and mouth, true index of those passions which were one day to shake Europe to the centre; and presenting in his whole appearance a striking contrast to his brother, and drawing around him, even while yet so young, the hottest and wildest spirits of his father's court, who, while they loved the person, scorned the gentle amusements of the Prince of Wales.

Henry the Seventh and his hapless consort, Elizabeth of York, were, of course, present-the one rejoicing in the conclusion of a marriage for which he had been in treaty the last seven years, and which was at last purchased at the cost of innocent blood; the other beholding only her precious son, whose gentle and peculiarly domestic virtues were her sweetest solace for conjugal neglect and ill-concealed dislike.

Amongst the many noble Spaniards forming the immediate attendants of the Infanta, had been one so different in aspect to his companions as to attract universal notice; and not a few of the senior noblemen of England had been observed to crowd round him whenever he appeared, and evince toward him the most marked and pleasurable cordiality. His thickly silvered hair and somewhat furrowed brow bore the impress of some five-and-fifty years; but a nearer examination might have betrayed that sorrow more than years had aged him, and full six, or even ten years might very well be subtracted from the age which a first glance supposed him. Why the fancy was taken that he was not a Spaniard could not have been very easily explained; for his wife was the daughter of the famous Pedro Pas, whose beauty, wit, and high spirits were essentially Spanish, and was the Infanta's nearest and most favored attendant; and he himself was constantly near her person, and looked up to by the usually jealous Spaniards as even higher in rank and importance than many of themselves. How, then, could he be a foreigner? And marvel merged into the most tormenting curiosity, when, on the bridal day of the Prince of Wales, though he still adhered to the immediate train of the Princess, he appeared in the rich and full costume of an English peer. The impatience of several young gallants could hardly be restrained even during the ceremony; at the conclusion of which they tumultuously surrounded Lord Scales, declaring they would not let him go till he had told them who and what was this mysterious friend: Lord Scales had headed a gallant band of English knights in the Moorish war, and was therefore supposed to know everything concerning Spain, and certainly of this Anglo-Spaniard, as ever since his arrival

in England they had constantly been seen together. He smiled good-humoredly at their importunity, and replied :

"I am afraid my friend's history has nothing very marvelous or mysterious in it. His family were all staunch Lancastrians, and perished either on the field or scaffold; he escaped almost miraculously, and after a brief interval of restless wandering, went to Spain and was treated with such consideration and kindness by Ferdinand and Isabella, that he has lived there ever since, honored and treated in all things as a child of the soil. On my arrival, I was struck by his extraordinary courage and rash disregard of danger, and gladly hailed in him a countryman. I learned afterward that this reckless bravery had been incited by a wish for death, and that events had occurred in his previous life, which would supply matter for many a minstrel tale.” "Let us hear it, let us hear it!" interrupted many eager voices, but Lord Scales laughingly shook his head.

"Excuse me, my young friends: at present I have neither time nor inclination for a long story. Enough that he loved, and loved unhappily; not from its being unreturned, but from a concatenation of circumstances, and sorrows which may not be detailed."

"But he is married; and he is as devoted to Donna Catherine as she is to him. I heard they were proverbial for their mutual affection and domestic happiness. How could he so have loved before?" demanded, somewhat skeptically, a very young man.

"My good friend, when you get a little older, you will cease to marvel at such things, or imagine, because a man has been very wretched, he is to be forever. My friend once felt as you do (Lord Scales changed his tone to one of impressive seriousness); but he was wise enough to abide by the counsels of the beloved one he had lost, struggle to shake off the sluggish misery which was crushing him, cease to wish for death, and welcome life as a solemn path of usefulness and good, still to be trodden, though its flowers might have faded. Gradually as he awoke to outward things, and sought the companionship of her whom his lost one had loved, he became sensible that, spiritless as he had thought himself, he could yet, did he see fit, win and rivet regard; and so he married, loving less than he was loved, perchance, at the time, but scarcely so now. His marriage, and his present happiness, are far less mysterious than his extraordinary interference in the event which followed the conquest of the Moors-I mean the expulsion of the Jews."

"By the way, what caused that remarkable edict ?" demanded one

of the circle, more interested in politics than individuals. "It is a good thing indeed to rid a land of such vermin; but in Spain they had so much to do with the successful commerce of the country, that it appears as impolitic as unnecessary.

Impolitic it was, so far as concerned the temporal interests of the kingdom; but the sovereigns of Spain decided on it, from the religious light in which it was placed before them by Torquemada. It is whispered that Isabella would never have consented to a decree, sentencing so many thousands of her innocent subjects to misery and expulsion, had not her confessor worked on her conscience in an unusual manner; alluding to some unprecedented favor shown to one of that hated race, occasioned, he declared, by those arts of magic which might occur again and yet again, and do most fatal evil to the land. Isabella had, it appears, when reproached by Torquemada for her act of mercy, which he termed weakness, pledged herself, not to interfere with his measures for the extermination of the unbelief, and on this promise of course he worked, till the edict was proclaimed." "But this stranger, what had he to do with it ?" demanded many of the group, impatient at the interruption.

