and bloody Catharine of Medicis, with the noble and spotless Catharine of Bourbon.

This latter princess may be termed the heroine of the work, for it is evidently a labor of love with our author to delineate her rare and beautiful character. To us she has long seemed to float like some pure-robed seraph amid the demon shapes of violence, cunning, and profligacy, that in her time wrestled together for sway in the courts and palaces of France. She was true to the lessons of her admirable mother, and the influences of a childhood passed in domestic retirement. She had the only independence which is ever graceful in woman, that of obeying conscience against the world. Her sex may rejoice that the Disposer cast her lot in such an age and country that every secret virtue grew and stood radiant before men's eyes, because trial and temptation called them forth. Constant in her religious faith when even her beloved brother bowed his princely head in apostacy; constant in love through mighty difficulties, till a higher constancy bade her tear from her heart one whom no upright woman could esteem; constant, to the grave, in a purity of life and manners which was the wonder of those evil days, she was destined to fulfil the most illustrious destiny, in our eyes, to which woman is ever called. The Catholic honored her, the Protestant fondly reverenced her, the bold profligate shrunk humbly from her glance, the virtuous clung to her through all trial. She proved to a whole nation and age, what might have been doubted if she had fallen, that woman's nature can resist the sorest temptations, and exemplify the highest Christian graces.

We do not deem it necessary to give any sketch of the work before us. It either has been, or will be generally read. The very lads of our schools eagerly peruse the adventures of the heroic Amadée, the Huguenot galleyslave. We will close, however, with a few extracts. The first contains the reason why Catharine de Bourbon, with a struggle which cost her health and peace for a season, conquered her deep attachment to the Count de Soissons, and voluntarily relinquished the engagement which her royal brother and the crafty Sully had so long striven in vain to break.

"It must be acknowledged, that the charges Sully had brought against De Soissons, corroborated by proofs that he had it in his power to give, had sunk deep into Catharine's mind. Circumstances, one after another, crowded on her recollection. For things that had perplexed her in his conduct she now found a clue, and the illusive confidence that had sustained her for so many years was fast fleeting. This appears to have been the bitterest period of her life. She sent for De Soissons, and had long conversations with him. The conviction grew in her mind, notwithstanding all his palliations, that she had been deceived; that his renunciation of the Roman faith had been only a pretence, and that he had engaged, even in the early part of their attachment, to make his union with her subservient to the Catholics. He could not conceal, in this revelation of his character, his bitter enmity to her brother, nor suppress his too well-founded sneers at his conversion.

"Even Sully observes, that 'the Princess had but one fault, too great vivacity of temper; in all things else she was noble and generous.' The minister does not seem to have comprehended, that this vivacity of temper arose from a sense of justice and truth, and was founded in deep sensibility.

"The mist was dispelled, which had for so many years obscured her perception of De Soissons' true character. She saw he was a short-sighted politician, a man of the world, without high and honorable principle, changing with the times, and using religion as an engine for his ambition. It was not deeds of which she accused him, there had been nothing treasonable in his conduct; but the high and holy ties which bound her to him were broken, he was a different character from what she had believed. He was no longer the being that she had loved. 'I have told you often,' said Catharine, that you alone could sever the bonds between us; you have done it, and we must part. Difference of religious belief would not have separated us. I should have cherished the hope that we might, in time, have united in one faith. We must part! Find a wife among the daughters of your own people, and leave me to mine.'" - Vol. i. pp. 279

281.

The second volume contains an interesting sketch of Gabriel Bernon from the pen of a descendant; and our author seems to regard him with the partiality which his simple and noble excellence deserved. But we believe that, as a body, the French Protestants who took refuge in this country from persecution were men of worth and principle; and we feel that their descendants, so long as they forget not the responsibility it brings, have a right to look back

with an honest pride on such an ancestry. Well may Mrs. Lee exclaim:

"We cannot but feel deep sympathy with the Huguenots, driven from the home they had adopted, surrounded by the works of their own hands, the mute though eloquent witnesses of their industry, taste and perseverance, just as they were preparing to sit under the shadow of the trees they had planted. But the properties of their character they could carry with them. Wherever they go, we find them triumphing over the most unfavorable circumstances, and making the wilderness to blossom like the rose.' Nor can we be surprised that men who could sacrifice all for the worship of God and a strict adherence to the truth, who would make no compromise with conscience for the quiet possession of their native homes, who could leave the sweet valleys and vine-covered hills of France for the howling wilderness, were sustained by principles so elevated; they were led by a pillar of fire by night,' and concealed from their enemies by the cloud by day.'" ---Vol. ii. p. 65.

