Each household affair, By prudent use of it; Fills with treasures the presses whence fragrance breathes, Round the quick whirling spindle the flaxen thread wreathes, Lays up in the chest, clean, polish'd, and bright, And adds to the household its charm and grace ever, And the Father, with joyous smile, From his wide, o'er-looking roof, the while, And the granaries 'neath their burden bending, Now the casting may begin, Be a pious prayer presented! Shield us, Heaven, to-day! Beneficent the power of Flame, While Man its might may watch, and tame, He owes this power from Heaven that came ; Nought to check its fierce invasion, For the elements abhor The works of Man's creation! Wells the rich dew, Out of the cloud alike The lightnings strike! Hear ye it wail from belfry high? Is Heaven become. That is not day's orient glow. What busy hum Round extends ! Steam ascends ! Flaring, the column'd flames mount the sky, Beasts howl distress'd, Distracted, each runs, rescues, flies! High in air the bucket goes; Hopeless by, Yielding his god-like strength, Man stands, The fair homestead, Of wild storms the barren bed. And the scudding clouds from Heaven's face Ere he goes, Back to the grave Of all wealth gave Yet one look the Master throws; Fair the mould the metals fill: If the mould prove frail, Alas! perchance, e'en in the thing We trust our hand-accomplish'd deed; The sower, too, intrusts his seed, And hopes to see its second birth, If Heaven his work with blessing speed: Yet costlier seed, a dearer prize, Sorrowing, we hide in earth's dark breast, And hope 'twill from the coffin rise To bloom again in state more blest. From the steeple Tolls the Bell, The funeral knell ! Solemn, accompanying, with mournful boom, From the husband bears away From the troop of children fair, Broken are for ever there,- Who the name of mother bare! THE LAY OF THE BELL. With the setting sun Labour's task is done. The workman rests when vespers chime, Broad of brow and sleek of skin, To the stalls accustom'd going. Rolls in the wain Laden with grain ; The wreath on high And the dance, the youthful reapers Streets and markets silent grow; Cover'd is earth, Yet the burgher safe no fear Hath of night, Which wakes the bad to crime's career; For knows he, watching is the Law's quick sight. Hail, holy Order! blessing all, Daughter of Heaven! that with mild thrall That founds the growing city sure, Move a thousand hands untiring, Under Freedom's sure defence; Scorns the scorner's insolence; Never may the day appear When the savage hordes of war Shall through this still valley rage! When the heavens, Which the tender glow of eve Shall from burning town and hamlet Served its end, its use hath ceased, At fitting time the master knows ; The house the fierce explosion rends; And as from open jaws of Hell, Wide round its fiery ruin sends. Woe! when within the city's heart The burgher arms him at the sound; And banded murderers march around. Hyena-like with hideous jest, And panther's savage thirst of blood, To tear the heart from foeman's breast. Is broken now of pious awe; And Vice supreme itself is law. Is Man himself in his illusion! The torch unto the blind man's hand : And the scutcheons moulded truly Here, Comrades, here, Close round, that consecrate we may And Concord be the name 't shall bear! To Unity and brotherhood of Will, A loving people may it gather still! Dwelling in heaven's blue canopy, Be dedicate alone its chime; In the realm of sound to dwell. O! bode it to this city joy, C. R. L. TYTLER'S HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.* MR. TYTLER's readers will, we are persuaded, | of the rival and hostile kingdoms. Mr. Tytler's participate in those feelings of mingled regret and gratitude with which he tells them he now closes "the labours of eighteen years;" years passed in the tranquil pleasures of historical investigation and "devoted to the pursuit of truth." This gratitude springs from the purest and the highest source; and rises to the Giver of all Good, that life and health have been spared him to complete his arduous undertaking. Nor can it be without grateful feelings of another kind, that the author looks back upon his finished work; on the noble monument which he has, through so long a term of years, patiently and diligently piled, and which must henceforth entwine his name with the literature and the history of his country. The world has undergone important changes since this work was projected, some of which are, we think, reflected in its pages. One of the most marked of these changes is the rapid ascendancy of the Democratic principle; of the "rascal pokebearing Commons." The "vulgar sort." have everywhere, and even under the most despotic governments, become of more account. One consequence of this is, that the Historian dives deeper into the heart of the social system in looking for the springs of events. He is no longer contented, as of old, with merely skimming the surface of society, or resting on its prouder eminences. He perceives mighty causes silently at work, which have hitherto passed with but slight attention, until, like the French revolution, revealed in their tremendous results.