It would be too much to say that all these requirements have been faithfully fulfilled by our author in his novel of "Mary of Lorraine.” But we have no hesitation in averring that, with very slight modifications, it would have been one of the best historical fictions that has recently appeared. The interest is well sustained, and advances with increasing intensity as the denouement approaches. The localities and general features of the period are admirably pourtrayed. The characters are well delineated, and invested with a nice propriety of sentiThe pageantry and affectations and political struggles of the time are all brought into play. Had there been only a little more of that balancing fairness and absence from party bias, by which the historical novels of Scott are so remarkably distinguished, we should have been able to accord it unqualified praise. ment. The scene is laid in the 16th century, during the stormy regency of Arran. The locus is confined to the immediate neighbourhood of our own city. The author's object is "to describe something of the manners and inner life of the lowland Scots at the period referred to, modernising the language," and "the political corruption of the Scottish noblesse," and in consonance with this object, he has selected the persons of his story, mainly from these classes. The genius of the time was tragic. Its temper was rapid and demonstrative, and could ill brook the jests and witticisms of the succeeding age. The people were martial in their feelings and habits, quick in their resentments, sudden and terrible in their revenge. Everybody wore arms, and was accustomed to their use. Scotland was a field of Mars, its inhabitants soldiers. Justice was tardily and feebly administered. Every petty family avenged its own quarrels. The borderers preyed upon each other. Chivalry and the Church had failed to preserve order and provide for development and advance, and were about to give place to a protective system adapted to the genius of the coming time. Mind was becoming utilitarian and inventive. Catholicism and Protestantism seemed pretty equally balanced. Neither was in the ascendant. The Papists trusted for succour to France, the Protestants to England. Both were intriguing with their respective friends. The nobles were divided. Such was the then condition of the country. The part played by Mary of Lorraine is rather co-ordinate than primary. The principal incidents are connected with a feud between the Hamiltons of Preston and the Fawsides of that ilk. The leading personages are the neice of Hamilton, described as his ward and successor, and nearest and only kinswoman, and the youngest son and ultimately only representative of the family of Fawside. The lands of the families were contiguous, and the dispute arose about a tract of territory lying between them, to which each alleged a sufficient title, and neither could produce one. The Court of Session had shortly been established. The contest was about to be settled by the judicial fiat of that tribunal. Preliminaries were in course of arrangement, when the precipitancy of the parties led to a sanguinary rupture, in which the Fawsides were worsted, and old Fawside killed by old Hamilton. Fawside leaves two sons and a wife, whose bitterness of enmity to the slayer of her husband leads her to train up her sons with the one object of avenging his death, by foul means or by fair. The elder, Willie, encounters old Hamilton, and is clove by one tremendous stroke through helmet and brow to the chin. The remaining son Florence, is recalled from France to avenge the death of his father and brother-is assailed and nearly murdered by a number of the nobles, by whom he is, by an accurate guess, as it afterwards appears, taken to be a French envoy,-is saved and nurtured and restored to health by the beautiful kinswoman of his foe, and (after a variety of intensely thrilling adventures and contretemps, illustrating the maxim that the course of true love never runs smooth) eventually marries her, the oath proving, in this case at least, an end of all strife. Such is the outline of the story. We must now give our readers one or two sample extracts, that they may be in a position to test for themselves the quality of the work. Here is a portrait of an old Scottish matron, Lady Alison of Fawside. "The widow was of great stature, yet her figure was graceful, noble, and commanding her features were fine; her nose was straight; and her black eyebrows, which met above it, together with the peculiar lines of her mouth and chin, expressed firmness and unflinching resolution. Her complexion was deadly pale. Her once-black hair was gray and escaped in grizzled locks from under her escallop or well-shaped cap, which was made of thick point-lace, like her close-quilled ruff and ruffles. Her attire was always a black damask dress, buttoned by small silver knobs, from the lower peak of her long stomacher, up to her ruff. She wore a rosary and cross of ebony, and a black locket containing the hair of her late husband