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humanity, the advice contained in this memorable letter, was neither accepted nor acted upon by those to whom it was so graciously and obligingly tendered. The words of Sir Amias Paulet are worth transcribing, as being but little in accordance with the accustomed language and sentiments of the men of that blood-stained age: "God forbid," he exclaimed, "that I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot to my posterity, as shed blood without law or warrant." (Scott, p. 276.)

The condition on which alone one or two of the servants of Mary were permitted to attend at her execution, was that the Queen should pledge herself that "her maidens should not disturb the scene with their cries." The "marble-hearted fiend" who, thus, without even the colour of law or reason, butchered her victim-after nineteen years meditating her death-acted only with a due regard to consistency of character, in requiring that those who could not save, should not be permitted to mourn the object of their affections-but to make Mary herself give this pledge-to make her, who was about to die, promise that her friends should not grieve at her death-to make her, the sources of whose sorrow, if not wholly dried up, had yet long ceased to find the accustomed vents-to make her whose regret, like the everflowing vein of tears with which the Naiades are said to have furnished the unhappy daughter of Miletus,* could have ended only with her life-to make her guarantee that as she fell without a crime, so she should fall unwept, even by the few who gathered around her in that bitter hour-when she was about to undergo beneath the axe's "sharp argument,' "that sudden wrench from all we know, from all we love," which carries with it something so inexpressibly appalling to the mind-this was, indeed, an exquisite refinement upon a cold-blooded cruelty, worthy of the arch-devil of old!-it almost exceeds belief-the mind shudders and the heart withers at the recital of this horror! It was under circumstances like these, however-which superadded to the terrors of death the pangs of a living and cruel persecution-that Mary was conducted to the block, on the 7th of February, 1586. Her last thoughts still reverted to her most unworthy son: "Tell him," said she, "that I thought of him in my last moments, and that I have never yielded, either by word or deed, to aught that might lead to his prejudice; desire him to preserve the memory of his unfortunate parent, and may he be a thousand

*Ovid's Metam. b. ix. v. 656.

times more happy and more prosperous than she has been."* Once more recurring to the infamous author of her earthly doom, the Royal sufferer observed, "I did not think that the Queen, my sister, would have commanded my death by the hands of the executioner; but the soul is unworthy of heaven which shrinks from the pang of death." With the utterance of this sentiment-whose sublimity is equalled only by its pathos— closed the "Agony" of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.

We have been struck, in collating a few of the numerous authorities upon the life and reign of Mary, with the discrepancies, contradictions and omissions which will be found to abound in them all, with the exception of scarcely a single writer from Buchanan down to the present moment, when we have been favoured with two works, the one expressly devoted to a "Life," of the Queen of Scots, and the other embracing an account of her reign in the course of a "History of Scotland." In the earlier Scottish historians-those, more particularly, who were either the immediate contemporaries or eye witnesses of the events which they record-this circumstance is not calculated to surprise, when we recollect the spirit of the times in which they wrote; and that, in fact, the greater part, if not the whole of them, were mutually pledged, as it were, to one view, only, of the interesting and important questions which they discussthus furnishing additional support to the remark with which we set out, on the "partizan character" of nearly the entire body of modern history-a fact which Bolingbroke doubtless regarded as lending him a sanction for his celebrated declaration that History, after all, was a mere "heap of fables." But it becomes matter of serious charge when the personal honour, the good name and fair fame of the distinguished characters of history are found to be at the mercy of this bad faith, this spirit of fabrication on the part of those who are charged with the solemn task, the sacred duty of transmitting to posterity free from impurities, and, as far as possible, from impediments, the streams of historical truth and justice. The historian may not be the most unerring of chronologists, but he must be an honest man: he may miscalculate dates, but he may not falsify facts: he may pass lightly and slightingly over a birth, or a marriage, but he is pledged to take note of a calumny or controversy involving points of character and questions of personal honour: he may not deny that which is true, nor maintain that which is false: he may overlook the graces

"When she named her only child," says Mr. Bell, "of whom she had been so proud in his infancy, but in whom her hopes had been so fatally blasted, her feelings for the first time overpowered her, and she burst into tears!"

of style and the beauties of sentiment-his manner may be bad and his matter may be worse-he may hold at nought the elegance of a Xenophon or the sublime philosophy of a Tacitushe may regard as mere cunning the acuteness of a Hume, or as madness the romantic spirit of a Gibbon-but he may not dispense with his moral veracity In describing a battle, he may estimate the distance of a hill, or ravine, at ten instead of twenty miles, or he may omit it altogether-in solving a political problem, he may indulge in conjectures from morning to night, or he may draw upon his ingenuity, purely as such, to any extent he pleases-but when leaving the pulverem et aciem, when rising above the dust and dirt of the historical arena-when emerging from the dreary darkness of those infamous dens,

With many a foul and midnight murder fed,

in which religious and political fanatics of all ages, Bending o'er the accursed loom,

Have stamped their vengeance deep, and ratified the doom

of the numberless, and, too freqently, the nameless victims of their rapacity or lust-when lifting himself, in short, above the mere factions of the hour, the historian assumes the more sacred functions of his office, and proceeds to pass judgment upon the moral merits-the moral memory of the illustrious dead, who are to live with honour or with infamy in his pages-then it is that he is solemnly sworn to the truth-then it is that he should come with a clear understanding and an honest heart to the task before him-then, and then, alone, is indifference or neglect not to be forgiven; and wilful misrepresentation one of the blackest in the vast and dark catalogue of crimes.

