Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851

Miss Jemima blushed scarlet. Certainly that deceitful heartless compliment justified all her contempt for the male sex; and yet – such is human blindness – it went far to redeem all mankind in her credulous and too confiding soul.

"He is about to propose," sighed Miss Jemima.

"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he drew on his nightcap, and stepped majestically into the four-posted bed, "I think we shall get that boy for the garden now!"

Thus each spurred his hobby, or drove her car, round the Hazeldean whirligig.

BIOGRAPHY.[9 - Lives of the Queens of Scotland. By Agnes Strickland. Vol. I. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London.]

Although history and biography both relate to the affairs of men, and are employed in the narrative of human events, they are governed by opposite principles, and require, for their successful prosecution, different powers and habits of thought. The main object of history is the tracing out the growth of nations, the great events which lead to their rise or fall, the causes operating on the social body, which at one period conduct to power and greatness, at another induce weakness and decay. Biography is concerned with individual life. Its aim is to trace the annals, not of nations, but of persons; to portray, not the working of general causes on the progress of empires, but the influence of particular characters on their most interesting episodes. The former requires habits of general thought, and the power of tracing one common principle through a great variety of complicated details; the latter, close attention to individual incidents, and a minute examination of the secret springs of human conduct. The first is closely allied to the generalisations of the philosopher; the latter requires the powers of the dramatist. The two branches of composition, however, are nearly allied, and frequently run into each other. History generally finds its most interesting episodes, often its most important subjects, in the narrative of individual greatness; biography is imperfect unless, in addition to tracing the achievements of the individuals it records, it explains their influence upon the society among whom they arose.

What we call the histories of antiquity were, for the most part, only biographies, and they owe their principal interest to that circumstance. The Cyropædia of Xenophon is a philosophical romance, clothed with the eloquence of an orator; the fragments which remain of Sallust, the rhetorical narrative of Quintus Curtius, are the avowed biographies of individual men. Even the regular histories of classical times owe their chief charm to the simplicity of the subject, in which one state or contest stands prominently forward, and the others are thrown into a shade which only renders the more striking the light thrown on one particular subject, or the efforts of individual greatness. Herodotus has earned his deathless fame by the narrative he has given of the great war between Persia and Greece, on which the destinies of mankind depended; Thucydides by his profound exposition of the strife of aristocracy and democracy in the contest between Lacedæmon and Athens. The long narrative of Livy has survived the floods of Time almost entirely from the charming episodes descriptive of character or manners which he has introduced, and the dramatic power with which he has narrated the exploits of individual men; and what has given Tacitus immortality, is neither any luminous views on the progress of mankind, nor any just appreciation of the causes of greatness in particular states, but the depth to which he has fathomed the real springs of action in particular men, and the terrible truth with which he has unveiled that most appalling of all spectacles – a naked human heart.

The great difficulty of history, as it must be written in modern times, arises from the multitude and complication of the events which have to be recorded. So intimately connected have the States of Europe been since the rise of modern civilisation, that he who writes the annals of one must write the history of all. The progress, internal and external, of all its powers must be brought forward abreast; and such is their number and importance, that not only is the historian oppressed with the variety and complication of his materials, but he finds it next to impossible to produce interest in the reader amidst such a sea of details; and often fails, from the impossibility of attaining that essential requisite in the rousing of human sympathy – unity of emotion. Add to this the infinity of subjects a historian even of an individual state must now embrace, and which almost overwhelm the exploits of particular men by their multitude and complication. Strategy, statistics, trade, navigation, commerce, agriculture, taxation, finance, currency, paper credit, poor laws, agriculture, socialism, chartism, form a few of the topics, any one of which would require volumes for its elucidation, yet none of which can be omitted without exposing the historian to the imputation, from some one or other, of having overlooked the most important part of his subject. So great is this difficulty, so extensive the embarrassment it produces, that it may safely be pronounced to be insurmountable by any effort, how great soever, unless the endeavours of the historian are aided by unity of interest in the subject, or overpowering greatness of influence in the characters with whom he has to deal. But it is, perhaps, only in the wars of the Crusades, of the Succession in Spain, and of the French Revolution, that such unity of interest is to be looked for, or such surpassing grandeur of character is to be found, from the achievements of a Richard Cœur-de-Lion, a Marlborough, or a Napoleon.

