striking anecdote is recorded of King James II. addressing himself in
the time of his extremity, in 1688, to the aged Earl of Bedford, saying,
"My Lord, you are an honest man, have great credit in the State, and can
do me signal service." "Ah, sir," replied the Earl, "I am old and
feeble, I can do you but little service; but I had a son once that could
have assisted you, but he is no more." James was so struck with this
reply, that he could not speak for some minutes, and it is to be hoped
that he felt remorse for the death of Lord Russell.

When the attainder on Russell was removed by King William III., the
same justice was done to his friend Algernon Sidney, who is united with
him in the famous lines of Thomson's patriotic remembrance:

"With him
His friend the British Cassius, fearless lad,
Of high determined spirit, roughly brave,
By ancient learning to the enlightened love
Of ancient freedom warmed."

Algernon Sidney, unlike Russell, was in theory not averse to
Republicanism, but the accusations are false as to his being a sceptic
or a deist, as his own dying apology attests. He says: "God will not
suffer this land, where the Gospel has of late flourished more than in
any part of the world, to become a slave of the world. He will not
suffer it to be made a land of graven images; He will stir up witnesses
of the truth, and in His own time spirit His people to stand up for His
cause, and deliver them. I lived in this belief, and am now about to die
in it. I know my Redeemer liveth; and as He hath in a great measure
upheld me in the day of my calamity, I hope that He will still uphold me
by His Spirit in this last moment, and giving me grace to glorify Him in
my death, receive me into the glory prepared for those that fear Him,
when my body shall be dissolved. Amen." These were the last words of
Algernon Sidney. It is noteworthy that the Duke of Monmouth, in his
Declaration against James II, among other things, accuses him of
ordering the barbarous murder of the Earl of Essex in the Tower, and of
several others, to conceal it; and he gave as a reason for his appeal to
arms, in his unhappy rebellion, the unjust condemnation of Sidney and
of Russell.

VIII.

It has been remarked that the incidents in the life of Lady Russell,
apart from the one memorable public event of her husband's trial and
death, are so few and her merits confined so much to the domain o