is to lay aside all these considerations, and consider her merely as a rational being placed in authority, and entrusted with the government of mankind. We may find it difficult to reconcile our fancy to her as a wife or a mistress; but her qualities as a sovereign, though with some considerable exceptions, are the object of undisputed applause and approbation.

CHARACTER OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

ROBERTSON.

TO ALL the charms of beauty and the utmost elegance of external form, she added those accomplishments which render their impression irresistible. Polite, affable, insinuating, sprightly, and capable of speaking and of writing with equal ease and dignity. Sudden, however, and violent in all her attachments, because her heart was warm and unsuspicious. Impatient of contradiction, because she had been accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a queen. No stranger, on some occasions, to dissimulation, which, in that perfidious court where she received her education, was reckoned among the necessary arts of government. Not insensible of flattery, or unconscious of that pleasure with which almost every woman beholds the influence of her own beauty. Formed with the qualities that we love, not with the talents that we admire, she was an agreeable woman rather than an illustrious queen. The vivacity of her spirit not sufficiently tempered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not always under the

restraint of discretion, betrayed her both into errors and into crimes. To say that she was always unfortunate, will not account for that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calamities that befel her; we must likewise add that she was often imprudent. Her passion for Darnley was rash, youthful and excessive: and though the sudden transition to the opposite extreme was the natural effect of her ill-requited love, and of his ingratitude, insolence and brutality, yet neither these, nor Bothwell's artful address and important services, can justify her attachment to that nobleman. Even the manners of the age, licentious as they were, are no apology for this unhappy passion : nor can they induce us to look on that tragical and infamous scene which followed upon it, with less abhorrence. Humanity will draw a veil over this part of her character which it cannot approve, and may perhaps prompt some to impute her actions to her situation, more than to her disposition, and to lament the unhappiness of the former, rather than accuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary's sufferings exceed, both in degree and in duration, those tragical distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sorrow and commiseration; and while we survey them, we are apt altogether to forget her frailties; we think of her faults with less indignation, and approve of our tears as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure virtue.

With regard to the queen's person, a circumstance not to be omitted in writing the history of a female reign, all contemporary authors agree in ascribing to K*

Mary the utmost beauty of countenance and elegance of shape of which the human form is capable. Her hair was black; though, according to the fashion of that age, she frequently wore borrowed locks, and of different colors. Her eyes were a dark gray, her complexion was exquisitely fine, and her hands and arms remarkably delicate, both as regards shape and color. Her stature was of a height that rose to the majestic. She danced, she walked and rode with equal grace. Her taste for music was just; and she both sang, and played upon the lute with uncommon skill. Towards the end of her life she began to grow fat; and her long confinement, and the coldness of the houses in which she had been imprisoned, brought on a rheumatism, which deprived her of the use of her limbs.

"No man," says Brantome," ever beheld her person without admiration and love, or will read her history without sorrow."

MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF LOUIS XVIII.

BURKE.

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles ; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in--glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must

I have to contemplate, without emotion, that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to that enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever! Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, and ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM BY THE CRUSADERS, A. D. 1009.-Gibbon.

JERUSALEM has derived some reputation from the number and importance of her memorable sieges. It

was not till after a long and obstinate contest that Babylon and Rome could prevail against the obstinacy of the people, the craggy ground that might supersede the necessity of fortifications, and the walls and towers that would have fortified the most accessible plain. These obstacles were diminished in the age of the Crusades. The bulwarks had been completely destroyed, and imperfectly restored; the Jews, their nation and worship, were forever banished; but nature is less changeable than man, and the site of Jerusalem, though somewhat softened, and somewhat removed, was still strong against the assaults of an enemy. By the experience of a recent siege, and a three years' possession, the Saracens of Egypt had been taught to discern, and in some degree to remedy, the defects of a place which religion as well as honor forbade them to resign. Aladin, or Iftikhar, the Caliph's lieutenant, was entrusted with the defence; his policy strove to restrain the native Christians by the dread of their own ruin and that of the holy sepulchre; to animate the Moslems by the assurance of temporal and eternal rewards. His garrison is said. to have consisted of forty thousand Turks and Arabians; and if he could muster twenty thousand of the inhabitants, it must be confessed that the besieged were more numerous than the besieging army. Had the diminished strength and numbers of the Latins allowed them to grasp the whole circumference of four thousand yards, (about two English miles and a half,) to what useful purpose should they have descended into the valley of Ben Himmon and torrent