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massacre of Glencoe. We subjoin part of the historian's notice of the Scottish language and literature.

closer to the Old Saxon stock. Thus it is that Scottish

Scotland from Agricola's Invasion to the Revolu tion of 1688 (1867-1870). These latter volumes fully sustained the author's reputation for research, discrimination, and literary ability. A second edition, carefully revised, has been published. knowledge of Scottish literature and society by his valuable Life and Correspondence of David Hume, 1846, his Lives of Lord Lovat and Duncan Forbes of Culloden, 1847-both works written from family papers and other original sources of information and his Narratives from Criminal Trials in Scotland. In 1862 he produced a very amusing and interesting volume, The Book-Hunter, containing sketches of the ways of book-collectors, scholars, literary investigators, desultory readers, and other persons whose pursuits revolve round books and literature. In 1864 appeared The Scot Abroad, two volumes-a work, like the former, consisting of sketches and anecdotes, and referring to the relations of Scotland and Scotsmen with foreign countries. As a member of the Scottish bar, Mr Burton has also been a hard legal student, having written a work on the Scottish Bankrupt Law, a Manual of the Law of Scotland, &c. In another not very promising mine he has been a successful labourer: his Political and Social Economy, 1849, is a little volume giving a clear and popular summary of this science, and he has extracted from the mass of Jeremy Bentham's works a very readable collection of Benthamiana. To the Westminster Review, Blackwood's Magazine, and other literary journals, Mr Burton has been an occasional contributor.

Mr Burton has made further additions to our

The Scottish Language after the Period of the Revolution. The development of pure literature in Scotland had, for half a century after the Revolution, to struggle with a peculiar difficulty arising out of the tenor of the national history. The languages of England and of Lowland Scotland, speaking of both in a general sense, were as entirely taken from a northern Teutonic stock common to both, as the languages of Essex and Yorkshire. Like other national characteristics, the language of Scotland took a direction severing itself from that of England after the War of Independence. Centuries elapsed, however, ere the distinctive peculiarities of each had gone far in its own direction, and away from the other. The earliest material change was in the language of England by the infusion of the Norman, while Scotland kept writers of the age of Gower and Chaucer-such as Barbour, the archdeacon of Aberdeen, and Wyntoun, the monk of Lochleven-wrote a language more intelligible to the present age than that of their English contemporaries, because it is not so sensibly tinged with Gallicisms. France had subsequently, as we have seen, a great social and constitutional influence in Scotland, which brought a few foreign terms into use, but it scarcely touched the structure of the language. This gradually assumed a purely national, or, as it came to be deemed when Scotland was becoming absorbed into the British community, a provincial tongue. The Scottish poets of the sixteenth century wrote in a language as different from the English as we might suppose the Norse of the same age to be from the Danish. John Knox, who lived much in England, was charged with the affected employment of English novelties, because he attempted so to modify the Scottish peculiarities as to make his works readable to his friends beyond the Border. It was felt, indeed, in his day, that the Scottish tongue was becoming provincial, and those who desired to speak beyond a mere home audience wrote in Latin. Hence arose that class of scholars headed by Buchanan, who almost made the language of Rome vernacular to themselves. Those who are acquainted with the epistolary correspondence of learned Scotsmen in the seventeenth century, will observe how easily they take to Latin-how uneasy and diffident they feel in the use of English. Sometimes, indeed, the ancient language is evidently sought as a relief, when the writer is addressing one to whom he cannot use a Scottish expression, while he is unable to handle the corresponding English idiom. But Latin was dying away as the common language of literature and science. Each great nation was forming her own literary tongue. The revolution was completed within the time embraced in this history. But Scotland had not kept an independent literary language of her own, nor was she sufficiently expert in the use of that which had been created in England. Hence, in a great measure, we can distinctly account for the literary barrenness of the country. The men may have existed, but they had not the tools. An acquaintance with the correspondence of Scotsmen, for the first half century after the Revolution, shews the extreme difficulty MISS AGNES STRICKLAND (1801-1874), authorwhich even those who were high in rank and well edu-ess of historical memoirs of the Queens of England cated felt in conveying their thoughts through a dialect imperfectly resembling the language of The Spectator Any attempt to keep up a Scottish literary language had been abandoned in prose before the Revolution. In verse, incidental causes made it seem as if the struggle were still continued. The old Scottish melodies, so mysterious in their origin, never ceased to have the charm of musical association for the people.

