said that a new expedition seeking Franklin's,
must run precisely the same risks that he
had run. Yet, in the first place, every one
knows that accidents, whether in Arctic seas
or London streets, are not bound to occur
always on a given spot, and in the second
place it is not intended to take ships alongside
of the wrecks if they exist, or to take
ships at all into the small, unmapped region
which is the district to be searched, but to
sail straight to its known confines, and then
explore it by the help of dogs and sledges.
Sir Charles Wood further said, that if the
ships had been abandoned, it was not
probable that the crews left on board any
valuable records. Is there a man in the
country, Sir Charles Wood excepted, who is
not perfectly sure that those ships which
would be inevitably objects of search, and
which would be more obvious to the eye than
any cairns, would not be left by the crews
empty of all record? They would inevitably
contain notes, explanations, letters to wives,
children, and parents, copies of logs, even
though for the original papers belonging to
the expedition some safer place of deposit
may have been found. If the last survivor
took the records, says Sir Charles, it is
not probable that he put them where they
could be found. Sir Charles Wood further
said, apparently upon his own responsibility
as an acute man, that it was very doubtful
whether even any more relics of ships or
boats could be met with. Finally, said Sir
Charles, the final expedition, meeting with
the fate of Franklin's, would give rise to
renewed expeditions without end, to discover
the survivors. But as we should know exactly
where to look for them, why they should be
lost, and why there should be expeditions
without end, it needs a First Lord of the
Admiralty's reasoning powers to discover.

So the case stands, and Lady Franklin is
once more thrown altogether on her own
resources. Nothing will daunt her. She has
been put to great expense, and has lost a
year's action by the neglect of government.
Still she is undaunted. She will sacrifice her
whole fortune, devote her life's blood and
energy to the work cast upon her woman's
hands. All that she now asks is that government
will lend her the Resolute, the ship
brought over by Captain Hartstone from
America, for the direct purpose that she has
in view, or any other of the Arctic ships now
lying entirely useless in the dockyards,
together with a certain amount of the stores
which are laid by to rot. These granted, she
will hire the men, and pay the whole cost of
the expedition. She does not ask the nation
for a penny, but only for the use of what the
Admiralty has put by as lumber. Will the
public suffer this request also to be refused?
If it be refused, if it be churlishly left to one
woman to do the duty of a people, then will
the one woman accept her fate. She will
prepare as well as equip her own vessel.
Volunteers will man it; and will bring home,
we trust, such tidings as shall put our
Admiralty Lords to eternal shame.

CHARNWOOD.

A DULL, moist, and cloudy winter morning,
with now and then a flying gleam of
sunshine to raise brighter expectations than
the day is destined to fulfil; place, a winding
country lane on the borders of Leicestershire,
deep in mire, shut in by high verdant
banks, crowned with trees, and suggestive,
even in the autumn season of the year, of
violets and primroses to come. Then a railway
ride, another walk, winding up through a
plantation whose paths are deep in dead
leaves, and over steep hills, from which you
obtain glimpses of that wild forest scenery for
which this part of Charnwood is celebrated.

Rude fantastic masses of rock are piled up
on each side of the path, taking, in some
cases, the form of natural Druidical altars,
like the wrecks of another Stonehenge.
Knowing, indeed, that the Druids did
enact their forest mysteries in the shades of
Charnwood, it pleases me to think that I may
now be passing over one of the spots sacred
of old to the observance of their rites. But
yonder, in the distance, stands the monastery.

In the year eighteen hundred and thirty-
five, the Reverend Odilo Woolfrey, presbyter;
Father Bernard Palmer, presbyter; Brother
Luke, Brother Xaxier, and Brother Augustine,
lay brethren, laid the foundation of the
present establishment, on a wild desert tract
of land purchased for the purpose. Their
first monastery was a wretched cottage with
a dilapidated roof, in which they lived for
more than a year. Various donations enabled
them soon after to build a small monastery
and chapel, now called the Abbey Grange.
The present monastery, built in eighteen
hundred and thirty-nine, is the result of a
munificent donation of the Earl of Shrewsbury.
It belongs to the Cistercian order,
which is a branch of the Benedictine.

Here, in a field, not far from the monastery,
are several of the brethren tilling the soil.
They stand in a row, dressed in long dark-
brown habits, with their cowls thrown back
from their close-cropped heads; never speaking
to each other, never lifting their eyes
from the earth to glance at the stranger
watching them. A wide, gravelled road,
bordered with shrubs and evergreens,
conducts me to the front of the monastery. It
is an irregular stone building, of the early
Gothic style, designed by Pugin. The view
behind is closed in by a tall pinnacled rock,
surmounted by a cross and its burden, and
called by the monks Mount Calvary. The
prospect in front extends over the monastic
estate of four hundred acres, a great portion
of which has been brought into cultivation
by the monks themselves, whose industry is
great. In the distance, the old monastery