place in "the glass of fashion, and the mould of forms." THE HEART OF MID LOTHIAN. The Duchess of Gordon brought in a style-bold, dashing, JEANNIE DEANS.-Sir Walter, in his happiest moment, and reckless, like herself. The Duchess of Devonshire when memory furnished materials that genius worked out in took the opposite-soft, languid, and flattering: the exclu- invention, was never more fortunate than in the character of sives established a stoical school-cold, haughty, and im"Jeannie Deans." She is a heroine, in the highest and best payable. The reform era has brought a more popular man- sense of the word, though without one of the ordinary There has been so much canvassing going on, that characteristics-she is neither romantic, picturesque, nor conciliation has become a habit, and the hustings has re-beautiful. Scott seems to have delighted in scorning the modelled the drawing-room. usual accessories of interest-and yet how strong is the interest excited!-it is the very triumph of common sense and of rigid principle. "We recognise ner. But Diana Vernon is a creature formed by no conventional rules; she has been educated by her own heart amid hardships and difficulties; and if nature has but given the original good impulse, and the strength of mind to work it out, hardships and difficulties will only serve to form a character of the loftiest order. Again, there is that tender relationship between the widowed father and the only girl, in which Scott so much delights. But, if the cradle be lonely which lacks a mother at its side, still more lonely is the hour when girlhood is on the eve of womanhood. "On the horizon like a dewy star, That trembles into lustre." A grandeur in the beatings of the heart," though that heart beat neither for love, fame, nor ambition; whose echo is like the sound of a trumpet, startling men into pleased sympathy with the triumph its stately music proclaims. Nothing can be more quiet than what seems likely to be the tenor of the Scottish maiden's path; she belongs to that humble class, which, if it has neither the quick sensibilities, nor the graceful pleasures of a higher lot, is usually freed from its fever, its sorrows, and its great reverses; her very lover seems to ensure her against the troubles of that troubled time, No man ever enters into the feelings of a woman, let his kindness be what it may; they are too subtle and too delicate for a hand whose grasp is on "life's rougher things." They require that sorrow should find a voice; now the most soothing sympathy is that which guesses the suffering without a question. But Diana Vernon has been brought For up by a father, who, whatever might be his affection, has had no time for minute and tender cares. Engaged in dark intrigues, surrounded by dangers, he has been forced to leave his child in situations as dangerous as his own, nay, a thousand times worse-what is an outward to an inward danger? The young and beautiful girl is left to herself--in a wild solitude, like Osbaldistone-hall-with a tutor like Rashleigh. whose spring resembles The uncertain glory of an April day.” "Somewhat pensively he wooed, And spake of love with quiet blending, Slow to begin, and never ending, Of serious faith, and gentle glee." She dwells among her own people, with the prospect of no father's gray head go down in honor to the grave. greater grief than to see, in the fulness of years, her Patience and saving will, sooner or later, enable Reuben or berself to marry, when Take the life of girls in general; how are they cared for from their youth upwards. The nurse, the school, the "Contented wi' little, home circle, environ their early years; they know nothing of real difficulties, or of real cares; and there is an old But canty wi' mair," saying, that a woman's education begins after she is married. they would be heads of a house as grave, calm and wellTruly, it does, if education be meant to apply to the actual ordered as those wherein their own childhood learnt ds purposes of life. How different is the lot of a girl con- sedate and serious lessons. Yet this girl becomes the eendemned from childhood upwards to struggle in this wide tre of one of those domestic tragedies which are the more and weary world! Bitter, indeed, is the fruit of the tree terrible from their rare occurrence, and from the regular of knowledge to her; at the expense of how many kind and pious habits which would seem to preclude their posand beautiful feelings must that knowledge be obtained; sibility. Disgrace darkens upon the humble roof tree, how often will the confidence be betrayed, and the affection overcoming it with "special wonder;" and those to whom, misplaced; how often will the aching heart turn on itself sin was a horrible thing afar, have it in their constant for comfort, and in vain; for, under its first eager disap- thoughts; it has been committed by one among themselves. pointment, youth wonders why its kindliness and its gene- We all know that there is evil in the world—we read of it— rous emotions have been given, if falsehood and ingratitude we