of the moft obfervable particulars, by marking them in Ita lics. Of the levity of manners fo incompatible with the fteady dignity of a grave enquirer after truth, the following are a few paffages, felected from among a great number of the fame ftamp. Speaking of the Commiffioners nominated by Elizabeth to enquire into the merits of Mary's caufe, he thus proceeds: Thus are the Commiffioners, with principles of honour all alive and active in the breasts of fome of them [the Duke of Norfolk], made to become mere gentlemen uhers to her [Elizabeth's] hypocrify, and mere running footmen to her revenge. Their fouls muft have been fhocked with the employ. But they were obliged to fubmit to it. The bold Barons, that had fo often affaulted the throne, even of our warlike monarchs, all crouched at the feet of this "Henry the Eighth in petticoats." And they were mean enough to carry on an EVIDENT fcheme of collufion between her and Murray. . . . She [Elizabeth] was the fecret caufe of all. Her Privy Counsellors prefumed not to fee but with her eyes, and her Commiflioners pretended not to hear but with her ears. They thought only as the fuggefted. They waited till she "gave the awful nod, The ftamp of fate, and fanction of a God." They then faw her intimate her decree, that Mary had written the letters originally in ScoгCH, that Mary had alfo written them originally in FRENCH, and that EITHER, or that BOTH, should be admitted as her hand-writing. . . . . Here we cannot but anticipate a publication at which even his [Bothwell's] ear will startle, and his cheek grow pale. And here at least the rebels But .... "will a tale unfold To harrow up her foul, freeze her young blood, Make her two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Her knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, this eternal blazon," it feems, is not even yet to be made "to ears of flesh and blood." . . . Then it was, and not till then, that their thunder began to roll, and their lightning to flash, againft Bothwell and Mary united. At prefent, their lightning, even against Bothwell, is little more than the playhoufe lightning of brimstone. And their thunder againft Mary, is not even fo much as the playhouse -thunder of the mustard bowl. This will appear ftill more strongly, if we confider the conduct of thefe brother-champions for credulity (Hume and Robertfon) in another view. They are eminent patterns of that very credulity which they want to enforce upon us. They are themselves the great fublime they draw." They want to fix our faith upon an imaginary copy of the French letters, which once (they fay) exifted upon earth, but is now in nubibus; or rather is mounted to the moon, "As "As all things loft on earth are treafur'd there." There it is fecure from all the calamities of life. No critic eye can follow it thither, and expofe its pretenfions to originality. It there may rest with all its infirmities about it, safe from the GOODALLS of every age, "Safe where no critics damn, no fiends moleft;" embalmed in dews of æther, and configned to a peaceful immortality. .. . This is surely that very pin Which touch'd the ruff, which touch'd Queen Befs's chin." To fuch hearsay, fuch vitiated, and fuch contradictory evidences are we now reduced, by difpatching the original away from earth. With fuch a prepofterous policy have thefe two advocates for the letters been labouring to defend their genuineness, that they have almoft annihilated their credibility, And the friends of innocence may well be allowed to point the finger of triumphant fcorn at the fight, and to cry out with the tone of triumphant language upon it, "'tis the sport to fee the engineer Hoift with his own petar." Nor is it only in English quotations that our Author abounds. With a pedantic affectation that might perhaps be in fome meafure excufable in one who felt he had no established fame for learning, and was ambitious of attaining it, but which cannot be pleaded in excufe of Mr. W. he frequently introduces feraps of Latin; often even tranflating his own English.