are reviewing, without calling in the assistance of the celebrated sonnets, of which controversy, by denying their integrity, has disputed the information. In the season of winter, Mary rode sixty miles in one day to visit Bothwell; but this, according to Mr. Tytler, was on the business of the state: and the consequence immediately was a burning fever; but Mr. Tytler tells us that this was owing to the unhappy bickerings with the King, at that time in the west of Scotland. The most strenuous defenders of Mary, we believe, give up this journey as an act of indiscretion at the best; to speak severely of it, the consequence of a warm affection; to say the worst of it, the evidence of a bad passion, which had grown beyond the restraints of decency and prudence.

Bothwell, the profligate adventurer, so honoured and caressed, took the place of the unhappy King, who was now driven from city to city, without respect or attendants. After Darnley's career was closed, and Bothwell had become the husband of his widow, we find, with the exception of one instance, an unvarying affection between them. When Mary was a prisoner, after the defeat at Carberry Hill," she avoweth," ac

cording to Throckmorton, "that she will live and die with him, and saith, that if it were put to her choice, to relinquish her crown and kingdom or the Lord Bothwell, she would leave her kingdom and dignity to go as a simple damsel with him."-(2 Strick. 280.) And this strong expression of feeling she afterwards repeated in Lochleven, (Tytler, vol. vii. p. 134.) While such were her feelings towards Bothwell, those in regard to Darnley were of such a nature that Bedford tells us that "it cannot for modesty, nor with the honour of a Queen, be reported what she said of him."

We pass over the indecent haste of the hurried burial; the want of all investigation as to the authors of the crime; the farce termed the trial of Bothwell; his collusive seizure of the Queen at Cramond, and carrying her to Dunbar; their marriage within five months of the murder; the rout at Carberry Hill, and the final overthrow of Langside. Let us follow her to another land, when she was formally arraigned for her husband's murder, and when those celebrated writings were produced, upon which all the controversy rests. On this point, a decided advance is made, when we find advocates of Mary

so well acquainted with the history as Mr. Tytler, conceding that part only of the writings were forged, and that the rest of them were genuine. Another step would have carried the historian to the conclusion, which he almost seems to hold, but is afraid to state, when he reflects upon the strange and inexplicable conduct of Mary, in reference to the proceedings before Elizabeth,-inexplicable on any theory except one inconsistent with her innocence. To speak of compromise when a charge of murder was advanced, instead of courting inquiry, which her innocence, if she were innocent, would have rendered so triumphant, carries along with it a moral conviction as irresistible as the most direct evidence could have induced. This is a conclusion consistent enough with the most kindly nature, and with unbounded benevolence of heart; for it is a fatal error to run the parallel between general conduct and the aberrations of passion. Hatred to Darnley sinking into despair of rescue-love of Bothwell amounting to frenzy

-were feelings strong enough to shatter stronger principles than those of Mary Stuart, without joining her in the sisterhood of a Fulvia, an Octavia, or a Messalina.

It is a frequent enough episode in the dull uniformity of human life, that selfish interests rend asunder the duties of men, and the passions trample upon both. Mary, never having known the discipline of restraint, made her desires her politics and her morals. Educated in the polished vice and elegant profligacy of a great capital, her religion became pliant to every caprice. Complaint, in truth, was the largest tribute she paid to heaven, and the sincerest part of her devotions. The child of impulse, she could not subdue her feelings to her duties, nor was she able to avoid her virtues or her vices; and thus her melancholy story presents not the gradual wearing away of principle before temptation, but the instantaneous demolition before an avalanche of passion, of the frail barriers of modesty and self-respect, implanted in the human heart as antidotes to its native tendency to corruption.

It is a sad and mournful picture to trace the fall of one who began life with such high promise, and to find the greeting, affectionate and respectful," Bless her bonnie face," soon turned to execration. To see a gentle being grow prematurely old in passion,-and the worst passions that excite us,-compels sorrow at the

ruin of noble endowments, apart from the ge

eral calamities it engendered.

Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave
The life she lived in.

The rash vehemence of her race led her into perilous situations from which she was unable to rescue herself, and from which rescue appeared to afford no relief from misery. Once launched upon the current of passion, she resigned all control over her future progress, and glided onwards with a stream which fast led her to destruction.

The question which so long agitated and perplexed historians, is, however, of nearly as little importance as the ridiculous controversies of the schools. Now, when posterity is called upon to estimate her character, there are sufficient undisputed facts in Mary's history, without insisting on a point which dogmatism and ingenuity will never settle. "I am afraid," says David Hume to Dr. Robertson, "that you, as well as myself, have drawn Mary's character with too great softenings. She was undoubtedly a violent woman at all times." She made, in truth, a prodigal and wild waste of indiscretions. She did everything to irritate a people jealous of their liberties and their religion; and if she did not