absolution, but a power wholly defined and regulated by Scripture while the efficacy of the absolution granted to the offender is made to depend on the sincerity of his repentance. It is clear enough, that our Author is no admirer of our covenanting forefathers, but, on the contrary, holds them to have been guilty of treason, in resisting the arbitrary proceedings of the two last sovereigns of the Stuart line, and of much wanton cruelty in exercising the power which they usurped. It is true, that our Presbyterian fathers were excluded from all society by letters of intercommuning, and a price fixed on their heads; that it subjected a minister to a fine of one thousand pounds to preach in a private house, and to the penalty of death. and confiscation to preach in the fields; that others were judged accessories to their crimes, by offering to the poor wanderer the shelter of their roof, or the most ordinary hospitalities. of the time: that the Highland host were brought down upon them, armed with iron shackles aud thumblocks, which the barbarians were permitted to use, according to the dictates of their own untutored and savage natures; that they were examined by torture; that the drum beat to drown their cries at their execution, and that great multitudes were sold as slaves-it can be proved that these and a thousand other cruel wrongs were practised upon our Presbyterian fathers; but then, what right had "grim Geneva ministers," and "black-robed covenanting carles" to complain? Any treatment was good enough for men who could tell a monarch to his face, that he did wrong, even although that monarch happened to be one of the most profligate that ever disgraced a throne. But our Author further opens our eyes to a fact, of which we were never before aware; and we venture to predict, that our gentle reader will confess to having lived up to this present moment in the same unpardonable ignorance as ourselves. You have always supposed that these men, suffering such unheard-of cruelties as those stated above, were men persecuted and oppressed? Then you have been reading history backwards, and believing for facts the most baseless fancies. These, it now appears, were not the martyrs, but the martyr-makers,-not the persecuted, but the persecutors, not the wronged and oppressed, but the injurious, and cold-blooded oppressors. Your sympathies must henceforth flow in favour of the gentle and gallant cavaliers who were the real sufferers and martyrs in the troublous times of the covenant; and who, if they did sometimes retaliate, were amply justified by the shocking cruelties of the Presbyterians. It appears that our author is armed with a great many " pamphlets" to prove the truth of all this. We are sorry that Professor Ayton could not vindicate the memory of the "Great Marquis," and Claverhouse, and other cavaliers, without iterating those charges against the Presbyterians which were invented at the time, but often and satisfactorily rebutted. We freely admit that Montrose was a chivalrous and heroic supporter of the royal cause, disinterested in his loyalty, and constant in his attachment to a falling house and the time has come when all parties can forget their former animosities, and turn with admiration to the nobler qualities of his character. But when his advocate seeks to vindicate his memory by aspersing the memory of others as good as he; when historical facts are perverted to increase the lustre of his fame, and ancient prejudices revived to heighten the effect, then is it a duty to expose a hurtful calumny by whomsoever propagated, and to rescue the good name of departed worthies from injurious allegations by whomsoever advanced. Our author should have paused before committing to the press the following— "Then as the Græme looked upwards, He met the ugly smile Of him who sold his king for gold- "The Marquis gazed a moment, And nothing did he say; But the cheek of Argyle grew ghastly pale, The painted harlot by his side, She shook through every limb; For a roar like thunder swept the street, It is the high prerogative of genius to embody its conceptions in beautiful and living forms, and by this means to assert a bewitching empire over the minds of men; but when it seeks to throw the witchery of its influence around error, and to perpetuate by its warm and eloquent descriptions the malice of parties and the heartburnings of their unjust recriminations, it forgets its sacred vocation, and bends its noble faculties to an unseemly use. Samson compelling his majestic strength to minister to the unhallowed mirth of the enemies of his country does not present to the spectator a more humiliating spectacle than Genius exerting its divine might to create a halo of glory around error. It is so high and holy, that it should never bow except before the throne of eternal truth; and, baptized there for a hallowed ministry of effort, it should ever discover the loftiness of its origin, and the greatness of its strength, by making rival factions ashamed of their littleness, assuaging the asperities of controversy, and melting all classes into one glorious