-Take the following examples: Having now no longer any footing upon earth, they endeavour to fix themfelves in the clouds. And they are ready to raise fuppofition upon fuppofition, and to pile affertion upon the head of affertion, imponere Pelio Offam," in order to afcend thither.. The fource of these letters, like that of the Nile, has long been hid in obfcurity: 66 Caput inter nubila condit. It is curious to fee Elizabeth, who knew all the plot so well, intus et in cute novit, openly avowing her difbelief in it. ... Perhaps the world never faw a more aftonishing fpectacle of profligate affurance than this, and audacious vice had certainly rubbed his brow with her hardest pumice. Perfricuit frontem, pofuitque pudorem. The example of even a Chesterfield should not give a fanction to fuch ridiculous pedantry as this. The following paffages afford examples of rhetorical flowers of another caft: Yet fhe, even fhe, in less than half a dozen years, in less than one, in less than half a dozen months, in less than two, in fifty-nine days only. Betwixt both, her honour, and even her life, are in danger. Even an ambafiador, even Elizabeth's, even a Throgmorton, was apprehensive, &c.' The frequent ufe of the word even feems to be a favourite mode of phrafeology with him. • And And was this a time then, amidst diftractions and alarms, amidst the dread of rebellions and the movements of armies; amidst the chaos of fearful apprehensions, of formidable rumours, and melancholy realities; was this a time, then, for Mary to delight hertelf in writing a long and laboured fonnet, of twelve divifions? I nunc, et tecum mufas meditare canoras. Go, now, and mount to the maft-head in a storm. There, while the winds are howling loudly about thee, while the ship is rocking violently under thee, and while even fome of the crew are desperately wielding their axes against the maft itself, fit thou ferene above, conftruct thy ftanzas, and ring thy rhimes, into a poem of great regularity and length, and if thou canst not do this, thou canil nor think it poffible for Mary to do that.' Examples of rude words and vulgar phrafes: • What alterations this litter of deformity [alluding to the letters] might there undergo, would neceffarily be invifible to the world at large. But the litter were brought to light afterwards. And, even then, they were, continually, licked into form by the perfevering applications of their parents. . They particularly ftimulated that well-meaning Jon of violence and barbarifm, that religious SACHEM of religious MOHAUKS, Knox. Robert Melvill, that black .... BAT in politics. . . . She [Mary] had been locked up in a dungeon within a lake. She had been there committed to the care of that very whore, who was the mother of her baftard brother; who infulted over her with the natural infolence of a whore's meanness, in afferting the legitimacy of her own bastard, and in maintaining the illegitimacy of Mary. And who even carried the natural vulgarity. of a whore's impudence fo far, as to trip her of all her royal ornaments, and to dress her up like a mere child of fortune, in a coarse broune cafloke. . . . So very difficult is it to fay on the comparison, whether the man or the woman [Elizabeth or Murray] was the most impudent liar.' Examples of quaint expreffions and words not in ufe: Elizabeth had no fenfibilities of tendernefs.-They took refuge in the fhades from which they had been painfully compelled.-Romanized Queen [Mary].-Purview-bewray-affiance'-and many others. But to leave this disagreeable task: though it cannot be denied that Mr. Whitaker, feemingly from an inordinate partiality for a style strongly figurative, has too freely allowed his pen to flide into trivial levities; yet it fhould not be concealed that where the fubject is peculiarly interefting, his natural good fenfe, on many occafions, gets the better of these acquired bad habits; fo that, neglecting fuch affected puerilities, he then rifes fuperior to himself, and generally on thefe occafions paints the scene with a manly boldness; fometimes with a degree of fimplicity not devoid of tendernefs and pathos. We therefore cannot help once more expreffing our regret, that poffeffing, as he does, fuch valuable talents, Mr. Whitaker should not long ago have bestowed a greater degree of attention to correct thofe imperfections which muft muft greatly tend to fruftrate the aim of his writing. While the works of Robertfon fhall be put into the hands of youth, more from a defire to improve their tafte for polite literature, than because of their accuracy in regard to historic facts;-while, for the fame reafon, they will grace the toilet of the fair, and adorn the shelf of the macaroni ;-the valuable compofitions of a Whitaker will be condemned to the cells of the reclufe, or be perused by the philofophic few only, who read for the fake of inftruction, rather than for amufement. Thefe his writings will, it is true, furnish weighty matter for future hiftorians of this eventful period; but where fhall we find the historian that is capable of making a proper ufe of them? Achilles alone is capable of moving with eafe beneath the armour of Achilles. But should these materials be fnatched at by the frivolous and the vain, and manufactured into a flimfy hiftory, what an awkward and ridiculous figure will they make! To prevent this (which we fear will not otherwife be prevented), it is impoffible not to