The last is an historical collection of the direct | or positive evidence still on record, tending to show what part the earls of Murray and Morton, and secretary Lethington, had in the murder of the lord Darnley.

The author apologizes for the length of this book, by observing, that it necessarily comprises a great number of particulars, which could not easily be contracted: the same plea may be made for the imperfection of our extract, which will naturally fall below the force of the book, because we can only select parts of that evidence, which owes its strength to its concatenation, and which will be weakened whenever it is disjoined.

The account of the seizure of these controverted letters is thus given by the queen's enemies: "That in the castell of Edinburgh thair was left be the Erle of Bothwell, before his fleeing away, and was send for be ane George Dalgleish, his servand, who was taken be the Erle of Mortoun, ane small gylt coffer, not fully ane fute lang, garnisht in sindrie places with the Roman letter F. under ane king's crowne: wharin were certane letteris and writings weel knawin, and be aithis to be affirmit to have been written with the Quene of Scottis awn hand to the Erle."

The papers in the box were said to be eight letters in French, some love sonnets in French also, and a promise of marriage by the Queen to Bothwell.

To the reality of these letters our author makes some considerable objections, from the nature of things; but as such arguments do not always convince, we will pass to the evidence of facts.

On June 15th, 1567, the queen delivered herself to Morton, and his party, who imprisoned her.

June 20th, 1567, Dalgleish was seized, and six days after he was examined by Morton; his examination is still extant, and there is no mention of this fatal box.

December 4th, 1567, Murray's secret council published an act, in which is the first mention of these letters, and in which they are said to be written and subscrivit with her awin hand. Ten days after Murray's first parliament met, and passed an act, in which they mention previe letters written halelie [wholly] with her awin hand. The difference between written and subscribed, and wholly written, gives the author just reason to suspect, first, a forgery, and then a variation of the forgery. It is indeed very remarkable, that the first account asserts more than the second, though the second contains all the truth; for the letters, whether written by the queen or not, were not subscribed. Had the second account differed from the first only by something added, the first might have contained truth, though not all the truth; but as the second corrects the first by diminution, the first cannot be cleared from falsehood.

In October, 1568, these letters were shown at York to Elizabeth's commissioners, by the agents of Murray, but not in their public character as commissioners, but by way of private information, and were not therefore exposed to Mary's commissioners. Mary, however, hearing that some letters were intended to be produced against her, directed her commissioners to require them for her inspection, and in the mean

time, to declare them false and feigned, jorged and invented, observing that there were many that could counterfeit her hand.

To counterfeit a name is easy, to counterfeit a hand through eight letters very difficult. But it does not appear that the letters were ever shown to those who would desire to detect them; and to the English commissioners a rude and remote imitation might be sufficient, since they were not shown as judicial proofs, and why they were not shown as proof, no other reason can be given than they must have then been examined, and that examination would have detected the forgery.

These letters, thus timorously and suspiciously communicated, were all the evidence against Mary; for the servants of Bothwell, executed for the murder of the king, acquitted the queen at the hour of death. These letters were so necessary to Murray, that he alleges them as the reason of the queen's imprisonment, though he imprisoned her on the 16th, and pretended not to have intercepted the letters before the 20th of June.

Of these letters, on which the fate of princes and kingdoms was suspended, the authority should have been put out of doubt; yet that such letters were ever found, there is no witness but Morton, who accused the queen, and Crawford, a dependent on Lennox, another of her accusers. Dalgleish, the bearer, was hanged without any interrogatories concerning them; and Hulet, mentioned in them, though then in prison, was never called to anthenticate them, nor was his confession produced against Mary till death had left him no power to disown it.

Elizabeth, indeed, was easily satisfied; she declared herself ready to receive the proofs against Mary, and absolutely refused Mary the liberty of confronting her accusers, and making her defence. Before such a judge, a very little proof would be sufficient. She gave the accusers of Mary leave to go to Scotland, and the box and letters were seen no more. They have been since lost, and the discovery, which comparison of writing might have made, is now no longer possible. Hume has, however, endeavoured to palliate the conduct of Elizabeth, but his account, says our author, is contradicted almost in every sentence by the records, which, it appears, he has himself perused.

In the next part, the authenticity of the letters is examined; and it seems to be proved beyond contradiction, that the French letters, supposed to have been written by Mary, are translated from the Scotch copy, and, if originals, which it was so much the interest of such numbers to preserve are wanting, it is much more likely that they never existed, than that they have been lost.

