MARY

QUEEN

OF SCOT S.*

WITH A PORTRAIT.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS is the most truly tragic character in all history. We do not mean that there are not others, whose misfortunes have been equally great and virtues more exemplary; but we assert that there is none, in whose life we find so many romantic and sad vicissitudes, so much of the heroism of our nature alternating with so much of its softer feelings and failings, so much beauty, so much love, perhaps so much revenge, so much dignity, so much weakness, and so much suffering and sorrow. With all her faults, even with all her crimes, she was one, in Shakspeare's phrase,

"More sinned against than sinning."

But the poetry of her character arises from her errors as well as from her sufferings. To adopt some of the words of Shelley touching the heroine of one of his poems, the dramatic interest which Mary inspires, is proved by the sympathy which she finds in the hearts even of those who condemn her, and by the restless and anatomizing casuistry with which men seek her justification, yet feel that she has done that which requires to be, but cannot be, justified.

Her history is also the history of an important crisis in the great current of the destinies of Europe. It is the history of the formidable struggle in the north and south of this island between the Reformed and Roman Catholic creeds. It involves also the consideration of the great contest between Protestant and Constitutional England and Romanist and Despotic Spain. Philip II. had long intrigued to raise Mary from an English dungeon to the English throne; and, after her death, he attacked England as her avenger. The great drama of Mary's fate is prolonged after her fall; and the Armada fills its closing scene.

M. Mignet, the justly celebrated historian of the French Revolution, has found in the life and times of Mary, a subject worthy of his powers; and one also which he has invested with much more of the charm of novelty, than might have been thought possible with so ancient a theme. Mary's history is indeed " an old tale, and one that has been oft told," but, unfortunately, her character was made by the writers of her own country a party question, on which the Jacobites strove to display their devotion to the House of Stuart by idolizing Mary; while the partizans of the House of Hanover sought to manifest their loyalty to the ruling dynasty by their vehemence and virulence against her. Two schools, one of Marian, and one of Anti-Marian writers, were thus created; and even recent Scotch and English authors have betrayed proofs of being enlisted in one or other of these parties A really impartial history of Mary has long been a desideratum; and it is from French literature that we at last have received it.

M. Mignet has skilfully availed himself both of the large collection of memoirs and letters respecting Mary, which Count Labanoff published a few years ago; and also of many documents in the State Paper Office of France, and in the Spanish Archives of Simancas, which had been previously unknown, and which throw valuable light on many parts of his subject. The reader will especially find proofs of this in

The History of Mary Queen of Scots, by F. A. Mignet, Member of the Institute and of the French Academy; Perpetual Secretary of the Academy of Moral and Political Science. 2 vols.

the first volume, in the description of Elizabeth at the commencement of her reign, and in the second volume in the narrative of Philip's efforts, first to rescue, and afterwards to avenge Mary.

We quote, as a fair specimen of M. Mignet's work, the résumé at the conclusion. After commenting on the troubled state of Scotland at the time of Mary's return from France, he asks, "In order to rule as a queen over her powerful nobility, without provoking an insurrection ; to practise the Catholic form of worship, without exciting the aggressive distrust of the Protestants; and to preserve the plenitude of her sovereign authority in the relations with England, without exposing herself to the intrigues and attacks of the restless Elizabeth-in order to do these things, what qualifications did Mary Stuart bring with her into Scotland? She condemned the religion, and was unacquainted with the customs of the country which she was called to rule. Leaving a brilliant and refined court, she returned full of regret and disgust, to the wild mountains and uncultivated inhabitants of Scotland.

"More amiable than politic, very ardent, and not at all circumspect, she returned thither with misplaced elegance, dangerous beauty, a quick but restless intellect, a generous but excitable temperament, a taste for the arts, a love for adventure, and all the passions of a woman, combined with the extreme liberty of a widow. Although possessed of great courage, it only served to hasten her misfortunes; and she employed her mind with committing, with better grace, those faults to which she was urged by her position and character. She had the imprudence to present herself as the legitimate heir to the crown of England, and thus to become the rival of Elizabeth; she served as the support of the vanquished Catholics in her kingdom, and thus incurred the implacable enmity of the Reformed party, who were determined to maintain, at all risks, the religious revolution which they had occasioned. Nor was this all. The dangers to which she was exposed by the exercise of her authority, the pretensions of her birth, and the ambition of her creed, were aggravated by the errors of her private conduct. Her sudden liking for Darnley-the excessive familiarities which she allowed Rizzio, and the confidence which she reposed in him-and the ungovernable passion she felt for Bothwell-were all equally fatal to her. By raising to the rank of her husband and king a young gentleman devoid of all merit, except personal attractions-by the sudden aversion and disgust which she felt for him-by making a Catholic foreigner her secretary and favouriteand by consenting to become the wife of her husband's murderer, she gave the death-blow to her own authority. After having lost her crown, she inconsiderately exposed herself to the loss of her liberty. She sought an asylum in the dominions of her enemy, before she had been assured that one would be granted her; and, after throwing herself upon the mercy of Elizabeth, she conspired against her with but little chance of success. From her captivity in the prison in which she had been iniquitously confined, she thought she would be able, in concert with the Catholic party, to provide means for her deliverance, but she only laboured for her own destruction. The Catholics were too feeble in the island, and too disunited on the Continent, to revolt or interfere usefully on her behalf. The insurrections which she attempted in England, and the conspiracies which she framed until 1586, completed her ruin, by causing the death or exile of her most enterprising partisans. The maritime crusade, discussed at Rome,