hear of it--but we never think of its entering our ow be their requital. How often will the right and the expe- charmed circle. Look round our circle of acquaintance; bow dient contend together, while the faults of others seem to it would startle us to be asked to name one whom we thoug justify our own, and the low, but distinct voice within us, capable of crime; how much more so to find that erine be half lost, while listening to the sophistry of temptation had been committed by one near and dear to our inmost justifying itself by example; yet how many nobly support heart. What a moral revulsion would such a discovery the trial, while they have learned of difficulties to use the produce-how weak we should find ourselves under seed mental strength which overcomes them, and have been a trial-how soon we should begin to disconnect the f taught by errors to rely more decidedly on the instinctive fender and the offence; then, for the first time, we shou sense of right which at once shrinks from their admission. begin to understand the full force of temptation, and to What to Diana Vernon was the craft and crime of one like allow for its fearful strength; and should we not begin to Rashleigh, which her own native purity would at once excuse what had never before seemed capable of pais detect and shun-as the dove feels and flies from the hawk tion? Jeannie Deans' refusal to save her sister—so you! before the shadow of his dark wings be seen on the air? so beloved, so helpless-at the expense of perjury, t What the desolate loneliness of the old hall, and the doubts always seemed to me the noblest effort in which priorle and fears around her difficult path-what but so many steps was ever sustained by religion. How well I remember af towards forming a character high-minded, steadfast, gene- such a distance from England, I may perhaps be parked rous and true; a lovely and lonely flower over which the for clinging to every recollection of the past) a discussn rough winds have past, leaving behind only the strength between some friends and myself, as to whether Jeanne taught by resistance, and keeping fresh the fairness-bless- Deans should have saved her sister's life-even with a ing even the rock with its sweet and healthy presence. I am afraid I rather argued "and for a great right, de a little wrong"-that to save one whom I loved, I must have, quick yet deep sensations-of generous impulse, and ready committed the sin of perjury, and said on my soul be the confidence-all that so soon kindles into love. To such a guilt; that if even to refuse a slight favor was painful, who temperament love rarely brings happiness; it is too eagercould bear to say no! when on that no! hung a fellow- too trusting and too sensitive-its end is too often in tears. creature's life-that fellow-creature most tenderly beloved. But for poor Effie's one hour of Eden, "a darker deparBut I was in error-that worst error which cloaks itself in ture is near ;" she is now shame-struck and broken-hearted; a good intention, and would fain appear only an amiable the cheek is pale-the heart once gave it color; but it is weakness. Jeannie Deans could not have laid the sin of now as monumental marble; the desperation of the wretched perjury upon her soul: she had been brought up with the is with her; she replies to the proposal of escape by a refear of the Lord before her eyes-she could not-dared fusal, "Better tint life, since tint is guid fame;" yet she not-take his name in vain. Many a still and solemn Sab- trembled before the death which she has staid to meet-bath, by the lingering light of the sunset sky, or with the she is too young to die. Nothing can be more pathetic shadow of the lamp falling around his gray hairs, must she than the meeting of the sisters. Can we not fancy how have heard her father read the tale of how Annanias, and the poor prisoner's heart sank within her, when she heard Sapphira his wife, were struck dead with a lie upon their her sister's step recede, slowly and sadly, day after day, lips;-dared she go, and do likewise? To her the court of from the pitiless door! What a change from the "Lily of St. justice, with its solemnities, and the awful appeal of its Leonard's," shaking down the golden blossom of the broom oath, must have seemed like a mighty temple. It was im-as some chance branch caught her more golden hair. But possible that she could call upon that Book, which from the the change is, when the "Lily of St. Leonard's," and the earliest infancy had been the object of her deepest reve-pale prisoner of the Tolbooth has become Lady Stauntonrence, to witness to the untruth. Yet with what more the received wit-the admitted beauty-the courted and than Roman fortitude she prepares herself for suffering, the flattered. I have heard this transition called unnatural; toil, danger-anything so that she may but save her young it is not so. How many are the mysteries of society! I sister. With what perfect simplicity she perseveres even do not agree with Goethe, who says that every man has unto the end; the kindness she meets