lations on moral theories, and on schools of ancient and modern thought, become immoral trifling, bewildering to the reason and deadening to the heart." Conscience, however, is not always, it seems, equal to its responsibilities. "When the brightness and beauty of a high moral standard has dawned on the feeble and tempted spirit, the first impulses of awakened thought need to be sustained by prayer for Divine help, and the hand to be stretched out eagerly, to meet the proffered succour of heavenly grace." None the less it is in the main to be trusted. "All human standards of weight and time and measure imply a deeper law or fact of nature on which they depend. And human conscience, in like manner, in all its diversities and partial. errors, points upward silently to a law of eternal and unchanging righteousness, whose seat is the bosom of God, and whose voice is the harmony of the world, the music of the celestial spheres." Now, we are not exaggerating when we say that this is all that the Rev. Rawson Birks, Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge, has to tell us about "conscience." And very little it is. Nor does Mr. Birks appear to better advantage as a controversialist. To Mr. Herbert Spencer's 'Psychology,' a work of some value, we should say, he refers obiter, and in the midst of some of his own flowers, as containing "modern theories for manufacturing some miserable semblance of a conscience out of the transmuted instincts of the ape or baboon." And upon Mansel, who, at any rate, knew what he lectured about, our Professor is equally severe. "The doctrine, lately taught by some eminent writers, that nothing can be known of God and His moral nature, because He is an infinite Being, is directly opposed to the whole scope and aim of the Christian revelation. Its effect, whenever consistently held, must be to destroy all Theology and all Ethical Science at one common blow. In the hasty recoil from speculative theories of religion, the rivals and substitutes of Christian faith, it would plunge the world and the whole church into a gulf of hopeless darkness. But the view is not more opposed to the teaching of Scripture than to the voice of conscience and sound reason. All truth is so closely linked together, that a fatal necessity of entire ignorance in any one field of thought must extend its influence, like a mist of gloom and obscurity, to all the rest. If we know nothing at all on any subject of which our knowledge is not exhaustive or complete, no person or thing in the wide universe can ever be really known." sophy as this. What would happen to a Mr. Birks has mistaken his vocation. He Moral Philosophy are no mere gas-lights of earth. Such rubbish-for rubbish it is-is little ing. study and reflection of so many years." In It is perfectly fair to judge of a Professor by his published lectures. They challenge comment. Who then, we ask in all humility, is responsible for the election to the Knightbridge Professorship? Who tempted Mr. Birks out of the parish pulpit, which his style is so well fitted to grace, into the chair, for which he appears to be about as well qualified now as he was "just forty years ago"? LANCASHIRE. Lancashire Worthies. By Francis Espinasse. (Simpkin & Marshall.) MR. ESPINASSE has compiled an interesting volume, and has honestly recorded all his authorities. We are at a loss, however, to discover on what principle his selection of worthies has been made. His volume contains thirteen biographical sketches. Lancashire can furnish thrice the number. If Mr. Espinasse could not include all, he might certainly have made a better selection. What, for instance, has Barton Booth, the player, to do in this company? What connexion had he with Lancashire? What did he achieve for the public good to make the county proud of him? Booth was a Lancashire man, it Let us suppose a young unattached seems; but he early left the county, and there student at Oxford, reading for honours, and is no proof that he ever returned to it. Into whom every shilling has its value. He tended for the Church, he became an actor. hears that the Knightbridge Professor of He was a good one. He was the original, and, Moral Philosophy in the University of Cam- perhaps, unequalled representative of Addison's bridge has published a volume of lectures on Cato. He married the Santlow who had been the First Principles of Moral Science,' and the mistress of Marlborough and of Craig; he invests 8s. 6d. in the purchase of it. All and he had many social qualities. He loved that can be said is, that he will have been good wine and rich dishes, and he died comparacruelly disappointed. tively early. It would be as reasonable to include Edmund Kean among the worthies of Middlesex as to enrol Barton Booth among the worthies of Lancashire. We should like, moreover, to know by what process Barton "ancestor of Wilks Booth is set down as an Booth who shot President Lincoln. Kean used to say that he, Edmund, belonged to the ducal house of Norfolk. 66 Mr. Birks announces that he intends, in the course of the present year, to deal with "Controversial Ethics" by a review, first, of Modern Utilitarianism, as expounded by Paley and Bentham, and recast by Mr. Mill into a different form; and next, of modern Cambridge Ethics, represented by the Discourse of Prof. Sedgwick and the writings of my three eminent predecessors." If he is as We tried for fully ten minutes to under- good as his word, he will first have to read a stand what it was that Mr. Birks intended to few books bearing upon ethical questions. convey by this last sentence, and we recom- This is matter of congratulation, as at present mend the attempt to those who have time to the Professor appears to entertain precisely waste, and are fond of conundrums. Our the same ideas upon ethical questions as efforts to grasp Mr. Birks's proof of the those he held when, "just forty years ago," proposition that "morals are a progressive he delivered, in