From this great difficulty, biography is entirely free, and thence the superior interest with which, when properly treated, works of that description are attended. We are so constituted that we must concentrate our interest; dispersion is fatal to its existence. Every novelist and romance-writer knows this; there must always be a hero and a heroine; but two or three heroes and heroines would prove fatal to the interest. Ariosto tried to divide the interest of the reader among the adventures of a dozen knights-errant; but even his genius proved unequal to the task, and he was obliged to concentrate the whole around the fabulous siege of Paris to restore the broken unity of his power. The great and signal advantage of biography is, that, from its very nature, it possesses that personal interest and individual character which the epic poet and novelist feel to be essential to the moving of the human heart, but which the historian so often finds himself unable to attain, without omitting some important parts of his subject, or giving undue prominence to the characters of individual men.

For this reason it is, that the most popular works which ever have been written have been biographies of illustrious men. No one would think of comparing the intellect of Plutarch to that of Tacitus, his eloquence to that of Cicero's, yet he has made perhaps a greater impression on the imagination of subsequent ages than either of these illustrious men. If we examine the images of the mighty of former days which are engraven on our minds, we shall find that it is not so much the pictured pages of Livy or Quintus Curtius, as the "Lives of Plutarch," which have given them immortality. We complain of his gossip, we lament his superstition, we smile at his credulity, but we devour his pages; and, after the lapse of seventeen hundred years, they remain one of the most generally popular works in existence. It is the same in modern times. No one would think of comparing Boswell, in point of intellect, to Johnson; in point of eloquence to Burke; in point of genius to Gibbon; yet he has produced a work superior in general interest to any of these illustrious men, and which is daily read by thousands, to whom the "Reflections on the French Revolution," the moral essays of the "Rambler," and the "History of the Decline and Fall," will for ever remain unknown.

To render biography, however, thus generally attractive, it is indispensable that its basis should be that first element in the narration of human action – Truth. Without this, it wants the great superiority of the narrative of real event over fictitious creations, how interesting soever they may be – that of recording what has actually occurred in real life. How important an element this is in awakening the sympathies of the human heart, may be seen even in children who, when particularly fascinated by any story they are told, invariably end by asking, "But is it all true?" The value of truth, or rather of what is "vraisemblable," is felt even in imaginary conceptions, which it is well known are never so attractive, or interest so powerfully, as when they most closely resemble the events and characters of actual existence. The real is, and ever must be, the only sure foundation of the ideal. Novels are most delightful when they approach nearest to what we behold around us in real life, while yet containing a sufficient blending of romance and sentiment, of heroism and magnanimity, to satisfy the higher aspirations of our being. Biography is most charming when it depicts with fidelity those characters, and records with truth those events, which approach nearest to that imaginary perfection to which every generous mind aspires, but to which none ever has attained, or ever will.