wifh, that this very acute writer himself,-after inveftigating with the fame precifion and perfpicuity the other incidents that occur in the life of his heroine,-fhould refolve to give a concile and clear history of that period, fimply referring to thefe autho-" rities, without entering into the tediousness of particular inveftigation. Nothing ftands in the way of fuch an undertaking, but the difficulty of overcoming the bad habits he has fallen into with refpect to style. And although that muft, no doubt, be a hard talk, yet we think it by no means impoffible to be performed. Demofthenes had habits of a worfe kind ftill to ftruggle againft, yet he did, as we have all learnt, fo entirely overcome them, as to rife in a fhort time to be the very first in that profeffion which he chose to follow. Mr. Whitaker's mind does not seem to be endowed with lefs vigour than that of the Grecian orator. His perceptions are as clear, and his difcernment as acute and shall be refolve to be contented with only a fecondary fame, when he has fuch reafon to believe he might attain to the foremost rank? Let him lay afide the writings of a Chefterfield, a Johnfon, and a Gibbon. Let meaner minds copy perhaps even the defects of others! But let him ftudy the chafter pages of antiquity; carefully avoiding, however, the declamatory writings of orators and rhetoricians, even thofe of Greece and Rome; but let him ftill more carefully avoid those turned and laboured barangues fo much admired in France. Among the modern hiftorians, however, one author particularly claims his notice Davila. He poffeffes no fmall fhare of that acutenefs of perception which fo eminently characterises a Whitaker; but he poffeffes befide, in an equally confpicuous degree, that correct chafteness of tafte, which forbids him ever to wander in pursuit of poetical imagery and rhetorical flowers, that fo much disfigure the writings of Mr. W. But we must not forget that we are only writing a review. Let us now return to our own proper bufinefs. Mr. Whitaker is very well acquainted with the meaning of the obfolete words that frequently occur in the antiquated records he has fo often occafion to quote. We remarked in the whole book but two or three mistakes of this kind, which we take notice of merely that he may have an opportunity of correcting them in fome future edition of this work. Boiling, does not mean threatening, as he explains it, vol. ii. p. 175.; but vaunting or bragging, holding out to view his power in an exulting manner. Nor does umquhill mean uncle, as he explains it, vol. i. p. 176, but the late or the deceased; as he might have remarked by many other quotations in which this word occurs in these volumes. We conceive he has alfo fallen into a small mistake concerning the meaning of the phrafe, crownes of the SONE,' vol. i. p. 220, which he understands to imply, that the pieces alluded to were coined by the fon, meaning James the fon of Mary. But as this is a phrafe that feems to be quite peculiar in this fenfe, we rather imagine it alludes to a particular kind of coin called "crowns of the Sun," probably from fome device upon the coin, like the Rofe Noble; a mode of phraseology that in this sense is quite common. Our author has fallen into a yet greater mistake, from a fmall degree of inadvertency refpecting the topography of a particular part of the country near Linlithgow-And as he draws many inferences here, which are not authorized by facts, we wish to fee this particular adverted to, and properly corrected in a future edition; for he has no need to have recourfe to ill-founded arguments in defence of Mary. He fuppofes that the place called Haltoun, where Bothwell lodged the night before he feized Mary, was fituated to the westward of Linlithgow, and that the was feized at the bridge over the Avon, about a mile to the weftward of Linlithgow; and confequently that this event took place be tween Sterling and Linlithgow, and not between Linlithgow and Edinburgh, as all the accounts of that tranfaction clearly state it to have been-But the Haltoun here mentioned, is evidently the place now called Hatton, the feat of the prefent Earl of Lauderdale, which is fituated about eleven or twelve miles weft from Edinburgh, and a little to the eastward of the river Almond, which forms the boundary between the fhires of Linlithgow and Edinburgh, and falls into the fea, at a village called Grammond. And the Almond-bridge, at which Mary was feized, was not a bridge over the Avon, but a bridge over the Almond or Amon, as it is fome. times written, placed on the road between Linlithgow and Edinburgh, about a mile higher up the river, than the village called Kirklifton, and nearly in the direct road between Hatton and Lin lithgow, |