Trinity College Chapel, the science" were more satisfactory. Man, it "college essay or declamation," appended to seems, was created at first "in the image of the present volume. Of this opus magnum God"; ergo, he has "moral capacities." It he placidly observes :-"I believe that the has been written "woe to them that call evil thoughts it contains, however youthful the good, and good evil"; ergo, he was intended style, are seasonable and important at the to use them. It has also been written, "to present hour. They secured at the time a him that hath shall be given, and he shall have favourable notice from Dr. Chalmers and more abundance; but from him that hath not some other distinguished men. But I reproshall be taken away even that he hath," ergo, duce them here for a double reason. They by the use of his moral faculties man gets more are a pledge that the views held in the preand more moral from day to day. Ergo, "morals sent volume, and others which may follow, are a progressive science." Q.E.D. We hardly are no hasty product of recent study, but concare to say what we think of such moral philo-victions only formed and deepened by all the We no less object to the two Stanleys, the first and the seventh Earls of Derby, being enrolled among the especial worthies of Lancashire. The first Earl (Lord Stanley) and his brother Sir William, when the question of dominion in England lay between York and Lancaster, thought only of themselves, and nothing at all for their country. They saw virtue only on the winning side, and had in them none of the sentiment which prefers to support the losing cause. By wavering, which was treachery, by shifting and shuffling, and meanness, the Stanley of Richard and Richmond days won domains and a peerage, above all his fellows in dexterous instability. Richard lost Bosworth Field by the villainy of a Stanley (Sir William, brother of the peer), whose desertion to Richmond transferred the crown to a king of a darker character than Richard. Well might Catesby, in the will he wrote just before his execution, pen this cry of anguish :-"My Lord Stanley, Strange, and all that blood! help and pray for my soul! for ye have not for my body, as I trusted in you!" Sir William Stanley got small thanks for the rush he made from Richard's to Richmond's side at Bosworth. Having manifested sympathy for Perkin Warbeck, and possessing wealth which Henry the Seventh coveted, William Stanley was tried and put to death, 1495. Henry had come to the conclusion that William was a traitor, and, as Bacon says, "that at Bosworth Field, though he came time enough to save his (Henry's) life, yet he stayed long enough to endanger it." The execution of William Stanley did not diminish the calculating loyalty of his brother, the first Earl of Derby. The Earl's will (he died 1504) may yet be read, in which he bequeaths "to my Lord the King a cup of gold; and I pray him to be a good Lord to my son, and to the performance of my will, as I shall have been a true servant." The son, George Stanley, Lord Strange, died in his father's lifetime, 1497, and the Earl was succeeded by his grandson. It is quite clear that neither York nor Lancaster could put the slightest trust in a Stanley. There is more ground for enrolling James Stanley, seventh Earl of Derby, among these Worthies, than the first Earl. He is best known for his zeal in upholding the cause of Charles the First, and of royalty generally. As a soldier, for his splendid victory at Wigan, where, with 600 cavalry, he defeated Lilburne, and that Colonel's 3,000 horse, he merits the highest praise. His hard fate, after his capture at Worcester, where promise of quarter was made, in spite of which he was beheaded, will always secure for him the sympathy of those who can respect men who, notwithstanding cruel destiny, meet their fate with noble dignity. Between the first and the seventh Earl there were but two of any note, and they were not of great merit. Edward (third Earl) married his daughter to the Lord Stourton, who was justly hanged for a cowardly murder. Ferdinando (fifth Earl) is supposed to have been bewitched. In the Harleian MSS. there is a record which says:- "10 April, 1594, about midnight was found in his Honour's bed-chamber, by one Mr. Halsall, an image of wax, with hair like unto the hair of his Honour's head, twisted through the belly thereof..... This image was hastily cast into the fire by Mr. Halsall, before it was viewed, because he thought by burning the same he should relieve my Lord from witchcraft, and burn the witch who so much tormented his Honour; but it fell out contrary to his love and affection, for after the melting thereof his Honour more and more declined." And after his honour's death, without male heirs, his Countess fought fiercely for her daughters' rights against his brother and successor, not for the Earldom, but the baronies that had gone with it previously; and she succeeded in carrying off for those ladies the baronies of Strange, of Mohun, Barnewell, Bassett, and Lacy; and might have carried off the sovereignty of the Isle of Man, it is said, but that she sold it for money. This sovereignty, however, was certainly held by Baron Strange (Duke of Athol), who in the reign of George the Third sold all his sovereign rights for a very modest sum. This was done in 1765. The sovereignty was sold for 70,000l.; for certain sacrifices of revenue from estates, &c., Baron Strange obtained about 133,000l. more. Fancy obtaining the first-named sum for giving up the right of hanging men, and making yourself exceedingly disagreeable by levying taxes! The brother and successor of Earl Ferdinando was a scholar and a traveller. Earl William was perhaps a little sulky over the loss of the baronies, for he shut himself up and left his son to manage the estates, and other people to write songs upon him. That son was the seventh Earl James, the great Royalist. When he first appeared in public as a determined supporter