- -The style, or rather spirit, of modern History, at least as it is exemplified in the pages of Mr. Tytler, and especially in his later volumes, has also become more racy and picturesque. If the novelists have, of late, invaded the province of the Historians, the latter have, on the other hand, learned something of dramatic effect from the pages of Historical Romance. Instead of the brief details and masterly generalisations of Hume, or the stately, resonant periods of Robertson's narrative, we have, in Mr. Tytler's History, without any sacrifice of recondite thought or purity of style, more graphic force, a closer appeal to fact, and a firmer reliance on the naked truth of character and circumstance. We see events passing, not in the dressed-up narrative of a distant third party, but as nearly as possible as they actually appeared to the spectators, or to the actors in the scenes described. We are admitted behind the scenes, to see how passion and interest animate and influence men of all degrees; and by what strange motives, or with how "little wisdom" and forethought, the world is governed. A troubled and unruly world was that same brave, old world of Scotland down to the period at which Mr. Tytler takes leave of it; when the death of Elizabeth, by opening the succession to the crown of England to James VI., blended the future history * Volume IX. 8vo, pp. 446. Edinburgh': Tait, VOL. XI.-NO. CXXII. work, closing with this period, possesses a secondary, and yet important value to the reflecting student of history, from furnishing one of the most complete pictures of society in a particular stage of progression that can be obtained. Change but the names, and shift the scene from Scotland and the Scottish Court in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, to Affghanistan and Cabul at this moment, and the annals of both countries become, in their great features, almost identical. A feudal monarch, however able and intrepid he might personally be, contending, often hopelessly, against his unruly and powerful chiefs and barons, whom he could only manage by playing off against each other those passions of ambition, revenge, and rapacity, which kept the nobles at perpetual feud amongst themselves; and a country distracted and impoverished by their oppression and their quarrels, and the feebleness of the supreme power; of the Law, as represented by the sovereign. The Feudal principle, in its early stages, is not more forcibly illustrated in the history of any nation than in the annals of Scotland during the reigns of the Stuarts; nor yet the policy by which a stronger and betterordered commonwealth, in irksome relation with a poor, unruly, and troublesome neighbour, contrives to keep her in a state of perpetual alarm and disquietude. Throughout the entire reign of Elizabeth, it was the base maxim of her government, that internal peace in Scotland was imminent peril to England. Ireland is very much at the present day what Scotland was to England during the reign of Elizabeth, and in the feeble nonage of the Reformation principle. It was by Union that the peace and welfare of both kingdoms were finally secured,-by the union of the crowns, followed by a union of the kingdoms. Though we think that Mr. Tytler has both pictorialized and moralized History in a spirit that belongs to our own period, and in so doing raised its character as a general instructor, besides rendering it more attractive; it is probable that his main distinctive attribute as an Historian, will be considered his systematic rejection of all second-hand testimony, however high its authority; and his simple reliance on the truth as he found it at first-hand, revealed to his patient and unwearied research in those voluminous original documents which had either remained unexamined for centuries, or had been examined very imperfectly. This is a solid and indefeasible claim; and one which, in Mr. Tytler's case, admits of no dispute; as every page bears testimony to its validity. We may be influenced, unconsciously however, by the spirit of our own age, when we consider the new style of writing the annals of nations, which has been adopted and indeed in part invented by Mr. Tytler, as more congenial to "men's business and bosoms" than the elaborate