man more or better work than he can profitably undertake. Good work, work that is good for a man and good in value, is only possible when there is an approximate balance between the capacities of the toiler and the character and quality of the work to be done. No doubt a great deal of work is done without anything like a successful balance between the two. But the point to observe is that the right-to-work principle ignores altogether the importance of this moral condition of all healthy work. For such a condition can only be attained if there is free play between the individual worker and the employer of labour.

Moreover, it is demoralising to worker and employer alike if the wage paid has not a real and direct economic relation to the work done. The worker's serious interest in his work, which largely comes from the sense that his work has a real and not a fictitious economic value, is completely undermined if he knows that, whatever be the amount or quality of the work done, the same pay will be forthcoming. The employer, too, loses all vital interest in the work for the same reason; he looks upon it with indifference, and regards the workers, not with respect, but with pity or contempt. Work for the State cannot have the dignity of labour for the commonweal, when the State is grudgingly compelled to provide such work to the loss of the community.

Finally, the herding of men together into compounds to do State-prescribed work, in places remote from the families of the workers, and under conditions where the minimum of interest is taken in the workmen, can only be considered dehumanising in the extreme. The workman's sense of responsibility to the community for his work, which is encouraged and sustained by linking his work with the needs of his own family circle, is corrupted and destroyed. Even if such an experience lasted but a short time, it could only leave the worker morally worse than it found him.

One word in conclusion. We need not suppose that this scheme is really new or has not been tried. It was proposed as early as 1601 in an Act of Elizabeth, and led ultimately to the disastrous results described in the Report of the Poor Law Commission of 1832. It was tried in France in 1848, and produced nothing but social and political and economic confusion.

ART. IX.-MARY STUART,

1. Marie Stuart. By LADY BLENNERHASSETT. Paris: PlonNourrit et Cie. 1909.

2. Histoire du Règne de Marie Stuart. By MARTIN PHILIPPSON. Paris Emile Bouillon. 3 vols. 1891.

3. Maria Stuart im Drama der Weltliteratur. Leipzig: Max Hesse's Verlag. 1907.

4. Papal Negotiations with Mary Queen of Scots, 1561-7. By T. K. POLLEN, S.J. Scottish Historical Society. 1901. 5. The Casket Letters and Mary Queen of Scots. By T. F. HENDERSON. London: A. and C. Black. 1890.

6. The Mystery of Mary Stuart. By ANDREW LANG. London: Longmans and Co. 1902.

7. Authentic Portraits of Mary Queen of Scots. By LIONEL CUST. London John Murray. 1903.

IN

N the magnificent, impartial sanctuary of Westminster Abbey men of differing religions have been laid side by side: enemies have been reconciled: murderer and victim have been entombed. Amongst these pacts of death none strikes the imagination with greater force than that of two women. Their cenotaphs are placed in parallel positions of honour in recesses on either side of Henry VII's Chapel, equi-distant from the holy shrine of Edward, King and Confessor. The catafalques are equal in magnificence, the alabaster effigies that lie below the marble canopies are both decked as queens : both pairs of feet rest on the same significant heraldic lion. The Abbey honours the unhappy, fugitive, ill-fated Queen whose six years of power were expiated by eighteen years of durance and a violent death, no less than it honours the most splendid and successful Queen of modern history, whose assured reign was the golden age of the country over which she ruled. Neither woman ever looked on the other's face, yet neither was long out of the other's thoughts. One died, it is true, as disconsolately as the other, deserted by friends and lovers; and has not time equalised their fates? for round one head shines the martyr's aureole, while on the other rests the crown of material success.

Someone once said that the only biography which English people read willingly is the Life of Mary Queen of Scots, and that if variations on her career were brought out every month

or two they would find countless readers and buyers. Absurd as this assertion sounds, there is a measure of truth in it, for interest in her life never dies, never even fades. From the day of Darnley's murder a continuous series of poems, plays and operas have been composed about this Queen. Vondel, Alfieri, Schiller, Swinburne and a host of less known writers have been roused to celebrate her tragic story. Thirteen pages of the British Museum Catalogue attest to the interest she has evoked in the minds of men and women of all nations. Mr. Cust's beautiful book enables us to compare twenty-seven authentic representations of Mary with six supposititious ones, and from studying it we can form a clear idea of the appearance of this woman of undefinable charm. But in spite of all these efforts, no one has ever portrayed the magic of Mary, no one will ever know why her biographers develope into partisans, why hardly anyone in writing about her has been able to resist weighting the balances in one direction or the other.

If we were to sit down and ask ourselves what virtues Mary possessed we should not find the list long, but, as M. Philippson says, 'elle n'a point été la femme de mœurs légères que ses adversaires se plaisent à nous dépeindre depuis plus 'de trois siècles.' She was courageous, generous, grateful to all who showed her kindness, and a lover of high and dangerous things. Her aptitudes were in a measure heroic, although in practice she was cruel, faithless, untruthful, incapable of deep feeling or idealised love and subject to gusts of physical passion. What is it that makes us forgive her so much? Is it her youth? Is it her dreadful expiation of those seven years in Scotland, years crowded with incident, streaked with tragedy, stained by crime, darkened by intrigue?

