R. CRAIGHEAD,

Printer, Stereotyper, and Electrotyper,

Carton Building,

81, 83, and 85 Centre Street, N. Y.

AP

4

B63

OUR last number contained some remarks on the freedom of hand with which Lord Macaulay flings the darkest colours on his canvass, in his portrait of England's most famous Whig general. By way of contrast rather than relief, we propose in the following pages to show with how light a touch he can spread a sparkling and transparent glaze over the most repulsive features of the great Whig king.

There is a popular superstition, that the blood of a murdered man impresses an indelible mark on the spot where it falls. The stains on the staircase at Holyrood and the floor of the dressing-room at Staunton Harold, are still pointed out to hundreds of half believing gazers. There is a moral truth at the foundation of this belief. The place in which a great crime has been committed can never be seen or named without calling up the memory of that crime. The mean purposes to which they have been applied cannot efface the association which binds the names of Smithfield, and of the marketplace of Rouen, up in our minds with the martyrs of religion and patriotism; and no time can disconnect the name of Glencoe from the memory of an outrage so revolting, that, after the

lapse of a century and a half, the blood curdles at it as if it were a deed of yesterday.

The story of the slaughter of M'Ian of Glencoe and his tribe, often as it has been repeated, never palls in interest. It has lately been told by the greatest word-painter of the age, whose steps it would be presumption to follow, and from whom quotation is supererogatory, as every one is familiar with his cloquent narrative. Were that narrative as trustworthy as it is eloquent, we should only have the pleasant duty of joining in the general tribute of applause, instead of asking our readers to follow us through the comparatively dry details which appear to us necessary to place the actors in that tragedy in their true light.

We have read Lord Macaulay's account of the Massacre of Glencoe over and over again, each time with increased admiration of the marvellous variety of his powers. The most skilful advocate never framed an argument so subtle to avert punishment from the guilty; no laby-rinth constructed to conceal the evidence of crime, ever was so intricate, as the story which Lord Macaulay has woven to shield William from the obloquy which attaches to his name for his share in