y the Eternal, thy maker and mine, I will kill thee! Thou
blasphemous scandalous misbirth of Nature, is not even _that_ the
kindest thing I can do for thee, if thou repent not, and alter in the
name of Allah?'"

To this sort of satirical humour--to "the truth of a song,"--not
Dryasdust himself would call upon him to swear. And may not all his
rhapsodies upon his "sword-in-hand" Puritans be little more than an
amplification of this one passage? And, if we insist upon it, that a
reform by the pen, or even by speech-making, is better than one by pike
and musket--if we should suggest that matters of civil government are
better decided by civil and political reasoning than by metaphorical
texts of Scripture, interpreted by prejudice and passion--if we contend
for such truisms as these, shall we not be in danger of occupying some
such position as the worthy prelate whose sagacity led him to discover
that _some facts_ in Gulliver's Travels had surely been overcharged?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations by Thomas
Carlyle._

[2] Take the following instance from the early and more moderate times
of the Revolution, and wherein the most staid and sober of this class of
people is concerned. When Essex left London to march against the king,
then at Oxford, he requested the assembly of divines to keep a fast for
his success. Baillie informs us how it was celebrated. "We spent from
nine to five graciously. After Dr Twisse had begun with a brief prayer,
Mr Marshall prayed large two hours, most divinely confessing the sins of
the members of the assembly in a wonderful, pathetic, and prudent way.
After Mr Arrowsmith preached an hour, then a psalm; thereafter Mr Vines
prayed near two hours, and Mr Palmer preached an hour, and Mr. Seaman
prayed near two hours, then a psalm; after Mr Henderson brought them to
a sweet conference of the heat confessed in the assembly, and other seen
faults to be remedied, and the conveniency to preach against all sects,
especially anabaptists and antinomians. Dr Twisse closed with a short
prayer and blessing. God was so evidently in all this exercise that we
expect certainly a blessing."--_Baillie_, quoted from _Lingard_.

LAYS AND LEGENDS OF THE THAMES.

PART III.

----On passing the little village of Erith, once one of the prettiest
rustic spots in Kent, where the parson and the surgeon formed the heads
of the community, and its only intelligence of th