with takes her by sur-that hidden in the secret recesses of his bosom, which, prise, and worldly fortune leaves her the same kind, affectionate, and right-minded creature. Her marriage-the quiet manse, and years of happiness, unnoted save by the daily thanksgiving-come upon the reader with the same sense of enjoyment and relief, that a shady and fragrant nook does the traveller, overwearied with the heat and tumult of the highway. We have no fear that the fanaticism of her father, or the earnest warning of her husband, will ever come into over-rough collision, with such a tie Still, how many go through life with the arrow in their between them-with such a sweet and womanly peace-side of which no one dreams-with some secret it were maker. EFFIE DEANS. It is singular what an impression of perfect loveliness Scott gives us of the "Lily of St. Leonards;" he never describes her, and yet we never doubt that "A lovelier flower On earth was never seen." We can fancy, to continue the application of Wordsworth's "This child I to myself will take; She shall be sportive as the fawn, if known, would cause his fellow men to turn from him "Custom to lie upon them with a weight, worse than death to divulge. Lady Staunton lives in that The changes and contrasts in Effie's character, too, are "E'en the blue harebell raised its head, Elastic from her airy tread." Her songs lead the way rejoicing before her; it is as if "The beauty born of murmuring sound, Had passed into her face." as harvest for the bees; and the rock side, where the step sel. How often is bodily weariness resorted to, to subdue can scarce find uneasy footing amid the lichen and groundthe weariness within; and fortunate, indeed, are those who have never known that feverish unrest, which change of place mocks with the hope of change of suffering. Moreover, for few are the sorrows which know no respite, an imaginative taste must have seen enjoyment in "The grace of forest woods decayed, And pastoral melancholy," No marvel that she is beloved-and no marvel that she while the wilder scenes elevate us into forgetfulness of loves. Those gay spirits need the softening of tender af- those human troubles which sink into nothingness before -*tion; that warm heart is full of passionat · crrotions--of 'their migay and clemal presence. Epidly natural, too, 18 Lady Staunton's retirement to a convent; penance and seclusion were framed for such minds whose very penitence would be excitement. It was an extreme; and the "Lily of St. Leonard's" had led a life of extremes. Fate, so powerful and so grand an element in the Greek drama, pervades the Scottish tragedy. Few are the beliefs, still fewer the superstitions of to-day. We pretend to ac count for everything, till we do not believe enough for that humility so essential to moral discipline. But the dark creed of the fatalist still holds its ground-there is that THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMIUR. within us, which dares not deny what, in the still depths LUCY ASHTON.-I shall never forget the first reading of the of the soul, we feel to have a mysterious predominance. "Bride of Lammermuir." I was staying in the country in one To a certain degree we control our own actions-we have of those large rambling houses, which ought to please a taste the choice of right or wrong; but the consequences, the for architecture, as they combine every variety. There fearful consequences, lie not with us. Let any one look was enough remaining of hoar antiquity, to contrast strongly upon the most important epochs of his life; how little have with the comforts of modern life. There was a large old they been of his own making--how one slight thing has led hall and spiral staircase of black oak, hung round with on to another, till the result has been the very reverse of family portraits, grim and faded. There were long corri- our calculations. Our emotions, how little are they under dors, suites of rooms which were shut up, and the repu- our own control! how often has the blanched lip, or the tation of the library was far from good. The house had flushed cheek, betrayed what the will was strong to conceal! been uninhabited for years, and its present possessor was Of all our sensations, love is the one which has most the just come into possession and from the continent, while a stamp of Fate. What a mere chance usually leads to our few of the rooms had been hastily fitted up for the recep- meeting the person destined to alter the whole current of tion of himself and his wife. It was an odd contrast to go our life. What a mystery even to ourselves the influence from the drawing-room, crowded with sofas, ottomans, look-which they exercise over us. Why should we feel so difing-glasses, hot-house plants, and tables covered with books ferently towards them, to what we ever felt before? An st and toys, into any of the other apartments. Mine was pe-tachment is an epoch in existence-it leads to casting of culiarly dreary--the bed was of green velvet, black with old ties, that, till then, had seemed our dearest; it begins