of monarchy, he found a determined opponent in his cousin, Sir Thomas Stanley, who advocated Puritanism and popular government. It is a common thing to hear the present Earl spoken of as being descended from the "Royalist martyr," but the present Earl of Derby is lineally descended from the above Sir Thomas, great ultra-Radical of those revolutionary times. The life of the seventh Earl is a chapter in the history of England; but there are domestic details and social features connected with it which give it a certain amount of interest. The late minister, Earl of Derby, was seventh in descent from the seventh Stanley, who had borne the title of Earl, and who was beheaded for sticking to his Royalist principles at Bolton. The late Earl, we know not wherefore, had a particular regard for the butchers of Preston, who, indeed, are said to have always been staunch supporters of the Stanleys. As late as 1865, the Earl and Countess received at Knowsley three hundred Preston butchers, masters, men, and the wives of such as were married. The guests were treated to dinner and tea. Why this especial friendly relation should be kept up between the Stanleys and the "fleshers" is a question we cannot solve. The late Earl, however, is said to have had a reason for everything, and we may presume there are very good grounds for the favour from time to time shown by his house to the butchers. Some of the wealth of the Stanleys, confiscated in the Commonwealth days, has gone in strange directions. Thus, the Hawarden estate in Flintshire fell into the hands of "rascal Glyn," who had no more principle than the Stanleys of the Bosworth days. The estate is still in the hands of a descendent of the famous, or infamous, Serjeant Glyn, namely Sir Stephen Glynne, Bart. The sister of Sir Stephen married Mr. Gladstone, and the old possession of the Earls of Derby is now the country-seat of the Prime Minister of England. The other worthies contained in this volume are, first, Oldham, better remembered as founder of the Manchester Grammar School than as Bishop of Exeter (1504-19). He was a munificent man, who died poor. "Unlike some modern bishops," says Mr. Espinasse, "the founder of the Manchester Free Grammar School and benefactor of Corpus had evidently no ground for anticipating that his personalty would be sworn under any very large sum. Next comes worthy John Bradford, the martyr, son of gentle parents, born in Manchester, and who, in the Marian persecution, "endured the flame" (in Smithfield) "as a fresh gale of wind in a hot summer's day." Not least among the "Lancashire Worthies" figures Jeremiah Horrocks, the poor, studious parson of Hoole, who discovered, in October, 1639, what had escaped the sharp scrutiny of Kepler, that on the 24th of the following month there would be a transit of Veuus over the sun's disc. Under what circumstances Horrocks witnessed the phenomenon is thus capitally told :: "As the time drew nigh, Horrocks was all anxiety and expectation, and, to make assurance doubly sure, he began to watch on the forenoon of the 23rd. His simple apparatus was a telescope adjusted to an aperture made in a darkened room, so that the image of the sun should fall perpendicularly on, and exactly fill, a circle of about six inches inscribed on a piece of paper, and divided into the usual 360 degrees. In his interesting little Latin tract, the Venus in sole visa, overflowing with a beautiful enthusiasm, a poetry and genuine devoutness, which give it a singular charm, Horrocks has described what was seen, or at least observed, by no eyes but his own and Crabtree's. From noon on the 23rd, so long as the sun was above the horizon, he watched for four and twenty hours with only one, and that one a significant, intermission. In 1639, the 24th of November fell on a Sunday, and he describes himself as watching on that day from sunrise to nine o'clock, and also from a little before ten until noon, and at one in the afternoon, being called away in the intervals to matters of greater importance, which for such secondary occupations it would have certainly been improper to neglect (aliis temporibus ad majora avocatus quæ utique ob hæc parerga negligi non decuit).' In point of fact the Rev. Jeremiah Horrocks had to perform morning and afternoon service to his simple and scanty and, for once in his life, it may be suspected, he flock in the modest church or chapel at Hoole ; was a little a very little-glad when both were over, and he could rush back to his darkened room, with its telescope and disc of paper. fifteen minutes past three in the afternoon, when I first had leisure again to renew my observations, the clouds were entirely dispersed, and invited afforded, it might seem by the interposition of my willing self to make use of the opportunity heaven. When lo! I beheld a most delightful spectacle, the object of so many wishes: a new spot of unusual magnitude, and of a perfectly circular shape, so completely entering the left limb of the sun that the limbs of the sun and the spot Not doubting that this was really the shadow of precisely coincided, forming an angle of contact. Venus, I immediately set to work to observe it sedulously.' The happy Horrocks was rewarded, and for half an hour, until the sun began to set, he made his unique and fruitful observations." 