ment. We should never finish, were we to make fine twists and twirls to our D's and L's;" in allusion to the German and Italian fashion of the day of making ornaments with their pens, called lacs d'amour. The letters were sealed on both sides, and a piece of white floss silk fastened it entirely round.

Of the English admirers of Madame de Sévigné, the most distinguished and the most warm in the expression of their admiration are Horace Walpole and Sir James Mackintosh, men of totally opposite turns of mind; the former a professed wit, and himself a letter-writer, the latter a grave lawyer and statesman. We conclude this memoir by giving the character of Madame de Sévigné as drawn by the latter. "The great charm of her character seems to me a natural virtue. In what she does, as well as in what she says, she is unforced and unstudied; nobody, I think, had so much morality without constraint, and played so much with amiable feelings without falling into vice. Her ingenious, lively, social disposition gave the direction to her mental power. She has so filled my heart with affectionate interest in her as a living friend, that I can scarcely bring myself to think of her as a writer, or as having a style; but she has become a celebrated, perhaps an immortal writer, without expecting it: she is the only classical writer who never conceived the possibility of acquiring fame. Without a great force of style, she could not have communicated those feel ings. In what does that talent consist? It seems mainly to consist in the power of working bold metaphors, and unexpected turns of expression, out of the most familiar part of conversaticnal language."

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

IN December, 1542, Mary Stuart, daughter of James V. of Scotland, then seven days old, succeeded to the throne of a kingdom rent by religious and political factions, and suffering from the consequences of a disastrous war with England.

The union of Scotland to England had ever been a favorite project with English sovereigns, and the present seemed to Henry VIII. a favorable opportunity for peaceably effecting it. He lost no time, therefore, in proposing a match between the infant queen and his own son, Edward. His proposal found little favor, the haughty nobles could not endure to see their country become a mere province of England; and the queen mother and her religious advisers feared for the security of the Catholic religion. Henry might, however, have ultimately succeeded, had he acted with prudence. But he sought to terrify the Scots into submission; and those who succeeded to the government of England upon his death, which happened soon after, persisted in the same policy. An army was sent into Scolland, to ravage the country and pillage the towns and villages. This mode of wooing did not suit the temper of the Scots; and an end was soon put to all hopes by the negotiation of a marriage treaty between

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, AT WINFIELD CASTLE.

the queen and Francis, the infant daupnin of France. In pursuance of this treaty, Mary, then in her sixth year, was sent to France to be educated. She was at first placed in a convent with the king's daughters, where she made a rapid progress in all the accomplishments they attempted to teach her. Here her enthusiastic disposition was so strongly impressed with religious feelings, and she evinced such a fondness for a cloistered life, that it was thought proper to remove her to the gayer scenes of the court a change which cost her torrents of tears. The fashion for learning prevailed at this time, and Mary profited by it. Her instructors were the most eminent men of the time; Buchanan taught her Latin; Pasquier instructed her in history; Ronsard, the most famous of the early French poets, cultivated her taste for poetry: they found her not only a willing but an able pupil. Other accomplishments were not neglected; she sung, and played on the lute and the virginals; she rode on horseback fearlessly, yet with feminine grace; her dancing was always admired; and we are assured that in the Spanish minuet she was equalled only by her aunt, the beautiful Anne of Este, and no lady of the court could eclipse her in a galliarde. Her beauty and the charming expression of her countenance were such, that, as a contemporary asserts, no one could look upon her without loving her." When her mother came over to visit her in 1550, she burst into tears of joy, and congratulated herself on her daughter's capacity and loveliness. Soon after Mary's marriage to Francis, in 1558, Elizabeth ascended the English throne; the pope, and the French and Spanish courts, refused to acknowledge

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her; and Mary, undisputably the next heir, was compelled by the commands of her father-in-law to assume the title and arms of queen of England a measure of unforeseen but fatal consequences to her, as it added fresh fuel to the fires of envy, jealousy, and hatred, which the personal advantages of Mary had already excited in the bosom of her vain and vindictive rival.

In 1558, Francis and Mary were crowned king and queen of France. Francis survived this event but a few months. He was far inferior to his wife, both in personal and mental accomplishments; he was of sickly constitution, and very reserved; but he had an affectionate and kind disposition. He was not a man to call forth the deepest and most passionate feelings of such a heart as Mary's; but she ever treated him with tenderness and most respectful attention. She is described by an eye-witness as a "sorrowful widow,” and lamented her husband sincerely.

The happiness of Mary's life was now at an end. She was a stranger in the land of which she had so recently been crowned queen. In the queen mother, the ambitious Catherine de Medicis, who now ruled France in the name of her son Charles IX., Mary had an inveterate foe. In the reign of Francis they had been rivals for power, when the charms of the wife had triumphed over the authority of the mother. There was another wound which had long rankled in the vindictive bosom of Catherine. In the artlessness of youth, Mary had once boasted of her own descent from a "hundred kings," which was supposed to reflect on the mercantile lineage of the daughter of