The arguments used by Dr. Robertson, to prove the genuineness of the letters, are next examined. Robertson makes use principally of what he calls the internal evidence, which, amounting at most to conjecture, is opposed by conjecture equally probable.

In examining the confession of Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, this new apologist of Mary seems to gain ground upon her accuser. Paris is mentioned in the letters, as the bearer of them to Bothwell; when the rest of Bothwell's servants were executed, clearing the queen in the last moment, Paris, instead of suffering

his trial with the rest at Edinburgh, was con- | of every formality requisite in a judicial evidence. veyed to St. Andrew's, where Murray was abso- In what dark corner, then, this strange produclute, put into a dungeon of Murray's citadel, and tion was generated, our author may endeavour to two years after condeinned by Murray himself find out, if he can. nobody knew how. Several months after his death, a confession in his name, without the regular testifications, was sent to Cecil, at what exact time nobody can tell.

Of this confession, Lesly, Bishop of Ross, openly denied the genuineness, in a book printed at London, and suppressed by Elizabeth; and another historian of that time declares, that Paris died without any confession; and the confession itself was never shown to Mary, or to Mary's commissioners. The author makes this reflection:—

"As to his second assertion, that it was regularly and judicially given in, and therefore ought to have been canvassed by Mary during the conferences, we have already seen that this likewise is not fact: the conferences broke up in February, 1569: Nicholas Hubert was not hanged till August thereafter, and his dying confession, as Mr. Hume calls it, is only dated the 10th of that month. How then can this gentleman gravely tell us, that this confession was judicially given in, and ought to have been at that very time canvassed by queen Mary, and her commissioners? Such positive assertions, apparently contrary to fact, are unworthy the character of an h storian, and may very justly render his decision, with respect to evidences of a higher nature, very dubious. In answer then to Mr. Hume: As the queen's accusers did not choose to produce this material witness, Paris, whom they had alive, and in their hands, nor any declaration or confession from him at the critical and proper time for having it canvassed by the queen, I apprehend our author's conclusion may fairly be used against himse.f; that it is in vain at present to support the improbabilities and absurdities in a confession, taken in a clandestine way, nobody knows how; and produced after Paris's death, by nobody knows whom; and from every appearance destitute of every formality requisite and common to such sort of evidence: for these reasons, I am under no sort of hesitation to give sentence against Nicholas Hubert's confession, as a gross imposture and forgery."

"From the violent presumptions that arise from their carrying this poor ignorant stranger from Edinburgh, the ordinary seat of justice; their keeping him hid from all the world, in a remote dungeon, and not producing him with their other evidences, so as he might have been publicly questioned; the positive and direct testimony of the author of Crawfurd's manuscript, then living, and on the spot at the time; with the public affirmation of the Bishop of Ross at the time of Paris's death, that he had vindicated the queen with his dying breath; the behaviour of Murray, Morton, Buchanan, and even of Hay, the attester of this pretended confession, on that occasion; their close and reserved silence at the time when they must have had this confession of Paris in their pocket; and their publishing every other circumstance that could tend to blacken the queen, and yet omitting this confession, the only direct evidence of her supposed guilt; all this duly and dispassionately considered, I think one may safely conclude, that was judged not fit to expose so soon to light this piece of evidence against the queen: which a cloud of witnesses, living, and present Morton affirms that they were taken in the at Paris's execution, would surely have given hands of Dalgleish. The examination of Dalclear testimony against, as a notorious impos-gleish is still extant, and he appears never to have been once interrogated concerning the letters.

ture."

Mr. Hume, indeed, observes, "It is in vain at present to seek for improbabilities in Nicholas Hubert's dying confession, and to magnify the smallest difficulties into a contradiction. It was certainly a regular judicial paper, given in regularly and judicially, and ought to have been canvassed at the time, if the persons whom it concerned, had been assured of their innocence." -To which our author makes a reply, which cannot be shortened without weakening it.

"Upon what does this author ground his sentence? Upon two very plain reasons, first, That the confession was a judicial one, that is, taken in presence, or by authority of a judge. And secondly, That it was regularly and judicially given in; that must be understood during the time of the conferences before queen Elizabeth and her council, in presence of Mary's commissioners; at which time she ought to have canvassed it, says our author, if she knew her in

nocence.