Madrid, and Brussels, in 1570, and determined upon in 1586, for the purpose of deposing Elizabeth and restoring Mary Stuart, far from placing the Catholic queen on the throne of Great Britain, only conducted her to the scaffold. The scaffold! Such was the end of a life which, commencing in expatriation, was chequered by reverses, filled with errors, unfortunate almost throughout its course, and guilty at one period, but adorned by so many charms, rendered touching by so many sufferings, purified by so long an expiation, and terminated with so much dignity! Mary Stuart, a victim of the old feudalism and the new religious revolution in Scotland, carried with her to the grave the hopes of absolute power and of Catholicism. Her descendants, who succeeded to the throne of England sixteen years after her death, followed her in the dangerous course in which she had been preceded by so many of her ancestors. Her grandson, Charles I., was, like her, beheaded for attempting to establish absolute monarchy; and her greatgrandson, James II., for endeavouring, like her, to restore Catholicism, lost his throne, and was driven into exile. A foreign land witnessed the extinction of the royal line of Stuarts-a family rendered one of the most tragic in the annals of history, by their inconsiderate spirit, their adventurous character, and the continued fatality of their career."

We ought to add that the English version of M. Mignet's work has been executed by Mr. Scobel with fidelity, elegance, and spirit, so as to receive the just approbation of M. Mignet himself.

THE MAJESTIC OAK.

(From the German of Fülleborn.)

BENEATH thy shadow's venerable gloom,
Whose friendly canopy invites repose;

Where the breeze murmurs through the leafy dome
As if some spirit's whisper round it rose!

I muse upon thy being and thy birth,

The story of thy long-extended life!

Say, how was then this ever-changing earth,

When rose thy germ, with young existence rife?

Five centuries and more have roll'd away

Since the small sapling struggled into light!
How many tears have fallen since that day!

How War and Plague have revell'd in their might!

What wondrous changes dost thou not behold
Within this land which thy huge bulk did rear!
How many customs hast thou seen grow old!

What generations rise and disappear!

Lightnings have quiver'd round thy lofty crown,
Tempests thy leafy tresses scatter'd wide!
Floods oft have reach'd and raged around thy throne,
And yet unshaken thou dost still abide!

What numbers, as if scatter'd by the wind,

Of man's brief race, have perish'd on these plains!
Ah! though in God's high image form'd, mankind
Must fade, fleet, perish—while a tree remains!
And oh how many more must moulder hence
Before thy lofty summit bows to age!
Yet, last! With thy duration may dispense
We, of whose lives this is but the first stage!
Thy mighty stem once fall'n-as fall it must-
No future life awaits thee, noble tree!
But man shall spring triumphant from the dust,
And rise to new worlds-in eternity!

ETA.

THE MEDITERRANEAN.*

Ir would be difficult to select a line of route, more fertile in objects of general interest, more abounding in historical associations, or more suggestive of philosophic reflection, than the shores and islands of the Mediterranean. The classical enthusiast; the votary of pleasure; the patient antiquary; the idler who knows not how to employ his time; the valetudinarian who sighs for a warmer sun and a brighter atmosphere; the sculptor whose visions are of the Venus, the Apollo, and the Laocoon; the painter who has long dreamed of the glories of the Sistine Chapel; all turn their eyes anxiously towards "fair Ausonia," and the glowing regions of the south, as to lands of promise, flowing over with information, amusement, and renovated health. Let the reader lay open the map of Europe, and look on the vast, central, inland sea, which stretches itself from the pillars of Hercules, to the coasts of Syria and Palestine; while his mind reverts to the origin, fortunes, conquests and decline, of the various nations, with their diversified languages, manners, and acquirements, which, in ancient as well as modern times, have peopled its borders, and occupied the rich and stately islands with which its bosom is studded. He will furnish himself with food for speculation, not easily exhausted.

see.

In an after-dinner conversation at General Paoli's (the table-talk of that era must not be estimated by the post-prandial colloquy of the present day), when the subject happened to be introduced, Dr. Johnson observed, that "a man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should The grand object of travelling is to visit the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great empires of the world— the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. All our religion, almost all our law, almost all our arts, almost all that sets us above savages, has come to us from the shores of the Mediterranean." It was then remarked by General Paoli, that the Mediterranean would be a noble subject for a poem. And so, unquestionably, it would; second only in sublimity to that selected by the lofty genius which sang "of man's first disobedience;" which has given us the history of creation in undying verse, and embodied the Newtonian system in a single line

"And earth, self-balanced, in her centre hung."

Railroads and steam navigation have brought the most distant countries into close proximity. In six months we can now accomplish a tour which occupied the last generation as many years. Economy of time is a multiplication of existence in the same ratio. The value of life is not to be estimated by duration, but by the industry and achievement which can be compressed within a given period. When the poet wrote in such raptures of the invention of letters, which enables disconsolate lovers to "waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole," what would he have thought had he lived to see the electric telegraph, by which these little endearing

The Shores and Islands of the Mediterranean, including a visit to the Seven Churches of Asia. By the Rev. H. Christmas, M.A., F.R.S., F.S.A., Author of "The Cradles of the Twin Giants, Science and History," &c. 3 vols.