proach was so uninviting. The lofty hall recalled the image of baronial festivity, and on the windows of the long, winding gallery Anne Boleyn might trace a series of heraldic honours sufficient to challenge an alliance with the house of Percy. The wain

scotted apartment which she occupied, with plain oaken panels, is still in existence: the long gallery she so often traversed with impatience seems still to echo her steps: and after the vicissitudes of three centuries, the impression of her youth, her beauty and singular destiny, is still fresh and vivid to the imagination.

"In reverting to the tragical history of the passions, we cease to measure the distance that separates us from a departed age, and while each surrounding object bears an antiquated aspect, the records of suffering and feeling are not obsolete; the image of one whose heart has long ceased to throb with human emotion, still speaks to our

sympathies, and appeals to our pity or our justice."

The youthful reader who has ever meditated in some old decaying chamber where once the lovely or the unfortunate have tenanted, can understand and feel the beauty and truth of the foregoing passage.

The repose of Hever Castle was suddenly broken by an unexpected visitor, who was no less a person thắn King Henry himself. If Anne suspected that she was the object of this royal visit, she certainly acted with much propriety; she retired to her chamber as soon as she heard of it, and never left it until the King had quitted the Castle. It is however very probable that she did not understand this object fully, and that her lofty temper and the deep resentment she felt at the manner in which Lord Percy and herself had been treated, led her to shrink with indignation from the monarch who had acted so tyrannical a part.

Henry, judging from this conduct that the young lady was more offended than he had expected to find her, wished to overcome her resentment by shewing favour to her family. He made her father Viscount Rochford, and, by way of drawing him and his family to Court, also made him Treasurer of his Household. Anne, however, would not go to Court with her father and step-mother, though great affection subsisted between them; she was too proud, and indeed in this respect properly so, to return to the sphere from whence she had been injuriously dismissed.

The licentious King, however, had made up his mind to prefer her to his own wedded Queen, and Anne soon received from him the declaration of his unlawful attachment. The absolute power and tyrannical disposition of such a suitor might well fill her with dismay, and even with apprehensions for her life, if she rejected what it would be sin and shame favourably to receive.

Anne fell on her knees, but her answer shewed she was not merely the light-minded girl which she might, in the estimation of the French courtiers, have appeared to be.

"I think," she said, "most noble and worthy King, your Majesty speaks these words in mirth, to prove me without intent of degrading your princely self. Therefore, to ease you of the labour of asking any such question hereafter, I most earnestly beseech your Highness to desist, and take this my answer, which I speak from the depth of my soul, in good part. Most noble King, I will rather lose life than virtue, which will be the greatest part of the dower I shall ever bring to a husband.”

Even after this answer the King told her that he hoped she might change her mind.

"I understand not, most mighty King," replied Anne, "how you can have such hope. Your wife I cannot be, both on account of

my own unworthiness, and because

a Queen already."

How subtle is the process of temptation! Anne resisted the thought of ignominy and of sin, but did not think at first of lifting her eyes to the throne already occupied by a blameless wife. Those who are prejudiced against poor Anne Boleyn, and there are many who have been, as she was considered to favour the Reformation, will not see any good in her. But it is well and wise to view human nature, in every station, as it is in itself-fallen, weak, possessed of the same passions, liable to the same temptations, acted on by the same circumstances.

For four long years Anne resisted the solicitations and entreaties of King Henry to come to the Court. During a part of this time, Bishop Burnet thinks, she returned to France. While absent from Court, Henry addressed to her the most anxious and passionate letters, which are still kept at the