It has been said with truth, that the events which are suitable for epic poetry are such as are "probable but yet elevating." We are so constituted by our bonds to earth, that our chief interest must ever be derived from the virtues or the vices, the joys or sorrows, of beings like ourselves; but we are so filled with more ennobling thoughts and aspirations, by our destiny in Heaven, that we can be satisfied only by what points to a higher state of existence, and feel the greatest enjoyment by being elevated, either by the conceptions of fancy or the records of reality, to a nearer view of its perfection. If novels depict merely imaginary existences, they may charm for a season, like the knights of Ariosto, or the heroes of Metastasio; but they are too much in the clouds permanently to interest sublunary mortals. If they record merely the adventures of low, or the vulgarity of middle life, they may amuse for a season, like the characters of Smollett; but they will sink ere long, from the want of that indispensable lifeboat in the sea of time, an elevating tendency. It is characters like those of the Iliad, of Shakspeare, of Scott, and Schiller, which combine the well-known and oft-observed characteristics of human nature with the oft-imagined but seldom seen traits of heroism and magnanimity which border on the realms of the ideal that for ever fascinate the imagination, and dwell in the heart of man. The reason is, they contain enough of reality to tell us it is of humanity that the story is told, and enough of the ideal to make us proud of our connection with it.

The great and chief charm of biography is to be found in this, that it unites, from its very nature and object, those two indispensable requisites to durable popularity in works of fiction, and combines them with the value and the solid information of truthful narrative. It possesses the value of history, without its tedium – the interest of romance, without its unsubstantiality. It culls the flowers from the records of time, and casts into the shade all the accompanying weeds and briars. If a judicious and discriminating selection of characters were made – if those persons were selected for the narrative who have been most illustrious by their virtues, their genius, or their magnanimity, or, as a contrast, by their vices, and who have made the greatest and most durable impression on human affairs, a work might be produced exceeding any one of history in its utility, any of romance in its popularity. David Hume strongly advised Robertson, eighty years ago, instead of writing the Life of Charles the Fifth, to write a series of biographies, on the plan of Plutarch, for modern times; and it is, perhaps, to be regretted that the advice was not followed. Yet were the abilities of the Scotch Principal, great as they were, not such as peculiarly fitted him for the task. His mind was too philosophical and discursive to give it its chief interest. He wanted the dramatic turn, the ardent soul, the graphic power, the magnanimous disposition, which was essential to its successful accomplishment. A work in three thousand pages, or six volumes, recording the lives of fifty of the greatest and most illustrious men in Europe, from the days of Alfred to those of Napoleon, executed in the right spirit, and by a man of adequate genius, would be the most popular and elevating book that ever appeared in Modern Europe. Many such have been attempted, but never with any success, because they were not set about by the proper minds. To do justice to such an undertaking would require a combination of opposite qualities rarely to be met with in real life.

As biography deals with individual characters, and is relieved from the extended and perplexing subjects which overwhelm the general historian, it admits, in return, of an expansion into many topics which, although often in the highest degree amusing, and sometimes not a little interesting, would yet be felt to be misplaced in the annals of the great changes of nations or of the world. As the delineation of character is its avowed object, and the events of individual life its principal subject, it not only admits of but requires a thousand incidents and descriptions, which are essential to a right understanding of those characters, and form, as it were, the still life of the picture in which their features are to be portrayed. Such descriptions are not unsuitable to general history. Mr Macaulay has shown in his History that his observations on that head in the Edinburgh Review were founded on a just appreciation of the object and limits of his art. But they must be sparingly introduced, or they will become tedious and unprofitable: if any one doubts this, let him try to read Von Hammer's History of the Ottoman Empire, one-half of which is taken up with descriptions of dresses, receptions, and processions. But in biography we readily give admission to – nay, we positively require – such details. If they are not the jewels of history, they are the setting which adds to their lustre. They fill up our conception of past events; they enable us to clothe the characters in which we are interested in the actual habiliments in which they were arrayed; they bring before our eyes the dwellings, the habits, the mode of life, the travelling, the occupations of distant ages, and often give more life and reality to the creatures of our imaginations than could have been attained by the most laboured general descriptions, or the most emphatic assertions of the author.

