church, and prayed for prosperity to her son, and for a long life and peaceable reign to Elizabeth. She declared that she hoped for mercy only through the death of Christ, at the foot of whose image she now willingly shed her blood; and lifting up and kissing the crucifix, she thus addressed it: "As thy arms, O Jesus, were extended on the cross; so with the outstretched arms of thy mercy receive me, and forgive my sins."

She then prepared for the block, by taking off her veil and upper garments; and one of the executioners rudely endeavouring to assist, she gently checked him, and said with a smile, that she had not been accustomed to undress before so many spectators, nor to be served by such valets.

rows.

With

calm but undaunted fortitude, she laid her neck on the block; and while one executioner held her hands, the other, at the second stroke, cut off her head, which falling out of its attire, discovered her hair already grown quite gray with cares and sorThe executioner held it up still streaming with blood, and the dean crying out, "So perish all queen Elizabeth's enemies!" the earl of Kent alone answered, Amen. The rest of the spectators continued silent, and drowned in tears; being incapable, at that moment, of any other sentiments but those of pity or admiration.

Such was the tragical death of Mary, queen of Scots, after a life of forty-four years and two months, almost nineteen years of which she passed in captivity. The political parties which were formed in the kingdom during her reign have subsisted, under various denominations, ever since that time. The rancour with which they were at first animated hath descended to succeeding ages, and their prejudices, as well as their rage, have

been perpetuated, and even augmented. Among historians, who were under the dominion of all these passions, and who have either ascribed to her every virtuous and amiable quality, or have imputed to her all the vices of which the human heart is susceptible, we search in vain for Mary's real character. She neither merited the exaggerated praises of the one, nor the undistinguished censure of the other.

To all the charms of beauty, and the utmost elegance of external form, she added those accomplishments which render their impression irresistible. Polite, affable, insinuating, sprightly, and capable of speaking and of writing with equal ease and dignity. Sudden, however, and violent in all her attachments; because her heart was warm and unsuspicious. Impatient of contradiction; because she had been accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a queen. No stranger, on some occasions, to dissimulation; which in that perfidious court where she received her education, was reckoned among the necessary arts of government. Not insensible of flattery, or unconscious of that pleasure with which almost every woman beholds the influence of her own beauty. Formed with the qualities which we love, not with the talents that we admire; she was an agreeable woman, rather than an illustrious queen. The vivacity of her spirit, not sufficiently tempered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times under the restraint of discretion, betrayed her both into errors and into crimes. To say that she was always unfortunate, will not account for that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calamities which befell her; we must likewise add, that she was often impru

dent. Her passion for Darnley was rash, youthful, and excessive; and though the sudden transition to the opposite extreme was the natural effect of her ill-requited love, and of his ingratitude, insolence, and brutality; yet neither these, nor Bothwell's artful address and important services, can justify her attachment to that nobleman. Even the manners of the age, licentious as they were, are no apology for this unhappy passion; nor can they induce us to look on that tragical and infamous scene which followed upon it with less abhorrence. Humanity will draw a veil over this part of her character which it cannot approve, and may, perhaps, prompt some to impute some of her actions to her situation, more than to her dispositions; and to lament the unhappiness of the former, rather than excuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary's sufferings exceed, both in degree and in duration, those tragical distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sorrow and commiseration; and while we survey them, we are apt altogether to forget her frailties, we think of her faults with less indignation, and approve of our tears, as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure virtue.

With regard to the queen's person, a circumstance not to be omitted in writing the history of a female reign, all contemporary authors agree in ascribing to Mary the utmost beauty of countenance, and elegance of shape, of which the human form is capable. Her hair was black, though according to the fashion of that age, she frequently wore borrowed locks, and of different colours. Her eyes were a dark gray; her complexion was exquisitely fine; and her hands and arms remarkably delicate, both as to shape and colour. Her

stature was of a height that rose to the majestic. She danced, she walked, and rode with equal grace. Her taste for music was just, and she both sung and played upon the lute with uncommon skill. Towards the end of her life, long confinement, and the coldness of the houses in which she had been imprisoned, brought on a rheumatism, which often deprived her of the use of her limbs. No man, says Brantome, ever beheld her person without admiration and love, or will read her history without sorrow.

None of her women were suffered to come near her dead body, which was carried into a room adjoining to the place of execution, where it lay for some days, covered with a coarse cloth torn from a billiard table. The block, the scaffold, the aprons of the executioners, and every thing stained with her blood, were reduced to ashes. Not long after, Elizabeth appointed her body to be buried in the cathedral of Peterborough with royal magnificence. But this vulgar artifice was employed in vain; the pageantry of a pompous funeral did not efface the memory of those injuries which laid Mary in her grave. James, soon after his accession to the English throne, ordered her body to be removed to Westminster-abbey, and to be deposited among the monarchs of England.

ROBERTSON.

A SCENE ON THE RIVER SPEY.

In the narrow part of the valley through which the Spey makes its way from the parish of Laggan downwards to that of Kugussie, there is some scenery of a very singular character. To the south

the Spey is seen making some fine bends round the foot of wooded hills. It is bordered by a narrow stripe of meadow, of the richest verdure, and fringed with an edging of beautiful shrubbery. On the north side rises with precipitate boldness, Craigow, or the Black Rock, the symbol and boundary of the clan who inhabit the valley. It is very black indeed; yet glitters in the sun, from the many little streams which descend from its steep, indeed perpendicular, surface. In the face of this lofty rock are many apertures, occasioned by the rolling down of portions of the stone, from which echoing noises are often heard. This scene of terror overlooks the soft features of a landscape below, that is sufficient, with this association, to remind us of what has been said of "Beauty sleeping in the lap of Horror." An eminence, as you approach towards the entrance of the strait, appears covered with regularly formed hillocks, of a conical form, and of different sizes, clothed with a kind of dwarf birch, extremely light-looking, and fanciful, sighing and trembling to every gale, and breathing odours after a calm evening shower, or rich dewy morning. In the depth of the valley, there is a lochan (the diminutive of loch) of superlative beauty. It is a round, clear, and shallow basin, richly fringed with water-lilies, and presenting the clearest mirror to the steep woody banks on the south, and the rugged face of the lofty and solemn rock which frowns darkly to the north. On the summit, scarcely approachable by human foot, is the only nest of the goss-hawk now known to remain in Scotland; and, in the memory of the author, the nearest farm to this awful precipice was held by the tenure of taking down, every year,