time, and with those old-fashioned plumes at the corner, new duties; often, in a woman especially, changes the which resemble the decorations of a hearse. The chim- whole character; and yet, whether in its beginning, its ney-piece was of dark wood, carved with grotesque faces, and an enormous press of the same material might have contained two or three skeletons, or manuscripts enough to have recorded every murder in the country. A large cedar grew so near to the window, that some of the small boughs touched the glass-and when the wind was high, a cry almost like that of human suffering came from the branches. The candles on my table did little more than cast a charmed circle of light around myself; but an enormous wood-fire sent occasional gleams around the gloomy room, giving to every object it touched that fantastic seeming peculiar to firelight. I had left the drawing-room early- not. "E'en in the sunniest climes, continuance or its end, love is as little within oor power as the wind that passes, of which no man knows whither it goeth or whence it comes. All that mortal resolve can effect, is to do the best under the circumstances in which we are placed, to keep alive the sweet voice of approval in our hearts, and trust that the grave will be but the bright gate opening on all that we now see through a glass dara.Y The ancients believed that the dark ministry of fate was on many a kingly line even to its close-a belief confirmed by the judaical ritual. "I will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, even unto the third and fourth genera mysteries of tion." The house of Ravenswood is doomed to destrue tion. Its chiefs have been men strong and evil in the Light breezes will ruffle the flowers sometimes," land-the blood of the victim has not sunk into the earthand my host and his lady had disagreed about a dinner in and the cry of the oppressed has not risen on the morning the neighborhood—the lady wished to go, the gentlemen did in vain. The dark sand has run to the appointed hour, and Retreat in such cases is the only plan for a prudent the proud and stately race will soon be a desolation whose third party, before either thinks of appealing to you. If place no man knoweth. But it is one of the you give an opinion in favor of one, you still offend both; mortality that the wicked fall, and with them perish the for it is a physological quality in quarrels conjugal, that innocent. Is it that remorse may be added to the bitten though each considers the other to blame, they will not ness of punishment! The fated house falls, and with it be allow you to think so too; moreover, the chances are, that, lovely and fragile flower that had rashly clung to the decayin your own private opinion, they are both wrong-a most ing wall. There is something so gentle, so touching in unpopular verdict to pronounce. I, therefore, complained Lucy Ashton, that we marvel how human being could be of fatigue, caught up a book, and went to my own room. found to visit one so soft, too roughly. But that wonder That book was the "Bride of Lammermuir." ceases in the presence of those human demons, hatred, pride, and revenge. Lucy is but one of these tender bus soms crushed without care on our daily path. Then, from her vivid imagination, likely to love a man like Ravensworth, she was unfit to be his wife; still more usfit to struggle with the difficulties attendant on an engagement which the heart kept but too truly. The moral change is exquisitely developed. First, there is the pensive gi I had only, a few evenings before, read the "Mysteries of Udolpho," but cannot say that their much-talked of terrors had the least effect upon my nerves. I was tired, but if their pages gave me sleep, they did not add dreams. But I read the volume of to-night, till the most absolute terror took possession of me. I felt myself cold and pale. I involuntarily drew nearer to the candles with a sense of security. I avoided looking towards the darker parts of pensive because the room; and I remember putting out one light, lest they "In youth sad fancies we affect;" should not last till morning. If I had sat up all night, then comes a brief season of love whose very happiseSS "Might make the heart afraid;" could not have gone to bed in the dark. Yet, in spite of the protection of the candle, I started from my sleep twenty times, so vividly were the scenes impressed upon my mind. then regret, restraint, and unkindliness. Visionary terres It haunted me for days and days. It is even now on my heighten the doubts, that he, for whose sake she endures memory like a terrific dream. all this, holds the sacrifice light. The domestic persect The "Bride of Lammermuir" is one of the finest of tion-persecution the hardest to bear-goes on, eyes that Scott's conceptions-it belongs to the highest order of once looked love, now turn on her in anger or dista poetry-it combines the terrible and the beautiful. That The temper gives way, then the mind. Echo answers "where?" when too late, the repentant father asks for his | have been attracted towards