'At Humphrey Chetham is, of course, in this roll of men of whom Lancashire is proud, "to remind merchant and manufacturer that nearly the first Manchester trader of any note was also one of the most generous and thoughtful benefactors of the city where his fortune was made." In another way, Cromwell's MajorGeneral Worsley is not undeserving of mention. He was a Manchester linendraper's son, was the first M.P. for Manchester, and was the man who carried off the mace (but was not allowed to keep it, as he seemed inclined to do) when Cromwell gave the order to take away "that bauble." This hot Puritan is the sole person of that persuasion whose dust was overlooked when Charles the Second swept all the other Puritan dust out of Henry the Seventh's chapel. We hardly know why Jacobite Byrom, the stenographer, and epigrammatist, and small poet, finds a place here, except that the record affords a good opportunity of giving some instances of oldfashioned Manchester life. In the early part of the last century an "eminent manufac Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers, relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain, &c., 1525-6. Edited by Pascual de Gayangos. (Longmans & Co.) WITHIN the limits of a short article, anything like a detailed examination of this bulky Calendar, which would be at all satisfactory to the historical student, is simply impracticable; and we can do no more than indicate a few of the most important documents and letters falling chronologically within the years to which this Calendar refers. The immense mass of material collected and arranged by Herr Bergenroth and Mr. Brewer, and already accessible in print, still leaves the last twenty-two years of Henry the Eighth's reign to be dealt with from the so-called Simancas records. Of these Señor Gayangos's Calendar embraces only two, the years 1525 and 1526. In 1868 Herr Bergenroth had completed two volumes of Calendar and one supplementary volume, and which he carried down to February, 1525, but since his death, under most melancholy circumstances, many original papers and letters which he had no opportunity of consulting, have, owing to discoveries made at Vienna, Brussels, and in Spain, become available, and have been incorporated by Señor Gayangos in his volume. (commencing in January, 1525, and closing in December, 1526). The 1,050 legibly printed pages are filled with matter of great historical turer" in that place "was at his warehouse at six in the morning." At seven, he, with his family and apprentices, breakfasted together off oatmeal pottage taken with spoons first dipped into a basin of milk; and there was only one dish and one basin on the table! Byrom came to be a little squire. He shares with John Collier (better known as "Tim Bobbin ") the merit of writing and publishing works in the vigorous old Lancashire dialect; but in this Tim beats Byrom out of the field. Collier was born under Queen Anne and died under George the Third. He was one of nine children of a Lancashire curate, who kept them all on 30l. a year. Tim was in his teens before he knew of such luxury as treacle in his water pottage or spread on his jannock. Tim sold books at last, and we may see why he did not particularly prosper, in the following words in a letter to his son:"I have drunk punch betimes as customers came in. Make sure to keep sober, which is more than he could do who is, dear Charles, your loving father," &c. We take it that one of the noblest of the benefactors of Lancashire was "the great Duke of Bridgewater," who by his canal-making opened up coal-fields that would otherwise have been unworkable; and who prudently rushed in where capitalists feared to tread. If a disappointment in love drove him to it, never did man adopt a remedy so profitable, not merely to himself, but to whole succeeding generations. Not that humbler "Lancas-value and import. trians" have not been as useful, in their way, to such generations; such as Kay, by his invention of the fly shuttle; and Hargreaves, by that of the spinning-jenny, or by the application of the idea out of which Hargreaves achieved the reality. But the stories of Kay and Hargreaves are as full of melancholy as of glory. They got small thanks and much cruel persecution for the benefits they conferred on their fellows. Wiser altogether in his proceedings, Arkwright, the Bolton barber, protected his invention for spinning cotton by rollers. He established himself at Nottingham, and, in 1769, "enrolled the specification of his famous first patent." Mr. Espinasse defends Arkwright from the charge of having grown famous and wealthy by taking advantage of the ideas of people who did not know how to weave successful reality out of ideal speculations. After all, it is not he who has in his mind a certain machine, but he who builds it materially, and sets it in motion actively, who is the real inventor. Arkwright, perhaps, was not unindebted to the dreams of the dreamers, but he was wide awake himself, and by his vigilance and industry was not only the founder of the factory system, but made a colossal fortune. It is doubtful if he would have long kept it. Arkwright's mind became, to use a good old-fashioned word, "unwholesome." His ambition was to be (at last) a monopolist, to buy up all the cotton in the world, and get his own price by the manufacture from it. Cotton gambling has ruined many a good man since; and it was lucky for the ex-barber that he vanished from the scene before his fortune and castle had vanished from him, leaving him nothing but his naked knighthood. This story is the most interesting of an interesting series. Herr Bergenroth's volume terminates with the battle of Pavia (24th February, 1525). Señor Gayangos's commences with a letter of Louis de Flandre, better known as M. de Praet, whom the Emperor Charles had left as his ambassador at the English Court, when, in June, 1522, he paid a second visit to the English king. This letter, dated January 3, 1525, has reference to the intricate negotiations which the belligerent powers were then conducting in England. Pope Clement the Seventh had tendered his mediation, proposing an armistice, and that the Emperor's possessions in Lombardy, as well as the French conquests, should be handed over to him (Clement) until peace might be concluded. Wolsey supported the idea of an armistice, but objected to the Pope being invested with the powers he sought. Wolsey suggested that the disputed territories should during the continuance of the truce be left in the hands of the king (Henry), all cities and fortresses to be garrisoned by neutrals, supported