For this reason, as well as on account of the known influence of individual character, rather than abstract principle, on the fair sex, there is no branch of historical composition so suitable for woman as biography; and Miss Strickland has shown us that there is none which female genius can cultivate with greater success. The general bent of the female mind, impressed upon it for the wisest purposes by its Creator, is to be influenced in its opinions, and swayed in its conduct, by individual men, rather than general ideas. When Milton said of our first parents —

"Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed:
For valour he and contemplation formed;
For beauty she, and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him;"

He foreshadowed man as the appropriate historian of the general march of human events – woman, as the best delineator of individual character, the most fascinating writer of biography. The most gifted of her sex is a proof of this; for if a few men have exceeded Madame de Stael in the broad view she takes of human affairs, none have equalled her in the delineation of the deepest feelings and most lasting passions of the human heart. As it is the nature of woman's disposition to form an idol, (and it is for that very reason that she proves so attractive to that of man,) so, when she comes to composition, we rejoice to see her form idols of her heroes, provided only that the limits of truth are observed in their delineation, and that her enthusiasm is evinced in depicting the real, not in colouring the imaginary.

As graphic and scenic details are so valuable in biography, and give such life and animation to the picture which it exhibits, so we willingly accept from a female biographer, whether of her own or others' life, details which we could not tolerate in the other sex. When the Duchess of Abrantes, writing after the fall of Charles X., recounts in her charming memoirs the enchanting Schall de Cachemire, which excited her envy on the shoulders of Josephine – or tells us that at a certain ball in Paris, in 1797, she wore her blue satin dress and pearl ornaments, and at another, her pink silk, and diamonds, we perhaps smile at the simplicity which made her recount such things of herself; but still we gratefully accept them as characteristic of the costume or manners of the time. But we would never tolerate a male biographer of Murat, who should tell us that at a certain ball at Naples he wore his scarlet trowsers and black furred jacket, and on his coronation looked irresistible in his blue and silver uniform and splendid spare jacket; – not even though we know that in Russia he often returned to his lines with his sabre dripping wet with the blood of the Cossacks whom he had challenged and slain in single combat, and although the experience of all ages has confirmed the truth of Philopœmen's observation, that "to soldiers and women, dress is a matter of no small consequence."

Though details of this description, however, are valuable and admissible in biography, and come with peculiar propriety and grace from a female hand, it must be observed, on the other hand, that there is a limit, and a very obvious one, to the introduction of them, and that, if not inserted with caution, they may essentially injure the popularity or utility of a work. In particular, it is seldom safe to carry to any considerable length in the text the introduction of quotations from old histories or chronicles of the period, which often are filled with them to the exclusion of all other subjects. We know that such original documents have a great charm in the eyes of antiquarians or antiquarian biographers, the more especially if they have brought them to light themselves; but such persons learned in ancient lore constitute but a small fraction of the human race. The great body of readers, at least nineteen out of twenty, care nothing at all for such original authorities, but wish to see their import condensed into a flowing easy narrative in the author's own words. For this reason it is generally safest to give such original documents or quotations in notes or an appendix, and to confine quotations in the text to characteristic expressions, or original words spoken on very important occasions. Barante and Sismondi in France, Tytler in Scotland, and Lingard in England, have essentially injured the general popularity of their great and learned works, by not attending to this rule. The two Thierrys have chiefly won theirs by attending to it.

The great popularity and widely extended sale of Miss Strickland's Queens of England, almost equalling, we believe, that of any living author in this country, and much exceeding that of any prior writer, whether of her own or the other sex, in the same period in biography, is a proof both of the intrinsic excellence of that work, and the thirst which exists in the public mind for works of that description. We have long been of opinion that the narrative of human events might be rendered as popular in the outset, and far more and durably interesting in the end, than any works of fiction; and that the only reason why this has so seldom taken place, was because historical works were in general constructed on wrong principles. The great success which has recently attended historical composition in this country, especially in the case of Mr Macaulay's History and Miss Strickland's Lives, is a proof that this view of the subject is well founded. And of the two, biography, when supported by learning, and handled by genius such as both these learned writers possess, is much more likely to be generally popular than extended history, because it partakes more of the character of Romance, and possesses in a higher degree that unity of interest which is the most essential element in all arts which aim at pleasing or fascinating mankind.