the Templar. This is a curigentle, his affectionate child! Well might Henry Ashton remember to the day of his death, that the last time his sister's arm pressed him, it was damp and cold as sepulchral marble. IVANHOE. ous proof of the want of interest in Scott's heroes-we feel as if their good fortune were a moral injustice. The fact is, that respect for good old rules was an inherent part of Scott's mind; whatever was "gray with age," to him "became religion." His rich and fertile mind poured the materials of a new world into literature-but he insisted that it should take a conventional shape, and be bound by given rules. It had long been a rule that vice was to be punished and virtue rewarded in fiction, whatever it might be in real life. It is one of the many mysteries of our moral nature, that there is something in high and striking qualities that seems as it were a temptation of fate. The ancients knew this well. Moreover there are faults which almost wear virtue's seeming, and to our weakness there is a wild attraction in these very faultsbut as, according to Scott's code, such faults must be duly visited in the concluding chapters, he could not invest his hero with them. The said hero is usually a brave, hand REBECCA. The character of Rebecca stands preeminent amid Scott's finest conceptions. Its nobility was at once acknowledged. If there be one thing which redeems our fallen nature, which attests that its origin was from heaven and its early home in paradise, it is the generous sympathy that, even in the most hardened and worldly, warms in the presence of the good and of the beautiful. There must have been, even in those whose course has darkened into crime, an innocent and hopeful time, and the light of that hour, however perverted and shadowed, is never quite extinguished. Enough remains to kindle, if but for a moment, the electric admiration whose flash, like the light-some and well conducted young man, who gives his parents ning, is from above. Fiction is but moulding together the materials collected by every day, in real as well as imagined life; the highest order of excellence carries the impulse along with it. Nature and fortune have this earth for their place of contention, and the victory is too often with the latter. We are tempted and we fall-we lack resolution to act upon the promptings of our better and inward self; the iron enters into the soul, the wings of our nobler aspirations melt in the heat of exertion, the dust of the highway choaks our finer breathing, and if at any time we are fain to pause and commune with ourselves, alas! what do we find ourselves to be? low, weak, selfish, and old--how different from what we once hoped to be. But nature is never quite subdued to what she works in; the divine essence will at times reassert its divinity and hence the homage that is of love rises to that which is above us-to Beauty and to Truth. and readers as little anxiety as possible. Still the circumstances under which Rebecca sees Ivanhoe are managed with Scott's utmost skill-she knows him first as the benefactor of her father--she sees him first as the victor of the tournament, and she first comes in contact with him under the tenderest relations of kindness and service. But the "why did she love him?" may in a woman's case always be answered by Byron's vindication of Kaled's" attachment to his own gloomy hero- "Curious fool, be still, Is human love the growth of human will?" A woman's lover is always the idol of her imagination; he is far more indebted to her for good qualities than his vanity would like to acknowledge. Rochefoucald says, L'amour cessé des qu'on voit l'objet comme il est." But if the illusion has its own sorrow, the cure is bitterer still, "as charm by charm unwinds." I believe that more women are disappointed in marriage than men; a woman gives the whole of her heart-the man only gives the remains of his, and very often there is only a little left. Besides his idol is rarely so much the work of his own hands as her's; at the end of the first year she may ask, where are the picturesque and ennobling qualities with which she invested her lover? in nine cases out of ten echo will indeed answer "where." Why an unhappy passion is often so lasting is that it never encounters that "Ithuriel of the commonplace," Reality. I like to think of Rebecca amid the olive groves of Granada. Care for her father's old age, kindliness to the poor and the suffering, and the workings of a mind strong in endurance, would bring tranquillity if not happiness, till the hand might be pressed to the subdued heart without crying "peace, peace, where there is no peace!" The characteristic of Rebecca is high-mindedness, born of self reliance. From a very infant she must have been "a being drawing thoughtful breath;" As is the case with all Scout's favorite delineations, she is the only child of a widower, and the death of her mother must have flung an early shadow over her path; from her infancy she must have learnt to be alone-solitude which enervates the weak, feeds and invigorates the