Mr Burton subsequently completed his Scottish history with seven more volumes, The History of

This able and indefatigable littérateur is a native of Aberdeen, the son of a military officer, and born August 22, 1809. He was admitted to the Scottish bar in 1831. In 1854 he was appointed secretary to the Prison Board of Scotland. Mr Burton has received from Edinburgh University the degree of LL.D.

Among other notable contributions to history may be cited the following: Scotland in the Middle Ages, 1860, and Sketches of Early Scotch History, 1861, by COSMO INNES (17981874). Mr Innes was Professor of History in the University of Edinburgh, and the two volumes we have named contain the substance of his lectures. They are interesting works as illustrating the social progress, the church organisation, the university and home life of the people, and are written in a pleasing, graphic style. Less popular, but more exact, is Scotland under Her Early Kings, 1862, by E. WILLIAM ROBERTSON, which contains a history of the kingdom to the close of the thirteenth century.

MISS STRICKLAND.

and Scotland, was a native of Suffolk, daughter of Thomas Strickland, Esq., of Reydon Hall. Her first publication was a poetical narrative, Worcester Field, or the Cavalier; she also wrote a tale, Demetrius; but she soon struck into that path for which she seemed best fitted-historical composition. She wrote historic scenes and stories for children, and in 1835 produced The Pilgrims of Walsingham, constructed on the plan of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims. She then, aided

by a sister, Miss Elizabeth Strickland, entered and observing that nothing that was done under her upon her elaborate work, Lives of the Queens of present circumstances could be of any force when she England from the Norman Conquest, twelve regained her freedom.' Mary, however, resolutely revolumes, 1840-49. Of this work, a second edition fused to sign the deeds; declaring, with truly royal was published in 1851, in eight volumes. The courage, that she would not make herself a party to the English history was followed by Lives of the treason of her own subjects, by acceding to their lawless requisition, which, as she truly alleged, proceeded only Queens of Scotland and English Princesses connected with the Regal Succession of Great Britain, of the ambition of a few, and was far from the desire of her people.' eight volumes, 1850-59. The life of Mary, Queen of Scots, in this work is written with great fullness of detail and illustration, many new facts having been added by study of the papers in the Register House, Edinburgh, and documents in the possession of the Earl of Moray and the representatives of other ancient families. The collection of Mary's letters by Prince Labanoff also afforded new materials, not available to previous historians of the unfortunate queen. In 1866 Miss Strickland published Lives of the Seven Bishops. In 1871 she received a pension of £100 a year.

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The conspirators, calling themselves the Lords of Secret Council, having completed their arrangements for the long-meditated project of depriving her of her crown, summoned Lord Lindsay to Edinburgh, and on the 23d of July delivered to him and Sir Robert Melville three deeds, to which they were instructed to obtain her signature, either by flattering words or absolute force. The first contained a declaration, as if from herself, that, being in infirm health, and worn out with the cares of government, she had taken purpose voluntarily to resign her crown and office to her dearest son, James, Prince of Scotland.' In the second, her trusty brother James, Earl of Moray, was constituted regent for the prince her son, during the minority of the royal infant.' The third appointed a provisional council of regency, consisting of Morton and the other Lords of Secret Council, to carry on the government till Moray's return; or, in case of his refusing to accept it, till the prince arrived at the legal age for exercising it himself. Aware that Mary would not easily be induced to execute such instruments, Sir Robert Melville was especially_employed to cajole her into this political suicide. That ungrateful courtier, who had been employed and trusted by his unfortunate sovereign ever since her return from France, and had received nothing but benefits from her, undertook this office. Having obtained a private interview with her, he deceitfully entreated her to sign certain deeds that would be presented to her by Lindsay, as the only means of preserving her life, which, he assured her, was in the most imminent danger.' Then he gave her a turquoise ring, telling her 'it was sent to her from the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, and Athole, Secretary Lethington, and the Laird of Grange, who loved her majesty, and had by that token accredited him to exhort her to avert the peril to which she would be exposed, if she ventured to refuse the requisition of the Lords of Secret Council, whose designs, they well knew, were to take her life, either secretly or by a mock-trial among themselves.' Finding the queen impatient of this insidious advice, he produced a letter from the English ambassador Throckmorton, out of the scabbard of his sword, telling her he had concealed it there at peril of his own life, in order to convey it to her'- -a paltry piece of acting, worthy of the parties by whom it had been devised, for the letter had been written for the express purpose of inducing Mary to accede to the demission of her regal dignity, telling her, as if in confidence, that it was the queen of England's sisterly advice that she should not irritate those who had her in their power, by refusing the only concession that could save her life;