by France or Spain respectively, the Emperor and Francis refraining in the mean time from aggression on either side; in the event of peace not being concluded, all cities and fortresses to be faithfully restored to the belligerents. Neither of these arrangements suited the policy of the Emperor. Clement decidedly favoured the French. Praet's opinion, as expressed in his first letter, was, that the neutrality of England should not be accepted, as it sooner or later might lead to a rupture with Spain. He (Praet) did not object to a truce, provided each party (the Emperor and the King of France) held his own, but a solution of the kind proposed by the Pope or the Cardinal was dishonourable, and the Emperor should never agree to it. The Cardinal was not to be trusted, as, if he could make a compact with France, he would certainly do so, however much it might be to the detriment of the Emperor, &c. Seven more of the Imperial ambassador's letters follow, all full of detailed interest. These letters em brace the period between January and March, 1525. By the latter date the victory at Pavia, and the capture of the French king became known in England. The same spirit of distrust of Wolsey continues, and Praet accuses him of venality, extravagant ambition, &c. Wolsey at this time had arbitrarily possessed himself of the ambassador's (Praet's) official correspondence, consisting of letters to the Emperor and Margaret of Savoy, at that time Governess of the Low Countries. Praet asks for his recall, boldly accusing Wolsey of having in every way misrepresented both his (Praet's) words and acts, and spread calumnies with reference to him personally. Praet left London in April, 1525, and until the arrival of Don Iñigo de Mendoza (26th December, 1526), the management of the Emperor's diplomatic affairs in England seem to have been principally confided to various personages from Flanders or the Netherlands, sent by Margaret for the apparent purpose of settling commercial matters affecting the two countries. These persons were not officially accredited by the Emperor, but by Margaret, in her capacity of governess of her nephew's patrimonial estates. The Emperor did not consider it prudent or consistent with his dignity to appoint a new ambassador while Francis remained in captivity, and, indeed, not until the Pope and the Venetians had rekindled the war in Italy, by forming the Holy League, did Charles send Mendoza to England, and even then, though furnished with "safe conduct" to pass through France, he was detained there and imprisoned in the Castle of Arques (Picardy). The correspondence of the Flemish commissioners who filled at intervals the post of Imperial ambassadors to London are full of interesting matter, referring to the politics of England at the time when Henry considered himself called upon, as defender of the faith, to undertake the defence of Clement, insulted and menaced in his own capital, and to assist the cause of Italian independence. These appear, apart from personal ambition or special purpose, to have been the real motives of the Holy League against the Emperor, though in reality it served to rivet more firmly Italy's chains, since France being called to her aid would have proved, in the event of the Emperor being driven out, equally tenacious in holding Naples, Milan, &c. There is among the abstracts a paper of considerable interest and historical importance, though not immediately connected with English history; it is the confession of Girolamo Morone, or Morono, as he is frequently designated in these documents. Of the authenticity of this State paper there can be no doubt, as the original is still in the Simancas archives; it quite establishes the innocence of the gallant Don Fernando de Avalos, Marquis of Pescara, who has been accused by Guicciardini, and other Italian writers, of having joined the said Morone in a conspiracy to free Italy from the yoke of the Imperialists. Whatever may have induced his jealousy of Bourbon, of which ample notice is taken by Sandoval, in his history of the Emperor, it is clear that Pescara was no traitor, in spite of the tempting bait dangled before his eyes by Pope Clement the Seventh. The value of the new matter introduced covering the early months of 1525, and not given by Bergenroth, will, on examination, be found to be considerable. Wolsey and the Emperor seem to have understood and mistrusted each other equally. The Cardinal of York must, however, at a very early period, have felt that the Emperor's interest and intrigue tended in another direction, with reference to the Pon tificate. was In his admirable Introduction Señor Gayangos, after paying a graceful tribute to the memory of Herr Bergenroth, alludes to the spoliation of the Archives of Simancas, which "formed only a part of the gigantic plan conceived by Napoleon Bonaparte, which was to collect, in the capital of France, all the State papers of the countries invaded by his arms, in order to form a vast repository of historical documents." It would appear that Bergenroth's collection, though extensive as regards the Emperor's Emperor's reign, far from complete as to England, for he was either entirely unaware of the existence of the original correspondence of Praet, Laurens, Bèvres, Le Sauch, Jonglet, Theimseke, Don Iñigo de Mendoza, Eustace Chappuys, Vandervyst, and other ambassadors of Charles and of Margaret of Savoy, in England, recently discovered in the Imperial Archives of Vienna, or else had no opportunity of having it transcribed "It may be asked how it is that this correspondence did not form part of the Simancas Archives, but Señor Gayangos readily explains this by calling attention to the fact that as "most of the statesmen employed by the Emperor on such missions were natives of Flanders or Burgundy, and wrote in French, each represented Charles in England both as King of Spain and Emperor of Germany "; "hence it is that the correspondence of the