away nearly thirty visitors seek- home stone walls and tile ing rooms this summer.

floors exude a dankness even The doctor has, with some during the drought; the beds difficulty, reduced by a large are often built into the walls percentage the deaths in child- or under the staircases, and birth. When he started prac- are surrounded by curtains, so tice it was the custom to couch that though the baker ventures the expectant mother upon the to open his windows a crack, filthiest materials which could he smothers himself in his be found in the house, or even cupboard or his tent of a bed. in the stables. It needed all The beasts of the house pigs his arts to dissuade the peasant and chickens-live in the celfrom this custom. But in lars, from whence their effluvia spite of the fact that the French penetrate persuasively. How country doctor's main practice can the baker conquer his consists in hygiene and mid- instinctive fear of nocturnal wifery, Dr Saggebou's true en- air? We who slept frankly thusiasm is not in medicine. with windows flung wide were He has the surgeon's instinctive the object of incessant remoncontempt for pottering about strance from our hosts and the human organism ; his is from other well-disposed perthe reductio method, though sons. I don't believe that petty surgery has his more even the doctor himself slept especial interest. Once he set with the windows open. It is a boy's leg in the street before extraordinary how pig-headed the Sestrol's Hôtel; it is a humanity is against commonfurther point of his character sense in any branch of advancethat he refused fees for the ment; how it has resisted operation. “That peasant gave common sense in medicine, polime loaves of bread during the tics, education, and even in war, good bread, when decent humanity; how we laugh at flour was unobtainable," he our ancestors for the commonsaid to us.

sense they have resisted ; and But he will use no magic, how our descendants will laugh and in some cases the patient at us for the common-sense leaves him for a more mys- we resist in our turn. terious practician. The baker, But the peasants still demand for instance, visits a young magic in their medicines as they doctor in Francheville, one who demand it in their religion ; brandishes electricity, X-rays, indeed, a little farther to the and threats of radium against southward, in Spain, an in

. his tubercles. But how can cantation to a saint is often magic cure the baker under held as more efficacious than the conditions in which he lives ? the science of the doctor, as Dr Saggebou sees clearly that maybe with some Spanish docthe man is doomed in the tors it is. We have already present circumstances. The instanced Madame Sestrol's firm baker lives in a typical N. belief that Lourdes held the

major merit in the curing of with invariable success. SesRaymond, and we had a further trol had a jest—well in his example very soon after our manner—that once a sufferer arrival. Monsieur Sestrol told had been hurried to Père us how he had been cured of “ Chestnuts " for cure, but that, rheumatism. The illness was having discovered where the so bad that he could scarcely burn was, he declined to opermove, far less work. Doctors ate. The man had sat down had practised on him without upon a red-hot poker. giving relief. By chance he The Church is connected in heard of some wise woman magic with medicine even more who had a miraculous cure. closely than in this competiHe was hoisted into a cart, tion between the curative prowas driven to her house, bar- perties of saintly vows and gained with her for her recipe, materia medica. There is a and actually paid her fifty francs series of quack medicines offered

a large sum before the war- to the public under the signafor the prescription. He says ture of the abbé so-and-so, or that he concocted the potion the abbé this-and-that. Why according to instruction, drank abbés should be considered enit-"il fallut avoir l'estomac fort lightened in medicine has only pour avaler ça,”—and in three one explanation, the magical days was cured. He had after one, which embraces both wards given the prescription Church and doctor. There is to the nuns, so he said, and with a famous abbé quack in Touit they had cured numberless louse who, although he has persons. He could not remember the ingredients, except the by the French courts to prison, first instruction, which offers still continues to hold the faith a clue to the nature of the whole, of and to gull the peasants.

Take one litre of water, and Probably in exasperation boil it until it is reduced to against these priestly incurhalf the quantity

sions into his profession, Dr He also said that one could Saggebou is a virulent antiprevent a burn from blistering clerical. The Church retorts if immediately after the acci- upon him by confounding antident one breathed upon the clerical and anti-Christian in injured part, making the sign the minds of the faithful; and of the cross at the same time. so the more devout of the The old father of Monsieur peasants cling to the services · “Chestnuts," who had had of the other doctor, who, though some local reputation as an having the virtues of devotion, amateur magician, averred that is admittedly less able than the he had done this several times loquacious ex-mayor.

been condemned severare;

(To be continued.)

ANNE, LADY HALKETT.

BY L. M. CUMMING

To the women of the seven- most vital of the three, Marteenth century we owe much garet Fell, who, as the wife of illuminating knowledge of an a north-country squire, was age remarkable for its com- converted by George Fox, and plexity and its rich individual- faced the rigours of imprisonity, and much of that sense of ment for her faith, and, for intimacy which fills the pages her efforts on behalf of Quakers of dead history with a glow of everywhere, was known as the present life and gives poignancy Mother of Quakerism even beto the lyrics of the time, fore her marriage to George with their echoes of pain and Fox. The Letters of Dorothy prison and parting.

