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Of the person, and domestic life, of James V. the features are well known. His frame was of the middle size, and robust, capable of every exertion of agility or fatigue. In elegance of form and countenance he equalled any prince of his time. His oval face, blue eyes of piercing splendour, aquiline nose, yellow hair, and small beard forked in the fashion of that period, impressed the beholders with ideas of sweetness joined with majesty. In dress he was rather elegant than magnificent: yet his palaces were replete with decoration. The repast of a peasant he would share; and, even from a sumptuous board, the royal meal was plain and frugal; nor did he entrust his dignity to the intemperance of wine. Eminently patient he was of labour, of hunger and thirst, of heat and cold. His attachment to the arts was decided he reared palaces of good architecture; and composed some fugitive pieces of poetry, though it be doubtful if any have reached our times. He replenished his country with artillery and military weapons; and the beauty of his gold coins bespeaks his attention even to the minutest improvements, to be gained by the employment of foreign artists. The Scottish navy, ruined by Albany, began to resume some importance: and the subsequent voyage of James to the Orkneys and Hebrides, accompanied by men of skill, in order to examine the dangers and advantages of the circumjacent seas, will ever deserve the applause of the philosopher, as an enterprise equally rare and meritorious.

PINKERTON.

VOL. I.

U

MARY OF GUISE, WIDOW OF JAMES V, AMIDST this distress and inquietude, the queen dowager wasted with a lingering distemper, and with grief, expired in the castle of Edinburgh. Religious persecution, and a settled scheme to overturn the liberties of Scotland, while they rendered her administration odious and detestable, have obscured the lustre of her virtues. The treacherous views and policy of France serve to explain, but cannot excuse, the wickedness of the counsels she embraced, and her uniform practices of dissimulation. She allowed herself to be overcome and directed by the obstinacy of the duke of Guise, the unprincipled refinements of the cardinal of Lorraine, and the imperiousness of both. Misfortunes to herself and to Scotland were the cruel consequences of her facility and submission. If she had trusted to her own abilities, her government, it is probable, would have been distinguished by its popularity, and her name have been transmitted to posterity with unsullied honours. Humane and affectionate in her temper, it was naturally her wish to rule with a woman's gentleness. Her judgment was extensive, her mind vigorous. She could comprehend a system, and act upon it with undeviating exactness and unshaken fortitude. The inclination, character, and humours of her people were fully known to her. She could accommodate herself with ease to the Scottish manners; and the winning grace of her demeanour gave an aid and assistance to her address and penetration. In distributing justice she was impartial and

severe; and in her court she was careful to uphold the royal dignity. In private life she was civil, amiable, and magnificent. The propension to gallantry, which the example of her husband had promoted, was repressed by her decency and moderation. The excesses of that amorous monarch seem even to have induced her to adopt a more than common reserve and circumspection. Though a widow at an age when the soft passions have their full power, no suspicion was ever entertained of her chastity; and her maids of honour recommended themselves to her by modesty, piety, and virtue. Her various endowments, and the many excellent qualities which gave her distinction, excite a regret that she should have been disgraced so completely by a frail obsequiousness to French counsels. Yet for this fatal error it is some compensation that her repentance was severe and painful. A few days before her death, she invited to her the Duke of Chatelherault, the Lord James Stuart, and the Earls of Argyle, Glencairn, and Marishal, to bid them a last adieu. She expressed to them her sorrow for the troubles of Scotland, and made it her earnest suit that they would consult their constitutional liberties, by dismissing the French and English from their country; and that they would preserve a dutiful obedience to the queen their sovereign. She professed an unlimited forgiveness of the injuries which had been done to her; and entreated their pardon for the offences she had committed against them. In token of her kindness and charity, she then embraced them by turns; and while the tear started in her

eye, presented to them a cheerful and pleasing aspect. Her soul, melting with tenderness, and divesting itself of its prejudices, weaknesses, and hatreds, seemed to anticipate the purity of a better world. After this interview, the short portion of life which remained to her was dedicated to religion; and that she might allure the congregation to be compassionate to her popish subjects, and her French adherents, she flattered them, by calling John Willocks, one of the most popular of their preachers, to assist and comfort her by his exhortations and prayers. He made long discourses to her about the abominations of the mass; but she appears to have died in the communion of the Romish church; and her body being transported to France, was deposited in the monastery of St. Peter, at Rheims, in Champagne, where her sister Renée was an abbess.

GILBERT STUART.

HENRY STUART, LORD DARNLEY. THUS perished, in the twenty-first year of his age, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, a prince of high lineage. A fate so sudden, and so immature, excited a sympathy and sorrow which must have been lost in the consciousness of his imperfections, if he had fallen by the ravages of disease, or the stroke of time. The symmetry of his form recommended him to the most beautiful princess of Christendom; and her generosity and love placed him upon the throne of an ancient kingdom. But he neither knew how to enjoy

his prosperity nor to ensure it. His vices did not permit him to maintain the place he had won in her affection: and he was not entitled by his ability to hold the reins of government. He was seen to the greatest advantage in those games and sports which require activity and address. He rode with skill the warhorse, and was dexterous in hawking and the chase; but possessing no discernment of men, and no profoundness of policy, he was altogether unequal to direct an agitated monarchy, and to support the glory of his queen. Instead of acting to her protection and advantage, he encouraged her misfortunes and calamities. His imbecility laid him open to her enemies and his own. The excessive facility of his nature made him the dupe of the shallowest artifice; and while he was weakly credulous, he could not keep in concealment those secrets which most nearly concerned him. Driven into difficult situations by passion and imprudence, he was unable to extricate himself. Under the guidance of no regular principles, he was inconstant and capricious. His natural levity was prompted by his proneness to intemperance; and he was as much a stranger to decorum as to virtue. While he was not qualified for the cares of royalty, he was even unfit for the trappings of state, and those guarded and fastidious ceremonials which are so necessary to impose on the quickness of human reason, and to cover the infirmity and the nakedness of high station. His preposterous vanity and aspiring pride roused the resentment and the scorn of the nobles. His follies and want of dignity

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