4. James I., a prince of great natural endowments, profited by a captivity of 18 years at the court of England, in adorning his mind with every valuable accomplishment. At his return to his kingdom, which in his absence had been weakly governed by the regent Albany, and suffered under all the disorders of anarchy, he bent his whole attention to the improvement and civilization of his people, by the enactment of many excellent laws, enforced with a resolute authority. The factions of the nobles, their dangerons combinations, and their domineering tyranny over their dependents, the great sources of the people's miseries, were firmly restrained, and most severely punished. But these wholesome innovations, while they procured to James the affections of the nation at large, excited the odium of the nobility, and gave birth to a conspiracy, headed by the Earl of Athole, the king's uncle, which terminated in the murder of this excellent prince, in the 44th year of his age, A.D. 1437.

5. His son James II. inherited a considerable portion of the talents of his father; and in the like purpose of restraining the inordinate power of his nobles, pursued the same maxims of government, which an impetuous temper prompted him, in some instances, to carry to the most blameable excess. The earl of Douglas, trusting to a powerful vassalage, had assumed an authority above the laws, and a state and splendour rival to those of his sovereign. He was seized, and without accusation or trial, beheaded. His successor imprudently running the same career, and boldly justifying, in a conference, his rebellious practices, was put to death by the king's own hand. Thus were the factions of the nobles quelled by a barbarous rigour of authority. To his people James was beneficent and humane, and his laws contributed materially to their civilization and prosperity. He was killed in the 30th year of his age, by the bursting of a cannon, in besieging the castle of Roxburgh, A.D. 1460.

6. His son, James III., without the talents of his predecessors, affected to tread in the same steps. To humble his nobles, he bestowed his confidence on mean favourites; an insult which the former avenged by rebellion. His brothers Albany and Mar, aided by Edward IV. of England, attempted a revolution in the kingdom, which was frustrated only by the death of Edward. In a second rebellion, the confederate nobles forced the prince of Roth

say, eldest son of James, to appear in arms against his father. In an engagement near Bannockburn the rebels were successful, and the king was slain in the 35th year of his age, 1488.

7. James IV., a great and most accomplished prince, whose talents were equalled by his virtues, while his measures of government were dictated by a true spirit of patriotism, won by a well-placed confidence the affectious of his nobility. In his marriage with Margaret, the daughter of Henry VII. of England, both sovereigns wisely sought a bond of amity between the kingdoms; but this purpose was frustrated in the succeeding reign of Henry VIII. The high spirit of the rival monarchs was easily inflamed by trifling causes of offence; and France, then at war with England, courted the aid of her ancient ally. James invaded England with a powerful army, which he wished to lead to immediate action; but the prudent delays of Surrey, the English general, wasted and weakened his force; and in the fatal battle of Flodden the Scots were defeated with prodigious slaughter. The gallant James perished in the fight, and with him almost the whole of the Scottish nobles, A.D. 1513.

8. Under the long minority of his son James V., an infant at the time of his father's death, the kingdom was feebly ruled by his uncle Albany. The aristocracy began to resume its ancient spirit of independence, which was ill-brooked by a prince of a proud and uncontrollable mind, who felt the keenest jealousy of a high prerogative. With a systematic policy he employed the church to abase the nobility, conferring all the offices of state on able ecclesiastics. The cardinal Beaton co-operated with great zeal in the designs of his master, and under him ruled the kingdom.

9. Henry VIII., embroiled with the papacy, sought an alliance with the king of Scots, but the ecclesiastical counsellors of the latter defeated this beneficial purpose. A war was thus provoked, and James was reluctantly compelled to court those nobles whom it had been hitherto his darling object to humiliate. They now determined on a disgraceful revenge. In an attack on the Scottish border the English were repelled, and an opportunity offered to the Scots of cutting off their retreat. The king gave his orders to that end, but his barons obstinately refused to advance beyond the frontier. One measure more was

wanting to drive their sovereign to despair. In a subsequent engagement with the English, 10,000 of the Scots deliberately surrendered themselves prisoners to 500 of the enemy. The high spirit of James sunk under his contending passions, and he died of a broken heart in the 33rd year of his age, a few days after the birth of a daughter, yet more unfortunate than her father, Mary queen of Scots, A.D. 1542.

XXXIII.-On the Ancient Constitution of the Scottish Government.

1. We have seen it a constant policy with the Scottish kings to abase the power of their nobles, and this struggle we have observed to have been the source of much misery and bloodshed; but the policy was necessary, from the dangerous ambition and lawless tyranny of those nobles, who frequently aimed at overturning the throne, and exercised the severest oppression on all their dependents. The interests, therefore, of the people, no less than the security of the prince, demanded the repression of this overbearing and destructive power. The aristocracy was, however, preserved, no less by its own strength than by the concurrence of circumstances, and chiefly by the violent and unhappy fate of the sovereigns. Meantime, although the measures they pursued were not successful, their consequences were beneficial. They restrained, if they did not destroy, the spirit of feudal oppression, and gave birth to order, wise laws, and a more tranquil admi. nistration of government.