and his slaughtered son; but no other ornament. Her pocket sun-dial, or perpetual almanac, a brass plate inscribed, This table beginneth in 1540, and so on for ever,' with her keys (and huge antique keys they were), her scissors and huswife hung at her girdle; and she used a long ivory-mounted cane to assist her in walking, and as gossips averred, wherewith to chastise her lacqueys and serving-men. Her busk was of hard wood, and contained a bodkin. This was literally a dagger seven inches long, and worn for defence in those stirring and perilous times." We have Mr Grant's opinion of the Scottish nobility at that eventful period, at p. 64 : "The Scottish peers were now, as usual, divided into two factions, one who adhered to the old treaty with France, and the other-the basest, most venal, and corrupt-composed of those who urged the advantages of the matrimonial alliance between the infant Queen Mary and the boy King Edward. These men, though bearing names of old historic memory, the "Seed of those who scorn'd To stoop the neck to wide imperial Rome,' were mean enough to receive in secret sums of money, first from Henry of England, secondly, from the protector Somerset, and by written obligations to bind themselves to further the selfish and aggressive schemes of both; while, in the same spirit of political perfidy, they gave to the Scottish Regent Arran the most solemn assurances of their entire concurrence with him, in his conservative measures for obeying the will of the late King James V.-whose noble heart they broke,-and in defending the realm of his daughter against all foreign enemies, more especially their ancient foe men of the south. On one hand they openly announced their resolution to support the Church of their fathers, and the faith that came from Rome, on the other, they secretly leagued with those who slew the primate of Scotland in his archiepiscopal castle at St Andrews, and plotted for the plunder of the temporalities. "The noble Earl of Huntly, with Arran and the more patriotic-the unblemished and unbridled,-looked towards France for a husband for their queen, and for troops to enable them to resist the combined strength of Cassilis, Glencairn, Kilmaurs, and more than two hundred titled Scottish traitors, when backed by the military power of England, and those SĮ anish and German mercenaries under Don Pedro de Gamboa and Conrad Baron of Wolfenstein, whom the Protector maintained in Norham, Carlisle, and other strongholds near the border." In this estimate of the character of the peers, we cannot, as already hinted, entirely concur. We have no idea that they were the villains and traitors they are here represented to have been. On the contrary, we believe that, generally speaking, they acted in good faith, and with a sincere desire for the promotion of their country's weal. Substantially, we admit the facts, but we deny the alleged inferences and motives. The feuds referred to were shared in by all the landed gentry, and the general prevalence of these contentions was attributable to the weakness of the government and the church, the old checks upon turbulence and disorder. Nor can we believe the nobles were so mercenary as Mr Grant seems to suppose. On the contrary, their acceptance of money from England may be fully explained upon patriotic considerations. They had a terror of French domination. All the Protestants and even some of the Catholics were here agreed. And, as subsequent events proved, their hatred was not without just grounds. The massacre of St Bartholomew is a fitting comment upon the spirit of the nation which then aspired to the sovereign control of Scotch affairs, and a fitting evidence of the correctness of the surmises of the men Mr Grant so unsparingly condemns. We believe that the pecuniary aid they received, was accepted not so much with a view to personal aggrandisement, as for the purpose of enabling them to aid in the suppression of French influence, it might be of the contemplated French invasion. We don't mean to say they were immaculate. Far from it. Our contention is that they were no worse than other men of wealth and influence in their age. There are in all periods doubtful characters who require, as it were, two historians,―men about whom much good and much evil may be said. It is only from a reading of both biographies that we can get the whole truth. No doubt there were some, perhaps many such, among the Scottish noblesse at this troublous time. The marvel would have been had it been otherwise. But we must not digress into a historical criticism, a Course we are the less disposed to take while still under the influence, the magic influence, of Mr Grant's interesting work. With its romantic incidents still in our memory, we can scarcely trust ourselves to contest his views. He has illustrated several periods of his country's annals in a spirit of patriotism, and with a singular felicity of touch. His works have been translated into several continental languages, and are highly esteemed and widely read "beyond the Atlantic wave." We wish him God speed-believing that he has a mission of usefulness to fulfil, and that he is anxious, faithfully and honestly, to fulfil it. NEW TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. THE WORD OF GOD, or THE BOOKS OF THE OLD AND NEW COVENANTS, TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGES, BY ROBERT YOUNG, AUTHOR OF-Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Syriac, Greek, and Latin Root-books. Call to the Children of Abraham, in Hebrew and English. TRANSLATOR OF-Assembly's Shorter Catechism, into Hebrew, Syriac, &c., &c. First and Second Books of Chronicles, into Gujarati. EDITOR OF Genesis I.