Osborne have charmed many There is Lucy Hutchinson, by their tender womanliness the peerless Puritan, whose and quiet romance; and the learning and sane judgment, Diary of Lady Anne Clifford, combined with high moral prin- the imposing embodiment of ciple, give her narrative of the traditions of a dying age, Puritan life an austere dignity has very recently brought to which is sweeter and more our knowledge another of this wholesome than the spirit which company of eminent women. usually distinguishes the annals To all these vivid figures of Puritanism ; on the Royalist there is still one to add, Anne side there is Lady Fanshawe, Murray, who is little known whose Diary is, above all, an- even to scholars, but

,

who other expression of wifely devo- deserves a lasting place in the tion ; and the three Margarets, affections of all Caroline entwo of them on the King's side thusiasts and the many who --Margaret Lucas, Duchess of revel in intimacy with living Newcastle, whose bizarre per- personalities of bygone days. sonality and Royalist activity Her life was eventful, with retrieve from dulness that par- the interest of a rapidly moving ade of learning and virtue and novel, and her character was literary zeal which made her refreshingly many-sided. She the target of flattery and de- mingled piety, at once strenurision ; sweet Margaret Godol- ously contemplative and sysphin, unstained by Court life, tematically practical, with no who, shortly after her marriage mean measure of learning, and to a future Prime Minister, especially of medical lore, and faded out of life, and was com- yet contrived to indulge wholememorated by her affectionate heartedly in complicated romanmentor, John Evelyn; and, tic experiences, in which strict

virtue went hand in hand James VI., and became first with startling unconvention- tutor, and later secretary, to ality. She was strong-minded Prince Charles. He was made and a woman of action from Master of Sherburne Hospital her early years, destined for real in Durham, but fell into temadventure in all its picturesque porary disgrace, and was imtrappings, and she had a fertile prisoned in the Tower. ,

He pen. She left many volumes was, however, soon restored to of manuscript, chiefly consist- favour, and made the first lay ing of meditations on sacred Provost of Eton in 1622, and themes, one or two of which this office remained in the were actually printed ; but her tenure of his widow for a year literary ability is shown at after his death in 1623. He its best in her lively Autobiog- was an honest man of Puritan raphy, which has the arresting leanings and poetic aspiration, , quality of a genuine page from and his wife, Jane Drummond life, and combines the revela- of Blair, who came of the tion of personality with per- Perth family, was a lady of haps a more diffused interest spirit, apparently with a good than the pages of any of her deal of the schoolmistress in contemporaries. It is written her composition, which

which was in good narrative style, with a suitably recognised at Court swiftness of pace which some- by her appointment at two times leaves strict syntax pant- different periods as governess ing behind, but never mars to the Duke of York and the telling of the story; and, Princess Elizabeth in place of considering the voluminous her cousin, the Countess of piety of the lady, it is almost Roxburgh. She was left a incredibly free from moralis- widow with five sons, two of ing and weighty ornament. It them at least in close attendis pre-eminently a story, and ance at Court, and two daughthere is little analysis of char- ters, Elizabeth and Anne. Elizaacter or detailed account of beth married a son of Sir Adam what now are historical events; Newton, a learned Scot, who for it was not written for was tutor and secretary to publication, and therefore pre- Henry, Prince of Wales, and supposed in the reader that after his death treasurer to knowledge of people and inci- Prince Charles, and secretary dents which would be natural to the Council of the Marches to contemporaries.

of Wales. Like Thomas Murray, Anne Murray was of Scottish he was given a position of some descent, but accounted herself importance hitherto held by a an Englishwoman. Her father, cleric, being made Dean of Thomas Murray, who was a Durham. His son, Sir Henry Murray of Woodend and re- Newton, was a kindly and lated to

the Tullibardine much - loved gentleman, family, went to England with nowned far and wide for his

re

charity to the poor and his tendance at Church “at five generosity to distressed cava- o'clock in the morning in the liers. He was in a literary set summer and six o'clock in the and a friend of Evelyn, and winter.” Recreation, however, his literary associates were in- was not forgotten, and, duly creased by the marriage of his chaperoned, she indulged cheerniece, Dorothy Enyon, to fully in seeing plays and walkThomas Stanley, whose ‘Æs- ing in the Spring Garden ; and chylus' and 'History of Philo- it is typical of the developsophy’retained for long their ment of her strong-minded charpre-eminence, and whose poems acter that, although fundamenare now attracting some inter- tally conventional in outlook, est. Sir Henry Newton was very she says: “I was the first profriendly with the Stanleys and posed and practised it, for their numerous poetic friends, three or four of us going toand was actively interested in gether without any man, and Stanley's literary projects. every one paying for them

Though Elizabeth was soon selves by giving the money happily and satisfactorily set- to the footman who waited on tled, Anne was but a child, us, and he gave it to the playand her education lay in her house. And this I did first mother's very competent hands. upon hearing some gentlemen She was not the grave woman- telling what ladies they had child that Lucy Apsley was. waited on to plays, and how She had a passionate temper, much it cost them, upon which which was moderated largely I resolved none should say the by an intense veneration for the same of me.” This sensible Bible, which her nurse utilised proceeding was the forerunner to subdue her violent moods; of much in her life that bespoke but she early developed a philo- courage and decision, exercised sophical outlook, which stood as much in every-day life as in her in good stead in later life. the urgencies of days to come.

She tells us that her mother Though they had a house

paid masters for teaching in St Martin's Lane, much time my sister and me to write, was spent at the Newton's speak French, play on the lute Kentish estate of Charlton. and virginals, and dance, and The Civil War began, and Sir kept a gentlewoman to teach Henry Newton attended the us all kinds of needlework,' King to Oxford, and raised a which indicates that her educa- troop of horse for the Royalist tion was considerably less schol- army; and when his estate arly than that of Mrs Hutchin- was sequestrated, his wife had son. The chief emphasis fell to live at Charlton on a fraction on religion, and Anne's religious of their income. The Charlton feelings seem to have been household consisted of Lady strengthened rather than Newton, young and sympadamped by enforced daily at thetic, and her children, her