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thing went well till the Reform Bill passed; but more was expected from that movement than it brought. Sydney Smith foreshadowed this in his droll way. "All young ladies will imagine, as soon as the bill is carried, that they will be instantly married. Schoolboys imagine that currant tarts will come down in price; the corporal and serjeant are sure of double pay; bad poets will expect a demand for their epics; fools will be disappointed, as they always are; reasonable men who know what to expect, will find that a very serious good has been obtained."

He devoted himself to the advancement of public education. With this object in view, he moved for and obtained in 1816, a select committee to enquire into the state of the education of the people in London and Westminster. He was appointed chairman, and gave a great impetus to the enquiry by his personal exertions. The school-master was veritably abroad. He it was who originated the Society for the Diffusion of useful Knowledge; he who was first instrumental in the issue of healthy low-priced literature-he who set afloat the first penny periodical devoted to educational purposes; he who in connection with Birkbeck and others, first established Mechanics' Institutes. The cause of popular education is deeply indebted to the exertions-the untiring, self-denying labours of Lord Brougham.

And thus in looking round on our group, we find that men of all degrees can help to lighten the load of mankind if they will that it is not the exclusive prerogative of the poor man or the peer to do good-but the privilege of all. All may do something-eloquent, gifted, illustrious Brougham-humble, ill-educated labourer, John Poundsthe shrewd, wary lawyer-the man of leisure-the politician-Romilly-Howard-Wilberforce, all are needed, all may help-one talent or ten-still talents of trustloans to be rendered back with interest. Here we have one man pleading for the slaves-another for criminals, another for the ignorant. All honour to these brave champions of progress-these heaven-taught men, who after the Divine pattern, have gone about doing good.

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WOLSEY-SULLY-RICHELIEU-MAZARIN-PITT-CANNING-PEEL

-WEBSTER.

THE world must have its statesmen, wise or foolish. Well is it for the world's prosperity and peace when honest, prudent, and sagacious men are in high places. Great men are not always wise, nor are they invariably

good. In grouping our statesmen we must take them for what they are-as giants in their official life-men who have exercised a potent influence in their own time, and, in consequence, on ours also. The number of these men is large, if we look back on history, and glance round on the world. Our space admits only of us noticing a few of these illustrious men.

We notice, first of all, the figure of Cardinal Wolsey, Prime Minister of Henry the Eighth.

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Wolsey was an honest poor man's son -so says Cavendish. Common report says his father was a butcher, a tradition adopted in the alliterative lines—

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Begat by butcher, but by bishop bred,

How haughtily his highness holds his head!"

There is, or was a few years since, a butcher of the name of Wolsey in Ipswich, Wolsey's birth-place. Wolsey was born at Ipswich in 1471, and he nearly lost his life, according to a local tradition, at a place now known as Wolsey's Bridge: the tale is, that when a boy, driving some cattle, be met with an accident at the place, and was well-nigh drowned, and that when he became great he ordered the bridge to be erected. He was sent when quite young to the Free Grammar School of Ipswich; at the age of fifteen was a student at Oxford, already in possession of his B.A. degree; the "boy bachelor" soon became Fellow of Magdalene College, and tutor to the sons of the Marquis of Dorset. He afterwards obtained-still quite a youththe rectory of Lymington, in Somersetshire. There he took part in a riot at a country fair, and was subjected by a neighbouring justice to the degrading punishment of the stocks! Soon after this-the sooner the betterWolsey retired from the rectory, and accepted an appointment as one of the domestic chaplains of Archbishop Dean. On the death of that prelate he went to Calais, where Sir Richard Vaughan was so struck by his ability as to recommend him to the patronage of the king. Wolsey afterwards became one of the chaplains of the court, and obtained the living of Redgrave. A treaty of marriage

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was then pending between Margaret, the Dowager Queen of Savoy, and Henry VII. It was necessary to send some one to her father Maximilian the Emperor. Wolsey was entrusted with this mission, and made such haste as to return before the king thought he had commenced his journey, and reported the business of his mission with so much clearness and propriety, that he received universal praise; and when the Deanery of Lincoln became vacant, it was presented to him by the king.

When Henry VIII. ascended the throne, the royal favour was still extended to Wolsey. In the war with France he served in the humble but useful office of commissary; and when Tournay yielded to the English arms, was made its bishop. In the forty-fifth year of his age, Wolsey was advanced to the dignity of Cardinal, and about the same time the Great Seal was entrusted to him for life, with the dignity of Chancellor of the realm.

Wolsey assumed all the state, as he in fact possessed all the power, of a king; his revenue was equal to that of his royal master, whose will was completely subordinated to his own. With a pomp and splendour seldom equalled before or since by any subject, he presented himself to the public gaze.

The sons of the nobility attended him as pages; his chambers were hung with cloth of gold, and tapestries still more precious; he even presumed to coin money in his own name, and to talk of himself and the king as on a perfect equality. But he was hated by many; so much success was certain to bring with it much of bitter enmity. Once again English soldiers were ranged in hostile array upon the shores of France. There were wars and rumours The new Pope Clement VII. had sent Henry a consecrated rose placed in a golden vase filled with gold dust; but consecrated roses and gilded vases could not fill the treasury nor pay the troops. Efforts were made to raise money by forced loans. Rebellion was the consequence. Captain Poverty and his cousin Necessity had brought the people to that pass. Henry threw the blame on the Cardinal; said the people

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Perplexed on every hand, Henry looked about him for relief. The succession to the throne was said to be doubtful; Catherine of Arragon had borne him a daughter, the Princess Mary, but he had no son. This thought was ever uppermost in his mind, and when the idea of a separation from his wife was suggested he readily adopted the suggestion. Bright-eyed Anne Boleyn, a maid of honour at the court, had engaged the king's affections. The marriage with Catherine was said to be illegal-had she not been his brother's wife? Wolsey hated Catherine, and favoured the king's views of divorce. He carried the matter to the Papal Court; he, with Cardinal Campeggio, were appointed as commissioners to try the case. The court was held at Bridewell, but the decision was fatal to Wolsey's interests; it referred the matter to Rome. The king's displeasure was great; his new love loved not Rome; she was a Protestant; why not abandon Rome, defy Papal authority, become himself the head of the English Church? Now it was that the Cardinal stood in his way-the broad scarlet hat, worn with all the airs of a crown-should he be humbled before that? There were not wanting those who poured into his ear stories of the arrogance and presumption of Wolsey-intimating that King Thomas the First reigned, instead of King Henry the Eighth. Henry was resolved to bring down the man whom he had courted, flattered, magnified; he stripped him of all his revenues, took from him all his offices, impeached him of high treason, broke his heart! Late one autumn evening a weary cavalcade stopped at the door of Leicester Abbey. "Father," said a broken-hearted, sunken man, "I am come to lay my bones among you." Before the morning sun went down, that old man, Wolsey, was dead.

Wolsey, judged by our modern standard, was far from being what a statesman should be; judged by the stan

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