2. The legislative power, though nominally resident in the parliament, was virtually in the king, who, by his influence, entirely controlled its proceedings. The parliament consisted of three estates, the nobles, the dignified clergy, and the lesser barons, the representatives of the towns and shires. The disposal of benefices gave the crown the entire command of the churchmen, who equalled the nobles in number, and at least a majority of the commons were the dependents of the sovereign. A committee, termed the lords of the articles, prepared every measure that was to come before the parliament, and these, by the mode of their election, were in effect nominated by the king. It is to the credit of the Scottish princes that there are few instances of their abusing an authority so extensive as that which they constitutionally enjoyed.

3. The king had anciently the supreme jurisdiction in all causes, civil and criminal, which he generally exercised through the medium of his privy council; but in 1425 James I. instituted the court of session, consisting of the chancellor and certain judges chosen from the three estates. This court was new-modelled by James V. and its jurisdiction limited to civil causes, the cognizance of crimes being committed to the justiciary. The chancellor was the highest officer of the crown, and president of the parliament. To the chamberlain belonged the care of the finances and the public police; to the high steward the charge of the king's household; the constable regulated all matters of military arrangement; and the marshal was the king's lieutenant, and master of the horse.

4. The revenue of the sovereign consisted of his domain, which was extensive, of the feudal casualties and forfeitures, the profits of the wardships of his vassals, the rents of vacant benefices, the pecuniary fines for offences, and the aids or presents occasionally given by the subject, a revenue at all times sufficient for the purposes of government, and the support of the dignity of the crown.

5. The political principles which regulated the conduct of the Scots towards other nations were obvious and simple. It had ever been an object of ambition to England to acquire the sovereignty of her sister kingdom, who was constantly on her guard against this design of her more potent neighbour. It was the wisest policy for Scotland to attach herself to France, the natural enemy of England; an alliance reciprocally courted from similar motives. In those days this attachment was justly esteemed patriotic, while the Scots who were the partisans of England were with equal justice regarded as traitors to their country. In the period of which we now treat, it was a settled policy of the English sovereigns to have a secret faction in their pay in Scotland, for the purpose of dividing and thus enslaving the nation; and to this source all the subsequent disorders of the latter kingdom are to be attributedXXXIV.-A View of the Progress of Literature and Science in Europe, from the Revival of Letters down to the end of the Fifteenth Century.

I. The first restorers of learning in Europe were the Arabians, who, in the course of their Asiatic conquests, becoming acquainted with some of the ancient Greek

authors, discovered and justly appreciated the knowledge and improvement to be derived from them. The caliphs procured from the eastern emperors copies of the ancient manuscripts, and had them carefully translated into Arabic, esteeming principally those which treated of mathematics, physic, and metaphysics. They disseminated their knowledge in the course of their conquests, and founded schools and colleges in all the countries they subdued.

2. The western kingdoms of Europe became first acquainted with the learning of the ancients through the medium of those Arabian translations. Charlemagne caused Latin translations to be made from the Arabian, and founded, after the example of the caliphs, the universities of Bononia, Pavia, Osnaburgh, and Paris. Alfred, with a similar spirit, and by similar means, introduced a taste for literature in England; but the subsequent disorders of the kingdom replunged it into barbarism. [The earliest Anglo-Saxon author was Gildas; Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, Keolfrid, abbot of Wearmouth, Felix of Croyland, the Venerable Bede, Alfric, bishop of Canterbury, Kynewulf, bishop of Winchester, and Wulfstan, archbishop of York, with some others, flourished prior to the Norman conquest]. The Normans, however, brought from the continent some tincture of ancient learning, which was kept alive in the monasteries, where the monks were meritoriously employed in transcribing a few of the ancient authors, along with the legendary lives of the saints.

3. In this dawn of literature in England appeared Henry of Huntingdon and Geoffrey of Monmouth, names distinguished in the earliest annals of poetry and romance, John of Salisbury, a moralist, William of Malmesbury, annalist of the history of England before the reign of Stephen, [William Neubrigensis, the author of five books of English history from the Norman conquest to 1197,] Giraldus Cambrensis, known in the fields of history, theology, and poetry, Joseph of Exeter, author of two Latin epic poems on the Trojan war, and the war of Antioch, or the crusade, which are read with pleasure even in the present day.

4. But this era of a good taste in letters was of short duration. The taste for classical composition and historic information yielded to the barbarous subtleties of scholastic divinity taught by Lombard and Abelard; and the ab