The fair-spoken Melville having reported his ill success to his coadjutor Lord Lindsay, Moray's brotherin-law, the bully of the party, who had been selected for the honourable office of extorting by force from the royal captive the concession she denied, that brutal ruffian burst rudely into her presence, and, flinging the deeds violently on the table before her, told her to sign them without delay, or worse would befall her. 'What!' exclaimed Mary, shall I set my hand to a deliberate falsehood, and, to gratify the ambition of my nobles, relinquish the office God hath given to me, to my son, an infant little more than a year old, incapable of governing the realm, that my brother Moray may reign in his name?' She was proceeding to demonstrate the unreasonableness of what was required of her, but Lindsay contemptuously interrupted her with scornful laughter; then, scowling ferociously upon her, he swore with a deep oath, that if she would not sign those instruments, he would do it with her heart's blood, and cast her into the lake to feed the fishes.' Full well did the defenceless woman know how capable he was of performing his threat, having seen his rapier reeking with human blood shed in her presence, when he assisted at the butchery of her unfortunate secretary. The ink was scarcely dry of her royal signature to the remission she had granted to him for that outrage; but, reckless of the fact that he owed his life, his forfeit lands, yea, the very power of injuring her, to her generous clemency, he thus requited the grace she had, in evil hour for herself, accorded to him. Her heart was too full to continue the unequal contest. 'I am not yet five-and-twenty,' she pathetically observed; somewhat more she would have said, but her utterance failed her, and she began to weep with hysterical emotion. Sir Robert Melville, affecting an air of the deepest concern, whispered in her ear entreaty for her 'to save her life by signing the papers," reiterating that whatever she did would be invalid because extorted by force.'

an earnest

Mary's tears continued to flow, but sign she would not, till Lindsay, infuriated by her resolute resistance, swore that, having begun the matter, he would also finish it then and there," forced the pen into her reluct ant hand, and, according to the popular version of this scene of lawless violence, grasped her arm in the struggle so rudely, as to leave the prints of his mailclad fingers visibly impressed. In an access of pain and terror, with streaming eyes and averted head, she affixed her regal signature to the three deeds, without once looking upon them. Sir Walter Scott alludes to Lindsay's barbarous treatment of his hapless queen in these nervous lines:

And haggard Lindsay's iron eye,

That saw fair Mary weep in vain.

George Douglas, the youngest son of the evil lady of Lochleven, being present, indignantly remonstrated with his savage brother-in-law, Lindsay, for his misconduct; and though hitherto employed as one of the persons whose office it was to keep guard over her, he became from that hour the most devoted of her friends and champions, and the contriver of her escape. His elder brother, Sir William Douglas, the castellan, absolutely refused to be present; entered a protest against the wrong that had been perpetrated under his roof; and besought the queen to give him a letter of exoneration, certifying that he had nothing to do with it,

and that it was against his consent-which letter she gave him.

