reminded that Sydney Smith said exactly the same of women's achievements in literature; yet in fiction women have certainly since then shown that, if they cannot rival men, they can very nearly approach them. This, however, is not conclusive. The success of a novel depends very largely on power of observation; and in power of observation women excel. A great novel is not as great an instance of creative power as a great picture, a great symphony, or a great poem; and therefore the excellence of female novelists does not conclusively prove that women have the creative power as men have it. Mrs Browning, fine poet as she was, does not prove the contention either, for her greatest work is to be found in the 'Sonnets from the Portuguese,' poems purely of passion; and she is certainly deficient in the creative power which characterised her husband. The quality may, however, exist in an undeveloped condition, and may be ready to emerge when opportunity and education have raised all women to a higher level of capacity than they at present possess. Before it can be conclusively proved that women are deficient in creative force, many years of full opportunity and endeavour must have trained and developed the female sex.

Finally, if it be not too hazardous a suggestion, it is possible that women may never rival the highest achievments of men, and yet that they may be in no way inferior to them. For across the path of many women to fame there falls the barrier of the home, of wifehood, and possible motherhood. It is difficult to estimate how far this will always affect women; but it is more than possible that, even if they were in all ways intellectually equal to men, the home, the husband, and still more the children, would attract them more than the greatest positions in the world of art and letters. It is an instinct as old as humanity, sanctioned and sanctified by the highest example, glorified alike by nature and revelation. Those who fear that the opening of professions to women will turn them in any numbers from the longing for marriage and motherhood, might as well fear that the ebbing tide would not again flow.

It may thus be that what will hold women back is not the lack of intellectual power, which, properly developed and educated, would attain to a far higher level than it

has yet reached, but the presence of another faculty which exercises a dominating force over their nature. This faculty, which shows itself in the desire to love, in the desire for children, in the quick spiritual insight of women, in all the special qualities, physical, intellectual and moral which in their fulness belong to the ideal mother, will, it is probable-may we not say, it is to be hoped ?—always predominate. It may be that in the future, after years of opportunity and achievement, women will approach as near to Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Raphael as they have to Thackeray or Scott. Nevertheless, to our mind such an advance is unlikely, not because the capacity is absent, but because it will move in a different channel. In order to produce the creative faculty in women, the fullest development is needed; yet perhaps, when that development has been reached, the result will be not the realisation of great creative achievements, but the existence of a stronger, nobler race.

The nation will surely benefit, not by a limited and incapable womanhood, but by one whose faculties and powers are developed and cultivated. This development is desirable, not only in the interest of those women who must support themselves, but in the interest of the whole community, by whom the work and the special qualities of women are required. Nor need it be feared that any disruption of society or of family ties will ensue. Far from exalting family life, the belief that women are fit for nothing else actually lowers it by treating it as the occupation of those who are incapable of other work. On the other hand, if women, by their professional success, and by the high place which, as we have seen, they have taken in administrative work, can obtain the recognition of their intellectual equality with men, and if they then elect to make marriage and motherhood their chief aim in life, the home will take a higher position. It will rank with other professions, for there is in it scope for genius as well as for ordinary ability. It may be that, only when women who are the intellectual equals of men become the mothers of the race, will the nation attain to its highest power and development, and be able to take its place under the new conditions which, during the centuries to come, appear likely to prevail,

Art. XI.-NEW LIGHTS ON MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 1. Papal Negotiations with Mary Queen of Scots during her reign in Scotland, 1561-1567. Edited, from the original documents in the Vatican archives and elsewhere, by John Hungerford Pollen, S.J. Scottish History Society, 1901.

2. The Mystery of Mary Stuart. By Andrew Lang. Second edition. London: Longmans, 1901.

3. Mary Queen of Scots, and who wrote the Casket Letters? By Samuel Cowan, J.P. Two vols. London: Sampson Low, 1901.

4. Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots, 1547-1603. Vols. I, II-1547-1569. Edited by Joseph Bain: 1898, 1900.

5. Mary Queen of Scots, from her birth to her flight into England. By David Hay Fleming. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1897.

6. A Bibliography of Works relating to Mary Queen of Scots, 1544-1700. By John Scott, C.B. Edinburgh

Bibliographical Society, 1896.

7. Palaces, Prisons, and Resting-places of Mary, Queen of Scots. By M. M. Shoemaker. Revised by T. A. Croal, F.S.A. (Scot.). London: Virtue, 1902.