Scotland is a country peculiarly fortunate in the characters it presents for biographical genius. This arises from its physical weakness when compared to the strength of its formidable neighbour, and the resources which it has ever found in the persevering and indomitable character of its inhabitants. The former in every age of the wars with England has made its plains the seat of conflict; while the latter has always secured their success in the end, though often after fearful reverses, and always against tremendous odds. The proof of this is decisive. Scotland, after three centuries of almost incessant conflict, first with the arms, and then, more formidable still, with the gold of England, was still unsubdued when her monarchs ascended the English throne, and the rivalry of two noble nations was turned into the blissful emulation of peace. It is this combination of circumstances which has caused her history to be so prolific of incident, and has rendered, as strangers so often have remarked, every step in her surface historical. Her physical weakness filled it with incident – her moral strength with heroic incident. Go where you will, you meet with some traces of the great or the beautiful, the gifted or the fascinating, of former days. The ancient walls and castellated rocks of Edinburgh teem with historical recollections of the highest interest, which the kindred spirit of modern chivalry has done so much to illustrate.[10 - Mr Aytoun's noble Lyrical Ballads, and Mr Grant's admirable History of the Castle of Edinburgh.] In the short space of twenty miles – between Falkirk and Stirling – are four battlefields,[11 - Falkirk, Torwood, Bannockburn, Stirling Bridge.] on each of which the fate of Britain was determined, or armies as numerous as those which met at Waterloo encountered each other. Lochleven exhibits the mournful prison of beauty: Niddry Castle, of her evanescent joys; the field of Langside, of her final overthrow. Cartlan Crags still show the cave of Wallace; Turnberry Castle the scene of Bruce's first victory; Culloden, the last battle-field of generous fidelity. Every step in Scotland is historical: the shades of the dead arise on every side: the very rocks breathe —

"Yet, Albyn, yet the praise be thine,
Thy scenes and story to combine!
Thou bid'st him who by Roslin strays,
List to the tale of other days;
Midst Cartlan Crags thou show'st the cave,
The refuge of the champion brave;
Giving each rock its storied tale,
Pouring a lay for every dale,
Knitting, as with a moral band,
Thy native legends with thy land,
To give each scene the interest high,
Which Genius lends to Beauty's eye."

Miss Strickland's talents as a writer, and turn of mind as an individual, in a peculiar manner fit her for painting a historical gallery of the most illustrious or dignified female characters in that land of chivalry and of song. Her disposition is at once heroic and pictorial. She has the spirit of chivalry in her soul, and the colours of painting in her eye. She sympathises with all the daring spirit, the bold adventure, the chivalrous devotion, of the cavaliers of former days; and she depicts with not less animation and force the stately scenes of departed times – the dignified processions, the splendid ceremonials, the imposing pageants. She has vast powers of application, and her research is unbounded; but these qualities, so necessary as the foundation of a historian's fame, are in her united with the powers of painting and the soul of poetry, and dignified by the elevated objects to which they are directed. The incidents of individual life are of peculiar importance in Scottish annals, because, with the exception of two periods – the war of independence under Wallace and Bruce, and the national struggle for emancipation from Popish tyranny at the Reformation – there have seldom been what we now call popular movements in Scotland. Everything, or next to everything, depended on individual character; the great game of the world was played by kings and queens, nobles and knights. On this great theatre the queens played, as they do everywhere, a most important part. The instruction of man in childhood, the object of his adoration in youth, of lasting influence in manhood, woman has, in modern Europe where her destiny was first fully developed, exercised an important sway, and more so than is generally supposed on national affairs. But nowhere has this influence been more strongly felt than in Scotland, where queens have appeared, whose beauty and misfortunes have become immortal in story, and been for ever engraven on the human heart by the hand of genius, and where the chivalrous and daring disposition of the country, the perfervidum Scotorum ingenium, at once penetrated some with the most devout adoration of their charms, and inspired others with the most vehement jealousy of their ascendency.

