on of
letters;" [Hume] while amidst the gloom, we perceive the movement of
those great and heroic passions in which Fiction finds delineations
everlastingly new, and are brought in contact with characters
sufficiently familiar for interest, sufficiently remote for adaptation
to romance, and above all, so frequently obscured by contradictory
evidence, that we lend ourselves willingly to any one who seeks to help
our judgment of the individual by tests taken from the general knowledge
of mankind.

Round the great image of the "Last of the Barons" group Edward the
Fourth, at once frank and false; the brilliant but ominous boyhood of
Richard the Third; the accomplished Hastings, "a good knight and gentle,
but somewhat dissolute of living;" [Chronicle of Edward V., in Stowe]
the vehement and fiery Margaret of Anjou; the meek image of her "holy
Henry," and the pale shadow of their son. There may we see, also, the
gorgeous Prelate, refining in policy and wile, as the enthusiasm and
energy which had formerly upheld the Ancient Church pass into the
stern and persecuted votaries of the New; we behold, in that social
transition, the sober Trader--outgrowing the prejudices of the rude
retainer or rustic franklin, from whom he is sprung--recognizing
sagaciously, and supporting sturdily, the sectarian interests of his
order, and preparing the way for the mighty Middle Class, in which our
Modern Civilization, with its faults and its merits, has established its
stronghold; while, in contrast to the measured and thoughtful notions
of liberty which prudent Commerce entertains, we are reminded of the
political fanaticism of the secret Lollard,--of the jacquerie of the
turbulent mob-leader; and perceive, amidst the various tyrannies of the
time, and often partially allied with the warlike seignorie, [For it
is noticeable that in nearly all the popular risings--that of Cade, of
Robin of Redesdale, and afterwards of that which Perkin Warbeck made
subservient to his extraordinary enterprise--the proclamations of the
rebels always announced, among their popular grievances, the depression
of the ancient nobles and the elevation of new men.]--ever jealous
against all kingly despotism,--the restless and ignorant movement of a
democratic principle, ultimately suppressed, though not destroyed, under
the Tudors, by the strong union of a Middle Class, anxious for security
and order, with an Executive Authority determined upon absolute sway.

Nor sh