Essays in History and Biography, Including the Defence of Mary Stuart

Excerpt from Essays in History and Biography, Including the Defence of Mary Stuart

The volume in which the Defence of Mary Stuart originally appeared went out of print a few weeks after it was published, and is now scarce and dear. I would have reprinted it at the time, but for one consideration. The speech of an Advocate is always open to the observation that it is - the speech of an Advocate. This rather recondite reflection had been expanded by more than one of my critics, who held that a tone of partisanship was thus given to what was in substance an unimpassioned and impartial "summing up." I would have liked, therefore, to have turned the argument into a less forensic channel, - to have made it a charge from the Bench rather than a pleading from the Bar. But the experiments I tried were not satisfactory; I found that a change of form involved radical reconstruction; and for that I had neither time nor patience. It is now reprinted almost exactly as it was written. One or two new paragraphs, however, have been introduced, and there are many additional notes.

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