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our hands; let us not draw back, but pursue; for all looked on it, considering the former circumstances, as a clear call from God to fall upon him.'--p. 414.

The command of this party of enthusiasts was offered to Hackstoun of Rathillet, as the man of highest rank. But as he declined the office, that the glory of the action might not be sullied by its being ascribed to a private grudge which existed betwixt him and the prelate, it was tendered to and accepted by the famous John Balfour of Burley, who gave the word of command, saying, "Gentlemen, follow me:" Whereupon all the nine (two of them had accidentally separated from the party) rode what they could to Magusmuir, the hill at the nearest, and Andrew Henderson riding afore, being best mounted, and saw them when he was on the top of the hill, and all the rest came up and rode very hard, for the coach was driving hard; and being come near Magus, George Fleman and James Russell riding into the town, and James asked at the goodman if that was the bishop's coach? He fearing, did not tell, but one of his servants, a woman, came running to him and said it was the bishop's coach, and she seemed to be overjoyed; and James riding towards the coach, to be sure, seeing the bishop looking out at the door, cast away his cloak and cried, Judas be taken! The bishop cried to the coachman to drive; he firing at him, crying to the rest to come up, and the rest throwing away their cloaks except Rathillet, . . . . . . . fired into the coach driving very fast about half a mile, in which time they fired several shots in at all parts of the coach, and Alexander Henderson seeing once Wallace having a cock'd carrabine going to fire, gript him in the neck, and threw him down and pulled it out of his hand. Andrew Henderson outran the coach, and stroke the horse in the face with his sword; and James Russell coming to the postiling, commanded him to stand, which he refusing, he stroke him on the face and cut down the side of his shine, and striking at the horse next brake his sword, and gripping the ringeses of the foremost horse in the farthest side: George Fleman fir'd a pistol in at the north side of the coach beneath his left arm, and saw his daughter dight of the furage; and riding forward, gripping the horses' bridles in the nearest side and held them still, George Balfour fired likewise, and James Russell got George Fleman's sword and lighted off his horse, and ran to the coach door, and desired the bishop to come forth, Judas. He answered, he never wronged man: James declared before the Lord that it was no particular interest, nor yet for any wrong that he had done to him, but because he had betrayed the church as Judas, and had wrung his hands these eighteen or nineteen years in the blood of the saints, but especially at Pentland; and Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Mitchell and James Learmonth; and they were sent by God to execute his vengeance on him this day, and desired him to repent and come forth and John Balfour on horseback said, Sir, God is our witness that it is not for any wrong thou hast done to me, nor yet for any fear of what thou could do to me, but because thou hast been a murderer of many a poor soul in the kirk of Scotland, and a betrayer of the church, and an open enemy and persecutor of Jesus Christ and his members, whose blood thou hast shed like water on the earth, and therefore thou shalt die! and fired a

pistol;

pistol; and James Russell desired him again to come forth and make him for death, judgement, and eternity; and the bishop said, Save my life, and I will save all yours. James answered, that he knew that it was not in his power either to save or to kill us, for there was no saving of his life, for the blood that he had shed was crying, to heaven for vengeance on him, and thrust his shabel at him. John Balfour desired him again to come forth, and he answered, I will come to you, for I know you are a gentleman and will save my life; but I am gone already and what needs more? And another told him of keeping up of a pardon granted by the king for nine persons at Pentland, and then at the back side of the coach thrust a sword at him, threatening him to go forth; whereupon he went forth, and falling upon his knees, said, For God's sake, save my life; his daughter falling on her knees, begging his life also. But they told him that he should die, and desired him to repent and make for death. Alexander Henderson said, Seeing there has been lives taken for you already, and if ours be taken it shall not be for nought; he rising of his knees went forward, and John Balfour stroke him on the face, and Andrew Henderson stroke him on the hand and cut it, and John Balfour rode him down; whereupon he, laying upon his face as if he had been dead, and James Russell hearing his daughter say to Wallace that there was life in him yet, in the time James was disarming the rest of the bishop's men, went presently to hima and cast of his hat, for it would not cut at first, and hacked his head in pieces.'-pp. 416-418.

Mr. Sharpe's industry has traced some curious particulars of James Russell, who so coolly narrates his own share in this horrible transaction. He was afterwards a captain among the insurgents at Bothwell Bridge. He occasioned a good deal of schism among the suffering remnant, being a person not only of a hot and fiery spirit,' which is evident from his narrative, but also, which could less easily have been anticipated, one of a very nice and scrupulous conscience, extending the duty of disowning the prelatic government beyond the bounds adopted even by the most scrupulous presbyterians. He quarrelled with the heathen names given to the days of the week and months of the year. Whereas it was generally egarded as lawful to pay all public burthens excepting cess, he abhorred, as a base compliance, even the paying customs at ports and bridges, and upon this ultra-scrupulosity separated from the communion of the brethren. Russell was followed in his schism by three men, a boy, and seven or eight women, who were to the Cameronians what the Circumcellions in Africa were to the Donatists, or rather what the Cameronians themselves were to moderate presbyterians. The Cameronian societies when refreshed' by the return of Mr. James Renwick from Holland, and exhorted to lift up (in the language of the times) and display the fallen banner of the church, became anxious to recal these scattered sheep from their wanderings in the wilderness. They dispatched mis sionaries to the dissidents,

