the pity inalienable from the situation, to concede more
to the pretences of doubt and suspense than is warranted by the
circumstances of the case. Anne Boleyn was too surely guilty up to the
height of Messalina's guilt, and far beyond that height in one
atrocious instance.

Passing from _that_ to the general pretensions of this very eloquent
and philosophic book, we desire to say--that Mr. Froude is the first
writer (first and sole) who has opened his eyes to comprehend the
grandeur of this tremendous reign.

THE ENGLISH IN INDIA.

In now reproducing the three series of notes on the Indian Mutiny
written by DE QUINCEY for me in _Titan_, I must advert briefly to the
agony of apprehension under which the two earlier chapters were
written. I can never forget the intense anxiety with which he studied
daily the columns of _The Scotsman_ and _The Times_, looking wistfully
for tidings from Roorkhee where his daughter FLORENCE was shut up. The
father's heart was on the rack until news arrived that the little
garrison was saved.

The following paragraph from a letter written to his daughter EMILY on
Sunday, December 1st, 1857, will give some idea of the tension of that
terrible suspense:--

'INDIA.--Up to the last mail but one (or briefly in its Latin form, up
to the penultimate mail), I suffered in my nervous system to an extent
that (except once, in 1812) had not experimentally been made known to
me as a possibility. Every night, oftentimes all night long, I had the
same dream--a vision of children, most of them infants, but not all,
the _first_ rank being girls of five and six years old, who were
standing in the air outside, but so as to touch the window; and I
heard, or perhaps fancied that I heard, always the same dreadful word
_Delhi_, not then knowing that a word even more dreadful---
Cawnpore--was still in arrear. This fierce shake to my nerves caused
almost from the beginning a new symptom to expose itself (of which
previously I never had the faintest outline), viz. somnambulism; and
now every night, to my great alarm, I wake up to find myself at the
window, which is sixteen feet from the nearest side of the bed. The
horror was unspeakable from the hell-dog Nena or Nana; how if this
fiend should get hold of FLORENCE or her baby (now within seventeen
days of completing her half year)? What first gave me any relief was a
good firm-toned letter, dated _Rourkee_,[56] in the public journals,
from which it was