THE remarkable interest which has so long been manifested in the story of Mary Stuart is due, not only to the personal qualities and charm of the woman, to the mingled elements of romance and tragedy in her life, to her resolute courage and bearing in the face of death, but also to the uncertainty which has shrouded many of her acts and motives in mystery. The keenness of the interest, from her own time onwards, is strikingly illustrated by Mr Scott's Bibliography, which, although ending with the seventeenth century, contains the titles of two hundred and eighty-nine works relating to her. Had the list been continued to the present time the number would have been legion. From her birth to her execution there is hardly an incident in her career which has not been the subject of prolonged discussion and minute enquiry. After more than three centuries of such discussion and enquiry, an amazing number of points survive on which contradictory opinions are still ardently held, and not a few

which historical students candidly confess that they can only speak with dubiety.

The supply of fresh documents concerning the Queen of Scots seems to be practically inexhaustible; but its value, of course, varies greatly. Some of it, exceedingly interesting from an antiquarian point of view, or as illustrative of the manners and customs of the period, yields little or no help to those who are heroically attacking the more important problems which have long proved insoluble. But, in such a complicated subject, one must be thankful for any documents which clear up an obscure point, explain a minor difficulty, or somewhat simplify a greater. The new light which some of these have afforded has occasionally changed the line of discussion, and has rendered obsolete vast quantities of elaborate and ingenious arguments once deemed of the greatest consequence.

Of the works whose titles are given at the head of this article, none can compare with Mr Bain's Calendar for the number of documents bearing on Mary and her reign. It is true that most of these documents were previously more or less known through earlier calendars and otherwise; but Mr Bain's summaries are of special value because of their fullness and their retention of the original phraseology. Students of the period were already under a deep obligation to Mr Bain for the Hamilton Papers, and would therefore be inclined to look with a lenient eye on a few minor slips in his Calendar-occasional slips which, in such a work, are hardly to be avoided even by the most careful and painstaking editor. Their gratitude, however, for the Calendar will be tempered by profound regret for his unacknowledged and unaccountable omissions. These omissions are both numerous and important. Of the Conway Papers alone, he ignores more than a hundred between the 10th of September, 1565, and the 9th of November, 1567, that is, in a period of little more than two years ! All these excluded documents relate to Scottish affairs, and most of them to the Queen of Scots. Among them are seven of Elizabeth's letters, seven of Leicester's, sixty-nine of Bedford's, and others by Throckmorton, Cecil, Scrope, Drury, Randolph, Lethington, James Melville, and Robert Melville. In Mr Hay Fleming's brief Biography, thirty documents are

printed for the first time, including the letter Mary wrote to her mother on the day she married the Dauphin, the remissions for the Riccio murder, and the inventory of the Queen's baggage sent to her from Loch Leven immediately after her escape.

Of the four works on Queen Mary issued last autumn, Father Pollen's stands first in merit and importance. His industry, perseverance, scholarship, and judgment are worthy of all praise. Even if he had merely given the bare text of the two hundred and fifty-nine documents, which he claims to have published for the first time, he would have done well; but he has added translations and notes, and, above all, an introduction, which is clear, comprehensive, and judicious. In his 'Mystery of Mary Stuart,' Mr Lang has published a few extracts from the Cambridge MSS., which he calls the Lennox Papers. The distinguishing features of his book, however, are the vivid writing of the earlier portions, and the ingenious-if occasionally inconclusive-reasoning of the later chapters. Mr Cowan professes to print a number of hitherto unpublished documents, but several of them have already appeared in well-known books. The collation of his documents does not impress one with his fitness for record work or his love of accuracy. His logical capacity is by no means conspicuous, and his style is sometimes almost childish in its simplicity. The work, indeed, is of no literary or critical value. The handsome volume issued by Messrs Virtue does not pretend to throw any fresh light on Mary's history, and treats the Queen as incapable of wrong-doing. Its value consists solely in its illustrations, which are abundant and interesting.

The main object of this article is to indicate the results of recent research and criticism on several of the more important personal problems of Mary's reign.

Few have questioned the sincerity of her acceptance of the distinctive dogmas of her church or of its polity; yet there is, and always has been, room for differences of opinion as to the depth of her conviction and the precise extent of her ecclesiastical zeal. Was the influence which these exercised upon her supreme or secondary? Was it occasional or continuous? Such questions may be best answered by considering a few facts.