ence of the ability displayed by him in the
responsible duties he was called to perform, that Monarch offered him
the office of Solicitor-General. But this Hyde declined, preferring, as
he said, to serve the King in an unofficial capacity. After the battle
of Naseby, Hyde was appointed one of the council formed to attend, watch
over, and direct the Prince of Wales. After hopelessly witnessing for
many months a course of disastrous and ill-conducted warfare in the
West, the council fled with the Prince, first to the Scilly Islands,
near Cornwall, and thence to Jersey. From this place, against the wishes
of Hyde, the Prince, in 1640, repaired to his mother, Henrietta, at
Paris, leaving Hyde at Jersey, where he remained for two years, engaged
in the composition of his celebrated "History of the Rebellion." In May,
1648, Hyde was summoned to attend the Prince at the Hague; and here they
received the news of the death of Charles I., which is said to have
greatly appalled them. After faithfully following the new King in all
his vicissitudes of fortune, suffering at times extreme poverty, he
attained at the Restoration the period of his greatest power. In 1660,
his daughter Anne was secretly married to the Duke of York; but when,
after a year, it was openly acknowledged, the new Lord Chancellor
received the news with violent demonstrations of indignation and grief.
Hyde, in fact, never showed any avidity for emoluments or distinction;
but when this marriage was declared, it became desirable that some mark
of the King's favour should be shown, and he was created Earl of
Clarendon. He subsequently, from political broils, was compelled to
exile himself from the Court, and took up his residence at Montpellier,
where, resuming his literary labours, he completed his celebrated
History, and the memoir of his life. After fruitlessly petitioning King
Charles II. for permission to end his days in England, the illustrious
exile died at Rouen, in 1674, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

[Illustration: STATUE OF LORD CLARENDON.]

* * * * *

OWLS.

[Illustration: Letter I.]

It is now generally known that the Owl renders the farmer important
service, by ridding him of vermin, which might otherwise consume the
produce of his field; but in almost every age and country it has been
regarded as a bird of ill omen, and sometimes even as the herald of
death. In France, the cry or hoot is considered as