brotherhood of love. Without at all detracting from the highly-coloured eulogy of Montrose, but on the contrary, freely conceding that the courage, magnanimity, and proud scorn of death claimed for him were really his in an eminent degree, and that these qualities shone forth with true sublimity at the melancholy close of his brief career, yet we are not prepared to admit that "Scottish history does not present us with a tragedy of parallel interest." The Professor having done so much to blacken the memory of Argyle, will be pleased, we would fondly hope, to "hear us speak his good now," receiving our assurance at the same time, that the name of Argyle is as dear to us as the name of Montrose can possibly be to him. The master-fiend Argyle" was, from his early years, a scholar, and during the whole course of his troubled life, he contrived to find leisure for study. The religious questions which were at that time setting the whole empire on fire, he pondered in the privacy of his closet; so that when duty compelled him to espouse the Presbyterian cause, and to attest the sincerity of his adherence by attending the famous 66 Assembly at Glasgow, he displayed an acquaintance with Scripture so extensive and correct, and expressed himself with so much wisdom and fidelity, that all the members were filled with astonishment. By his extraordinary diligence and prudence in the conduct of public affairs, he succeeded to paralyse the designs of the hostile faction who thought to take advantage of the absence of the Scottish army, and by this means he incurred their lasting and unscrupulous enmity. In 1641 the king acknowledged his great services by creating him Marquis, complaining at the same time of his intractable disposition and honest "dealing." His sagacity, firmness, and integrity he clearly proved, by exposing the malignant accusation of the con missary of Dunkeld and punishing the calumniator; by detecting a formidable plot against his own life; by urging forward the work of reformation; and by delivering the country by great efforts from armed marauding bands. His great abilities in the Parliament procured for him extensive influence, which he strenuously employed in bringing home Charles II., and reinstating him in his kingdom. That profligate and unprincipled monarch acknowledged Argyle's services and fidelity in a letter given under his hand, and in which he promised to reward his faithful Marquis with a Dukedom. The "master-fiend Argyle" rebuked the monarch for a wicked act of debauchery; faithfully admonished him to respect the religion of his subjects and the commands of his God; put the crown on his head at Scone in 1651, and solemnly warned him that it would only remain firm upon his head if he should do nothing contrary to the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Soon after the Restoration, he repaired to Court upon the invitation of Charles who, with a treachery scarcely paralleled even in the annals of his own wicked reign, ordered him to be conveyed to the Tower. After a short imprisonment he was sent down to Scotland to abide his trial for high treason. When placed at the bar, an indictment containing fourteen counts, was instantly produced and read. Only thirteen days could be obtained for preparing his defence; but the House was induced to grant an additional week on finding his defence not in a state to be presented on the day originally appointed for his trial. His defence, which extended to fifteen sheets of close print, was singularly successful, and not a little embarrassed those who had already determined upon his death. He was sentenced "to be executed as a traitor, his head to be severed from his body at the cross of Edinburgh, and affixed on the same place where the Marquis of Montrose's head formerly was, and his arms torn before the Parliament at the cross." His lady visited him in the common prison, and gave way to an agony of grief, crying out, "The Lord will require it! The Lord will require it." He commanded her to forbear, as he freely forgave his judges, and felt entirely free from the least motion of revenge against any human being. On the night before his execution, he slept soundly, awoke in the morning refreshed, settled his affairs, and conversed with visitors very cheerfully. He sat down to dinner at 12 o'clock, and talked with infinite sweetness and solemnity, his face frequently lighting up with radiant joy. He walked down the street with a very elastic step and joyful air mounted the scaffold with surpassing serenity, and looked around him with an expression of ineffable delight. He addressed the multitude at considerable length, protesting his innocence, blessing God that he was counted worthy to suffer, confessing his trust in the Saviour, and exhorting them to adhere to the solemn League and Covenant. He warned them that the times upon which they were entering would be either "sinning or suffering times," and that it was better to choose the service of Christ, whatever persecution they might be exposed to, than to incur by unfaithfulness the loss of their immortal souls. After earnest prayer, he