exalted position placed him, from the first, in the most conspicuous and therefore the most perilous position; in the day when the life of the humblest peasant was safer than that of the most dignified courtier, however he might be loaded with titles and ensigns of nobility—for these became in truth mere pondera ad ruinam to men who, like John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, were too near the throne to be for a single day beyond the peril of a fall. I think (and you will doubtless think with me) that we can hardly conceive a more touching picture than that of Jane Guldeford,—whose father, though he filled the high offices of Marshal of Calais, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Constable of Dover Castle, and Master of the Ordnance, appears to have brought up his family in the quiet seclusion of country life, far from the struggles and intrigues of the city and the court,—suddenly brought out into the full glare of royalty,

and passing on into a life of constant fear and anxiety, more terrible and unendurable than the overwhelming afflictions in which it culminated. The contrast between the tranquil scene, in which we have met to-day, and the great city with its seething multitudes; between the quiet country home and the gaieties of the court, is great even now. What must it have been then? But Jane Guldeford had a far higher nature, and a far more real nobility, than her powerful and ambitious husband. Of her earlier years, indeed, we know little or nothing; but as we gather the ripened fruits of her later life, we may well realise in imagination how bright and beautiful must have been its seed-time—how fair a spring must have preceded its autumn season. In her descendant, the great Sir Philip Sydney, we seem to read the character of his