"That it was not a judicial confession, is evident; the paper itself does not bear any such mark; nor does it mention that it was taken in presence of any person, or by any authority whatsoever; and, by comparing it with the judicial examinations of Dalgleish, Hay, and Hepburn, it is apparent, that it is destitute

The state of the evidence relating to the letters is this :

Morton and Murray affirm that they were written by the queen's hand; they were carefully concealed from Mary and her commissioners, and were never collated by one man, who could desire to disprove them.

Several of the incidents mentioned in the letters are confirmed by the oath of Crawfurd, one of Lennox's defendants, and some of the incidents are so minute, as that they could scarcely be thought on by a forger. Črawfurd's testimony is not without suspicion. Whoever practises forgery, endeavours to make truth the vehi cle of falsehood. Of a prince's life very minute incidents are known; and if any are too slight to be remarked, they may be safely feigned, for they are likewise too slight to be contradicted. But there are still more reasons for doubting the genuineness of these letters. They had no date of time or place, no seal, no direction, no superscription.

The only evidences that could prove their authenticity were Dalgleish and Paris, of which Dalgleish, at his trial, was never questioned about them; Paris was never publi ly tried, though he was kept alive through the time of the conference.

The servants of Bothwell, who were put to

death for the king's murder, cleared Mary with | turies have been considered as originals, by the their last words. enemies of Mary's memory, are now discovered The letters were first declared to be sub- to be forgeries, and acknowledged to be transscribed, and were then produced without sub-lations, and, perhaps, French translations of a scription. Latin translation. And the modern accusers of Mary are forced to infer from these letters, which now exist, that other letters existed formerly, which have been lost in spite of curiosity, malice, and interest.

They were shown during the conferences at York privately to the English commissioners, but were concealed from the commissioners of Mary.

Mary always solicited the perusal of these letters, and was always denied it.

The rest of this treatise is employed in an endeavour to prove, that Mary's accusers were the She demanded to be heard in person by Eliza-murderers of Darnley: through this inquiry it beth, before the nobles of England, and the ambassadors of other princes, and was refused. When Mary persisted in demanding copies of the letters, her commissioners were dismissed with their box to Scotland, and the letters were

seen no more.

The French letters, which for almost two cen

is not necessary to follow him; only let it be observed, that, if these letters were forged by them, they may easily be thought capable of other crimes. That the letters were forged, is now made so probable, that perhaps they will never more be cited as testimonies.

78

A JOURNEY

TO THE

WESTERN ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND

I HAD desired to visit the Hebrides, or West- [affords a southern stranger a new kind of pleaern Islands of Scotland, so long, that I scarcely sure to travel so commodiously without interremember how the wish was originally excited; ruption of tollgates. Where the bottom is rocky, and was in the Autumn of the year 1773 in- as it seems commonly to be in Scotland, duced to undertake the journey, by finding in smooth way is made indeed with great labour, Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness but it never wants repairs; and in those parts would help my inquiry, and whose gayety of con- where adventitious materials are necessary, the versation and civility of manners are sufficient ground once consolidated is rarely broken: for to counteract the inconveniences of travel, in the inland commerce is not great, nor are heavy countries less hospitable than we have passed. commodities often transported otherwise than by water. The carriages in common use are small carts, drawn each by one little horse; and a man seems to derive some degree of dignity and importance from the reputation of possessing a two-horse cart.

As we crossed the Frith of Forth, our curiosity was attracted by Inch Keith, a small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited, though, lying within their view, it had all their lives solicited their notice. Here by climbing with some difficulty over shattered crags, we made the first experiment of unfrequented coasts. Inch Keith is nothing more than a rock covered We found, that by the interposition of some with a thin layer of earth, not wholly bare of invisible friend, lodgings had been provided for grass, and very fertile of thistles. A small herd us at the house of one of the professors, whose of cows grazes annually upon it in the summer.easy civility quickly made us forget that we It seems never to have afforded to man or beast a permanent habitation.

academical education be very reasonably objected. A student of the highest class may keep his annual session, or as the English call it, his term, which lasts seven months, for about fifteen pounds, and one of lower rank for less than ten, in which board, lodging, and instruction are all included.

vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthu- | present professors; nor can the expense of an siasm, compounded of sullen scrupulousness and warlike ferocity, which in a people whom idleness resigned to their own thoughts, and who, conversing only with each other, suffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in its full strength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourse with England, is now visibly abating, and giving way too fast to that laxity of practice, and indifference of opinion, in which men, not sufficiently instructed to find the mid-monly the title of Lord Rector; but being ads dle point, too easily shelter themselves from rigour and constraint.

