

York, were murdered by their cruel uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester ?"

66

Yes, my love, it was; but do not be alarmed on that account, for no one will harm you,'' said old Amy, in an encouraging tone.

"And was not good King Henry the Sixth murdered here also, by that same wicked Richard ?” continued the little girl, whose imagination was full of the records of the deeds of blood that had been perpetrated in this fatally celebrated place, many of which had been related to her by Bridget Oldworth, the housekeeper, since her father had been imprisoned in the Tower on a charge of high treason.

"But do you think they will murder papa, nurse?" pursued the child, as they began to ascend the stairs leading to the apartment in which the unfortunate nobleman was confined.

"Hush! hush! dear child; you must not talk of these things here," said Amy, "or they will shut us both up in a room with bars and bolts, instead of admitting us to see my lord your father."

Lady Lucy pressed closer to her nurse's side, and was silent till they were ushered into the room where her father was confined, when, forgetting every thing else in her joy at seeing him again, she sprang into his arms, and almost stifled him with her kisses.

Lord Preston was greatly affected at the sight of his little daughter, and overcome by her passionate demonstrations of fondness and his own anguish at the thought of his approaching separation from