Chapter XVII: Part 17

Foremost and best among Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton's juvenile books comes _Old Merry's Annual_, the prince of its class, as Aunt Judy's volume is the princess. Brilliant in crimson and gold, and chubby in form like a winter apple, Old Merry comes forth to brighten Christmas firesides, as cheery, wise, wholesome, and quaint as ever. Among the annuals we like it the best. Stories, gossipy chats _de omnibus_, puzzles, useful information about most things that interest boys, and didactic papers, make up a miscellany which it is impossible to describe, and difficult to overpraise. M. D. Liefde's story is the _vale_ of an able man, a great favourite with young people. It is chiefly a posthumous publication.--_Madeleine's Trial, and other Stories._ From the French of MADAME DE PRESSENSÉ. A group of simple stories illustrative of the law of love. The translator has made them so English in tone as well as in style that the flavour of the original is well-nigh exhaled.--_Walter's Escape; or, The Capture of Breda._ By J. B. DE LIEFDE. A spirited account of one of the most remarkable exploits in the heroic struggles of the Dutch to secure their liberty. It is written with the author's wonted vigour.--_Model Women._ By WILLIAM ANDERSON. This volume gives us slight sketches of the Mother of the Wesleys, Elizabeth Fry, Amelia Sieveking, Felicia Hemans, Hannah More, Elizabeth Browning, Caroline Herschel, Selina Countess of Huntingdon, and a few others whom the author conceives to have been respectively 'model women,' either in domestic life, philanthropic effort, literary achievement, scientific research, or Christian consecration. There is not much power or point in the characterization of these distinguished women, but the brief memorials of some of them are interesting, and may help to raise the idea of women's work.

Messrs. Griffith and Farran sustain the reputation of the house that became famous by the publication of 'Goody Two Shoes.' They have an admirable staff of writers for young people, and the works they produce are of a highly interesting and instructive character. One of the best this year is _Household Stories from the Land of Hofer; or, Popular Myths of Tirol._ By the Author of 'Patrañas; or, Spanish Stories.' Between twenty and thirty stories of myth and magic of the old-fashioned sort, embodying the wild legends that hang about the valleys of the Tyrol (the writer pedantically spells it Tirol), and have haunted them for a thousand years. The Norgs, or little men, are the chief heroes, a kind of southern Trolls, or dwarfs of the Black Forest. It is a class of myths less known than those of Scandinavia, but having many of their weird characteristics. The most popular are 'Nickel of the Mine,' the little man of the mountain who dug riches for the covetous, selfish Aennerl; and the 'Rose Garden of King Sweyn,' made by the Norg king for his mortal bride, whom, however, after a fierce combat, he had to surrender to Theodoric the Visigoth. Many of the stories are legendary embodiments of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism. Since Dr. Dasent's 'Norse Tales,' a more important and interesting collection of legends has not appeared.--_Tales of the Saracens._ By BARBARA HUTTON. These tales are history, not fiction, treating first of Mohammed as prophet and as conqueror, and then of the line of Caliphs by whom he was followed. The book is written in a clear and lively style, and to intelligent readers will prove both entertaining and instructive.--_Sunny Days; or, A Month at the Great Stowe._ The Great Stowe is a farmhouse in the country, at which a family of little town-folk spent a month. We are told all that they saw and did, and a right merry party they were; none the less so for the wise discipline and sententious wisdom and clever stories of Aunt Gommie. 'Aunt Gommie is like a spider; she goes on spin, spin, spin, and she is never at a loss for a web.'

Sampson Low & Co. have re-published a charming American Story, _Little Women; or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy_. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. Whether Miss Alcott is the most popular of American writers for young people we do not know; but beyond all question, 'Little Women' is just now the most popular American juvenile fiction. You see it upon every American book-stall, and find it in almost every American home. It is having a greater run than any recent fiction; and it is really a very charming story. The 'Little Women' are the four children of Mr. March, an American pastor, away South at the war. Their characters are delineated, and their history, from early girlhood to motherhood, traced with a consummate cleverness. Miss Alcott has not, perhaps, so delicate a touch as the author of the 'Gayworthy's,' nor so graphic a power as Mrs. Beecher Stowe; but she has delicacy, descriptive power, and force of no ordinary kind. One of the most promising characteristics of American fiction is its individuality. There is a marked family likeness among the fictions by female writers, which during the last few years have obtained such popularity among ourselves. They are redolent of American character and life, especially of New England life, and have also an intellectual cast of their own--a kind of household idealism, quaintness, and piety, not easy to describe, but unmistakably to be recognised. We predict for 'Little Women' a popularity greater than that of the 'Wide, Wide World,' 'The Gayworthy's,' or 'Faith Gartney's Childhood.' We are not sure that our American cousins do not, in this department of literature, far excel any writer that we can boast There are two or three other books of Miss Alcott's ('The Old-Fashioned Girl,' for instance) with which we should like English children to be acquainted, although they are not quite equal to 'Little Women.'

