266 LIFE OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. streets and squares, joustings, tournaments, and processions. It seemed as if the overwhelming brilliancy of our age was destined to surpass the richest pomp of every preceding age,-even the times when Greece and Rome were in all their splendor. A brief space has passed away like a cloud, and we have seen her a captive whom we saw in triumph, a prisoner, who set the prisoners free,-poor, who gave away so liberally, disdained, who was the fountain of honour. We have seen her, who was a two-fold Queen, in the hands of a common executioner, and that fair form, which graced the nuptial couch of the greatest monarch in Christendom, dishonoured on a scaffold. We have seen that loveliness, which was one of the wonders of the world, broken down by long captivity, and at length effaced by an ignominious death. If this fatal reverse teaches the uncertainty and vanity of all human things, the patience and incomparable fortitude of the Queen we have lost, also teach a more profitable lesson, and afford a salutary consolation. Every new calamity gave her an opportunity of gaining a new victory, and of evincing new proofs of her piety and constancy. It seems certain, indeed, that Providence made her affliction conspicuous, only to make her virtue more conspicuous. Others leave to their successors the care of building monuments, to preserve their name from oblivion; but the life and death of this lady are her monument. Marble, and brass, and iron decay, or are devoured by rust; but in no age, however long the world may endure, will the memory of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and Dowager of France, cease to be cherished with affection and admiration. ""* * "Oraison Funebre" in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 671. 267 AN EXAMINATION OF THE LETTERS, SONNETS, AND OTHER WRITINGS, ADDUCED IN EVIDENCE AGAINST MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. O place and greatness! millions of false eyes SHAKESPEARE. CONSIDERING the very opposite opinions which have been long entertained, regarding the character and conduct of the Queen of Scots, no memoirs of her life would be complete, that did not contain some examination of the evidence upon which they who believe her guilty principally rest their conviction. This evidence consists of eight Letters, eleven Love-Sonnets, and one Marriage Contract, all alleged to have been written in the Queen's own hand, and addressed to the Earl of Bothwell. In corroboration of these, another Contract, said to have been written by the Earl of Huntly, and signed by the Queen; and the Confessions and Depositions of some of the persons who were known to be implicated in Bothwell's guilt, were likewise produced. Of the Letters, two were supposed to have been written from Glasgow, at the time Mary went thither to visit Darnley when he was ill, and are intended to prove her criminal connection with Bothwell; two or three from the Kirk-of-Field, for the purpose of facilitating the arrangements regarding the murder; and the rest after that event, and before her abduction, to show that the whole scheme of the pretended ravishment was preconcerted between them. The precise time at which it is pretended the Sonnets were composed, does not appear; but expressions in them prove, that it must have been posterior to the Queen's residence at Dunbar. The Contract of Marriage, in Mary's own hand, though without date, must have been written very soon after Darnley's death, and contained a promise never to marry any one but Bothwell. The Contract, said to be in Huntly's hand, was dated at Seton, the 5th of April 1567, eight weeks after Darnley's death, a week before Bothwell's trial and acquittal, and three weeks before he was divorced from his first wife. The Confessions and Depositions are various, but only in one or two of them is any allusion made to Mary. The Letters, Sonnets, and Contracts, were said to have been discovered in a small gilt coffer, which the Earl of Bothwell left in the Castle of Edinburgh, in the custody of Sir James Balfour, at the time he fled from Edinburgh to Borthwick, about a month after his marriage, and shortly before the affair at Carberry Hill. After his discomfiture there, he is stated to have sent his servant, Dalgleish, into Edinburgh from Dunbar, to demand the coffer from Balfour. Sir James, it was said, delivered it up, but at the same time gave intimation to the Earl of Morton, who seized Dalgleish, and made himself master of the box and its contents. The Letters and Sonnets, which were written in French, were afterwards all translated into Scotch, and three into Latin. Anxious to put beyond a doubt, either the forgery or the authenticity of these writings, numerous authors have exercised their ingenuity and talents, in a most minute and laborious examination, not only of their leading features, but of every line, and almost of every word. It would seem, however, not to be necessary, in so far as the great interests of truth are concerned, to descend to such microscopic investigation, and tedious verbal criticism, as have extended pages into volumes, and rendered confused and tiresome, disquisitions which might otherwise have been simple and interesting. If Mary's innocence is to be established, it must not be by the discovery of petty inconsistencies, or trifling inaccuracies. If her guilt is to be proved, the impartial reader is not to be satisfied with vague suspicions or ingenious suggestions, but must have a body of evidence set before him, which, if it does not amount to actual demonstration, contains a circumstantial strength equally calculated to convince. It may be observed, at the outset, that unless the conclusions, to which these writings would lead, be corroborated by the established facts of History, it cannot be expected that a great deal of weight will be attached to them. Besides, it must not be forgotten, that as the originals have been lost, it is by means of translations alone that their alleged contents are known to the world. Upon their authority, Mary is accused of having first committed adultery, and then murder. Whatever opinion may have been formed of her from her behaviour during the rest of her existence, however gentle her dispositions may have appeared, -however strong her sense of the distinction between right and wrong, however constant her religious principles, however wise her government, however excellent the culture of her mind,-if the letters are to be credited, the whole was either hypocrisy from beginning to end, or, (overcome by some sudden impulse,) a year of gross criminality was introduced into the very middle of a well spent life. If she made so rapid a descent into a career of vice, she as rapidly rose again; and reassuming the character she had laid aside, lived and died with the purity of a saint, and the fortitude of a martyr. It cannot therefore be upon slight grounds that evidence so fatal to her reputation is to be admitted; and there will be little necessity to engage in minute cavilling, or to enter upon points of minor importance, if, by a distinct statement of some of the leading arguments against its authenticity, the whole shall be made to appear nugatory, improbable, and unentitled to credit. . The evidences naturally divide themselves into |