"In viewing the refugees, we are apt to lose sight of the peculiar circumstances under which they fled to this country; whole families together, women tenderly educated and unaccustomed to hardship, men of refined and cultivated minds. The very fact, that they came for the right of conscience, bespeaks their moral history. Some few were able to secure a portion of their wealth, others escaped with only their lives; but they all brought with them imperishable virtue, and those accomplishments and mental acquisitions which they had gained in polished society. They could appreciate the wild and romantic character of our country, then literally a new world, and by the culture of the old soften its rugged features. Perhaps there never was a race that had more fully pledged themselves to high and generous deeds. Why should they now relinquish one honorable trait of character, when by a slight compromise of integrity, by a moderate degree of dissimulation, they might have remained in the sunny glades of their childhood, beneath their own roof-tree, and many of them in the splendid halls of their ancestors. Well might they expect to find legal protection in every Protestant country, and we rejoice that they found it here."—Vol. ii. p. 91.

We conclude our extracts with a striking passage, exhibiting a peculiar and refined species of cruelty once common in the galleys of France. Are there still such practiWe can easily conceive them more intolerable to many spirits by whom they have been endured, than the lash to the body. That phrase, "condemned to the galleys

ces?

for life," always fell heavily on our hearts, but our knowledge of the details that must ensue was small, and our horror was but a vague sensation, bringing no such distinct pictures of hopeless, wearing toil and slavery, as the following paragraphs have conjured up.

"One of the hardest labors to Amadée, because the most tyrannical and degrading, was the exhibition to which they were constantly exposed by the officers, for the entertainment of their friends. The galley was cleared anew, and the slaves were ordered to shave, and put on their red habits and red caps, which are their uniform, when they wear any garments. This done, they are made to sit between the benches, so that nothing but heads with red caps are visible, from one end of the galley to the other. In this attitude the gentlemen and ladies who come as spectators, are saluted by the slaves, with a loud and mournful cry of Hau. This seems but one voice; it is repeated three times, when a person of high distinction enters. During this salute the drums beat, and the soldiers, in their best clothes, are ranged along the bande of the boat, with their guns shouldered. The masts are adorned with streamers; the chamber at the stern is also adorned with hangings of red velvet, fringed with gold. The ornaments in sculpture, at the stern, thus beautified to the water's edge; the oars lying on the seats, and appearing without the galley like wings, painted of different colors, a galley thus adorned strikes the eye magnificently; but let the spectator reflect on the misery of three hundred slaves, scarred with stripes, emaciated and dead-eyed, chained day and night, and subject to the arbitrary will of creatures devoid of humanity, and he will no longer be enchanted by the gaudy outside. The spectators, a large proportion of whom are often ladies, pass from one end of the galley to the other, and return to the stern, where they seat themselves. The comite then blows his whistle. At the first blast every slave takes off his cap; at the second, his coat; at the third, his shirt, and they remain naked. Then comes what is called the monkey-exhibition. They are all ordered to lie along the seats, and the spectator loses sight of them; then they lift one finger, next their arms, then their head, then one leg, and so on, till they appear standing upright. Then they open their mouths, cough all together, embrace, and throw themselves into ridiculous attitudes, wearing, to the appearance of the spectator, an air of gayety, strangely contrasted with the sad, hollow eye of many of the performers, and the ferocious hardened despair of others. To the reflecting mind there can scarcely be any thing more degrading than this exhibition; men, subject constantly to the lash, doomed for life

to misery, perpetually called upon to amuse their fellow-beings by 'antic tricks.' - Vol. ii. pp. 160-162.

The beautiful tribute to the memory of Dr. Channing with which the work concludes seems to us the best-written portion; and though to some it may not seem to present itself distinctly in connexion with the main subject, the author evidently felt that it had a connexion; and we think no one can wish it had been omitted.

L. J. H.

Ezra Stiles tionété.

ART. VIII. WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?

WHAT is Christianity? To this question what various replies are made! Every sect has its own interpretation of the Gospel. Every intelligent believer has his own conception of what it is. They who regard it with equal reverence may differ widely when they come to explain it, for men's apprehensions vary where their appreciation is the same. Let us give our answer; not in the cold, rigid statements of a creed, but in the words which a rejoicing faith adopts, when it seeks utterance for the emotions as well as the convictions which it begets. Others speak confidently. Our belief is not less strong nor happy than theirs. Why then shall not we speak with confidence? We are condemned and misunderstood. Let us, if possible, place ourselves in our true position before and among our fellow Christians. The question which we have proposed concerns us as much as them. We have the same right with them—and it is equally our duty - to make answer before the world. What is Christianity?

And

We answer first, it is a Divine communication. this we say in respect alike to its source and its character, in reference both to its early history and its inward operation. Christianity came from God, directly and miraculously. It was not of human, but of Divine origin. Christ was a Divine messenger, the chief of all the messengers who ever bore instruction from Heaven to earth. We believe in Christianity as a Divine production, just as we believe that the world in which we live, the material system of