Messrs. Bell and Daldy send _The Brownies, and other Tales_. By JULIANA HORATIO EWING. Beautiful stories, charmingly told, with capital illustrations by our old friend George Cruikshank.--_Aunt Judy's Christmas Volume for Young People_ contains a wealth of instruction and amusement, which we have neither time nor space to describe. Our young readers should get it, and judge for themselves, and we assure them they will not be disappointed.--_Waifs and Strays of Natural History._ By Mrs. ALFRED GATTY. An elementary book of instruction, concerning corals and coral islands, the Beaver, sponges, zoophytes, microscopic objects, &c., conveyed in Mrs. Gatty's charming way. Nothing lends itself more easily to romance than natural phenomena, and Mrs. Gatty's readers need not to be told how magical Aunt Judy's pen is.--_Parables from Nature._ Fifth Series. By Mrs. ALFRED GATTY. Eight more of Mrs. Gatty's popular parables, about 'Consequences,' 'Ghosts,' 'Unopened Parcels,' 'See-Saw,' &c. The one on 'Unopened Parcels' is the longest and the best.--_Deborah's Drawer._ By ELEANOR GRACE O'REILLY. The author of 'Daisy's Companions' cannot fail of an eager welcome from the readers of that charming little volume. Here is a companion to it. Deborah is the dead sister of Lavinia Meek, who had a great gift of telling and writing stories for children. These had been put away in a drawer, which Lavinia Meek opens for the amusement of little Averil, who reads four or five clever and touching little stories which she found there. These are set in a neat framework of personal history. The little book is a gem.

Messrs. Seeley and Co. send us _Aunt Judith's Recollections; a Tale of the Eighteenth Century_. By the author of 'Missionary Recollections.' Aunt Judith flourished in the days of Wesley and Whitfield, and in a pleasant chatty way, though somewhat garrulous withal, the old lady tells her young niece Annie the story of those times--of the darkness which had settled on this England of ours, and of the great awakening that followed the labours of those holy, earnest men.--_Hetty's Resolve; a Story of School Life._ By the Author of 'Under the Lime Trees.' There is but little power or point in these rather prosy details of school routine; but if they should lead some young readers to shun the slippery ways of Florence Benson, and to imitate the honest work of the kind-hearted Maggie, they will not have been written in vain.--_Curious Facts about Animals._ For Little People. _Evening Amusement._ Two little books for little folk, simply written and attractively illustrated; the former describing the habits of the mole, the badger, the otter, the deer, the dog, the sheep, the horse, &c., and telling anecdotes respecting them; the latter a series of juvenile stories of the simplest kind, which derive their main interest from the children cutting out figures in black paper to illustrate them.--_Tony and Puss._ From the French of P. J. STAHL. With Twenty-four Illustrations from designs by Lorenz Frölich. Another dainty book for very little children, with multitudinous groupings of Tony and Puss in varied relationship. Some of the illustrations are very clever, though Herr Frölich's typical 'Papa' looks rather of the feeble order; but he may not be less welcome to the Tinies, for whose special advantage Messrs. Seeley and Co. cater so lavishly.--_Sunday Echoes in Weekday Homes._ By Mrs. CAREY BROCK. This book is a history of the home life of some young people, who having been trained to look upon the Bible as connected with every thought and incident of their lives, find in the journeyings of the children of Israel types and emblems of their own doings and trials, at home and at school. It is none the less interesting to the class for whom it is written, if less true to Nature, that the children themselves suggest the warnings given and the lessons taught by God's dealings with the Israelites. From the 'passing over Jordan' of the youngest of the family the rest derive much comfort in seeing one of their number enter the 'promised land.'

Messrs. Cassell cater liberally and successfully for young readers. _The Log of the Fortuna: a Cruise on Chinese Waters._ Containing Tales of Adventure in Foreign Climes, by Sea and by Shore. By Captain AUGUSTUS F. LINDLEY. A Collection of 'Seven Sailors' Yarns'--not all of them, however, relating to China. The scene of one of them is laid in Paris; of another, among Australian Bushrangers; of another, in the Sea of Azof. The 'Yarns' are told on board the _Fortuna_, which has got upon a mud-bank in Chinese waters, and waits for spring tides. Captain Lindley wields a vigorous, incisive, and humorous pen. His stories are therefore clever and amusing: some of his descriptions and bits of rollicking humour would not discredit Charles Lever. The book is profusely illustrated, and, like all the publications of this firm, marvellously cheap.--_Home Chat with our Youngsters._ By C. L. MATEAUX. Never was instruction more acceptably given or more sweetly sugared than in this attractive volume. The twenty-two chapters on 'People, and things which the Young Folks see or hear about,' are illustrated on almost every page. The chapters are conversational in form, the young folks asking only sufficient questions to mask the monotony of unbroken information. The story of 'Columbus' is thus told, and is made lucid by illustrations. Simpler synonyms for some of the words might have been found, but the book will be a great favourite in the nursery. It is, for children a stage farther advanced, almost as good as 'The Children's Album.' We can give it no higher praise.

