the part of Murray or his informant, it also explains the discrepancies between these summaries and letter No. II. This seems to be the simplest theory, and the most satisfactory. Mr Lang prefers the other, which is that Murray and Lennox independently summarised the same letter-a letter differing from, and more poisonous than, No. II.

In support of his theory Mr Lang argues that Lennox did not prepare his earliest indictment until a year or thereby after Murray's conversation with de Silva, and by that time had access to the letter. His strongest reason for this delay on the part of Lennox is that there was no object in drawing up such discourses or indictments while the Queen was a prisoner in Loch Leven. The painting of the Darnley cenotaph, already alluded to, disposes of this reason. One of its inscriptions bears that Lennox and his wife caused it to be made in January 1567-8, in order that, if they did not live to see their infant grandson attain perfect age, he might have from them a memorial to prevent the foul slaughter of his father from falling out of his mind until he had avenged it. The feeling which prompted the painting of such a large and elaborate canvas for such a purpose, months before the Queen escaped from Loch Leven, would also incite Lennox to prepare written documents. In his first edition Mr Lang ventured to affirm that Lennox cited 'directly from the letter before him'; but in his second edition he has modified this by substituting 'perhaps' for 'directly.' There is no proof whatever that Lennox had the letter before him. Mr Lang also argues that this letter was not only different from No. II, but that it was forged and suppressed. The reason which he assigns for its suppression is rather remarkable. He says that it contradicted Bowton's confession as to the date when an explosion was first thought of. It does nothing of the kind; but, even if it did, that would not have been a sufficient reason for its suppression from his point of view. If the lords were unscrupulous enough to use a forged letter, they would never have hesitated to strike out an incongruous sentence. If, as he thinks the Cam bridge MS. proves, they suppressed part of Bowton's deposition, they would not have shrunk from suppressing a little more of it.

After all, Mr Lang does not assert absolutely that there

was a forged version of letter No. II, but that there probably was. His long and elaborate discussion of the Casket documents is characterised from beginning to end by hesitancy and uncertainty. This is perhaps partly due to the extreme difficulty and complicated nature of the subject, but much more to the openmindedness with which he has approached it. To letter No. II he has devoted special attention, and instead of condemning it as Mr Cowan does, as a clumsy forgery, 'silly and vulgar, nonsensical and false,' having neither style nor structure,' he expresses the opinion that parts of it 'seem beyond the power of the genius of forgery to produce.' Of his almost countless theories and suggestions, perhaps the most notable and the most far-reaching in its consequences is the one by which he rids this infamous letter of the difficulty hitherto supposed to be inherent in its internal chronology. Instead of being the result of clumsy dovetailing by a forger, he suggests that the difficulty probably arose from the Queen having picked up and used as a clean sheet of paper one on the verso of which she had already written. Of the sonnets he says:

Meanwhile, I am obliged to share the opinion of La Mothe Fenelon, that, as proof of Mary's passion for Bothwell, the sonnets are stronger evidence than the letters, and much less open to suspicion than some parts of the letters.'

And yet he comes to the deliberate conclusion that

'portions of letter II, and of some of the other letters, have all the air of authenticity, and suffice to compromise the Queen.'

In this discussion Mr Lang has carefully avoided some of the worst errors fallen into by M. Philippson and others, victims of obsolete and worn-out arguments, who are still convinced that the Casket Letters are proved unauthentic by the dates of one or two documents in the Register of the Privy Seal. The delusion will no doubt continue to find advocates for a long time to come, although Mr Hay Fleming's tabulation of all the Privy Seal entries, during the period of Mary's personal reign, ought to dispel it at once and for ever. While holding the lords responsible for the statements in Cecil's Diary, Mr Lang is too well up in local topography to condemn it, as M. Philippson has vigorously done, for placing Callender

House between Edinburgh and Glasgow. He has of course referred to the copies of the original French letters discovered in recent years, and frankly acknowledges that Mr T. F. Henderson has closed the controversy as to the language in which the letters were at first written. It may be pointed out, however, as an illustration of the dangers which beset the path of those who traverse this field, that he has erred somewhat seriously in trying to correct Froude for saying that the Casket Letters were long and minutely examined at Hampton Court on the 14th of December, 1568. He holds that there was not time for this, and, among other reasons, affirms that 'the whole voluminous proceedings at York and Westminster were read through.' He has been led into this error by his too implicit trust in Mr Bain's Calendar. Had he looked into Anderson or Goodall he would have found that the whole of those voluminous proceedings were not read through, but sommarely declared and repeated.' It is not without significance that Father Pollen, instead of giving an opinion on the authenticity of the Casket Letters, speaks of them as still sub judice. Unintentionally, perhaps, he corroborates one of Mr Lang's theories by pointing out that, in one of her undoubtedly genuine holograph letters, she misses a page, and after discovering her mistake, goes back without deleting the misplaced words. He is hardly justified in describing this long epistle to her uncle, the Duke of Guise, 'as an example of a genuine love-letter.'