-V., in Six Shemetic Languages. Prophecy of Obadiah, in four Languages. Chaldee Parts of Daniel and Ezra, in four Languages. Paradigms of the Verbs, in four Shemitic Languages. Hebrew Melodies in English. No. I. Gen. to Esther. No. II. Job to Malachi. No. III. Matthew to Revelation. Edinburgh: MYLES MACPHAIL, 11 South St David Street, PROSPECTUS. The principal points in which this New Translation differs from King James' version, and most others of more recent date, are: 1. The several Books are arranged in chronological order, as far as has been ascertained by the most recent investigations of Scripture critics. 2. The divisions of the chapters, paragraphs, and verses are amended, as far as possible. The numbering of the verses is retained in the margin for convenient reference, while the paragraphs enable the reader to comprehend, more readily, the entire connection of the passage. The advantages arising from printing the poetical and prophetical Books in parallel lines are too obvious to require recommendation. 3. Every separate word in the Original is represented, as nearly as possible, by the same uniform English equivalent throughout the Translation, in accordance with the meanings laid down in the Translator's 'Hebrew-English Dictionary," the result of many years' careful study. 66 4. The order of the words and sentences in the Original is followed as far as the English idiom will allow. 5. Saxon words are preferred to Latin ones, but not exclusively. 6. Particular attention is paid to the use of Hebrew particles, as a verb is often entirely changed in meaning by a particular particle being used or not. think. 7. Where words are required to complete the sense, (arising either from the conciseness of the Hebrew language, or from the errors of copyists) they are printed in italics, as in the ordinary English Version; but such cases are not nearly so numerous as translators and critics 8. When the original word admits of more than one meaning, the second is given in the "Appendix," together with numerous various Readings derived from MSS. or from the Ancient Versions, i.e. the Septuagint, Targums, Syriac, Samaritan, Perolateach, (both recensions), Vulgate, &c., &c., &c. 9. The Hebrew and the Septuagint Chronology are given at the head of each page. 10. Several Maps, Charts, Tables, &c., useful to the student. 11. Marginal References on an entirely new plan, viz., referring only to passages where the same Original word or phrase occurs; so that perfect accuracy is attained without the danger of being misled by mere verbal resemblances in the Translation where none exists in the original. P.S.-The adoption of the Historical Tense, to represent what has hitherto been generally called 'future' by Hebrew Grammarians gives the whole phraseology of the Scripture, its true simple yet lively expression, besides dispensing with what has embarrased critics more than anything else-the so-called "Waw Conversive," which is represented as having the power of changing a future into a past, and a past into a future; a thing utterly unknown in any other language under the sun! If "waw" has this power, so has every other particle in the Hebrew language, as can be proved by hundreds of examples." REASONS FOR THIS NEW TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. "THE BIBLE, THE BIBLE ALONE, CONTAINS THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS.' "This glorious truth has been too often practically turned aside. It is not the Latin, nor the English, nor the German, nor any other version, but the Original Text of the Hebrew, and Chaldee, and Greek Scriptures, that is the "only rule of faith and practice." Translations into any language can be thus regarded, only so far as they faithfully represent the sense of these Originals. So far as they fail in this-(either by adding a single shade of meaning to the original, or by loosing a shade of the meaning of the original)— they are NOT a rule of faith or practice. How important, then, a correct translation of the sacred Scriptures; and how anxiously, and prayerfully, and studiously it should be sought. It should represent the original as a mirror does the object placed before it. As the great body of Believers never can be expected to be able to read the Original for themselves, and as faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God, and as every one is commanded to search |