From the Religious Tract Society we have received--_Spanish Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil._ By the Author of 'Swiss Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil.' We have done--what doubtless some of our readers have done--tested the 'Swiss Pictures' by taking it to Switzerland as a _quasi_ guide-book. We found it carefully accurate, and full of intelligent observations. This bespeaks our confidence for this companion volume about Spain. 'Africa begins at the Pyrenees,' says the French proverb: so does our author: and even veteran travellers will feel that once over the Pyrenees they are in a _terra incognita_. And yet few lands are physically more unique, romantically more full of wild legends, historically more full of romance, ethnologically more interesting, and socially and religiously more full of undeveloped possibilities. Madrid, the Escurial, Granada, Seville, &c., are visited and described. Cathedrals, bull-fights, gipsies, Murillo, religious customs, literature, trade, the Moors, all receive due notice; and have thrown upon them gleams of history, snatches of poetry, and visions of the future. The author has freely laid under contribution writers of renown, large extracts from whom are interwoven with his narrative of personal experience. Gustave Doré is among the eminent artists who have supplied the illustrations. It is an instructive and effective popular book.--_The Picture Gallery of the Nations_ is a series of short descriptive chapters of about seventy of the nations of the earth; each occupying only a page or two, and illustrated with very effective wood-cuts, some of them whole-page size, others smaller. It is a popular book of the best kind for young people who delight in the help which the eye affords to the instruction of the pen.--_Original Fables._ By Mrs. PROSSER. Readers of 'The Leisure Hour' and 'The Sunday at Home' are familiar with Mrs. Prosser's name as the writer of two or three capital serial stories which appeared in these publications. With these fables they will, through the same medium, have made acquaintance. To write fables successfully has been given to only three or four of the human race--the author of those which pass under the name of Æsop, La Fontaine, and Kriloff are the only three names of great fable-writers that occur to us. Mrs. Gatty very successfully attempts parabolic stories, but not the terseness and brevity of the fable proper, which is to fiction what the sonnet is to poetry--what the proverb is to the sermon. Mrs. Prosser has done fairly where so few have done well. From the nature of the case we cannot quote (to analyze would carry us beyond our space); we content ourselves therefore with a general commendation. The morals which she weaves into fables may catch the fancy of children, whom an apothegm would only make callous.--The _Leisure Hour_ and the _Sunday at Home_ are sustained at a degree of almost unrivalled adaptation and efficiency. Tale, biography, sermon, and song, often of a very high order, diversify and enrich their pages. We are glad to see in the 'Leisure Hour' the wise breadth and impartiality which supplies biographers of characters so diversified as those of Miss Burdett Coutts, Charles Dickens, Père Hyacinthe, Professor Huxley, Mr. Disraeli, and General Trochu. Mr. Lord, Naturalist to the Egyptian Exploring Expedition, supplies a valuable series of papers on the 'Peninsula of Sinai.'--_Cousin Mabel's Experiences._ By E. JANE WHATELY. Cousin Mabel having been absent from England for some years, in visiting various home circles is much struck by the diversified errors and follies into which religious people have fallen, whose earnestness and seriousness cannot be doubted. The ritualism of young ladies run wild upon church decorations, the spiritual gossip in which certain elderly people indulge, the doing for the poor and strangers to the neglect of home duties, the party spirit pervading missionary work, with other forms of worldliness and selfishness, which are so largely mixed up with many forms of religious life--all these grave errors are exemplified in a series of unconnected stories of family life. Miss Whately does not exaggerate in her characters the follies she wishes to point out; and her way of combating them is one of much wisdom, and is combined with many practical hints, calculated to effect in actual life the reforms which in these tales is always achieved. We trust the practical result may be the same.--_The First Heroes of the Cross._ By BENJAMIN CLARKE. Sunday School Union. Mr. Clarke's 'Life of Jesus, for Young People,' has been received with so much favour that he has attempted to tell the story of the Acts of the Apostles in the same way. He has done this admirably, with great simplicity, and in a very interesting way. Mr. Clarke has spared no pains to qualify himself for forming and expressing true conceptions of the incidents that he narrates.

THE

BRITISH QUARTERLY

APRIL 1871

ART. I.--_Burton's History of Scotland._ Vols. V., VI., and VII. London. 1870.

The affairs of Scotland will always occupy an honourable and conspicuous place in the grand drama of national development which makes up the history of the British Empire. It has been the destiny of the Scottish people to influence the general fortunes of England in a larger degree, and more permanently, than could have been expected from their mere numbers, or their position in the north of our island. In the years which succeeded the Norman Conquest, Scotland was, in some measure, a place of refuge for the English name from foreign oppression; and though deeply penetrated by the Norman elements which consolidated and strengthened her feudal monarchy, she held up something like a beacon of hope before the eyes of the down-trodden Saxon, during the calamitous period of alien domination. Two centuries later, when her nationality had become more firmly established, when her Highland clans, her Anglo-Norman colonies, her Norse settlements, and her Lowland commonalty had been brought nominally under a supreme government, though not yet formed into one people, she exhibited to the world a magnificent spectacle of prolonged, stubborn, and successful resistance to the encroachments of a very superior power; and, in the internecine struggle which ensued, we see distinctly the high qualities which have made her the worthy compeer of England. It was probably one of the results of this contest that France, aided by her Northern ally, was enabled to throw off the Plantagenet yoke, and to acquire the position she still holds in Europe; and, but for Verneuil and other battles, it is possible that, in the fifteenth century, England might have become a military despotism, extending from the Western Isles to the Pyrenees, and have had a completely different history. It is unnecessary to say what Scotland accomplished at the great crisis of the Reformation; if, in the person of Mary Stuart, her dynasty threatened England with subjection and with the despotism of the Catholic League, her people proved the defence of Protestantism, rejected the sovereign they justly detested, gave strength to the counsels of Elizabeth, and contributed largely to the success of the policy which culminated in the ruin of the Armada. For it was at the momentous period of the civil wars of the seventeenth century that the house of Stuart and part of the Scottish nobility endeavoured to blight the prospects of England, to stifle freedom by military power, and to restore what was Romanism all but in name; but the mass of the nation opposed the movement, and set the noble example of resistance to it; and though they ultimately separated from England, they did much to cause the series of events which ended in the Revolution of 1688. Scotland, in a word, has had a beneficent influence of a marked and even extraordinary kind in shaping the course of our English story; and we need not notice how her independent spirit has affected for good the national character, what eminent men she has given the State, what valuable additions she has made to the treasures of British literature and thought, what use some of her institutions have been, as patterns for our own imitation.