Imperial and Flemish ambassadors in London, during the long reign of Charles, as well as Granvelle's papers under Philip, were kept at Besançon, Lille and Brussels, until the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713; all those which, strictly speaking, related to Charles were, after the battle of Fleurus, in 1794, hastily removed to Vienna," where they are now suitably arranged under the heads of "Correspondance et Négociations d'Angleterre," &c. With reference to the Spanish Archives Señor Gayangos calls attention to the fact that, in addition to Simancas, Barcelona, and the Royal Academy at Madrid, other collections in Madrid and elsewhere exist-notably the Private Royal Library in the Palace, which is rich in manuscripts, as it contains all those which formerly belonged to the colleges (colegios mayores) of the University of Salamanca, besides the collection made in London by Gondomar, which will be found most valuable for the reign of James the First. Among the rest is a history of Henry the Eighth, from 1530 to his death, followed by seventeen supplementary chapters for the reign of Edward the Sixth. The work is anonymous, and said to have been written in Spanish by a Valencian lawyer (letrado), who came to England in Catherine's suite: it is entitled 'Cronica de Henrico Octavo de Inglaterra,' and is full of interest. The Index promised for Part II. is sadly wanted for the present volume. Señor Gayangos has evidently used his materials with that impartiality which should characterize all historical compilers, and we look anxiously for the further instalments of his Calendar. ICELAND. Six Weeks in the Saddle: a Painter's Journal in Iceland. By S. E. Waller. (Macmillan & Co.) MR. WALLER says that he is an artist, and that he fell in love with Icelandic legends and the popular version of the noble legend, a travels in consequence of reading 'Burnt Njâl,' version which seems to have satisfied him. Accordingly he was seized with an intense longing to make a tour and sketch in Iceland, to see and represent the sites of the Saga. We suspect that Mr. Waller's real vocation is writing, and not painting, for it is clear that he thinks and sees less like a painter than a writer. It was not the pictorial character and qualities of what he saw that often most powerfully affected him, but the historical and dramatic associations of the places he visited. There are several illustrations to this book, but, although tolerable, they are not such as one would produce who had been driven to Iceland by pictorial enthusiasm to a painter in such a frame of mind they would be simply intolerable. In pursuit of his own previsions, Mr. Waller underwent an amount of danger and privation which will doubtless supply him with subjects for conversation as long as he lives, and experienced adventures which have enabled him to write a very lively and readable book. If one or two of his achievements recall those which Baron Munchausen described, and just touch the extreme verge of probability, this exaltation of the narrative is clearly not deliberate, but due to the author's spirits; thus, when he tells us, p. 98, that Thorsmörk is more than fifty miles from the nearest dwelling," and that he rode there and back in eleven hours, exclusive of rests, to say nothing of crossing fearful torrents, we are willing to suppose a printer's error. Mr. Waller admits that "we were thoroughly tired out when we reached the farm," and well he might be so, for he had ridden on a shocking road, say at least 120 miles, consecutively on one horse. Notwithstanding the pleasure with which we peruse Mr. Waller's travelling adventures, it must be confessed that on the whole we close his book with an impression that, so far as he has shown, the beauty, grandeur, and dignity of Icelandic scenery are not worth seeing at the cost of such privations as fell to his lot. They were privations of an unheroic sort, due to the dirtiness of his island hosts, the voracity of the vermin which shared hospitality with him, and almost devoured their fellow guest, and the bad, not to say loathsome food which dire extremity compelled him to swallow. Greenland blubber fare is preferable to much he had to eat and drink, unless, indeed, the former is in too advanced a stage of decomposition. The most successful amusement obtained by Mr. Waller was that of fly-fishing. Here is his account of the use of trout-tackle, with the aid of an Icelandic novice. He hooked a big fish. How to get it to land was the question : "Had I had Bjarni, I should have had no fear, but my farmer friend became so excited, as he had never seen a fish caught with a rod before, The plagues of fresh-water fishing in these high latitudes are the flies. Let the reader profit by the following experience : "I had just begun to feel hundreds of sharp little stings, when a brisk breeze came off the water and scattered our enemies, and in two minutes we were able to breathe again. Bjarni,' said I, 'if this is the sort of thing, I shall go back.'-'Oh,' said he, 'it won't be so bad at the big water; besides, the sun has gone in.'