"What he had to do with it I really cannot tell you, but his zeal to avert the edict lost him, in a great measure, the confidence of Ferdinand. When he found to prevent their expulsion was impossible, he did all in his power to lessen their misfortune, if such it may be called, by relieving every unbeliever that crossed his path."

An exclamation of horrified astonishment escaped his auditors. "What could such conduct mean? Did he lean toward unbelief himself- 99

"Unless he had

"That could hardly be," replied Lord Scales. been a Catholic, earnest and zealous as herself, Isabella would never have so esteemed him as to give him as wife her special favorite, Catherine Pas, and place him so near the person of her child. When I left Spain, I entreated my friend to accompany me, and resume his hereditary title and estate, but I pleaded in vain. Some more than common tie seemed to devote him to the interests of the queen of Castile, whom he declared he would never leave unless in England he could serve her better than in Spain. At that time there was no chance of such an event. He now tells me, that it was Isabella's earnest request that he should attend the princess; be always near her, and so decrease the difficulties which in a foreign land must for a time surround her. The queen is broken in health, and dispirited,

from many domestic afflictions; and it was with tears she besought him to devote his remaining years to the service of her child, and be to the future queen of England true, faithful, and upright, as he had ever been to the queen of Spain. Need I say the honorable charge was instantly accepted, and while he resumes his rank and duties as a peer of his native land, the grateful service of an adopted son of Spain will ever be remembered and performed."

"But his name, his name?" cried many eager voices. "ARTHUR STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY."

THE END.

THEATRICAL REHEARSALS.

PEOPLE who have hitherto described rehearsals have dwelt chiefly on the paucity of gaslights and on the fact of the actresses being in every-day dress-peculiarities at which, without any great effort of imagination, one might have guessed before going in. A rehearsal is never a brilliant spectacle; on wet winter days when half the company are afflicted with colds it is apt to be a depressing one; but even on a winter's day one might spend one afternoon to worse purpose than by sitting in a stage-box and watching a comedy in three acts being put through its goose-steps. If one learned nothing else, one would at least gather a conception of the difficulties, anxieties, and labors to which half a hundred people are subjected before even the most meagre comedy is fit to face the public.

We will suppose that a play is accepted, and this is taking a big leap at once, for if kind-hearted persons had any idea of the number of dramatists who, like Mr. Grewgious's gloomy clerk in " Edwin Drood," stalk about from theatre to theatre with sealed MSS. for the managers, somebody would surely propose that a charity theatre be erected somewhere, where all these rejected and much-to-be-pitied men of talent might get their works played for nothing. It is not so sure, by the way, that among the works thus played some might not be superior to those which attain the honor of genuine performance. This is said without malice, but all managers are not infallible, and it is a known fact that to judge a play sagaciously in manuscript, requires almost as much cleverness as to write one. However, we

will suppose all these obstacles surmounted. The manager has opened a manuscript, read it, liked it (being in good humor), and written to the fortunate author to say that with "certain modifications" (this phrase is inevitable) he thinks the play will do. A day is fixed for the reading before the company. The French, who are models in all these matters, invest their readings with a sort of solemnity. All the "friends of the house," patrons, play-surveyors in ordinary, and friendly critics, are convoked, and the author makes his appearance in dress clothes, with a trusty friend by his side to encourage him, and, if nervousness should supervene, read for him. Some French playwrights are capital readers; others always have recourse to the trusty friend. Alexandre Dumas read in such wise that his hearers wept, and when the performance was over threw themselves into his arms. Balzac, in reading his "Mercadet " before the committee of the Théâtre Français, tore off his coat, waistcoat, and necktie, brandished his fist above his head, and bellowed as if he were in a fever; and it stands on record of a third and still living dramatist that in reading a first work he threw so much spirit into the exercise that at the last act, where a murder was to be enacted, he drew a pistol from his pocket, and bawling out, "This is loaded!" discharged it in front of him, amid a pretty panic, very easy to imagine. Of course the pistol was not loaded, and the words to the contrary were merely part of the text; but this shows into what emotional incidents a reading may culminate under the auspices of a truly conscientious playwright.

The piece then stands read, and the next thing to do is to distribute the parts. Now, those who have ever been present at a reading, will remember that after the buzz of congratulations which attends the close of the author's labors has subsided, there is a sudden lull, and the lady members of the company fold their hands, beat down their skirts a little, and set their lips. This is like clearing the decks for action, and veteran playwrights know the symptoms so well that when the piece they have been reading is not one that was ordered beforehand, with all the parts cut to measure, they instantly follow up their conclusion by crying out, half defiantly, "I propose distributing as follows. ." and distribute as follows they do, all prayers, protestations and tears notwithstanding. Young playwrights, however, commit the blunder of pausing after they have shut up their manuscripts, and smile benignly at everybody. Then comes the war. It is not the leading parts that are so hard to award, for there is always