The author of the interesting volumes before us has long held a distinguished name in connection with the literature of his country. He has given us an exceedingly good account of the transitional period in the history of Scotland, which embraces the Revolution of 1688, the Union, and the final extinction of the reactionary and half-Romanist party in the nation, when Jacobitism perished in 1745. He has also described with clear insight, and, on the whole, with an impartial pen, that honourable episode in Scottish annals, of lasting importance to these kingdoms, the 'ancient league' of Scotland with France; and no writer, perhaps, has done more to elucidate whatever is most noteworthy in the antiquarian remains and monuments of the races which from the earliest times have inhabited the northern division of our island. The history, however, which he has just completed, and which deals with the affairs of Scotland from the Roman invasion, under Agricola, to the overthrow of the House of Stuart, is, beyond comparison, his greatest work; and as a repository of the learning with which modern research and criticism have explored the national life of his countrymen, it stands alone, and without a parallel. Mr. Burton, in his first four volumes, which were published in 1867, carried down his narrative from the legendary period of the Roman occupation, of the Scots and Picts, of Fergus and the old Celtic monarchy, to the rise of the feudal kingdom of Scotland and its long contest with the power of England; and he went on to describe the memorable era when the ascendancy of France, and national pride resenting Flodden and Pinkie Cleugh, struggled with the forces of the Scottish Reformation; and Mary Stuart, but for her crimes and her fall, would probably have united the two crowns, and become the sovereign of a Romanized Britain. If in treating this important part of his subject Mr. Burton was sometimes carried away by a somewhat too exuberant patriotism, if he, perhaps, assigned too high a place to the position of Scotland in British annals, and if he was never eloquent or picturesque, he displayed rare and extensive knowledge, a judgment usually calm and correct, and the faculty of forming sound conclusions; and his account of the Scottish war of independence, and of Scottish politics in the sixteenth century, is worthy of very high commendation. His last three volumes, which have recently appeared, and which we purpose now to review, comprise the last years of the reign of Mary Stuart, the triumph of the Reformation in Scotland, the struggle between the Kirk and the Crown, which marked the beginning of the seventeenth century, the reaction against James I. and his son, and the memorable events which were the result; they proceed to describe the great civil war, the important attitude of Scotland in it, the conquest of the kingdom by Cromwell, and the dreary epoch which followed the Restoration; and, as may be supposed, they exhibit the merits and the shortcomings of the earlier volumes. Mr. Burton is inclined to exaggerate the part which Scotland played in 1640-1649: he is rather too lenient to the Stuart kings, and he is not skilful in the art of composition. But, on the other hand, his learning is profound; his views of most of the great questions which arose during this memorable epoch, are sound and judicious, and deserve attention; and, on the whole, he has placed the events of the drama of which he has followed the chequered scenes, in their true light and real significance.

Mr. Burton's narrative begins at the period of the imprisonment of Mary Stuart at Lochleven. A few months previously the Scottish queen had been the hope of the Catholic Powers, which were ever planning the ruin of Elizabeth, and the overthrow of the Reformation in England; and, widely as they were divided from each other, they looked upon her as the appointed instrument with which to assail the common enemy. Her beauty too, her extraordinary gifts, the magic of her presence, and her rare abilities, had won the hearts of the Scottish nobility; and though she had never deceived Knox and the earnest champions of Scottish Protestantism, the pride of the nation was aroused in her favour, from the circumstance that it seemed probable that the two crowns would unite on her brow, and that she would become the sovereign of England and Scotland. Distrusted as she was in England by all the real friends of the Reformation, she was supported by the Catholic party, still most formidable in rank and numbers; and she had on her side the conservative feeling, of extraordinary strength in that age, which saw in her the heir to the throne, Elizabeth being without children, and the means of bringing England once more into the old order and ways of Europe. Had Mary Stuart not disgraced herself in the opinion even of that generation, not over-scrupulous about the acts of princes, there can be little doubt that she would have been acknowledged as Elizabeth's successor; and very probably she would have brought the reign of the heretic Tudor to a close, would have become the ruler of England and Scotland, arrested the Reformation for a time, and changed the whole tenor of our history. Providentially, however, this was not to be; and Mary Stuart, by her own hand, was to destroy the prospect of power and ambition, fraught with destruction to the destinies of mankind, which fortune seemed to have opened to her. The murder of Darnley, followed by the shameless and infamous marriage with Bothwell, revealed the depths of recklessness and crime in the existence of this singular woman, and placed her at once under the moral ban of Scotland, England, and Catholic Europe. At Carberry Hill her followers' arms dropped, as it were, from their nerveless hands; the nation rose in fury against her; her adherents were for the time silenced; and she found herself on a sudden a prisoner, her son proclaimed, the Reformation victorious, and Murray exercising the powers of a regent; the whole scene changing as if by magic. Catherine de Medicis, also, gave her up, alarmed at the storm which had burst out in Scotland; and though undoubtedly the Florentine queen was not guided by moral considerations, and, at this moment was beginning to adopt a conciliatory policy towards the French Huguenots, her complete abandonment of Mary Stuart was caused chiefly by a true conviction that she had ruined herself in general opinion. Philip II. also declined to give the slightest countenance to the beautiful fury, in whom he had hoped to find a St. Teresa; and in Catholic and Conservative England the revulsion of feeling was so strong, that thenceforward the cause of Mary Stuart ceased to be national in any real sense.

Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Froude have given us very different accounts of the captivity of Mary Stuart at Lochleven. Mr. Burton has taken great pains to ascertain the facts, and to judge of them, and we quote a few words from his description:--

'The conclusion of all is, that there is nothing in the
conditions to justify the inference that the captive was to
be sent thither as to a place of sordidness and severity,
as well as of seclusion and security.... There is no
evidence that the Lady of Lochleven treated her prisoner
harshly. Much vigilance was necessary, however, and that
could not be accomplished without giving annoyance and even
pain. The daughters of the house shared the prisoner's bed.
To one who had enjoyed full command over the stately
reserve of the court of France, and the impregnable barrier
of isolation which it had put at her disposal, this may
have been a heavy grievance; it can be paralleled only by
the sufferings of people accustomed to civilized
refinement, when their lot is cast among
barbarians.'--(Vol. v. 98.)

The only personage, as is well known, who seems to have shown any real sympathy with the Queen of Scotland, in this forlorn condition, was the sovereign who, it might be supposed, was of all persons the least likely to do anything in behalf of her cause. On hearing of the imprisonment of Mary, Elizabeth not only refused to give open support to her 'rebellious lords,' but actually threatened to invade Scotland, should they not restore their mistress to the throne, on terms, however, dictated by England. To suppose that this conduct is to be ascribed to chivalrous generosity would be a mistake; nor do we think with Mr. Burton, that it was due wholly to Tudor dislike of disobedience to the Lord's anointed, though this certainly was one ruling motive. Elizabeth, undoubtedly, throughout her entire reign, especially in the case of the united provinces, was averse to countenancing revolted subjects, even when to do so was her evident interest; but in this instance she was, in fact, guided by other considerations in her conduct. She seems to have wished in this, following the traditional policy of English rulers, to have taken upon herself the settlement of Scotland; and she did not choose that that kingdom should be revolutionized without her sanction. She also had a particular aversion to Knox and the Reforming leaders; and very probably her sagacious advisers may have foreseen that the rule of Murray and his associates was far from secure. These motives probably influenced her policy in not siding with the Regent and his followers; and in one respect the event vindicated, in a great measure, her cautious prudence. Though the infant James was formally crowned, though the Reformed Church was established in Scotland, and Murray proved himself an able ruler, a strong reaction set in in favour of the imprisoned queen; and though unquestionably the great mass of the nation remained completely hostile, she was able to rally a party sufficient to cause a violent counter-revolution. The numerous adherents of the old Church, the whole body of the Catholic clergy, and a large minority of the Scottish nobility enlisted themselves on the side of Mary Stuart; they were joined by some of the politicians and patriots whose one idea was the giving a Scottish sovereign to England; and pity for misfortune, the recollection of rare beauty and great gifts, and that strange loyalty which so often has shown itself superior to the sense of right, of justice, and of the successful cause, contributed to swell the ranks of her followers. Mr. Burton describes the escape from Lochleven, and the stirring incidents of the struggle which ensued, with much research and even animation; but we can only refer our readers to them. The unimportant battle of Langside showed that, however imposing it was in name, the party of the queen was not supported in any degree by the Scottish nation; a defeat, though little more than a skirmish, was sufficient to overthrow her career, and to compel her forthwith to leave her kingdom. After her flight, in which she found few friends, Mary Stuart was obliged to take refuge in England, abandoning for ever a country in which she had played one of the most astonishing parts that have ever fallen to the lot of woman, and which, excepting a revolutionary faction, had repudiated her for crimes which had effaced the sentiment of former affection.

We agree generally with Mr. Burton in his estimate of Elizabeth's policy when her rival had placed herself in her power. That policy was not generous or high-minded; it was even temporising, doubtful, and tentative; but it was essentially crafty and prudent. To have listened to the petition of the Scottish queen, and to have sent her over to France or Spain, would have been to arm the enemies of England with a weapon of the most perilous kind, and, at the same time, to make all Protestant Scotland permanently hostile. On the other hand, Elizabeth refused to hand her guest over to the Scottish lords, in part certainly from compassionate feelings, in part from her known antipathy to rebellion against a lawful sovereign, and in part from a well-founded doubt whether the government of Murray was really stable, and whether, if the surrender were made, a violent reaction would not follow. A middle course was artfully struck out, which had the advantage of seeming just, of ruining the fair fame of Mary Stuart, and depriving her of all moral influence, and which, moreover, gave her the right of intervening in Scottish affairs, and making England the arbiter of them. Under the form of a charge against her revolted subjects, Mary Stuart was really put on her trial before the most distinguished personages in England; and the result of the inquiry was that she was disgraced in public opinion, that her detention was in part justified, and that, though made somewhat dependent on England, Murray and the Regency were confirmed in power. This is what Elizabeth and Cecil had aimed at, and whatever may be thought of the dignity of their conduct, it fell in with the interests of England; and it was, on the whole, inspired by wisdom. Mr. Burton describes at much length the conferences at York and Hampton Court, but we have no space to dwell on his narrative. The only real question was as to the guilt of Mary, and of this, like ourselves, he has no doubt. The evidence contained in the casket letters is confirmed by numerous subordinate proofs; the authenticity of the letters themselves was hardly questioned in that generation, and not a single member of the Commission--though several were devoted to Mary--not even, apparently, her own advocates, attempted to challenge this decisive fact. As the Scottish queen has found defenders of the boldest kind, even in our day, we quote a part of Mr. Burton's comments:--