ART. IV.-The Bravo-A Tale. By the Author of "The Spy," "Red Rover," &c. "Giustizia in palazzo, e pane in piazza." 2 Vols. 12mo. Philadelphia. 1831.

ALTHOUGH "written more to renew, or rather to indulge recollections than for any other object," this fresh novel of our countryman certainly has "readable passages" in abundance.

Without doubt its effect will be to sustain if not to elevate his reputation in the literary world, both at home and abroad, even taking for the standard of that reputation the best, and not the level of his productions. In selecting in this instance a transatlantic site for his story, he has acquired a novelty with reference to his own sphere of description, even though the local be, through the writings of others, as familiar to most of his readers as their own homes. To those of them who like the melancholy Jaques, have "rich eyes and poor hands," and have fulfilled Rosalind's requisite to constitute a traveller by "swimming in a Gondola," the scenes and local allusions in these pages will teem with a vivid, and sort of proprietary interest; and to every one of liberal, or even trivial reading, the legends and the descriptions so abundant of the amphibious city of the Adriatic, have even made it a place of lively curiosity and touching remembrance. In departing from his own country to select in the old world a scene of interest, the author has judiciously, we think, alighted in Venice. Her high antiquity and unique form of government of themselves awake attention as contrasted with the country of all his, previous narratives; and her wonderful achievements and mysterious doings, the peculiarity of her customs, and the individuality of her national character, and the very name of Republic which she so long, and so falsely vaunted, are eminently calculated to make every American a reader of "The Bravo."

The novel is intended to afford "an application on a familiar scale of the moral emanating from the social operations of the Venetian system." Having made himself familiar with every part of this singular scheme of government, Mr. Cooper has drawn out a series of fictitious incidents well suited to develope, and subject to a strong light its most characteristic feature-a regulation by public authority of all the citizen's private affairs. Throughout the world, and at every period of time it has been the besetting vice of governments to legislate overmuch, and to intermeddle officiously with the individual concerns of the people: no where, perhaps, was this impertinence ever carried to so great an extent as in the city of the Hundred Isles. From the day of the first Doge Paulatis, down to her one hundred and nineteenth, and last Luigi Manini, her whole social system was an exemplification of this abuse. There were many circumstances which gave it in that spot a singular permanence and success. The very formation of the town, its isolated situation, and compact structure, the swift and secret locomotion on its highways, all favoured measures of sudden cruelty, mystery, and terror which, operating upon

the deep ignorance of the people, made them ascribe to their tyrants the attributes of divinity, and thus the few who had accumulated immense wealth, through unjust monopolies, with the aid of superstition, and an innumerabie priesthood, sustained their power, and worked their purposes with a searching, all-pervading, and inevitable efficacy. True, the close aristocracy of the Broglio, boasted that the government was just and free, and so did all the pseudo-republics of Italy, down to the last remnant on the pinnacle of San Marino-but their justice. was monopoly, and their freedom, regulation.

At the head of the Venetian government stood one whom they styled a Doge-although he "the likeness of a kingly crown had on," yet was he, for the most part, a thing of form and show, put there merely for purposes of pageantry and ostentation. The whole strength and volition of the state were concentrated in the inscrutable and terrible council of three. These were periodically chosen by the conclave of ten from among their own number, but were unknown even to their constituents. Their power was limitless, their purposes irresponsible, their councils secret, their motives and actions a mystery, and their will had the seeming of destiny. Passing through the ordeal of a body of three hundred, this superstructure had its foundation in the grand council of twelve hundred. None were admitted of this latter caste, but members of families who, in the thirteenth century, had enrolled their names, to that number, in the golden book. To be of this privileged set, in whom, and for whom, almost solely the government moved and had its being, was an object of strenuous desire, and a franchise guarded with extreme jealousy-above all, the members were required to surrender every foreign tie, and give themselves up in utter devotedness to St. Mark. For any of them to seek assistance from abroad was death, and even to hold property out of the republic was disfranchisement. As her territories became expanded by conquest, or purchase, of course, many rich and noble became her subjects, and their ambition and their pride naturally led them to make application to be admitted of those who were booked as voters, and who were licensed to lounge in the Broglio. But they were uniformly, and inflexibly debarred, and the distinction kept exclusively for the natives and dwellers in Venice, even down to her day of death. On the terra firma there were numerous distinguished, wealthy and leading families, who having been black-balled, became discontented, indignant and rebelliously inclined. When it suited the policy of Bonaparte, in sweeping past Venice to the Tyrol, to prostrate the "lean, and slipper'd pantaloon," with

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