compositions of what may be called the Classical School of History; and in imagining the familiar H an open course of policy ever been her object in the country which she always aimed to divide, in order to govern. The Armada was gathering in Spain; the ports of Flanders rang with the din of preparation; and Ireland was, as ever, when danger menaces England, on the eve of a rebellion. But this, the Rebellion of Tyrone, afterwards proved one of the most formidable of those endless move and life-like "Tales of a Grandfather," quite as full | not at this time afford to quarrel with Scotland, had of instruction as more grave and ornate productions. This is, after all, a matter of taste; but not so the new facts, and new documents, originating new views of character, and pointing to probable motives of action not before suspected, which have been dragged into light by Mr. Tytler. We may illustrate our idea of the classical and the modern mode of writing History, and at the same time vindicate our preference of the lat-ments. The genius or good genius of Elizabeth, ter, of the familiar, graphic, and picturesque,by pointing to the original letters of Elizabeth, now first printed in the Appendix to this volume, and which are replete with individuality; and those letters which have long been before the world, written officially on the same business by her ministers, and only bearing her signature. Mr. Tytler's eighth volume closed with the tragical execution of Queen Mary. At the opening of this volume the character of Elizabeth becomes, if possible, more odious to the reader, from the deep dissimulation (with which some remorse might have mingled) which she practised on receiving accounts of the rival queen's death; and from her severity and perfidy to her tools and instruments in that catastrophe. How nobly-the most bigoted Tory must allow-stands out the conduct of the Regicides throughout the troubles and the trial and execution of Charles the First, when contrasted with the baseness of Queen Elizabeth and her ministers to the long-marked and longpursued victim of her suspicion and jealousy! Truth was as incompatible with the functions of sovereignty in those times, as it is to be feared frankness and sincerity must be in courts at all times. Mr. Tytler's History, like every other history, whatever opinion it may leave of the value of the Institution of Monarchy, does not in any case recommend the individuals doomed to enact the part of monarch either to the reader's affections or esteem. The duplicity of Elizabeth failed for once. Scotland and Europe held her guilty of the murder at which she affected so much indignation and horror. In Scotland the intelligence was received with universal indignation and open threats of revenge; but the feeling seems to have evaporated in words where other interests were not involved in the quarrel. The party most deeply interested by affection and by honour, the young king, selfishly delighted with the assurance of undivided sovereignty, even suffered, according to Mr. Tytler, some expressions of satisfaction to escape him; which his wily chief minister, Secretary Maitland, thought it right should only reach the most confidential ears. The proud and fierce Border chiefs, and the Catholic lords of the north, were more in earnest, as was proved in some desperate forays and many threats of vengeance. Secretary Maitland, afterwards Chancellor, was the most distinguished and influential Scottish statesman of this period; and Mr. Tytler has bestowed remarkable pains in elaborating that mixed character in which bad moral elements greatly preponderated; although Maitland certainly possessed many solid and useful qualities. Elizabeth could or of England and of Protestantism, once more triumphed. The Armada was dispersed, the Guises assassinated, and Elizabeth found herself at liberty to retract or forget the lavish promises by which in the moment of danger she had purchased the amity and assistance of the King of Scots, and inspired him with fresh zeal against his rebellious subjects, the Catholic lords. They had been encouraging Spain to attack England through Scotland; promising Philip and the Duke of Parma that the moment a descent was made, they would join them with a body of troops which should overwhelm Elizabeth. This may serve as an introduction to an illustrative extract. Against this [the invasion] there was little to oppose: for the Scottish king and the Kirk were on bad terms; and the Chancellor Maitland, the only man of statesmanlike views, although in heart a Protestant and a friend to England, lived in hourly dread of assassination by Bothwell, or some of his desperate associates. Under such trying circumstances, it says something