'There are two theories on which the guilty conclusion to
which the casket documents point has been resisted with
great perseverance and gallantry; the one is, that, as we
now see them, they have been tampered with; the other, that
they are forgeries from the beginning. All questions raised
on the prior theory, are at once settled by the fact that
those to whom the letters were first shown, drew
conclusions from them as damnatory as any they can now
suggest.... The theory of an entire forgery seems not to
have occurred to any of those friends or foes of the queen
who saw the documents.... And it is impossible not to
connect the stream of contemporary impugnment with a
notable peculiarity in these documents. They are as
affluent in petty details about matters personally known to
persons who could have contradicted them if false, that the
forger could only have scattered around him, in superfluous
profusion, allusions that must have been traps for his own
detection. Wherever any of these petty matters come to the
surface elsewhere, it is in a shape to confirm the accuracy
of the mention made of them in these letters.... Though
this controversy has produced dazzling achievements of
ingenuity and sagacity, I would be inclined not so much to
press technical points of evidence, as to look to the
general tone and character of the whole story. In this view
nothing appears to me more natural than the casket letters.
They fit entirely into their places in the dark history of
events.'--(Vol. iv. p. 436, _et seq._)

Events showed that Elizabeth and Cecil were right in calculating that the power of Murray did not rest on a secure foundation. The Regent was one of the best governors who ever appeared in Scottish history; he was honourable, upright, firm, yet humane; and during his too brief rule he maintained order in a manner unknown in that generation. The religious movement, too, of which he was the unselfish and sincere champion, was followed by the great mass of the nation; and though most of the Reforming lords were simply greedy for the spoils of Popery, Knox and his adherents went with them, and, as a people, Scotland was sincerely Protestant. These combined elements of power, however, did not render the Government safe, and it was exposed to a series of formidable attacks which kept the country for some years in anarchy. The united parties which Langside had quelled again formed a perilous coalition; and the old Church, many of the great feudal lords, and the statesmen who wished above all things to place a Stuart on the Tudor throne, once more rallied in behalf of Queen Mary. The leading spirit of this ill-assorted league was that singular character, Maitland of Lethington, one of the ablest men of that stirring age, yet, with his keen intellect and clear brain, an enthusiast possessed by a vain idea. Long one of the chief opponents of the queen, he had yielded to the alluring prospect--held out to him skilfully by his wife, one of the captive's principal attendants--of making Mary Stuart the sovereign of Great Britain, and he now schemed and plotted in her cause in conjunction with his worst former enemies. At the same time, Elizabeth maintained a dubious attitude towards the Regency: wishing to stand well with the Catholic Powers, with whom for the moment she was at peace, and always disliking undutiful subjects, she more than once declared she would release the queen; and though we do not believe she was sincere in this, the effect was to weaken the Scottish Government, and to add strength to its many adversaries. Besides, Elizabeth contrived to stir the sense of Scottish patriotism to the quick by an imperious demand for the extradition of one of the leaders of the Northern rebellion; and the cry went forth that the pusillanimous Regency was the dishonoured instrument of Tudor oppression, and that Scotland under her lawful sovereign should again vindicate her independence with the assistance of her old ally, France. The result was a furious civil war, of which, after the murder of the Regent, the issue was for a time doubtful; and, as Mr. Burton correctly observes, Scotland was more thoroughly and widely divided than she had been at any former period. An event, however, which in that age revolutionized the politics of Europe, was, in Scotland also, to change the situation. The atrocious massacre of St. Bartholomew stirred to its depths a people essentially Protestant, confounded the adherents of Mary Stuart, made the French alliance a source of dread, and threw the nation on the side of the Regency, now in the hands of the vigorous Morton. At the same time, it showed Elizabeth that the interest of England compelled her to support 'the lords,' Knox, and the Reformation; that in Mary she had an implacable enemy; and that her only chance was to strike in boldly with Morton and the national Protestant party. The union of these forces was decisive; Morton and his adherents, backed generally by the spirit of an indignant people, overcame quickly Mary Stuart's faction; an English army invaded Scotland, and the siege and fall of the Castle of Edinburgh put an end to the French alliance, destroyed for ever the chances of the Scottish queen, and, with the death of Lethington and Grange, extinguished the prospects of her cause.