In her delineation of individual character, Miss Strickland evidently takes the greatest pains to be impartial; and the multitude of new documents and facts which she has brought on both sides of the question in regard to her heroines, is a sufficient proof that this most laudable principle is a ruling one in her mind. But she would be something more or something less than mortal, if no trace of predilection was to be found in her pages. It is rather, however, in regard to families than individuals that this leaning is apparent. She is evidently inimical to the Tudor and friendly to the Stuart race. In this she only shares the feelings of the chivalrous and the enthusiastic of every age and country; for the leading qualities of the one were as calculated, on a retrospect, to inspire aversion as those of the other were to awaken sympathy. The first was selfish, overbearing, cruel, but often exceedingly able: the latter generous, unsuspecting, heroic, but sometimes sadly imprudent. Success at the time crowned the worldly wisdom of the one, and disaster, long-continued and crushing, at length punished the unhappy want of foresight of the other. But the results of the time are not always indicative of the opinion of futurity: and already the verdict of mankind has been secured in regard to the rival Queens who brought their fortunes into collision, by two pleaders of surpassing power in swaying the human heart. Scotland may be proud that one of these was found in the most gifted of her sons, whose genius has, in one of his most perfect historical novels, immortalised the prison of Lochleven and the field of Langside; and Germany may well exult in the reflection that the other appeared in that matchless genius who three centuries after her death imbibed, on the banks of the Saale, the very soul and spirit of the age of Mary in England, and has for ever engraven her heroic death, and the imperishable scenes of Fotheringay, on the hearts of men.[12 - Schiller, in his noble drama of Maria Stuart.]

Miss Strickland's partiality for the Stuart and aversion to the Tudor race, may be explained by another and still more honourable circumstance. It is the inevitable effect of a long course of injustice, whether in the rulers of men, or the judges of those rulers, the annalists of their lives, to produce in the end a reaction in the general mind. This is more particularly the case in persons like Miss Strickland, actuated by generous and elevated feelings, and who feel conscious of power to redress much of the injustice which the long-continued ascendency of a particular party, whether in religion or politics, has inflicted on the characters of History. Nowhere has this injustice been more strongly experienced than in Great Britain during the last two centuries. The popular party in politics, and the reformed in religion, having in both these countries, after a sanguinary struggle, been successful, and a family seated on the throne which embodied, and in a manner personified, both these triumphs, nearly the whole historians who treated of the period for a century and a half were entirely one-sided. When Hume wrote his immortal history, he complained, with justice, that for seventy years power, reward, and emolument had been confined to one party in the state, and that the sources of History had in consequence been irremediably corrupted. His rhetorical powers and impartial spirit did much to remedy the evil, but he had not industry and research sufficient to do the whole. Much was left to the just feelings, and generous because disinterested effort, of the high-minded who succeeded him in the path of historical inquiry. Mr Tytler's great and authentic History of Scotland, and Lingard's able and valuable, though one-sided, History of England, have gone far to give the opposite side of the picture which Malcolm Laing and Burnet had painted in so vehement a party spirit, and Macaulay has since continued with such remarkable historical power. But much remained yet to be done. Antiquarian industry, chivalrous zeal, have of late brought many of the concealed or suppressed treasures of History to light; and it is those which Miss Strickland proposes to embody in her Queens of Scotland.