strong mind. Her studies, too, were well calculated to develope her powers; skilled in the art of healing she knew the delight of usefulness, and she learnt to pity because familiar with suffering. No one, not even the most careless, can stand beside the bed of sickness and of death without learning their sad and solemn lessons. Within her home she was surrounded by luxury and that refinement which is the poetry of riches; but she knew that Danger stood at the threshold, and that Fear was the unbidden guest who peered through their silken hangings. The timid temper lives in perpetual terror, the nobler one braces itself to endure whenever the appointed time shall come. History offers no picture more MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.-" Her name is a note of extraordinary than the condition of the Jews during the the nightingale." What the troubadour-minstrel said of middle ages. Their torture and their destruction was his mistress may be also said of Mary Stuart. Beaudeemed an acceptable sacrifice to that Saviour who was ty, and all the prestige that birth gives to beauty, the born of their race, and whose sermon on the Mount taught far deeper interest that attends misfortune, and the abino lessons save those of peace and love. When Madame ding terror of a violent death; all these invest the meRoland went to execution, she turned towards the statue of that power, then adored with such false worship, and exclaimed, "Oh, liberty! what crimes are wrought in thy The christian might say the same of his faith; but different indeed is the religion which is of God, and that which is of man. name In that criticism, now so often the staple of conversation, I have often heard it objected, that Rebecca could not have fallen in love with Ivanhoe--that her high-toned mind would' VOL. VII-81 THE ABBOT. mory of the ill-fated queen with a sad charm, felt to the present hour. "No man," says Brantome," ever beheld her without love and admiration, or thought of her fate without sorrow and pity." From the cradle an evil fortune attended upon her. The birth of a first and royal child, which should have awakened joy and hope, only added keener anxiety to the deathbed of her father. "The kingdom came with a woman," said the dying monarch, dying beneath the pressure of defeat and despair, "and it will go with a woman." He knew the strong hand that | lousies arise, and envyings and bitterness remain--a foe is was needed to curb the turbulent spirit of the time; if it more easily made than a friend; and how difficult, or had been too much for himself, who wore spur and sword, rather how impossible, so to apportion smile and word as what would it be to one made for the lute and distaff. to please rivals stimulated by every variety of vanity! It Let not," says the young Indian mother, in the Prairie,' was with Mary Stuart as with Marie Antoinette, the love"let not my child be a girl, for very sorrowful is the lot of liness became a snare, and hatred grew more envenomed, woman." If this be true, and few will deny it, it is more because made personal, from the mortification of unres than true in the lot of the royal orphan. The chronicles sonable expectation. When the Scottish queen said, of the house of Stuart would almost justify the Grecian "Adieu, plaissant pays de la France," she knew not that she belief in fatality. Their doom was with them: the stake-bade adieu to her youth, and all youth's careless gladness; the scaffold-imprisonment and exile, crowd the annals of she knew not that she went to dwell among a people for their race; on each high brow of their fated house is the whose habits her education had entirely unfitted her. We shadow of the coming evil-the deep melancholy eyes are can imagine how unpopular the manner of her French atdark with the hours to come. It would seem as if inanity tendants would be, with all their gaiety and light gallantry, and worthlessness were their sole exemptions; the only among the stern and staid people of Scotland; how much kings whom destiny rejected as unworthy victims, were the of that unpopularity would reflect upon their mistress. weak James, and the profligate Charles; but in Mary, the Moreover, there is no difference so bitter as religious difrarest qualities and the worst fortunes of her house were ference. Mary's catholic faith was then an object of posi united. A child, she became an exile from her native soil. tive horror; much, therefore, that has been alleged against In the very lowest class it is well to be bred up amid those her may well be set down to the violent exaggeration of scenes wherein our future is cast; nothing ever supplies party spirit; but, even were it otherwise, pity, even to pats, the place of those early associations-nothing ever knits is the only feeling with which we can think of the melanthe heart to the place of its birth like the remembrances of choly prisoner, the best of whose years passed under childhood--nothing can give the entire knowledge of a watch and ward in the gloomy castles of Lochlevin and people, but having