story obtained extensive credit. The duchess of Burgundy received him as her nephew, the king of France treated him as heir to the English crown, and James IV. of Scotland assisted him in a descent upon England. The Scotch invaded the border, whilst Warbeck roused the south, and advanced against Exeter. The attempt proved a failure; his army was routed, and he himself made prisoner, and placed in the Tower. There he was accused of plotting with the unfortunate earl of Warwick, and both fell upon the scaffold.

The reign of Henry VII. may be regarded as coinciding with the commencement of Modern History, and the close of the middle ages. Beginning with revolution, and a change of dynasty, it was distinguished by the encroachments of royal power, and the humiliation of a nobility, impoverished and exhausted by civil war. The influence of the church was declining through the dissemination of the doctrines of Wickliffe, and the revival of letters consequent on the introduction of printing. Henry died, detested for the avarice and extortion of his latter years, in 1509, and was succeeded by his son.

Few princes have begun a reign with brighter promise than Henry VIII., and few have lived to disappoint more entirely the hopes of their people. His youth and accomplishments rendered him popular, and the enormous treasure left by his father enabled him to govern without heavy taxation. Soon after his accession he invaded France, but the campaign was unsuccessful. James IV. of Scotland, in return, made war upon England, and fell, with the flower of his nobility, in the terrible battle of Flodden Field, so fatal to the Scots.

The light of the Reformation had at this time burst upon Europe. Luther had exposed the errors and abuses of Popery; and a purer faith, based on the Word of God, was widely disseminated. In England, these doctrines had long taken root, and spread secretly, preparing the mass of the people for the change so soon to come. Henry stood forward, at first, as a champion of the church; but a personal quarrel with the Pope, and his unbridled and criminal passions, drove him into rebellion, and led to the separation of

England from the Romish See. It happened that the young king had married Catherine of Arragon, nis elder brother's widow, and having become tired of her, he pretended scruples of conscience on account of their previous relationship. The matter was referred to the Pope by Cardinal Wolsey, Henry's favourite minister, a man of boundless ambition, who had risen from a low station to the second place in the kingdom. Clement VII., fearful of offending the emperor Charles V., Catherine's nephew, refused to sanction the divorce; and Wolsey in his turn, finding that Catherine was to be succeeded by Anne Boleyn, a Protestant, and therefore a dangerous rival, abetted the Pope's policy, and endeavoured to bring his master to submission. Henry, however, was stubborn; degraded Wolsey from all his offices; disregarded the Pope's bull; called Cranmer to his counsels, by whose mediation the question was decided favourably to his wishes, and married Anne Boleyn. Wolsey and Catherine both died soon after. The Pope threatened excommunication, but a spirit of resistance possessed the legislature, and was encouraged by the king. The authority of Rome was abolished, additional powers were given to the archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry was declared head of the church. The dissolution of the monasteries followed, and the immense wealth thus obtained became the property of the king, by whom the lands were divided among the nobility and courtiers. The tyranny of Henry became every year more oppressive. Sir Thomas More, the accomplished earl of Surrey, and Sir Thomas Cromwell, were among his victims. Queen Anne Boleyn was beheaded upon an accusation generally believed to be false; and, of four succeeding queens, Jane Seymour died soon after the birth of her son, Edward VI.; Anne of Cleves was divorced; Catherine Howard executed; and Catherine Parr was probably saved from the fate of her predecessors by the death of the tyrant in 1547. This period was characterised by change and rapid progress. The Reformation, though begun in court intrigue, produced a marked and beneficial change in the character of the people, and laid the foundation for the future greatness and freedom of England. The maritime discoveries of the Spaniards and Portuguese gave an impulse

to enterprise and commerce, in which our country participated, and though Henry's policy was unwise and restrictive, industry and trade steadily advanced.

LESSON V.-FRIDAY.

SPRING.