Of the general plan which she proposes to adopt in this work, our author gives the following admirable account: —

"As long as Scotland, in consequence of bad roads and tedious travelling, remained a sort of terra incognita, vulgar prejudice prevailed among the ignorant and narrow-minded portion of society in England; but Scotland only required to be seen to be appreciated. Strong in native talent, rich in native worth, valiant, persevering, and wise, her sons have been ever foremost in the field of honourable enterprise, whether in deeds of arms, science, jurisprudence, or the industrial arts of peaceful life. In poetry, music, and song, she has certainly never been surpassed. It was, however, reserved for the genius of Sir Walter Scott to draw English hearts and English gold to Scotland, and to knit those bonds of brotherly regard which no act of legislature could do. His graphic pictures of Scotland and the Scotch acted like a spell of enchantment on the imaginations of the English. Those who were able to indulge the enthusiastic feelings which his writings had excited, crossed the Border, rushed into Highland glens, scaled Highland hills, congregated at Scotch hostelries, peeped into Scotch cottages, were invited to partake of Scotch hospitality – and found themselves in a land flowing with milk and honey, not merely in its festive character, but in its kindliness to strangers, which is the glory of all lands.

"Yet among the numerous visitors whom the sight-seeing instincts of this age of locomotion have rendered familiar with the ancient seats of Scottish regality, how few know anything about the Queens who once held their courts within the now deserted walls of Dunfermline, Falkland, Linlithgow, and Stirling! – gems which, even in their desolation, are surviving monuments of the graceful tastes of their founders, and incline the musing antiquary, who realises in fancy for a moment their pristine glory, to smite his breast and exclaim 'Ichabod!' With the exception of Windsor Castle, England has certainly no vestige of palatial architecture which may compare with the royal homes of Scotland, of whose former tenants a few particulars may be no less acceptable to the sons and daughters of the land, than to the southern stranger who visits them.

"The Maiden Castle, sitting enthroned on her dun rock, the Acropolis of Edinburgh, at once a relic and a witness of the immutable Past, is full of memories of eventful scenes connected with Queens whose hearts would have leaped with exultation could their eyes have looked on such a vision of national prosperity as the bright New Town, with its gay streets, and shops full of costly merchandise; its spacious squares, crescents, and noble public buildings, rising on the outer ballium of that grim fortress whose base is now surrounded by green flowery gardens, for the joyance of a peace-loving generation. Mons Meg and her brethren have lost their vocation through the amended temper of the times, and hold sinecure posts in silence – their destructive thunders being superseded by the din of the railway trains bringing hourly freights of wealth and wisdom to the good town of Edinburgh and its inhabitants.

"Many original royal letters will be embodied in these volumes, with facts and anecdotes carefully verified. Local traditions, not unworthy of attention, have been gathered in the desolate palaces and historic sites where every peasant is an oral chronicler, full of spirit-stirring recollections of the past. These are occasionally connected with themes which were the fountains whence Sir Walter Scott drew his inspiration for the chivalric poetry and romance which has rendered Scotland classic ground. The tastes of those who were the rising generation, when the Waverley romances were the absorbing theme of interest in the literary world, have become matured. They require to have history rendered as agreeable without the mixture of fiction as with it; they desire to have it so written, without sacrificing truth to fastidiousness, that they may read it with their children, and that the whole family party shall be eager to resume the book when they gather round the work-table during the long winter evenings.

"Authors who feel as they ought to feel, should rejoice in seeing their productions capable of imparting pleasure to the simple as well as the refined; for a book which pleases only one grade of society may be fashionable, but cannot be called popular. That which interests peasants as well as peers, and is read with equal zest by children and parents, and is often seen in the hands of the operative classes, speaks to the heart in a language intelligible to a widely-extended circle of humanity, has written its own review, and needs no other."

In the last lines of these admirable observations, we doubt not Miss Strickland has, without intending it, foreshadowed the destiny of her own undertaking.

The work begins with the Life of Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII. of England, and married at the early age of fourteen to James IV., the heroic and brilliant King of Scotland. This choice, in many respects, was fortunate, as it commences with the period when the fortunes of the two kingdoms became closely interlaced, and with the princess whose marriage with James was the immediate cause of the union of the two crowns on the same head, and the placing of the Stuart, and through it of the Hanoverian family, on the British throne.