If any proof were needed of the undying interest still excited by the Queen of Scots it may be found in the almost simultaneous issue of three such books as Father Pollen's, Mr Lang's, and Mr Cowan's, representing three types of mind, and three classes of work. Infinitely inferior to his rivals in literary power and mental grasp, Mr Cowan far excels in unswerving devotion and uncompromising loyalty to the fair and royal Mary. It is obvious, however, that Mr Lang's sympathies go with the Queen, though his judgment is against her; and even Father Pollen feels the spell of the woman described by Father Edmund as 'that sinner.'

Art. XII. PERSIA AND THE PERSIAN GULF.

1. Report on the Trade of the Persian Gulf, 1900. Diplomatic and Consular Reports. Annual series. London, 1901. (Cd 429: 89.)

2 Report on the Trade of Constantinople, 1899-1900. Dipl. and Cons. Reports. London, 1901. (Cd 429: 108.) 3. Report on the Trade of the Vilayets of Trebizond and Siras, 1900. Dipl. and Cons. Reports. (Cd 429: 46.) 4. Report on the Trade of Bussorah, 1900. Dipl. and Cons. Reports. London, 1901. (Cd 429 : 16.)

5. Report on the Trade of Baghdad, 1900. Dipl. and Cons. Reports. London, 1901.

SOME of the most important and most pressing questions with which the British Empire is at the present time confronted have reference to our position in the Persian Gulf and the adjacent countries. They are important, not only from the magnitude of the commercial interests involved, and from the expansion of which those interests are capable, but also because the advent of any European Great Power into a sphere which has hitherto been exclusively British cannot fail to be of concern to the rulers of India. Our neighbours in India, upon the west, are two Mussulman States in a state of decline; the case would be very different if the vast territories of Persia and Asiatic Turkey were exploited and perhaps, at no very distant date, appropriated by one or more of our amiable neighbours in Europe. These questions are also urgent, though it may be an exaggeration to say that the danger is immediate. We cannot credit the supposition that any British Government would consent, for instance, to the occupation by Russia in present circumstances of a port on the Persian Gulf. For the moment it is the shadows with which we have to deal; the events will follow if they be not anticipated. That their march has been rapid within the last few years, nobody acquainted with the subject will deny. It has been rapid, but it has been silent, scarcely ruffling the serenity of casual observers wholly absorbed in the problems of Africa.

The position of the British Government in relation to the Governments both of Turkey and of Persia can scarcely be described as enviable. Scarcely a day passes

but we lose ground. At a later stage of the present paper we shall examine in some detail the succession of events, so little known to the general public, to which are due the loss of our hold upon Persia. Our antagonist in this field -a watchful and adroit rival-is the Power which has recently given us more than one fall in China, to wit, the Empire of the Tsar. Persian finances have been placed under the influence of the great neighbour of the North. A substantial beginning has been made towards the Russification of the Persian army. The agreement preventing the construction of railways within the dominions of the Shah for a period of ten years, which was signed by Nasir-ed-Din Shah at the instance of Russia in 1890, will, if our diplomatists should be caught napping, probably be extended by his successor into an arrangement conferring exclusive rights upon our rival.

In regard to Turkey, the decline of our influence, and the stages by which it has proceeded, are in no need of recapitulation. There it is Germany that has stepped in to fill our former position of predominance; and she has accomplished more within a few years in the interests of German enterprise and industry than the British Govern ment in a corresponding number of decades. In the case of both these Mussulman States our diplomacy has been on the defensive-sullen, sulky, feigning an indifferenc which is becoming real.

Such is the situation; and it is scarcely surprising tha its dark side should have found some reflection in certai organs of the Press in England. We are invited-i spite of the bitterness of our experiences in China with similar overtures, both in the case of Germany and o Russia-to come to an 'understanding' with the statesme on the Neva. In the opinion of some of these publicists it is the German Empire that is our real rival, the Empir with the 'future on the water.' Germans are credite with the dream of an empire extending from the Bosporu to the Persian Gulf, and embracing territories in th enjoyment of an excellent climate, to which would b

6

* See especially a letter by Sir R. Blennerhassett in the Times' August 31st, two articles signed A. B. C., &c., in the National Review for November and December 1901, a paper by A Russian Diplomatisti the same journal, January 1902, and a recent series of articles by 'Calchas in the 'Fortnightly Review.'