been brought up among them. This is Fotheringham. no place to enter into the long disputed question of Mary's guilt or innocence. If, as Wordsworth says, -It is a joy To think the best we can of human kind," it must be one to think the "best we can" of a creature so CATHERINE SEYTON. It is not in the calm and measured paths of to-day that we see the more bold and pronounced characters, whose outlines have been rough-hewn by the strong hand of necessity; yet to such troubled times often belong the develgifted. Where we cannot excuse, we may at least extenu-opment of our noblest and best qualities-the stormy guld ate; palliating the faults of others is a different thing from of Ormus throws up the finest pearls. It is not in the season palliating our own. Mary was brought up in a bad school. of tranquillity that we know aught of the generous devotion, History has no darker period than the annals of the era the fertility of resource, and the forgetfulness of self often over which Catherine presided; it combined the fiercer shown in the hour of trial. When the French revolution crimes with the meaner vices; craft and cruelty went hand broke out, how many, only accustomed to indolence, luxuin hand. From her cradle, Mary was taught to dissemble, ry, and custom, showed that "there was iron in the rose;" and taught it as a science wherein superiority was matter and, whether at the call of duty or of affection, were preof mental triumph. As the author of "Devereux" truly pared to bear even to the uttermost, and to exert a fortitude says, "it is through our weaknesses that our vices punish till then undreamed of. In such a mould is cast the cha us." Now the great evil of Mary's life was her choice of racter of Catherine. She has been destined for the cloisDarnley as a husband-a choice solely dictated by his per- ter, a vocation utterly at variance with that warm heart sonal appearance. Had she chosen more wisely, how dif- and ready wit with which nature had gifted her; she has ferent might her career have been! She was too clever worked at the embroidery frame: she has told her beads, herself not to have felt superiority, and she had too much and dwelt in quiet and seclusion. The destruction of ber of the yielding natural to woman, not to have been influen- monastery opens before her a wide and troubled world, ced by one who had possessed that moral strength which her spirits rise as she needs their support; she finds in is the secret of supremacy. Scott's picture is but a frag- herself strength to endure, and courage to resist agad ment-yet how finished-how excellently in keeping with This time, however, of her own free will, she goes into our previous historical conception! We are taken in the seclusion; but it is solitude animated by the consciousness "strong toil of grace"-we feel how surpassingly lovely of a generous devotion, and invigorated by the performance was the ill-fated queen-we do not wonder at the fascina- of duty. There is that which at once arrests our sympathy tion that she exercised over all that came within her in Catherine Seyton's attachment to her royal mistress—li "charmed circle." How well, too, the thoughtlessness, is the result of enthusiasm acting upon the most generous the impetuosity, and the imprudence are indicated, rather feelings. In those days loyalty was a creed-the right than expressed. She encourages the attachment between divine had its religion. To this abstract belief, Catherine Catherine Seyton and Roland Græme, without one mo- brought that personal earnestness with which the highment's consideration of what the consequent unhappiness toned and sensitive temperament enters into all that it upmay be from the difference in their station: she cannot re-dertakes. This was soon heightened by that affection press the biting sarcasm, though next to madness in her Mary knew so well how to inspire. It is colored in the position; and the tendency to dissemble is shown in those loveliest and loftiest light of humanity: the picture of slight things which are the stepping-stones to more impor- Catherine Seyton, cheering the solitude of her imprisoned tant acts. The scene where Mary signs the papers of her mistress with the playful gaiety of a spirit, as yet unbroken, abdication is among Scott's very finest. The relenting of as it is unspotted by the world. What "high resolve and the rough old earl is full of humanity; it shows also, most strikingly, the influence of Mary's fascination. But the authority, dependent on such fascination, builds its tower of strength on the sand; favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain; such an empire calls forth too much passion, and too many weaknesses; false hopes are entertained, jea constancy" is in the courage with which she plans and looks forward to escape! How true to the more generous impulses of her age is the utter disbelief of all the charges brought against the queen! Suspicion and youth are no comrades for each other. Youth is frank, eager, and prone to believe in the good: it looks round, and it sees flowers; |