This oft-repeated story of Moray's deceit and Lindsay's ferocity cannot be accepted as historical truth. Private journals and correspondence have thrown much light on modern English history. Family pride or cupidity has in some instances led to undue disclosures of this description, breaking down the barrier between public and private life; and already most of the secrets of the courts of George III. and IV., with domestic details and scandal, have been published. We have had the Diaries and Correspondence of the Earl of Malmesbury, four volumes, 1843-44; the Grenville Papers, four volumes, 1852-53; the Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox, edited by LORD JOHN RUSSELL, three volumes, 1853-54; the Correspondence of the Marquis of Cornwallis, three volumes, 1859; and Memoirs of the Court of George IV., 1820-30, by the Duke of Buckingham, two volumes, 1859; &c. The late eminent statesman, SIR ROBERT PEEL (17881850), solicitous concerning his reputation for political integrity, left behind him Memoirs, explanatory of his views and conduct on the Roman Catholic question, 1828-29; the government of 1834-35; and the repeal of the corn-laws, 1845-46. The work was published, in two volumes, 1856-57, but is only a meagre collection of public papers and stale arguments.

The History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena, from the Letters and Journals of the late | Sir Hudson Lowe, by MR WILLIAM FORSYTH, barrister, three volumes, 1853, is a painful and humiliating record. The conduct of the exiled military chief was marked by disingenuous artifice and petty misrepresentation-by weakness and meanness almost incredible. But Sir Hudson Lowe was not the fit person to act as governor he was sensitive, quick-tempered, and of a blunt, unpleasing address.

Among other works well deserving of study are the Lectures on Modern History, from the Irruption of the Northern Nations to the Close of the American Revolution, two volumes, 1848, by WILLIAM SMYTH (1764-1849), some time Professor of Modern History in Cambridge. The successor of Mr Smyth as historical lecturer in the university of Cambridge, SIR JAMES STEPHEN, published Lectures on the History of France, two volumes, 1851. Sir James was well known from his long connection with the Colonial Office as under-secretary-which office he resigned in 1848 -and for his eloquent critical and historical contributions to the Edinburgh Review. Some of these he collected and published under the title of Essays on Ecclesiastical Biography, two volumes, 1853. Sir James died in 1859, aged 70. The writings of MR THOMAS WRIGHT, a distinguished archæologist, in illustration of early English history, are valuable. These are Biographia Britannica Literaria, or biography of literary characters of Great Britain and Ireland, during the Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon periods, two volumes, 1842-46; and The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, 1852. Other short contributions connected with the middle ages have been produced by Mr Wright, and he has edited the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, and the Visions of Piers Ploughman.

The Criminal Trials in Scotland, from 1428 to 1624, by ROBERT PITCAIRN, W.S.-who died in 1855-form also a valuable contribution to the history of domestic life and manners. Of a different character, but delightfully minute and descriptive, is a volume by MR ROBERT WHITE, Newcastle (1802-1874), a History of the Battle of Otterburn, fought in 1388, with memoirs of the chiefs engaged in the conflict. The same author has written a copious History of the Battle of Bannockburn, 1871. The Archeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, by MR DANIEL WILSON, Professor of English Literature in Toronto College, Canada, published in 1851; and Caledonia Romana, a descriptive account of the Roman antiquities of Scotland, published in 1845, embody the results of long and careful study. MR J. J. A. WORSAAE, a Danish archæologist, has given an Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1852. Mr Worsaae was commissioned by the king of Denmark to investigate the memorials of the ancient Scandinavians which might still be extant in this country. DEAN STANLEY has brought local knowledge and antiquarian studies to bear upon general history in his Memorials of Canterbury, 1855; in which we have details of the landing of Augustine, the murder of Thomas-à-Becket, the Black Prince, and Becket's shrine.

Family histories are good helps to the general historian. Sir Walter Scott hung with delight over the quaint pages of old Pitscottie,' or the History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus, by David Hume of Godscroft, 1644. The great novelist edited another work of the same kind, the Memorie of the Somerviles, written by a Lord Somerville of the times of Charles II. One of the most interesting and complete works of domestic annals is one published in 1840, Lives of the Lindsays, or a Memoir of the Houses of Crawford and Balcarres, by Lord Lindsay, four volumes. The Lindsays were of the race of the Normans that settled in England under the Conqueror, and two brothers of the family established themselves in Scotland in the twelfth century.