walked to the block with undaunted firmness; his face, usually calm, serious, and careworn, was now illumined with a glow of Christian heroism, and a joy which he strove in vain to repress; "Now, my Lord, haud your grip sicker," exclaimed one of the ministers who attended him; "I am not afraid,' was the ready reply. Cunningham, his physician, touched his pulse, and found it beating calm and strong. His heart overflowed with love, and his mouth was filled with blessing, when he stooped to receive the awful stroke of death. Thus died, "the master-fiend Argyle," or as we would say, Argyle the martyr, a name endeared by a multitude of associations to every leal Scottish heart-a name that has ever been held a tower of strength in defence of the civil and religious liberties of Scotchmen-a name inseparably connected with the early sufferings and struggles of the Presbyterian Kirk and her onward progress-a name not prominently pushed forward in the hour of the Kirk's prosperity, but always invoked, and never invoked in vain, in the hour of her distress, whether that distress has arisen from persecution without or bereavement and desertion within-a name, in fine, that would at this moment, in this our northern realm, make a bearer of it the observed of all observers, though surrounded by all the ancient and honourable noblesse of the land. Perhaps, however, the most singular ballad of the whole group, is "The Burial march of Dundee," from the Professor's pathetic, but not the less comical, earnestness in whitewashing "dark John of the Battles," the ill-used and gentle Claverhouse. The stories told of his sanguinary cruelty and daring blasphemy cannot be true; for our author, casting his eye upen his portrait, and "surveying the calm, melancholy, and beautiful features of the devoted soldier," considers all such stories incredible. And he is strongly fortified in this opinion by the testimony of contemporary witnesses, who "describe him as one stainless in honour, pure in his faith, wise in council, resolute in action, and utterly free from the selfishness which disgraced the Scottish statesmen of the time." To be sure, we cannot readily forget the murder of John Brown, and who it was that perpetrated the foul deed; but when Claverhouse counted off his six men, and commanded them to fire upon a weak defenceless man, without allowing him the form of a trial, the blood of the poor sufferer could be no stain to the devoted soldier's honour. And when he twice rudely interrupted the martyr's last prayer, and insulted the weeping wife, he was still stainless in honour as "the calm, melancholy, and beautiful features of his portrait" can tell to this day. And when to the indignant challenge of the grief-stricken widow he replied "To man I can be answerable; and as for God, I will take him in my own hands"-a reply at which even Sir Walter Scott was horror-struck-still, it seems, we must not breathe a whisper against the purity of his faith, or stainlessness of his honour. We could reveal a thousand such "honourable" exploits on the part of "dark John;" and now at the risk of giving mortal offence to our author who, like Benedick, is "in most profound earnest," we do nevertheless assure him that a blacker subject he could not have taken in hand to wash than such an Ethiopian as "dark John of the Battles." But really, seeing the Professor is in a saint-worshipping vein, and has taken his stand before the Eikon of Claverhouse, we may safely leave him in the meantime to his devotions, amused at the choice of an idol, but hopeful, that when the fit is wronght off, he will himself become the Eikonoklastes. We will pass on to a ballad of exquisite beauty, entitled "Charles Edward at Versailles," in which that unhappy prince is made to recall the stirring scenes of the Rebellion of 1745, and pour forth a most pathetic lament over its failure. The vividness with which the scenes are figured, and the skill with which the passionate emotions of the Prince are made to vary as the painful memories of the past throng upon him, display great imagination as well as artistic talent. The romantic adventures of the Pretender, his chivalrous spirit and courtesy, and his great misfortunes, appeal irresistibly to the kindly sympathies of the nation; and no man of any party can now take offence to hear his praises sung. Our wise and trustful queen, in the heart of the Highlands, commanded Wilson to sing to her some of those mournful ditties which commemorated the gallant deeds or personal beauty of "bonny Prince Charlie," or mourned his absence and invited his speedy return; and the most zealous partizan need not scruple to imitate so high an example. The Prince, moved with one maddening recollection after another, and with the deepening consciousness of misery and desertion, especially the desertion of his false "maid of France," who cast him off when he failed to win a crown, concludes with a lament never surpassed for energetic emotion and pathos. "Woman's love is writ in water! Woman's faith is traced in sand! Spouting when the storm is high- Oh my heart is sick and heavy- |