temptation at the command of her powerful parent, the King of Demons. I shall not insult her sex by throwing upon her side the whole of the blame. God knows, and we all know, what heavy burdens of guilt the majority of men have to bear. If Potiphar's wives are not scarce, Josephs are very few and far between.
The readers of history, particularly of Josephus, Froissart, and Gibbon, will fully appreciate my attempted description of the grand review and bloody battle. I have seen many fascinating and imposing reviews, but an actual battle only with a historical glance. In our riper years these oft-repeated pictures of our darkest world become burdens on the brain; and it is hard to say what kind of creatures we should be now if there had never been any war to disturb the even tenor of our lives.
I now take leave of my book, and, after the fashion of the illustrious 'Childe Harold,' bid my readers 'Farewell.' Every reader must make his own applications. I may be accused of taking upon myself to deal severely with some of the follies and vices of mankind: but I have also dealt with their better and nobler qualities, by presenting Julius Winborne's constancy and hatred of wickedness, and Helen St. Clair's purity and elevation of soul. I have not in any case descended to the perfidy and meanness of satirizing any living person. The dead are happily free from all shafts of enmity or sarcasm.
The characters of the kind, liberal, charitable, and sincerely religious people by whom we are surrounded, and to whom many allusions have been made in this work, shine like Stars of Victory in contrast with the meanness, hardness, and sordid selfishness of many of their unblessed fellow-creatures.
THE END.
Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, London.