A History of Roman Literature has been written by JOHN DUNLOP, Esq. From the earliest period to the Augustan age is comprised in two volumes, and a third volume is devoted to the Augustan age. Mr Dunlop is author also of a History of Fiction, three volumes, 1814. His latest production was Memoirs of Spain during the Reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II., 1621 to 1700, two volumes, 1834. Mr Dunlop was a Scottish advocate, sheriff of Renfrewshire; he died in 1842.

Some Historical Memoirs by MR MARK NAPIER, advocate, possess interest if not value. The first is Memoirs of John Napier of Merchiston (born 1550, died 1617). It is remarkable that so eminent a man as the inventor of logarithms should have been without a special biographer until the year 1834, the date of Mr Mark Napier's book. The strange combination it presents of abstruse theological studies, a belief in the art of divination and other superstitions, and great scientific acquirements, all meeting in the character of the old Scottish laird, a solitary student in fierce tumultuous times, gives a picturesqueness and attraction to the story of his life. Napier's next work, Memoirs of the Marquis of

Mr

Montrose, two volumes, 1856, contains original letters of the military hero, and other documents from charter-rooms, essential to the history of Montrose. Mr Napier in 1859 produced the Life and Times of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, three volumes. Mr Napier writes in the spirit of a keen partisan, 'with no attempt,' he says, 'to dress by the purists in composition.' Indeed his writing is such as we should expect the Baron of Bradwardine to indite if he took up the historic pen, though the Baron would have had more courtesy towards opponents. Mr Napier, however, is eager in pursuit of information, and gives his discoveries unmutilated. This veteran defender of the Jacobite chiefs was in 1820 admitted a member of the Scottish bar, and is sheriff of Dumfriesshire.

MR LOCKHART-DEAN STANLEY.

Several important biographical works have already been noticed in connection with the authors whose lives were related. The number of new works in this department of our literature continues daily to increase, but it is only necessary to notice such as have an original character, or derive special interest from the name and talents of the biographer.

blending here with the beautiful, and there contrasted with the grotesque-half perhaps seen in the clear daylight, and half by rays tinged with the blazoned forms of the past-that one may be apt to get bewildered among the variety of particular impressions, and not feel either the unity of the grand design, or the height and solidness of the structure, until the door has been closed on the labyrinth of aisles and shrines, and you survey it from a distance, but still within its shadow.'

In 1843 Mr Lockhart published an abridgment of his Life of Scott, embracing only what may be called more strictly narrative, to which he made some slight additions. One of these we subjoin:

The Sons of Great Men.

The children of illustrious men begin the world with great advantages, if they know how to use them; but this is hard and rare. There is risk that in the flush of youth, favourable to all illusions, the filial pride may be twisted to personal vanity. When experience checks this misgrowth, it is apt to do so with a severity that shall reach the best sources of moral and intellectual defew. It is usual to see their progeny smiled at through velopment. The great sons of great fathers have been life for stilted pretension, or despised, at best pitied, for an inactive, inglorious humility. The shadow of the oak is broad, but noble plants seldom rise within that circle. It was fortunate for the sons of Scott that his day darkened in the morning of theirs. The sudden calamity anticipated the natural effect of observation and the collisions of society and business. All weak, unmanly folly was nipped in the bud, and soon withered to the root. They were both remarkably modest men, but in neither had the better stimulus of the blood been arrested.

Much light is thrown on the Scott and Ballantyne dispute, and on the Scotch literature of the period, by Archibald Constable, and his Literary Correspondence: a Memorial by his Son, Thomas Constable, three volumes, 1873.

Mr Lockhart's Life of Burns, originally published in 1828, made a valuable addition to the biographical facts in Dr Currie's memoir of the poet. It is finely written, in a candid and generous spirit, and contains passages-that describing Burns's appearance among the savans of Edinburgh, his life at Ellisland, &c --which mark the hand of the master.

Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by J. G. LOCKHART, Esq., his Literary Executor, seven volumes, 1837, makes the nearest approach, in fullness of detail, literary importance, and general interest, to Boswell's Life of Johnson. The near relationship of the author to his subject might have blinded his judgment, yet the Life is written in a fair and manly spirit, without either suppressions or misstatements that could alter its essential features. Into the controversial points of the memoir we shall not enter: the author has certainly paid too little deference and regard to the feelings of individuals; and in most of his conclusions with regard to the Messrs Ballantyne, we believe him to have been wrong; yet far more than enough remains to enable us to overlook these blemishes. The fearless confidence with which all that he knew and believed is laid before the public, and Scott presented to the world exactly as he was in life-in his schemes of worldly ambition as in his vast literary undertakings—is greatly to be admired, and well deserves its meed of praise. The book, in the main, exhibits a sound and healthy spirit, calculated to exercise a great influence on contemporary literaIt is difficult to imagine anything more beautiful, more ture. As an example and guide in real life, in noble, than what such a person as Mrs Dunlop might at doing and in suffering, it is equally valuable. tenor of his [Burns's] life. What fame can bring of this period be supposed to contemplate as the probable 'The more,' says Mr Lockhart, the details of happiness he had already tasted; he had overleaped, Scott's personal history are revealed and studied, by the force of his genius, all the painful barriers of the more powerfully will that be found to inculcate society; and there was probably not a man in Scotland the same great lessons with his works. Where who would not have thought himself honoured by seeing else shall we be better taught how prosperity may Burns under his roof. He had it in his own power to be extended by beneficence, and adversity con-place his poetical reputation on a level with the very fronted by exertion? Where can we see the highest names, by proceeding in the same course of study "follies of the wise" more strikingly rebuked, and and exertion which had originally raised him into public a character more beautifully purified and exalted notice and admiration, Surrounded by an affectionate than in the passage through affliction to death? family, occupied but not engrossed by the agricultural His character seems to belong to some elder and labours in which his youth and early manhood had destronger period than ours; and, indeed, I cannot districts of his native land, and, from time to time, prolighted, communing with nature in one of the loveliest help likening it to the architectural fabrics of other ducing to the world some immortal addition to his verse ages which he most delighted in, where there is such a congregation of imagery and tracery, such endless indulgence of whim and fancy, the sublime

Burns on his Farm at Ellisland.

thus advancing in years and in fame, with what respect would not Burns have been thought of; how venerable in the eyes of his contemporaries-how hallowed in those

of after-generations, would have been the roof of Ellisland, the field on which he bound every day after his reapers,' the solemn river by which he delighted to wander! The plain of Bannockburn would hardly have been holier ground.

As a reviewer, Mr Lockhart's critiques were principally biographical; and his notices of Campbell, Southey, Theodore Hook, Jeffrey, and others will be recollected by most readers of the Quarterly Review. The sharp, clear, incisive style, and the mixture of scholastic taste with the tact of the man of the world, distinguish them all. The biography of Burns afterwards received minute examination and additional facts from Dr Robert Chambers and Dr P. Hately Waddell. The Life and Correspondence of Dr Arnold, by ARTHUR P. STANLEY (now dean of Westminster), two volumes, 1844, is valuable as affording an example of a man of noble, independent nature, and also as furnishing a great amount of most interesting information relative to the public schools of England, and the various social and political questions which agitated the country from 1820 to 1840. Whether agreeing with, or dissenting from, the views of Dr Arnold, it is impossible not to admire his love of truth and perfect integrity of character. In intellectual energy, decision, and uprightness he resembled Johnson, but happily his constitutional temperament was as elastic and cheerful as that of Johnson was desponding and melancholy. We add a few scraps from Arnold's letters and diary, which form so interesting a portion of Dean Stanley's memoir.

Few Men take Life in Earnest.