The last historian to attempt an appreciation of this chequered life is Lady Blennerhassett, a woman well qualified by the habit of patient investigation and the methodical practices engendered by a life of serious work, as well as by her acute perceptions and judgement, to hold the balance fair. Emphatically this biographer is not a partisan, though she has a theory. It seems a reasonable one. She suggests that Mary's acts should not be judged by any of our personal standards of conduct, but should be referred to her idea of herself, to her belief that she was something more than a mere woman since she represented the majesty and sanctity of the kingly prerogative. It is probably true that Mary had no private standard of behaviour and that she was fundamentally convinced that all personal inclinations and aversions should be sacrificed to political combinations, to the exigencies of government. That

these combinations and exigencies occasionally necessitated the removal of certain persons from the scenes of daily life was to her no matter for idle regrets, for her view was detached, as that of any general who regards 'casualties in action' as the means of accomplishing his end. With regard to herself also she stood completely aloof from sentimentalism, and Lady Blennerhassett, in writing of her matrimonial negotiations, says 'On la voit toujours prête à immoler sa personne à n'importe quelle combinaison politique.'

A virtue attaching to this latest biography is the admirable sense of proportion displayed in it. Everyone who has read many of the Lives' of Mary Queen of Scots realises what undue importance is given in them to the facts of the Riccio and Darnley murders and to the mystery of the Casket Letters as against the actual bearing upon affairs of the conspiracies they symbolised. Lady Blennerhassett, though giving a detailed account of the crimes and the incriminatory letters, does not lose sight of, or allow the reader to lose sight of, the political combinations of which they were but indications.

Mary's life falls into four periods-the first consisting of five years' childhood in Scotland, the second of fourteen years in France, the third of seven years in Scotland, the fourth of eighteen years in England. The first of these periods is of scant importance, except from the point of view of foreign politics. From the moment of James V's death, six days after Mary's birth, the kings of Europe began to intrigue as to her eventual marital alliance. When dying, Henry VIII, far-seeing statesman as he was, impressed on Somerset, the Protector of the kingdom, that a marriage between his son Edward and Mary Stuart must be put through and, if necessary, by force. In execution of this project Somerset crossed the Tweed in 1547, and fought the Scots at Pinkie. Defeated in battle, the Northerners immediately identified the idea of national independence with a French alliance, and offered their baby Queen to France in exchange for help. Their offer was accepted, and the engagement of Mary to the Dauphin Francis confounded English policy.

With a sad heart Mary of Lorraine despatched her child to France. Five other Maries and several half-brothers, including Lord James Stuart, embarked with her, and in the first days of August 1548, at the very time when John Knox, chained to the oar of a French galley, was labouring on the North Sea, the little convoy tacked along the west coast of Ireland to keep clear of English ships. At Roscoff, near Brest, a chapel stands to commemorate that calm summer voyage and

happy landing. Thus were inaugurated the fourteen years of life in France, those years which both from the castles of Scotland and the prisons of England were looked back upon as Paradise.

The King of France called Mary the most accomplished child he had ever seen, and Diane de Poitiers treated her kindly, making sure that she was properly fed and properly clothed. Her education was well conducted, and at thirteen we find her declaiming a Latin oration before the court on the advantages of arts and letters to women, writing themes on Aesop, Cato and Cicero, as well as letters on hunting the fallow deer, and remedies for the toothache. Serious studies were considered good for children, but the main vocation of the royal circle was the practice of what they called 'joyusitie,' the elaborate profession of a leisured class in that day as in all days-a brilliant exquisite cloak disguising immorality, want of purpose and want of heart. 'Joyusitie' was just the quality that Mary was in the future to try to impress on dour Scotland, and the quality she was to miss most amongst her northern subjects.

Mary Stuart's marriage to her royal fiancé was accomplished ten years after her landing, and as a mark of national approval the Scots Parliament, inspired by Mary of Lorraine, voted the crown matrimonial to the French prince. Lord James Stuart, when nominated by his Regent to convey the sword, sceptre and crown of Scotland to the husband of his Queen, made many pretexts of delay and ended by never executing the commission. The death of Mary Tudor, which occurred in the same year as the wedding of Mary Stuart, was the signal for the King of France to give a foolish order, the unforeseen effects of which were destined to overcast the life of his gay little daughter-in-law. He ordered that the Royal arms of England should be quartered with those of France. Before signing the marriage contract with the Dauphin, Mary Stuart had secretly bequeathed (in the event of her dying without issue) Scotland and her claim on the English throne to France. Emboldened by possession of this secret treaty, Henry II, ignoring the claims of Elizabeth, ordered that Francis and Mary should be proclaimed sovereigns of Scotland, England and Ireland. The effect of this proclamation was that the only hope of national independence in Scotland became at once centred in an alliance with England.

Four years before her marriage Mary Stuart appointed her mother, Mary of Lorraine, as Regent of Scotland. In trying to govern Scotland with Frenchmen the Regent had got into great difficulties. Her councillors were located at Paris and