-Well, I listened to the voice of the charmer, and was persuaded to go on. As it happened, a few clouds came up over the hills, so that when we reached the banks of the lake, our enemies were comparatively few. The horses were turned loose to graze, and when the rod was put up, we clambered down the rocks to commence operations. I had just hooked a fish, when all in a moment the sun burst forth with a perfectly tropical heat upon the mountains, and (I can find no other expression for it) the devil was unchained'; what we had experienced half-an-hour previously was simply laughable to what we now endured; from the earth, the grass, the rocks, in fact, from everywhere, arose a living fog of countless myriads of long-winged flies. Sting, sting, sting, on they came. to attempt to beat them off. We had our handkerchiefs out in a moment, and tied them round our heads, leaving a small slit for one eye to see through; and to make matters worse, I fixed my socks up over our trousers, put the wading boots eye-glass in the exposed eye. We pulled our over the socks, tied string round our sleeves, and attempted to get away. This was easier said than done, for our poor horses, maddened by the attacks of these voracious creatures, had galloped away, and we dare not peep out of our headdresses for more than half-a-second at a time to weighed down upon my shoulders by the heaving look for them. My broad-brimmed hat was masses of these insects. Not a spot of the colour of my coat was visible; and had I met my servant suddenly in other circumstances, I should not have known him to be a man. He was uniform grey from head to foot; the slope of his It was useless one shoulders being continuous with the sides of his head, he had the appearance of a man wrapped in a living cloak, and, as he walked, solid lumps of flies fell from his back on to the ground. To those who have seen bees swarming, it will not be a difficult matter to picture to themselves the appearance of these conglomerations of insects, or to understand the wretched pickle they involved us in." We leave this book to the reader, with the assurance that Mr. Waller got safe back to England, having had ample opportunities for the employment of his physical energies, and having gratified his heart's desire and visited the land of 'Burnt Njâl.' History of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Translated from the Original and Unpublished MS. of Prof. Petit, by Chas. de Flandre. 2 vols. (Longmans & Co.) THE object of this work is to prove the entire innocence of Mary, Queen of Scots, and to vindicate her memory from all the crimes that are usually laid to her charge. For this purpose, the author has again gone over the usual well-known ground, without bringing to light any more facts than have MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. already been given to the world by various other writers on the same subject. He gives an interesting description of the early years of Mary in Scotland and France, quoting much contemporary evidence in favour of her natural amiability and goodness of disposition. His account of the rise and spread of the Reformation in Scotland, being written from a strongly Roman Catholic point of view, is, of course, unfavourable to its originators and their followers, and attention is directed to their errors and excesses. As might be expected, John Knox is no favourite with M. Petit, who applies some harsh epithets towards him, both in the text and in the accompanying notes. Knox's celebrated interview with Mary on her arrival in Scotland, which laid the foundation for his future bitter hostility towards her, is described at length, and the Queen is made to get by far the best of the argument. M. Petit goes so far as to deduce from this discussion the principle, that "in politics, as in religion, freedom of opinion must not be given, else disorder may be expected." The brief gaiety of the Court of Scotland, which was so odious to Knox, and from which he drew so many evil hints and suggestions of impropriety, is defended, and in a note on p. 91 a proof of Mary's good conduct at that time, is derived from a letter from Thomas Randolph to the Earl of Leicester, in which, though he mentions reports against her, the English agent expresses his entire disbelief in their truth. Murray's ambition and his treachery from the commencement are insisted on, and he is charged with having urged Elizabeth to intercept his sovereign on her passage from France to Scotland; with accusing Huntley of treason, for the purpose of getting possession of his estates; and with being at the head of a movement the object of which was to seize the Queen and kill Darnley, in order to prevent their marriage, at the very time that he was pretending the greatest devotion and affection for his sister. Her gentle and dignified behaviour on the occasion of the disturbance which was raised by the Protestant party at her marriage with Darnley, is well described. M. Petit comments strongly upon the hostility of Queen Elizabeth towards Mary, and upon her incessant attempts to stir up and foster rebellion in the Northern kingdom; but he does not mention the extreme provocation Elizabeth had for adopting this course of action, and that she was only retaliating upon Mary for similar proceedings on her side. From papers preserved in the Record Office and elsewhere, it can be shown beyond cavil that the Queen of Scots soon after her return to her own country was intriguing with a formidable party of the nobility of England, and others of her religion, who favoured her pretensions to the crown, and that she was in frequent communication with the Pope and the Catholic powers, and more especially with her uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, for the reestablishment of the Catholic supremacy in Scotland. This correspondence was carried on through her secretary, David Rizzio, who had been specially sent to her for that purpose, with the knowledge and consent of Darnley, in bringing about whose marriage with the Queen Rizzio had been greatly instrumental. The whole object of these transactions was known to the able and unscrupulous Randolph, through spies whom he had in his pay about the person of Mary; and was communicated by him to the Court of England, and also to Murray and such others of the Protestant faction as he thought fit to intrust with the secret. Rizzio, as a pensioner of the Pope and the prime agent and mover of these designs, which had already made considerable progress, was particularly obnoxious; and it was at once felt necessary that he should be removed "for the glory of God and the advancement of true religion." The Protestant party first tried an armed revolt, which, not being regarded with favour by the majority of the nation, failed most egregiously, and