I meet with a great many persons in the course of the year, and with many whom I admire and like; but what I feel daily more and more to need, as life every year rises more and more before me in its true reality, is to have intercourse with those who take life in earnest It is very painful to me to be always on the surface of things; and I feel that literature, science, politics, many topics of far greater interest than mere gossip or talking about the weather, are yet, as they are generally talked about, still upon the surface-they do not touch the real depths of life. It is not that I want much of what is called religious conversation-that, I believe, is often on the surface, like other conversation-but I want a sign which one catches as by a sort of masonry, that a man knows what he is about in life, whither tending, in what cause engaged; and when I find this, it seems to open my heart as thoroughly, and with as fresh a sympathy, as when I was twenty years younger.

Home and Old Friends.

friends, to whom one can open one's heart fully from time to time, the world's society has rather a bracing influence to make one shake off mere dreams of delight.

London and Mont Blanc.

August 1, 1837.—We passed through London, with which I was once so familiar; and which now I almost gaze at with the wonder of a stranger. That enormous with the sublimity of the sea or of mountains, is yet a city, grand beyond all other earthly grandeur, sublime place that I should be most sorry to call my home. In fact, its greatness repels the notion of home; it may be a palace, but it cannot be a home. How different from the mingled greatness and sweetness of our mountain valleys! and yet he who were strong in body and mind ought to desire rather, if he must do one, to spend all his life in London, than all his life in Westmoreland. For not yet can energy and rest be united in one, and this is not our time and place for rest, but for energy. this spot, to see the morning sun on Mont Blanc and on August 2, 1839.-I am come out alone, my dearest to the lake, and to look with more, I trust, than outward eyes on this glorious scene. other intense beauty, if you dwell upon it; but I contrast It is overpowering, like all it immediately with our Rugby horizon, and our life of duty there, and our cloudy sky of England-clouded socially, alas! far more darkly than physically. But, beautiful as this is, and peaceful, may I never breathe a wish to retire hither, even with you and our darlings, if it were possible; but may I be strengthened to labour, and to do and to suffer in our own beloved country and church, and to give my life, if so called upon, for Christ's cause and for them. And if-as I trust it will-this rambling strengthened me for my work at home, then we may both and this beauty of nature in foreign lands, shall have rejoice that we have had this little parting.

SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL.

The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles V., 1852, by WILLIAM STIRLING, of Keir (now Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Bart.), supplies deficiencies and corrects errors in the popular account of the emperor in Robertson's History. He had access to documents unknown to Robertson, and was, besides, more familiar with Spanish literature. This work, it must be confessed, destroys part of the romance of the life of Charles, while it adds materially to our knowledge of it. For example, Robertson states that the table of the emperor was 'neat and plain,' but Sir William draws a very different picture of the cuisine:

Epicurean Habits of the Emperor Charles V.

In this matter of eating, as in many other habits, the emperor was himself a true Fleming. His early tendency to gout was increased by his indulgences at table, These are times when I am least of all inclined to which generally far exceeded his feeble powers of digesloosen the links which bind me to my oldest and dearest tion. Roger Ascham, standing hard by the imperial friends; for I imagine we shall all want the union of all table at the feast of golden fleece,' watched with wonder the good men we can get together; and the want of the emperor's progress through 'sod beef, roast mutton, sympathy which I cannot but feel towards many of those baked hare,' after which he fed well off a capon,' whom I meet with, makes me think how delightful it drinking also, says the Fellow of St John's, 'the best would be to have daily intercourse with those with whom that ever I saw; he had his head in the glass five times I ever feel it thoroughly. What people do in middle as long as any of them, and never drank less than a life, without a wife and children to turn to, I cannot good quart at once of Rhenish wine.' Eating was now imagine; for I think the affections must be sadly checked the only physical gratification which he could still enjoy, and chilled, even in the best men, by their intercourse or was unable to resist. He continued, therefore, to with people such as one usually finds them in the world. dine to the last upon the rich dishes, against which his I do not mean that one does not meet with good and ancient and trusty confessor, Cardinal Loaysa, had prosensible people; but then their minds are set, and our tested a quarter of a century before. The supply of minds are set, and they will not, in mature age, grow his table was a main subject of the correspondence into each other; but with a home filled with those whom between the mayordomo and the secretary of state. we entirely love and sympathise with, and with some old | The weekly courier from Valladolid to Lisbon was

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