The city of St. Andrews, when it had lost its archiepiscopal pre-eminence, gradually decayed: one if its streets is now lost; and in those that remain, there is the silence and solitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation.

The chief magistrate resident in the university, answering to our vice-chancellor, and to the rector magnificus on the continent, had com

dressed only as Mr. Rector in an inauguratory speech by the present chancellor, he has fallen from his former dignity of style. Lordship was very liberally annexed by our ancestors to any station or character of dignity: they said, the Lord General, and Lord Ambassador; so we still say, my Lord, to the judge upon the circuit, and yet retain in our Liturgy, the Lords of the Council.

The university, within a few years, consisted of three colleges, but is now reduced to two; the college of St Leonard being lately dissolved by In walking among the ruins of religious the sale of its buildings, and the appropriation of buildings, we came to two vaults over which had its revenues to the professors of the two others. formerly stood the house of the sub-prior. One The chapel of the alienated college is yet stand- of the vaults was inhabited by an old woman, ing, a fabric not inelegant of external structure: who claimed the right of abode there, as the but I was always, by some civil excuse, hin- widow of a man whose ancestors had possessed dered from entering it. A decent attempt, as I the same gloomy mansion for no less than four was since told, has been made to convert it into generations. The right, however it began, was a kind of greenhouse, by planting its area with considered as established by legal prescription, shrubs. This new method of gardening is un- and the old woman lives undisturbed. successful; the plants do not hitherto prosper. thinks however that she has a claim to someTo what use it will next be put, I have no plea-thing more than sufferance; for as her husband's sure in conjecturing. It is something, that its present state is at least not ostentatiously displayed. Where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue.

The dissolution of St. Leonard's College was doubtless necessary; but of that necessity there is reason to complain. It is surely not without just reproach that a nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth increasing, denies any participation of its prosperity to its literary societies; and while its merchants or its nobles are raising palaces, suffers its universities to moulder into dust.

She

name was Bruce, she is allied to royalty, and told Mr. Boswell, that when there were persons of quality in the place, she was distinguished by some notice; that indeed she is now neglected, but she spins a thread, has the company of a cat, and is troublesome to nobody.

Having now seen whatever this ancient city offered to our curiosity, we left it with good wishes, having reason to be highly pleased with the attention that was paid us. But whoever surveys the world, must see many things that give him pain. The kindness of the professors did not contribute to abate the uneasy remembrance of a university declining, a college alienated, and a church profaned and hastening to the ground.

Of the two colleges yet standing, one is by the institution of its founder appropriated to divinity. It is said to be capable of containing fifty students; but more than one must occupy St. Andrews indeed has formerly suffered a chamber. The library, which is of late erec- more atrocious ravages, and more extensive detion, is not very spacious, but elegant and lumi-struction; but recent evils affect with greater

nous.

The doctor, by whom it was shown, hoped to irritate or subdue my English vanity, by telling me, that we had no such repository of books in England.

St. Andrews seems to be a place eminently adapted to study and education, being situated in a populous, yet a cheap country, and exposing the minds and manners of young men neither to the levity and dissoluteness of a capital city, nor to the gross luxury of a town of commerce, places naturally unpropitious to learning; in one the desire of knowledge easily gives way to the love of pleasure, and in the other, is in danger of yielding to the love of money.

The students however are represented as at this time not exceeding a hundred. Perhaps it may be some obstruction to their increase that there is no episcopal chapel in the place. I saw no reason for imputing their paucity to the

force. We were reconciled to the sight of archiepiscopal ruins. The distance of a calanuty from the present time seems to preclude the mind from contact or sympathy. Events long past are barely known; they are not considered. We read with as little emotion the violence of Knox and his followers, as the irruptions of Alaric and the Goths. Had the university been destroyed two centuries ago, we should not have regretted it; but to see it pining in decay, and struggling for life, fills the mind with mournful images and ineffectual wishes.

ABERBROTHICK.

As we knew sorrow and wishes to be vain, it was now our business to mind our way. Tha roads of Scotland afford little diversion to the traveller, who seldom sees himself either en countered or overtaken, and who has nothing to contemplate but grounds that have no visible