the leaders were forced to take refuge in England, where they met with but a sorry reception from the clear-headed Queen of England, who quite understood their motives, and who, though for her own purposes she made use of them, must have thoroughly despised them. In the meanwhile a Parliament was appointed to meet at Edinburgh, in March, 1568, for the purpose of attainting the rebellious noblemen and confiscating their estates, and apportioning them amongst the opposite faction, thus effectually crushing them for the future. This proceeding, carried out mainly at the instigation of Rizzio, who was practically acting as Prime Minister, brought matters to a crisis, and Murray, Knox, and Morton, with the knowledge of the English agent, at once took steps for his assassination. The design was communicated to, and met with the approval of, Cecil, Leicester, and Elizabeth. To colour the matter, and to detach Darnley from the Queen's side, the Earl of Morton instructed his bastard cousin, George Douglas, who was on terms of intimacy with Darnley, to instil into his mind suspicions as to the conduct of his wife with Rizzio, a task the more easy as they were of necessity frequently closeted together for the purpose of carrying closeted together for the purpose of carrying out the objects of Rizzio's secret mission. Tempted also by the promise of the crown matrimonial, which Rizzio was represented as urging the Queen to withhold from him, Darnley fell into the snare, and consented to take the chief part in the tragedy. It is strange that M. Petit should have passed over these causes for the murder of Rizzio, as well as the facts mentioned above, which can be verified beyond doubt by a reference to original authorities, and afford an explanation of much that is mysterious and, apparently, inexplicable in after-events. The removal of Darnley, which had been determined on shortly after his arrival in Scotland, was hastened by his violence against his accomplices on discovering how disgracefully he had been duped, and M. Petit carefully traces each step of the plot up to its accomplishment. He dwells on the fact that a large party of the nobility of Scotland were implicated either actively or passively in this crime, but utterly denies the complicity of Mary in the murder in any way whatever, and endeavours to establish the Queen's innocence in an ingenious dissertation at the end of his second volume, in which he shows the slender grounds on which the authenticity of the famous casket letters is maintained. In doing this he lays much stress on the fact that forgery was by no means an uncommon accomplishment amongst those who produced them in evidence against their sovereign. Here M. Petit makes his best point for the defence, as, until the authenticity of these letters is satisfactorily proved, there is not a sufficiency of credible evidence to justify any other verdict than that of "not proven " on the question of Mary's culpability. It cannot be too carefully borne in mind that the whole of the remaining evidence against her is contributed by persons who had the strongest reasons for using every means to destroy and discredit her, and whose testimony, owing to this and to their own previous conduct, would carry little or no weight in any modern court of inquiry. M. Petit denies the Queen's knowledge of the guilt of Bothwell before her marriage, and attaches great importance to the latter's death-bed confession absolving Mary from all complicity in the murder of Darnley. Bad as Bothwell was, Mary knew very well that many of his accusers were steeped to the eyes in blood-guiltiness and treason. On the other hand, Bothwell had shown himself on several occasions a faithful servant of his sovereign, supporting her interests at the peril of his life. is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that she would believe his denial, backed as it was by a large number of the nobility, rather than the accusations of his adversaries. Bothwell was not the only person accused of the murder; he was absolved by the nobility of Scotland, who, moreover, under their hands, recommended him as a suitable husband to their sovereign, and left her entirely in his power. It M. Petit's account of the interview between Mary and Murray at Loch-leven should be read with that given by Mr. Froude, as a curious instance of the same facts being made to support diametrically opposite theories. Mr. Froude, to whom Murray was "a man who had no guilt upon his own heart," insists that Mary then admitted her culpability, and threw herself entirely upon his generosity; whilst our author, whose idea of that statesman's character is not quite so exalted, denies that she did anything of the kind, and charges Murray with the blackest ingratitude and treachery. As M. Petit passes over in silence the earlier attempts of Mary against the throne of Elizabeth, so he denies her complicity in any of the conspiracies which took place against the life of the Queen during her captivity in England, absolutely refusing to credit any evidence to the contrary. He dwells much upon the harshness and cruelty of her usage by Elizabeth and those appointed to take charge of her, and paints her as a patient suffering lady, strongly entitled to be regarded as a martyr for the cause of her religion. No doubt her religion had a good deal to do with her death, but not precisely in the way that M. Petit would have us believe. If instead of drawing nearly all his authorities from the pages of avowed partisans of Mary, adopting all statements, however unlikely, in her favour, and ignoring everything which might tell against her, the author had gone a little more to original sources for information, he would have found much which tends to overthrow the claim of martyrdom, and learnt that her execution was in reality a measure of stern political necessity. Mary may have been a sincere and earnest Catholic, but it is no less evident that her whole life |