The first chapter is occupied with the details of the journey of the royal bride from London to Edinburgh, which was somewhat a more tedious and fatiguing undertaking than it is now when performed by her descendant Queen Victoria, for it took above three weeks to perform. The reception of the youthful princess at York, Newcastle, and Durham, where she was met and attended by the whole nobility and gentry of the northern counties, who accompanied her on her progress northward on horseback, gives occasion for several faithful and animated pictures. Her first day's journey in Scotland, however, brought her into ruder scenery, characteristic of the stormy life which lay before her; and she rested the first night at Fastcastle, then a stronghold of the Home family, now belonging to Sir John Hall of Dunglass, which modern genius, under a feigned name, has done so much to celebrate.

"Fastcastle is no other than the veritable Wolf-Crag Tower, celebrated in Scott's Bride of Lammermoor as the abode of the Master of Ravenswood. It is seated on a lofty promontory, which commands the lonely indented bay of which St Abb's Head forms the extreme point to the right, with a wild array of rifted rocks terminating in the Wolf-Crag, which soars high in mid air above the fortress – black, gloomy, and inaccessible. The way by which the southern bride and her company reached this rugged resting-place lay across the Lammermuir, several miles of wild heath and treacherous bog, which no stranger might traverse in safety without guides well acquainted with the track. Before they entered on this pass, they had to descend a hill which was so steep and precipitous that, even within the last century, it was customary for the passengers by the mail-coach between Berwick and Edinburgh to alight and cross it on foot, while the carriage was taken off the wheels and carried over by a relay of men, stationed on the spot for that purpose. Of course the roads were not better in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Fastcastle is approached by one or two descents and ascents of this kind, and is separated from the mainland by a cleft between the rocks, which has to be crossed by a natural bridge formed of a ledge of rock, without rail or guard, with the vexed billows boiling and thundering sixty feet below.

"When the young Tudor Queen made her passage across this Al Arat of the Caledonian coast, she had the German Ocean before her, which beats against the rocky battlements and defences with which the basement of the castle is surrounded. One of these masses resembles the upturned keel of a huge man-of-war stranded among other fragments, which, like the relics of a former world, lay scattered at the foot of the precipice, with the wild breakers rushing through their clefts, forming a grand jet-d'eau, and tossing the light feathery foam on high. The larger rocks are the haunt of innumerable sea-birds. Fastcastle had formerly been the stronghold of some of those ferocious feudal pirates who may be regarded as the buccaneers of the Caledonian coast. Many a bloody deed had been perpetrated within its isolated and inaccessible circuit; but the festive solemnities and ceremonials that surrounded the royal bride allowed no leisure or opportunity for whispers of the dark tales and romantic traditions connected with its history."

Hitherto the Tudor princess had not seen her royal lover. Their first interview, and his personal appearance, are described in these characteristic lines: —

"James entered the presence of Margaret Tudor with his hawking-lure flung over his shoulder, dressed simply in a velvet jacket; his hair and beard, curling naturally, were rather long, his complexion glowing from the manly exercise he had just been engaged in. He was the handsomest sovereign in Europe, the black eyes and hair of his elegant father, James III., being softened in his resemblance to the blonde beauty of his Danish mother. Sir Walter Scott has drawn James IV.'s portrait con amore, and has not exaggerated the likeness —

'For hazel was his eagle eye,
And auburn of the darkest dye
His short curled beard and hair.
Light was his footstep in the dance,
And firm his stirrup in the lists,
And oh, he had that merry glance
Which seldom lady's heart resists.'"

The young Queen met her royal lord at the doorway of her great chamber. The King of Scotland uncovered his head and made a deep obeisance to her, while she made a lowly reverence to him. He then took her hand and kissed her, and saluted all her ladies by kissing them. It was noticed that he welcomed the chivalric Earl of Surrey with especial cordiality.