for the King of Scots that he resisted the high offers made to him at termined opponent of Spain, resolved to support the rethis crisis by foreign princes, declared himself the deformed opinions, and coöperated cordially with the Queen of England. He assured Elizabeth that she could not detest more deeply than himself the plots of the Papists; that none of the messengers of Antichrist, their common enemy, should be encouraged; and that his single reason for suspending their usual loving intelligence was a feeling that she had failed to vindicate herself from the guilt of his mother's blood. To prove his sincerity against the Catholics, he summoned his forces, attacked the Castle of Lochmaben belonging to Lord Maxwell, who had now assumed the title of Morton, and, reinforced by an English battering-train, beat the castle about the ears of its captain, David Maxwell, whom he hanged with six of his men. This spirit and severity enchanted Elizabeth; and she forthwith despatched Mr. William Ashby to the Scottish court with her thanks and congratulations. But the ambassador promised far more than the queen had the least intention of performing. His royal mistress, he said, was ready to settle a duchy on her good brother, with a yearly pension of five thousand pounds. She would immediately raise for him a body-guard of fifty Scottish gentlemen; and, to meet the danger of a revolt by the Popish lords on the approach of the Armada, she would levy a corps of a hundred horse and a hundred infantry to act upon the Borders. But the danger passed over; and Elizabeth was ever as dexterous at forgetting promises as oppor tune in making them. James now naturally looked for the performance of her promises; but he was cruelly disappointed. With parsimony revived: the promised duchy with its princely the cessation of alarm, Elizabeth's deep-rooted habits of revenue, the annual pension, the intended body-guard, the English auxiliaries to act upon the Borders, melted away, and were no more heard of :-Ashby, the ambastions; and the king, in great wrath, complained that he sador, it was alleged, had much exceeded his instruchad been dandled and duped like a boy. These irritated feelings were encouraged by the Spanish faction. Many urged the king to seek revenge. Bothwell, ever anxious ceed according to the king's wishes; and, to use the naive "the Countess of Mar, for broils, boasted that, without charging his master a expression of a contemporary, farthing, he would bleed Elizabeth's exchequer at the having taken the queen's right arm, and opened the rate of two hundred thousand crowns a-year, or lay the craigs of her gown, Mr. Robert Bruce immediately country waste to the gates of Newcastle. The more poured forth upon those parts of her breast and arm of moderate party hardly dared to advise; and the Chan- quhilk the clothes were removed, a bonny quantity of oil." cellor Maitland, hitherto the firm friend of England, Anne of Denmark's triumphal entry into her capifound himself compelled to unite with Huntly. The tal far out-did that of Queen Victoria the other character of the young prince, and the dangerous and year; the worthy merchants and burgesses having unsettled state of Scotland at this time, were strikingly had full time and scope for due preparation, and the described by Fowler in one of his letters to Walsingham. He found James, he said, a virtuous prince, stained by display of their splendour. Kings and queens no vice, and singularly acute in the discussion of all mat-now-a-days are acting wisely in trying to diminish ters of state; but indolent and careless, and so utterly the senseless prostration of their worshippers; and profuse, that he gave to every suitor, even to vain youths it is full time. and proud fools, whatever they desired. He did not scruple to throw away, in this manner, even the lands of his crown; and so reckless was he of wealth, that, in Fowler's opinion, if he were to get a million from England, it would all go the same way. His pleasures were hunting, of which he was passionately fond; and playing at the mare, an English game of chance, in which he piqued himself on excelling. In his dress he was slovenly, and his court and household were shabby and unkingly; but he sat often in council, was punctual in his religious duties, not missing the sermons thrice a-week; and his manners betrayed no haughtiness or pride. It was evident to Fowler that he detested the rude and ferocious bearing of his great nobles, who were content to obey him in trifles, but in all serious matters, touching life or justice, took the law into their own hands, and openly defied him. Upon this subject Fowler's expressions justice, it was evident, he said, his subjects