authorize the murder of her husband, she approved of it when done, protected the unquestioned authors of it from the just vengeance of the laws, and put the climax to her fate by marrying their chief. There are few among our sentimental writers who have had the boldness to justify these things; and some of them, like Keith, have had the candour to exclaim that there never "was a marriage so scandalous as this." It is well that, in the picture of suffering honour, generosity, and integrity, these writers confine themselves to common-places in regard to the fallibility of human nature, though their strange philosophy has sometimes rounded the edge of virtue so that vice may ride it, and improved adultery and murder into a higher order of infirmity, or a lower description of virtue. when from sentiment and generality we descend to meaning, there seem insuperable obstacles to any distinction between the murderer and his protector. The laws that uphold society, while they often excite regret as to their want of delicacy in distinguishing between the vices, generally acknowledge the unfashioned virtues, and strike with sufficient force against the greater crimes. They have on this subject pronounced

But

a sentence which recognises, in the deed or Mary Stuart, no claim to our sympathies or our regard. They declare the accessory to be as guilty as the principal, and visit them with an impartial infamy.

Has it

There is nothing in the case of this unhappy lady that takes it beyond a rule, which is not so much of civil jurisprudence as of the reason, and according to the moral nature of man. come to this, that the ruler of a Christian land, who had openly enacted the tragedy of the melancholy Dane—had protected her husband's murderer and married him-should be left unmarked by the reprobation of every heart that has beat with horror at the tale of fancy which genius has immortalized? Truly sentimentalism has reached its verge, when it tells out its doleful lamentations on the tardy justice which removed from sovereignty one who had so forgotten a sovereign's duties and a woman's fame. Had the marriage with Darnley been one of political necessity, where feelings were compromised for interests, and the exigencies of state policy had demanded the immolation of her affections on the altar of her greatness, there would have been room for the hackneyed picture of novelists and

romancers. But that one, who had sown the bitter fruit she was obliged to eat, should demand more than justice, is something which can only find support in the indiscriminate eulogy of party, the juvenilities of sentiment, or the absurdities of paradox.

Had Mary perished at Langside, when her banner dragged the dust never again to reappear, she would not perhaps have excited so lasting a sympathy for her misfortunes. But her nineteen years of imprisonment, and her tragic death, met with the brave heroism of her race, have created for her defence a morality that neither Plato nor the Bible owns. In the groves of this academy, instead of a venerable sage to teach the words of wisdom, we have only a band of whining moralists, whose code changes according to the rank and beauty of the party whose worth is to be tried. We admire the skill with which the murder and the marriage are overlooked, in order to enforce upon our notice the patient fortitude of a nineteen years' captivity. It was not indeed upon the throne that the best points of Mary's character appeared. It was in the solitude of her prisons that scope was given for the display of those

kindly feelings of gratitude to those who, for her, had sacrificed country and kindred-affection to relatives and friends, and even to the very spaniels whom her kindness cherished, joined at intervals with outbursts of that resolute spirit which had saved her amid the early insurrections which she crushed, and which long years of agonizing sorrow could not extinguish. We read of sufferings firmly endured, and of protestations of innocence which never varied, mingled with times of mournful depression, when the heart, overcome with glimpses of lost happiness, rendered the retrospect bitter, and denied for the future even the luxury of hope. The ability with which, unsupported and alone, she met the appalling charges proclaimed against her, and the strength of mind with which she endured her sad reverse, leave us only with mingled feelings of admiration and astonishment. Human nature is indeed less heroic in action than in suffering. The intellectual faculties too, have their virtues as well as the moral, and graceful accomplishments are scarce less. commendable than integrity. Thus, the thousands who believe in the whole catalogue of crimes of which she is accused, may, instead of

satisfactions enforced, and injuries avenged, be ready to seek a palliative medium for their censure. Their admiration gradually slides into a warmer feeling. Their philosophy, while it becomes a detector of the naked poverty of humanity, delights again to cover the miseries it has exposed, and not to press too hardly upon one who, if she greatly erred, was greatly tempted, and made her expiation in bitter, and nearly unexampled sorrows.

Passionate and headstrong to a degree which nothing could impede, her conduct presented the most extraordinary amount of errors, contradictions, open and unblushing inconsistencies, likings and hatreds, irregular sallies of virtue, with the violence of a sirocco while the fit lasted, and with all its erratic irregularity. The gentle zephyr scarcely ceased to blow when Boreas began. The same persons were one day covered with caresses, and the next repelled with insults, and threatened with forfeitures. Murray was at first flattered and ennobled, and then hunted as a criminal from his country; received into favour again, and then pursued with unrelenting virulence to the last. Darnley himself had scarce emerged from the caresses of the honey