Mr. Burton thus describes this conjunction, one of the turning-points in the history of Scotland:--

'For the future three great disturbing forces, prolific in
action, are seen no more. In the first place, the game of
conquest has been entirely played out by England. We may
say, perhaps, that it came to an end with the Reformation;
but there was still room for it, and it might start up any
day. Now its place was occupied. On both sides of the
border, men looked to another solution of the problem, how
the two nations should be made into one. Secondly, it
followed that there was no longer danger from abroad, since
French protection was no longer needed. The ancient league,
if not dead, was paralyzed, and all its long romance of
heroism and kindly sympathy was at an end.... Thirdly,
Queen Mary has no longer a place in the history of her
country. She was in one sense busier than ever ... but in
Scotland, however many may have been the hearts secretly
devoted to her, her name passed out of the arena of
political action and discussion.'--(Vol. v. 384.)

After these events the history of Scotland passes through a period of intrigues and factions, in the midst of which James I. grew up. He abandoned his ill-fated mother, and the Catholic Powers endeavoured to make his youth the instrument of their designs. The ascendancy of D'Aubigny and Arran marks the short-lived triumph of this policy. These attempts, however, were in the long run fruitless; the great body of the people adhered to Protestantism and the English alliance; the Kirk and the Reforming nobles worked together against the common enemy; and James, as he grew to man's estate, had sagacity enough to see the strongest side, and to direct accordingly his public conduct. Mr. Burton omits to dwell upon the base selfishness of the young king, in throwing over the unhappy princess, to whom he owed the love of a son. But morally he was always a coward; and the prospect of the inheritance of England, and the dread of alienating Elizabeth, was more than enough to determine his purpose. The extremely unsettled state of Scotland, after the death of the Regent Morton, and the rudeness and barbarism of its government, appear in the frequency and sudden violence of the changes which took place in its rulers; and it seems to have been assumed, that whatever faction had possession of the person of the king, was rightly invested with supreme authority. In these circumstances, as may be supposed, the progress of Scotland was only slow; the face of the country seemed scarred with the marks of desolation and war; the nation was rent by intestine troubles; and travellers from England drew marked contrasts between the aspect of the Southern land at peace under the Tudor sceptre, and that of its lawless Northern neighbour. Nevertheless, the course of events tended inevitably to the approaching union of the two crowns under a common sovereign--invasion from England had wholly ceased--and though the aged Elizabeth would not acknowledge the title of James to her glorious throne, every politician in both countries was aware that the time was not distant, when the policy inaugurated by Edward I., and pursued by every great English monarch, of joining together the whole of the island, would be consummated without civil war or bloodshed. Meanwhile the tragic and striking figure which had played such an awful and mournful part in the historical drama of the two kingdoms had passed away for ever from the stage, and the terrible career of Mary Stuart had been cut short by the Fotheringay headsman. Mr. Burton properly does not dilate on the incidents of her melancholy life during the later years of her long imprisonment, for they hardly belong to his subject, but his estimate of them is generally correct. Mary Stuart, after the final overthrow of her party in Scotland, transferred her energies to intriguing with the Continental powers; and it can admit of no question that she continued to maintain her claims to the crown of England, that she plotted directly against the life of Elizabeth, and that she kept England in a state of apprehension, intolerable to the Parliament and nation. She was a conspirator of the worst kind, and deserved the death she bravely encountered; and the crooked policy, the vacillation, and the duplicity of her rival towards her prisoner, should not render us blind to the real issue.

While, in circumstances such as these, Scotland was working out her political destiny, her ecclesiastical and religious reformation was being developed and matured. In no country, perhaps, in Europe had the Church of Rome been so grossly corrupt as in the northern part of our island; it had been the appanage of a vicious court, and the instrument of coarse spiritual tyranny; and in none, accordingly, was the reaction against it more rapid, popular, and thoroughly decisive. Although Beaton and the men of his faction had endeavoured to associate the defence of Popery with the spirit of stern opposition to the Southron, their policy had, in the long run, failed; and before Mary Stuart ascended the throne, Scotland, as a nation, had become Protestant. The grand and striking figure of Knox was the chief exponent of this movement; but it is idle to imagine that even Knox could have changed the spiritual life of Scotland, if the people had not been generally with him. As usually has happened, the baser elements of selfishness mingled with this revolution; and the support given by most of the Scottish nobles to the overthrow of Romanism was chiefly prompted by a greedy appetite for the spoils of the fallen Church. Nevertheless, the Reformation took firm root; the old ecclesiastical system of the country and its ancient faith were violently changed; and the accession of Murray to the Regency marks the period of this great transformation. Mr. Burton's account of the new Church which rose on the ruins of its predecessor, and of its peculiar ritual and doctrine, is one of the most interesting parts of his book, and abounds in learning and sound criticism. The Scottish Kirk was founded upon the model of the Huguenot Church of France; with a large admixture of lay elements, it had the same definite and strong organization, and the same tendency to create what was a powerful priesthood all but in name; and its teaching exemplified the austerity and strictness of the theology of Calvin. From the first, accordingly, it was calculated to encourage pretensions among the ministry, and to become an _imperium in imperio_, not without risk of collision with the State; and its whole system, in its excess, led to fanaticism and contempt of civil authority. We transcribe a few passages from Mr. Burton's description of the Second Book of Discipline of the Scottish Kirk, a specimen of its general principles:--

