aforesaid, against the law and custom of the
realm of England, long detained, namely, for the
space of four hours of the day (years might
have been expected from the previous adverb),
against the dignity and tranquillity of the King's
peace, and to the manifest lesion of his crown,
whereby the life of the said John Mortimer
was despaired of; until the constables of the
adjacent villages, meeting together for the
rescue of the said John Mortimer and the salvation
of the King's peace, marched and ran (at
the double, let us hope) towards Eston aforesaid,
and the aforesaid William Trussell and the
other malefactors, awed by the said body of
people so coming as aforesaid to the help and
defence of the said John Mortimer and the
maintenance of the King's peace, then
permitted the said John Mortimer to depart out of
his prison.

It is satisfactory to see that even in these
rude days "the police" were respected.

Should not my late Lord Chancellor have
lived five hundred years back, when the press
was unborn, the parliament a toy, and the voice
of the public a feeble cry, save when it roared,
like a despot of the nursery, for its food
or its liberty? Then he might have made
what appointments he would, without
contradiction, outcry, condemnation, or, worse than
all, reversal. From amongst the Miscellaneous
Letters in the Chancery department of
the public Records take this, all you good
people who have railed at Lord Chelmsford's
nepotism, precious epistle without name, date,
or address, from some unhappy devil of a
clerk in Chancery, with an official grief in his
bosom, to Sir John de Langton, most probably,
the Chancellor to King Edward the First, A.D.
1292, or thereabouts, and learn a lesson. It
is to be borne in mind that the Chancellor
then was not half, nor a third, nor a sixth,
in degree as potent as he is now. Keeping
and affixing the King's seal was, according to the
learned Sir Henry Spelman, the greater part of
their trust and employment.

Here is my translation from the Latin
original, of a clear, sustained, yet condensed groan
from a Clerk in Chancery: " My Lord,—
Whatever pleases you pleases me, yet among
those things which, as I have been given to
understand, have been ordered by you in the
Chancery, there is one which fills me with
displeasure; and this is that Sir N. de Bassing-
bourn now fills my place among our other
companions the Clerks of Course. (The Cursitor
Clerks, or officers belonging to the Chancery
that made out original writs.) Now I pray you,
perpend, that I have laboured more in this very
Chancery of our Lord the now King than he has
done, and I promise you to hold as high a place
as he, even though he be the older man, and
also to despatch as many, and more, suitors in
the Court as he can do, though he swear it.

"Besides, I marvel that you should have given
him my clerk without asking either my leave or
his; which clerk cares no longer to hold with
such a master, nor indeed can he do so, since
such a master is more likely to be taught by
such a disciple, than such a disciple by such a
master, which seems to me to be inconvenient.

"And again, seeing from what a position God
has called you to such honour in the world, you
ought sometimes to think of your companions as
contemporaries who love you well, and who
were brought up with you in the household of
your first master, at your first coming to Court,
and as such you are bound to promote them, if
you would the oftener recal your inborn
honesty and good feeling to your mind, and before
the eyes of your heart.

"May these words therefore that I write out
of the full fervour of my love, move you to the
advancement of my state, and the augmentation
of my condition."

Here, as his conclusion, the petitioner adds a
crafty caution against the Chancellor's ventilating
the correspondence, and the likelihood
of his dismissing it, as it were, by discussion:

"It is neither fitting nor necessary to consult
my fellows upon this subject, but say the word
forthwith and let it be done, I pray you, out of
the plenitude of your power. I swear to you
by the Tetragrammaton of God, that there lives
not in the whole world a poor clerk who loves
you more than I do; as I firmly believe to the
utmost of my power. And this I call God to
witness. Farewell, and may God cause your seed
to increase and multiply."

THE LAST LEAVES OF A SORROWFUL
BOOK.

IN the history of our lives there is one touching
domestic experience, associated with the
solemn mystery of Death, which is familiar to us
all. When the grave has claimed its own; when
the darkened rooms are open again to the light
of heaven; when grief rests more gently on the
weary heart, and the tears, restrained through
the day, fall quietly in the lonely night hours,
there comes a time at which we track the farewell
journey of the dead over the familiar ways
of home by the simple household relics that the
lost and loved companion has left to guide us.
At every point of the dread pilgrimage from
this world to the next, some domestic trace
remains that appeals tenderly to the memory, and
that leads us on, from the day when the last
illness began, to the day that left us parted on a
sudden from our brother or sister-spirit by the
immeasurable gulf between Life and Eternity.
The sofa on which we laid the loved figure so
tenderly when the first warning weakness
declared itself; the bed, never slept in since, which
was the next inevitable stage in the sad journey;
all the little sick-room contrivances for comfort
that passed from our living hands to the one
beloved hand which shall press ours in gratitude
no more; the last book read to beguile the wakeful
night, with the last place marked where the
weary eyes closed for ever over the page; the
little favourite trinkets laid aside never to be
taken up again; the glass, still standing by the