, and she received from the hands of Cranmer,
fresh come in haste from Dunstable, with the last words of his sentence
upon Catherine scarcely silent upon his lips, the golden sceptre, and St.
Edward's crown.

Did any twinge of remorse, any pang of painful recollection, pierce at that
moment the incense of glory which she was inhaling? Did any vision flit
across her of a sad mourning figure which once had stood where she was
standing, now desolate, neglected, sinking into the darkening twilight of a
life cut short by sorrow? Who can tell? At such a time, that figure would
have weighed heavily upon a noble mind, and a wise mind would have been
taught by the thought of it, that although life be fleeting as a dream, it
is long enough to experience strange vicissitudes of fortune. But Anne
Boleyn was not noble and was not wise,--too probably she felt nothing but
the delicious, all-absorbing, all-intoxicating present, and if that plain,
suffering face presented itself to her memory at all, we may fear that it
was rather as a foil to her own surpassing loveliness. Two years later, she
was able to exult over Catherine's death; she is not likely to have thought
of her with gentler feelings in the first glow and flush of triumph.

We may now leave these scenes. They concluded in the usual English style,
with a banquet in the great hall, and with all outward signs of enjoyment
and pleasure. There must have been but few persons present however who did
not feel that the sunshine of such a day might not last for ever, and that
over so dubious a marriage no Englishman could exult with more than half a
heart. It is foolish to blame lightly actions which arise in the midst of
circumstances which are and can be but imperfectly known; and there may
have been political reasons which made so much pomp desirable. Anne Boleyn
had been the subject of public conversation for seven years, and Henry, no
doubt, desired to present his jewel to them in the rarest and choicest
setting. Yet to our eyes, seeing, perhaps, by the light of what followed, a
more modest introduction would have appeared more suited to the doubtful
nature of her position.

At any rate we escape from this scene of splendour very gladly as from
something unseasonable. It would have been well for Henry VIII. if he had
lived in a world in which women could have been dispensed with; so ill, in
all his relations with them, he succeeded. With men he could speak the
right word, he c