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him. There have been times, too, when, in the bitterness of my heart, I have determined that I would bury with me every vestige of his disinterested and unregarded labours for the good of mankind. But calmer thoughts have led me to the conclusion, that I ought not to suffer the fruit of so much toil and of so great a mind to perish; that what his own severe and fastidious judgment rejected as imperfect, has a substantial value which no defect of form or arrangement can destroy; and that the benefits which he would have conferred on his country and on mankind, may yet flow through devious and indirect channels. I persuade myself that if his noble and benevolent spirit can receive pleasure from anything done on earth, it is from the knowledge that his labours are "of use to those who, under happier auspices, pursue the inquiry" into subjects of such paramount importance to human happiness.'

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'I need not repeat the terms in which Mr. Austin's friends encouraged me to undertake the task of putting these precious materials in order, nor the offers of advice and assistance which determined me to venture upon it. One of them, who spoke with the authority of a lifelong friendship, said, after looking over a mass of detached and half legible papers, "It will be a great and difficult labour; but if you do not do it, it will never be done." This decided me.

'I have gathered some courage from the thought that forty years of the most intimate communion could not have left me entirely without the means of following trains of thought which constantly occupied the mind whence my own drew light and truth, as from a living fountain; of guessing at half expressed meanings, or of deciphering words illegible to others. During all those years he had condescended to accept such small assistance as I could render; and even to read and talk to me on the subjects which engrossed his mind, and which were, for that reason, profoundly interesting to me.'

It is a task involving great labour; and, when it is completed, English jurisprudence will be indebted for one of its highest aids to the reverential affection of a wife and the patient industry of a refined and intelligent woman.

ART. V.-1. My own Life and Times, 1741-1814. By Thomas Somerville, D.D., Minister of Jedburgh, &c. Edinburgh, 1861. 2. Autobiography of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Carlyle, Minister of Inveresk. 1 vol. 8vo. Edinburgh and London, 1860.

3. Domestic Annals of Scotland.

By Robert Chambers. 3 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh and London, 1858-61.

4. Sketches of Early Scotch History and Social Progress. By C. Innes. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1861.

5. Reminiscences

5. Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character. By E. B. Ramsay, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S.E., Dean of Edinburgh. Sixth edition, 12mo. Edinburgh, 1860. Ditto, Second Series. 12mo. Edinburgh, 1861.

6. Familiar Illustrations of Scottish Character. By the Rev. Charles Rogers, LL.D., F.S.A., Scotland. 12mo. 12mo. London and Edinburgh, 1861.

7. The Days of the Fathers in Ross-shire. By the Rev. John Kennedy, Dingwall. Second edition, 12mo. Edinburgh, 1861. 8. History of Civilization in England. By Henry Thomas Buckle. Vol. II., 8vo. London, 1861.

EVER

VER since the genius of Sir Walter Scott, aided in no mean degree by his diligent study of antiquities, did so much to reproduce the men and the manners of earlier days, historical research has met with general favour in Scotland. Although Vandalism may not be wholly extinct, yet individuals and societies have sought out and rescued from destruction whatever seemed to throw light upon the old times. Family and college muniments have been examined, the fine ecclesiastical remains of Scotland have been illustrated, and the peculiar principles of its half-military, half-domestic architecture have been studied,* and the wonderful sculptured stones have been admirably delineated and described. The origin and the history of the nation will, in the end, be better understood than they have hitherto been ; and, in the mean time, some attempts have been made to exhibit in a connected form the results already obtained. The indefatigable Mr. Robert Chambers has arranged in chronological order a great deal of important and characteristic matter, drawn from a variety of sources. Mr. Cosmo Innes, a valued contributor of our own, who edited several works for the Spalding Club, has put together in a separate form a series of very instructive papers. The memoirs of several eminent Scotsmen have been published within the last few years, and even months; and some attempts have been made to note and preserve those relics of ancient thought and manners which still linger in the country. Lastly, we have received, just before sending these lines to press, the second volume of Mr. Buckle's History of Civilization in England,' which volume is entirely devoted to Spain and Scotland. We do not propose in the present article to examine Mr. Buckle's

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*See Billing's 'Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland.' Edinburgh, 1847. Quart. Rev.,' vol. lxxxv. + Sculptured Stones of Scotland.' Aberdeen, 1856. Edited by Mr. John Stuart, for the Spalding Club.

volume as a whole, but we shall notice some parts of it in their bearing upon Scottish history.

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The continual inroads of the English had, as Mr. Buckle justly observes, kept the Lowlands of Scotland in a very poor condition; had checked the growth of the towns; had ruined the Crown, and had made the nobility almost uncontrollable. Mr. Buckle, however, takes too gloomy a view of Scotch affairs when he says that even late in the sixteenth century skilled labour was hardly known, and honest industry was universally despised.' It is true that the country was very poor, if measured by a modern standard, and we should no doubt feel very uncomfortable if we were suddenly reduced to the condition of the fifteenth century; yet it appeared to the people of those times that they were living in a highly advanced and luxurious, though a very artificial and wicked state of society; much fallen off from the good old times when men were of better conscience than they are now.'