'to whom they feelingly described the great gifts of Mr. James Renwick, and, in the name of the general meeting, invited them to partake of that rich and unspeakable blessing, the Lord hath bestowed. But their eloquence was of no avail; for the three men, the boy, and the women declared that they would neither listen to Renwick, nor join with them, insisting on the abomination of paying customs at ports and markets, though they were willing to pay them at boats and bridges; " and as for days of the week, and months of the year, they owned the same was not a ground of separation, yet adhered to that paper given in by James Russell to the general meeting anent the same."'-p. 401.

What became of Russell afterwards does not appear, but we are inclined to think that he was the person who, having commenced the killing trade on the person of Sharp, afterwards carried it on as a physician in London, and lived there for several years after the revolution.

Respecting the principal action of Russell's life various opinions have been entertained. A gentleman of fortune and military rank, the descendant of the celebrated John Balfour of Burley, has hurled down the gauntlet (in the Scottish Magazine) to all cavaliers of the day, Jedediah Cleishbotham included, declaring himself too proud of his great progenitor to refuse either his name to his life, or his hand to his defence.' As the wager of battle is not received among the canons of criticism, we can only reply to this bold defiance by the expostulation of the poet.

What will you do, renowned Falconbridge?

Succour a villain and a murderer?

On the whole, if Archbishop Sharp was a persecutor of the covenanters while he lived, a scandal to them in the manner of his death, and a stumbling-block and shibboleth to them after he was no more, the question of the justice of his death being illegally pressed upon every prisoner of their faction, it can hardly be said even now that the sinister influence of his name has ceased to affect those who cannot divide their just attachment to the Kirk of Scotland from a doting and depraved admiration of men who, far from having put on religion, seem, from their own narrative, to have stripped themselves of every ordinary feeling of humanity. What should we now say of the memory of Ridley and Latimer, had they encouraged their followers to waylay and murder Pole or Bonnar? We know thousands who have adored the name of Hampden, and some who could even admire that of Cromwell; but we never heard of any who made a saint of Hugh Peters, or Ludovick Claxton. As to the pretended share which these enthusiasts are supposed to have taken in the revolution, there is extant on the subject their own formal resolutions taken at a general meeting on the 24th October, 1688, in which, after deliberating how far they could concur in conscience with the Prince of Orange, whose landing was then expected, they determined thus: It was concluded unanimously,

that

that we could not have an association with the Dutch in one body, nor come formally under their conduct being such a promiscuous conjunction of Lutherans, malignants, and sectaries, to join with whom were repugnant to the testimony of the Church of Scotland. This rational decision at such an important crisis shews these enlightened persons' zeal for civil and religious liberty to have been similar to the refined parental affection of the French lady of rauk, who suffered her infant to starve rather than feed it out of any dish but a porcelain one.

This singular and entertaining volume is embellished by etchings of the well-known Duke of Lauderdale and his duchess, who has much the air of what she was, a woman of gallantry, rather too old for the profession; and of Archbishop Sharp, whose countenance neither augurs ambition nor pride, but seems on the contrary grave and evangelical: two curious vignettes are also given, one' representing an allegorical defence of the candlesticks of the church by two sturdy Whigs: the other a bas-relief on the sumptuous tomb of Sharpe, exhibiting the scene of his murder. There is another curious etching from a picture of the battle of Bothwell Bridge, preserved at Dalkeith House; the original, however, has not the merit of exhibiting an accurate landscape; for the houses on the right-hand bank of the Clyde, some of which, coeval with the battle, are still standing, are whimsically transferred to the left bank. The reader owes these illustrations to the editor, who is distinguished by his genius and execution as an amateur of the art.

We understand Mr. Sharpe is at present busied in the task of editing a work less historically useful perhaps, but certainly more entertaining to the general reader than Kirkton's history; we mean the Memoirs of Mr. Law, who has preserved many curious domestic incidents illustrative of national manners during this eventful period. When it appears we may probably resume the discussion which we have now broken off abruptly.

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* As Colonel Wilks has chosen to anticipate the appearance of our Number, and publish his Explanation,' there seems to be no necessity for our printing it again. Having given up his authority, Colonel Wilks stands acquitted of all blame-save that of indiscretion.

The matter now rests between Major General Sir Thomas Dallas and Mr. Huddlestone-the one maintaining the truth of the charge, the other denying it. Nothing has yet appeared to alter one iota of our opinion, which is that, as far as the late Sir George Staunton is concerned, the story is altogether destitute of truth—and we think it incumbent on Mr. Huddlestone to prove it to be so.

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