WHAT I KNOW ABOUT GARDENING. 151 



EIGHTEENTH WEEK. 



REGRETS are idle ; yet history is one long 

 regret. Everything might have turned out 

 so differently ! If Ravaillac had not been 

 imprisoned for debt, he would not have 

 stabbed Henry of Navarre. If William of 

 Orange had escaped assassination by Phil- 

 ip's emissaries ; if France had followed the 

 French Calvin, and embraced Protestant 

 Calvinism, as it came very near doing to- 

 wards the end of the sixteenth century ; if 

 the Continental ammunition had not given 

 out at Bunker's Hill ; if Blucher had not 

 " come up " at Waterloo, the lesson is 

 that things do not come up unless they are 

 planted. When you go behind the histori- 

 cal scenery, you find there is a rope and pul- 

 ley to effect every transformation which has 

 astonished you. It was the rascality of a 

 minister and a contractor five years before 



