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eded in full sovereignty to Edward-a price abundantly compensating his renunciation of the title of king of France, which was the sole concession stipulated in return. Every care seems to have been taken to make the cession of these provinces complete. At Calais the treaty of Bretigni was renewed by John, who, as a prisoner, had been no party to the former compact.

A good lesson may be drawn by conquerors from the change of fortune that befell Edward III. A long warfare and unexampled success had procured for him some of the richest provinces of France. Within a short time he was entirely stripped of them, less through any particular misconduct than in consequence of the intrinsic difficulty of preserving such acquisitions. The French were already knit together as one people; and even those whose feudal duties sometimes led them into the field against their sovereign, could not endure the feeling of dismemberment from the monarchy. When the peace of Bretigni was to be carried into effect the nobility of the south remonstrated against the loss of the king's sovereignty, and showed, it is said, in their charters granted by Charlemagne, a promise never to transfer the right of protecting them to another. The citizens of Rochelle implored the king not to desert them, and protested their readiness to pay half their estates in taxes rather than fall under the power of England. John, with heaviness of heart, persuaded these faithful people to comply with that destiny which he had not been able to surmount. At length they sullenly submitted: we will obey, they said, the English with our lips, but our hearts shall never forget their allegiance. Such unwilling subjects might perhaps have been won by a prudent government; but the temper of the prince of Wales, which was rather stern and arbitrary, did not conciliate their hearts to his cause. After the expedition into Castile, he attempted to impose a heavy tax upon Guienne. Many of the chief lords in Guienne and Gascony carried their complaints to the throne of Charles V., who had succeeded his father in 1364, appealing to him as the prince's sovereign and judge. After a year's delay, the king, ventured to summon the Black Prince to answer

these charges before the peers of France; and, in 1368, the war immediately recommenced between the two countries. Though it is impossible to reconcile the conduct of Charles upon this occasion to those stern principles of rectitude which ought always to be obeyed, yet the exceeding injustice of Edward in the former war, and the miseries which he inflicted on an unoffending people in the prosecution of his claim, will go far towards extenuating this breach of the treaty of Bretigni. It is observed, indeed, with some truth, by Papin, that we judge of Charles's prudence by the event; and that if he had been unfortunate in the war, he would have brought on himself the reproaches of all mankind, and even of those writers who are now most ready to extol him. But his measures had been so sagaciously taken, that, except through that perverseness of fortune, against which, especially in war, there is no security, he could hardly fail of success.

The elder Edward was declining through age, and the younger through disease; the ceded provinces were eager to return to their native king, and their garrisons weak and ill-supplied. France, on the other hand, had recovered breath after her losses. The sons of those who had fallen or fled at Poictiers were in the field; a king, not personally warlike, but eminently wise and popular, occupied the throne of the rash and intemperate John. She was restored by the policy of Charles V. and the valour of Du Guesclin. This hero, a Breton gentleman without fortune or exterior graces, was the greatest ornament of France during that age. Though inferior, as it seems, to Lord Chandos in military skill, as well as in the polished virtues of chivalry, his unwearied activity, his talent of inspiring confidence, his good fortune, the generosity and frankness of his character-have preserved a fresh recollection of his name, which has hardly been the case with our countryman.

In a few campaigns the English were deprived of almost all their conquests, and even, in a great degree, of their original possessions in Guienne. They were still formidable enemies, not only from their courage and alacrity in the war, but on account of the keys of France which they

held in their hands-Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Calais, by inheritance or conquest; Brest and Cherbourg in mortgage from their allies, the duke of Britanny and king of Navarre. But the successor of Edward III. was Richard II. A reign of feebleness and sedition gave no opportunity for prosecuting schemes of ambition. The war, protracted with few distinguished events for several years, was at length suspended by repeated armistices, not indeed very strictly observed, and which the animosity of the English would not permit to settle in a regular treaty. Nothing less than the terms obtained at Bretigni, emphatically called the Great Peace, would satisfy a frank and courageous people, who deemed themselves cheated by the manner of its infraction. The war was therefore always popular in England, and the credit which an ambitious prince, Thomas, duke of Gloucester, obtained in that country, was chiefly owing to the determined opposition which he showed to all French connections. But the politics of Richard II. were of a different cast; and Henry IV. was equally anxious to avoid hostilities with France; so that before the unhappy condition of that kingdom tempted his son to revive the claims of Edward in still more favourable circumstances, there had been thirty years of respite, and even some intervals of friendly intercourse between the two nations.

OTHELLO'S DEFENCE OF HIS MARRIAGE.

Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors,
My very noble and approved good masters;
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter
It is most true; true, I have married her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in speech,
And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace;
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field,

And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself.

Yet by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnished tale deliver

Of my whole course of love; what doings, what charms,
What conjuration, and what mighty magic,
For such proceeding I am charged withal.

I won his daughter.

Her father loved me; oft invited me ;
Still questioned me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days
To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breath 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe,

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And, 'portance in my travel's history,

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak-such was the process;

And of the cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.

This to hear

Would Desdemona seriously incline:

But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,

She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent,

And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered.

My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:

She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:

She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished

That heaven had made her such a man: she thanked me, And bade me if I had a friend that loved her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake :
She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them:
This only is the witchcraft I have used.

PRINCE

William Shakespere.

BISMARCK.

Otto Edward Leopold Von Bismarck-Schönhausen, was born at Schönhausen, in the province of Brandenburg in Prussia, on the 1st of April, 1815. He did not show any particular signs of genius when young, and, like many other men equally distinguished, he has only acquired renown by the gradual growth of a strong nature, and the favourable position of the time in which he has lived. His youth and early manhood seems to have been as little noted for its morality as for its intellectual vigour. It is stated that he was at that time much given to dissipation, his favourite mixture being champagne and porter. As a counterpart to this picture we are informed, however, that he would occasionally shut himself up in his room, and devour parcels of books, which he had ordered his bookseller to supply him.

He appears to have been very fond of riding, his custom being to dash through the district on horseback at full speed without any attendant. In 1847, Bismarck married a young lady, whom he had met at the house of a friend,

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