Let us take for example Dunbar, the poet of the Court of James IV. Dunbar was no optimist, as appears by his address to the merchants of Edinburgh on the defects of the conservancy department; and yet he writes enthusiastically of the splendid reception given in 1511 to Queen Margaret, by the burgh of Aberdeen, which was only a town of the second class; of the rich array of the burgesses, the pall of velvet cramasé which was borne above the Queen's head,

The sound of minstrels blawing to the sky,'

as she passed along; the pageants and pictures exhibited in the streets, among others the figure of Bruce,

'Right awful strong, and large of portraiture,
Ane noble, dreadful, mighty champion ;'

the young maidens all clad in green, of marvellous beauty, with white hats broidered bravely, playing on timbrels, and singing right sweetly; the streets hung with tapestry; the wine running abundantly at the Cross, and the rich present offered to the Queen at her lodgings, to wit,

Ane costly cup that large thing wald contain,
Covered and full of coined gold right fine.'

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The ladies, too, whom he describes in his poem of The Twa Maryet Wemen and the Wedo,' are represented as beautifully arrayed.

The King's court is said to contain various persons whom the poet does not consider useful or creditable, such as 'Monsours of France,' and inopportune askers of Ireland kind'—a race now

happily

happily extinct, as Lord Palmerston knows. But Dunbar likewise enumerates other servitors of the court, whose presence there seems inconsistent with the notion that even late in the sixteenth century skilled labour was hardly known, to wit:

Kirkmen, courtmen, and craftsmen fine,
Doctors in jure and in medicine,
Diviners, rhetors, and philosophers,
Astrologers, artists, and orators.

Men of arms and valiant knights,
And many other goodly wights;
Musicians, minstrels, and merry singers,
Chevalours, callanders, and French flingers.

Coiners, carders, and carpenters,
Builders of barks and ballingaris.*

Masons laying upon the land,

And shipwrights hewing upon the strand;
Glazing wrights, goldsmiths and lapidaries,
Printers, painters, and potingaries; †
And all of their craft cunning,
And all at once labouring:

Which pleasant are and honourable,

And to your Highness profitable.'

But all this time the poet found foreigners, however unworthy, constantly preferred to him, on the principle that

'Aye fairest feathers has farrest fowls,

Suppose they have no song but youls.'

However objectionable the preference of foreigners to natives may have been-however superficial the accomplishments by which some of them obtained the royal favour, Dunbar's lines afford unquestionable proof that the Scottish king not only appreciated the culture of other countries, but was bent upon introducing it among his own people.

James IV. and all his chivalry perished on Flodden Field: there died together the true and the false, the successful courtier and the despised suitor; and Scotland was cursed with another and yet another of her disastrous royal minorities, only to emerge amid the deadly struggle of the Reformation.

Mr. Chambers's Annals' commence with Queen Mary's return from France. She was received in Edinburgh with pageants and solemnities, splendid as the taste of the age could devise. But, according to John Knox,‡

*Vessels of war.

† Apothecaries.

Chambers, i. p. 11.

• The

The very face of heaven, the time of her arrival, did manifestly speak what comfort was brought unto this country with her; to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness, and all impiety; for in the memory of man, that day of the year, was never seen a more dolorous face of the heaven than was at her arrival, which two days after did so continue; for beside the surface weet and corruption of the air, the mist was so thick and so dark, that scarce might any man espy ane other the length of twa butts. The sun was not seen to shine two days before nor two days after. That forewarning gave God unto us; but, alas, the most part were blind.'

Rough and severe was the whole tone of society. The very schoolboys could not have a barring-out without manslaughter. Great lords, meeting each other in the street, engaged in murderous conflict. Queen's messengers had to eat their own writs, and were sometimes flogged into the bargain. Borderers and Highlanders were hanged without mercy-when they could be caught. For three months together the Kingsmen and Queensmen gave each other no quarter. When the house of Towie, belonging to Alexander Forbes, was maintained by his lady against Adam Gordon, brother of the Earl of Huntly, who had risen for the Queen; on Gordon's sending to demand its surrender, the brave dame answered, that she could not give it up without directions from her husband. Gordon then set fire to it, and burnt the heroic woman, her children, and servants— twenty-seven persons in all. This outrage forms the subject of the well-known ballad of Edom o' Gordon.'

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The Regent Morton was very greedy and extortionate. He erected at Dalkeith a magnificent palace, richly adorned with pictures and tapestries, and fitter for a king than a subject. Here he lived in an appropriate style. All this he did at the expense of his enemies. He kept a fool, named Patrick Bonny, who, seeing him one day pestered by a concourse of beggars, advised him to have them all burnt in one fire. "What an impious idea!' said the Regent. Not at all,' replied the jester; "if the whole of these poor people were consumed, you would soon make more poor people out of the rich.'

It was usual for the King, or the Regent in the King's name, to write to the Court of Session, in furtherance or hindrance of' civil or criminal matters pending before them. The practice was very profitable to those who exercised the influence of the Crown. An instance of this may be seen in the mode by which Lord Somerville obtained a hearing of a suit respecting land in which he was engaged with his cousin Somerville of Cambusnethan, but which was still postponed by the moyen and interest of Cambusnethan and the lady.' Acting upon the advice of one who well

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