This pleasant season has always been regarded as obviously presenting an image of youthful life. The newness, liveliness, fair appearance, exuberance of the vital principle, rapid growth-such are the flattering points of likeness. But there are also less pleasing circumstances of resemblance, the frailty and susceptibility, so peculiarly liable to fatal injury from inauspicious influences, blights, and diseases. Those who have to watch over infancy, childhood, and early youth, can often see, in smitten plants and flowers, the emblems of what they have to fear for their charge. There is the circumstance, that the evil in the human disposition can grow even faster than the good. As in spring, the weeds, the useless and noxious vegetables, the offensive or venomous animals, thrive as well as the useful and salutary productions; and that, too, not only without attention to assist them, but in spite of efforts to repress or extirpate them. There is the circumstance, that it is yet to be proved whether the early season will have its full value ultimately; whether fair and hopeful appearances and beginnings will not end in a mortifying disappointment. How many a rich bloom of the trees comes to nothing! How many a field of corn, promising in the blade, disappoints in the harvest! Under this point of the analogy, the vernal human beings are a subject for pensive, for almost melancholy contemplation. There is one specially instructive point of resemblance. Spring is the season for diligent cultivation; so is youth. What if the spring were suffered to go past without any cares and labours of husbandry! But see how the parallel season of human life is, in numberless instances, consumed away under a destitution of the discipline requisite to form a rational being to wisdom, goodness, and happiness;

through the criminal neglect of those who have the charge and the accountableness, and the almost infallibly consequent carelessness of the undisciplined creatures themselves. One shall not seldom be struck with the disparity between these two provinces of cultivation. The garden shall be put in neat order, the fruit-tree trimmed and trained; the cornfield exhibiting a clean shining breadth of green; the children and youth bearing every mark of mental and moral rudeness. On the contrary, it is delightful to see the spring season of life advancing under such a cultivation, of the instructor's care, of conscientious self-tuition, and of divine influence, as to give hope of rich ensuing seasons. A part of the pleasure imparted by the beauty of the spring is, whether we are exactly aware of it or not, in an anticipation of what it is to result in. And though, as we have said, there is much for uncomplacent presentiment in beholding the bloom, animation, and unfolding faculties of early life, yet they who are affectionately interested in the sight, are insensibly carried forward in imagination to the virtues and accomplishments which they are willing to foresee in the mature and advanced states. It may be added, as one more point in this parallel, that the rapid passing away of the peculiar beauty of spring, gives an emblem of the transient continuance of the lively and joyous period of human life.-John Foster.

LESSON VI.-MONDAY.

DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND WATER.

The land rises out of the sea, sometimes in larger, sometimes in smaller masses. These are respectively designated continents and islands, though the exact distinction between the two is undetermined. If 3,000,000 square miles are taken as the minimum area of a continent, we may distinguish three continents. Asia, Europe, and Africa, are united in a vast continental mass, known as the Old World; the Australasian continent, south-east of Asia, forms the continental nucleus of an oceanic world; and in the western hemisphere, America, termed the New World,

appears as the third continent. The islands lying near the continents have no pretension to an independent position; but the insular regions of both polar zones, the outlines of which are as yet little known, and the multitude of Australasian islands under the tropics, we may oppose to the continents as pelagic masses, and distinguish according to their position, as arctic, antarctic, and tropical island-worlds.

Setting aside the union of the northern and southern masses of land by means of isthmuses, and considering them as separated by inlets of the sea, we obtain six con tinents, of which the three northern and the three southern resemble one another in various respects. The three southern continents, South America, Africa, and New Holland, with which Van Diemen's island is to be considered as having a submarine connection, display a remarkable similarity of figure, especially in the uniformity of their coasts, the paucity of islands on the west, and the extensive archipelagos on the south-east-the Falkland islands in the first continent, Madagascar in the second, and New Zealand in the third. Of the three northern continents, North America, Europe, and Asia, the two latter are so connected that Europe, physically, can only be regarded as the western peninsula of Asia, though, in its political relations, it claims the rank of an independent continent. The three northern continents are distinguished by the extreme irregularity of their coasts, and each throws out three peninsulas in its southern part-North America those of California, Central America, and Florida; Europe those of Spain with Portugal, Italy, and Greece; Asia those of Arabia, Hindostan, and the Indo-Chinese peninsula. In each case, the south-eastern peninsula runs out into a large archipelago, forming the West Indian, the Grecian, and the East Indian islands. The southern members of Asia and Europe show other points of agreement. The most simply formed peninsula of each is the most westerly-Arabia, and Spain with Portugal; the peninsula which has the most sub-divisions, and which is ultimately broken up into islands, lies, in both cases, to the east; here the Indo-Chinese peninsula with Malacca, there Hellas with