'It sets forth that, "as the ministers and others of the
ecclesiastical estate are subject to the magistrate civil,
so ought the person of the magistrate be subject to the
Kirk spiritually, and in ecclesiastical government."
Further:--"The civil power should command the spiritual to
exercise and do their office according to the word of God;
the spiritual rulers should require the Christian
magistrate to minister justice and punish vice, and to
maintain the liberty and quietness of the Kirk within their
bounds." Nothing could be on its face a fairer
distribution. The civil power was entitled to command the
spiritual to do its duty; but then the magistrate was not
to have authority to "execute the censures of the Church,
nor yet prescribe any rule how it should be done." This is
entirely in the hands of the Church; but in enforcing it
the State is the Church's servant, for it is the
magistrate's duty to "assist and maintain the discipline of
the Kirk, and punish them civilly that will not obey the
discipline of the same." Thus the State could give no
effective orders to the Church, but the Church could order
the State to give material effect to its rules and
punishments. It was the State's duty, at the same time, to
preserve for the Church its whole patrimony; and we have
seen that this meant all the vast wealth which had been
gathered up by the old Church. Among the prerogatives of
the clergy, it was further declared that "they have power
to abrogate and abolish all statutes and ordinances
concerning ecclesiastical matters that are found noisome
and unprofitable, and agree not with the time, or, are
abused by the people."'--(Vol. v. 470.)

While Knox and his generation survived, the tendencies of the new establishment were prevented from fully showing themselves. The great Reformer was at bottom moderate; he had a real reverence for the powers that be, however he abhorred Mary Stuart. The lay lords had sufficient influence to control the ministry throughout the country; and the presence of a common danger compelled the Scottish Protestants to uphold the Government. But, when the Kirk had become settled, and the Reformation was completely secure, dissensions rapidly grew up between the spiritual and civil powers, and the Presbyterian clergy began to assume that attitude in the affairs of Scotland, which led, afterwards, to such momentous consequences. The leader of the new school of divines was the celebrated Melville, thus described by Mr. Burton:--

'Knox had a respect for hereditary rank which only yielded
to a higher duty, when, as the successor of the prophets of
old, he had to announce the law of God even to the highest.
Melville, though born to a higher position, was more of the
leveller. He was the type of a class who, to as much of the
fierce fanaticism of the Huguenots as the Scottish
character could receive, added the stern classical
republicanism of Buchanan.'--(Vol. v. 404.)

An organization of this kind, supported by such spiritual leaders, ere long displayed its natural tendencies. The Kirk, with its powerful local ministry, connected with each other by numerous links, attempted to revive in Scotland the pretensions of the old dominant Church, and it succeeded in creating a vast spiritual power, often in conflict with the authority of the State. The principal fact in Scottish history, during the last years of the sixteenth century and the first of the seventeenth, was the opposition given, by the Presbyterian clergy, to the acts and even the rights of the Crown; and though the conduct of James I. was, as usual, arrogant and unwise, he was subjected to extreme provocation. The enthusiasm which followed the defeat of the Armada, the supposed inclination of the king to High Church, and even Romanist doctrines, and the open favour he showed to several of the old Catholic Scottish houses, gave strength to the champions of the Kirk; and for some time, as he ruefully exclaimed, he was not a ruler in his own dominions. The formal abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland--the institution had existed in name even after the iconoclasm of Knox--marks the highest point of Presbyterian ascendancy; and, more than once, the king and his council were compelled to yield to the demands put forward by those whom he called the 'Popes of Edinburgh.' Undoubtedly, however, if James had been a really able and popular ruler, he could have vindicated his supreme authority, and the national estates, which even at this juncture often showed jealousy of the heads of the Kirk, would have upheld the prerogatives of the Crown. As it was, Scotland was divided by a contest between the Church and the State, and the Presbyterian Hildebrands assumed an attitude which contributed afterwards to many troubles. We quote a passage that gives an idea of the bickerings between the king and the clergy:--

'Entering in the cabinet with the king alone, I show his
Majesty that the Commissioners of the General Assembly,
with certain other brethren ordained to watch for the well
of the Kirk in so dangerous a time, had convened at Cupar.
At the which word the king interrupts me, and angrily
quarrels our meeting, alleging it was without warrant and
seditious, making ourselves and the country to conceive
fear where there was no cause. To the which I, beginning to
reply in my manner, Mr. Andrew could not abide it, but
brake off upon the king in so zealous, powerful, and
unresistible a manner, that, howbeit the king used his
authority in most crabbed and choleric manner, Mr. Andrew
bore him down, and uttered the commission as from the
mighty God, calling the king but "God's silly vassal," and,
taking him by the sleeve, says this in effect, through much
hot reasoning and many interruptions, "Sir, we will humbly
reverence your Majesty, always, namely, in public. But,
since we have this occasion to be with your Majesty in
private, and the truth is, you are brought in extreme
danger, both of your life and crown, and, with you, the
country and Kirk of Christ is like to wreck for not telling
you the truth, and giving of you a faithful counsel--we
must discharge our duty therein, or else be traitors, both
to Christ and you! And therefore, Sir, as divers times
before, so now again, I must tell you, there are two kings
and two kingdoms in Scotland. _There is Christ Jesus the
King, and His Kingdom the Kirk, whose subject King James
the Sixth is--and of his kingdom, not a king, nor a lord,
nor a head, but a member!"_'--(Vol. vi. 81.)