feared him not, whilst he was terrified to deal with so many at once, looking tremblingly to the fate of his ancestors, of whom such as attempted to execute justice with severity, were uniformly put to death by their nobles. were remarkable. When it came to the execution of James at this period had not long attained his majority. In cunning he had been an early proficient; and though always dishonest, his understanding expanded with his years and experience of affairs. He was indeed one of the most singular mixtures of sagacity and imbecility, spirit and pusillanimity, that ever wore a crown. Unlike what is alleged of his grandson Charles II., his actions were often marked by more wisdom than his words. But in this tumultuary period of his reign, he owed much to the sagacious counsels and firmness of his chancellor, Maitland; and he was also sometimes made a hero in spite of himself.- -A lull following the crushing of the Catholic Lords, (the Earls of Huntly and Errol, aided by the turbulent Bothwell,) enabled the young king to perform the gallant and chivalrous exploit of going to Denmark to claim, despite the smallness of her tocher, the royal bride whom the envious winds and waves had conspired to keep from his embraces. All Mr. Tytler's veneration for royalty cannot save him from perpetrating here and there a gentle joke at the expense of "Gentle King Jamie;" followed by others at the Kirk, which the historian admires even less than the king. The young Queen of Scotland's coronation took place not long after the royal pair reached Edinburgh, and was performed on a scale of unusual magnificence ; Only clouded by a dispute between the king and the Kirk, on the subject of "anointing;" a ceremony represented on the side of the Puritans as Jewish, papal, and abominably superstitious-on the other, as Christian, holy, and Catholic. The royal arguments, however, were enforced by a threat that one of the bishops should be sent for. The dread of this worse profanation procured the admission of the lesser: the ceremony was allowed to pro Acting under the counsels of Maitland, James, after his marriage, resolved on energetic measures to restrain his turbulent barons and extend and consolidate the influence of the Crown. His first decided measure was the attempt to seize the Laird of Niddry, a lesser baron, protected by Bothwell; which, though the man escaped, showed that the king was in earnest. This spirited act, and the new regulations in giving audience at the palace, now first adopted by James, gave deep offence to a haughty nobility; every one of whom fancied himself quite as good a man as his prince. New conspiracies were formed, which had, however, the good effect of drawing the councils of ElizaElizabeth was beth and James more into unity. besides, at this time, as much teased and exasperated by the encroachments of the Puritans as James was afflicted by those of the Kirk ministers. In the intervals of more serious affairs, the king found leisure to amuse himself by hunting up witches; an amusement which, if sport to him, was too often death to them. Our enlightened age,-in which learned and respectable men openly profess belief in the wildest alleged phenomena of mesmerism, and settle a man's moral and intellectual character, if not from the witch-marks seen in his eyes or found on other parts of his body, as did the witch-finders of the sixteenth century, then from certain bumps or hollows on his skull, has no right whatever to be severe in judgment on King James and his darker age. A certain witch, named Barbara Napier, being woman well connected," was on her trial acquitted, where a poor unfriended crone whom the king wished to find guilty, would too probably have been summarily condemned. He was enraged, and strained law and justice on another witch-trial, in which, after the fashion of Alfred, or "Fergus the first of our kings," he sate, sole and supreme, administering justice as judge and jury. The poor wretches arraigned, pleaded guilty, and came in the king's mercy; and the monarch made a most characteristic speech; one, indeed, much better than any dramatist, or novelist, could have invented for him, and to introduce which we have mentioned the trial: a Alluding to the shocking state of the country and the prevalence of crimes, "I must advertise you," said he, "what it is that makes great crimes to be so rife in this country; namely, that all men set themselves more for friend than for justice and obedience to the laws. This corruption here bairns suck at the pap; and let a man commit the most filthy crimes that can be, yet his friends take his part; and first keep him from apprehension, and after, by fead or favor, by false assize, or some way or |