compositions. Even the domestic facts, though few in number, which I have been enabled to add to a more minute illustration of the principles of Montrose's public conduct than had hitherto been afforded, would have been treasures in the hands of the Great Magician.' With such stores, new to the world, his exquisite, but unfortunately too meagre Legend of Montrose,' might have expanded in a work of yet greater interest and effect; combining, too, the truth and importance of historical discovery, with some domestic matters of unquestionable fact, that beggar even his powers of romantic fiction."

We can hardly wonder that an author of Mr. Napier's political and ecclesiastical creed should, after this, profess to labour under an incompetency to do justice to the materials which he has ferretted out; and that in reference to the great captain of our age, he should declare, had he been conscious of sufficient ability, "I might have aspired to dedicate the result to the best existing representative of those lofty, unimpassioned principles, so conservative of good government and time-honoured institutions,-those attributes of untainted integrity in the senate, and matchless heroism in the field, which may they never cease to be the characteristics of the British nation.'

It must be confessed, however, that Mr. Napier very often loses sight of his self-distrust in other parts of his work, even when he runs counter to opinions that have been espoused, fought, and bled for by some of Britain's most famous sons. Mr. Brodie, the present Historiographer for Scotland, and author of a "History of the British Empire," who is made to stand many attacks, has not yet been one of these martyrs, and may not be worthy of ranking among the champions of the covenant. But the Historiographer is a whig, and Mr. Napier is glad to adopt a phrase suggested by a correspondent and to call whiggery an "unclean thing," although, surely, some men have marshalled under its banners who have not been defiled by aught that stains the archives of Britain. Our author is tender and high-minded enough to wail over the misfortunes of Charles of Montrose, and other cavaliers; but where is his modesty or generosity in characterizing the covenanters in a wholesale manner as an insidious, malevolent, unprincipled faction, who, instead of being grateful and too happy in receiving what the King and his advisers judged best for them, trampled religion and liberty under foot? Such are the merciful assertions of a writer who has the most crude and vague ideas we ever met with regarding a people's right of resistance, of a writer who has not courage or self-estimation enough to approach the Duke of Wellington with his new illustrations and comments, but who has no reluctance to joke or be witty about the lifting up, the exaltation, and such like phrases, meaning thereby the gibbet's eminence and displays, when hundreds upon hundreds of the said despised covenanters died rather than belie their consciences, or recede from the principles which they had espoused.

It is quite clear, indeed, that Mr. Napier does not think that the religion of the covenanters was fit for gentlemen, or that its professors could be any thing better than fanatics or anarchists. So much for sis and true estimate of lofty attributes.

There can be no objection to our author or any other making use of authentic documents to illustrate individual characters or events, provided individuals are not made to stand for the whole of a numerous or national party, whether that party be moderate or ultra on either side. We therefore have derived far more satisfaction from some of his personal discoveries than from the whole of his general inferences. In truth Mr. Napier is essentially a good gossip, not a convincing logician. He would make a lively chronicler of passing events; but is one of the feeblest historians of what is bygone, where candour and unimpassioned research and construction ought to handle mighty antagonist principles and prodigious sacrifices. He has, for instance, made himself amusing as well as convincing, were argument or illustration necessary, which we deny to have been the case, in his endeavours to hold up Bishop Burnet as a pedantic, self-complacent, and time-serving character; who, while professing independence, sometimes in connection with humility, sometimes with boldness, was apt to be swayed by mean and deceitful motives. Burnet's letter, so illustrative of his character to which we now allude, was occasioned by the Rye-house plot, when, after the suicide of Essex, Lord Russell was under condemnation and about to ascend the scaffold. This document, which has never before been printed, was addressed to John Brisbane, Esq., Secretary of the Admiralty at the time.

“I have writ the inclosed paper with as much order as the confusion I am under can allow. I leave it to you to shew it to my Lord Halifax, or the King, as you think fit, only I beg you will do it as soon as may be, that in case my Lord Russel sends for me, the King may not be provoked against me by that. So, Dear Sir, adieu.

"Memorandum for Mr. Brisbane.

That I

"To let my L. Privy Seal know that out of respect to him, I doe not come to him. That I look on it as a great favour, that when so many houses were searched mine was not, in which tho' nothing could have been found, yet it would have marked me as a suspected person. never was in my whole life under so terrible a surprise and so deep a melancholy as the dismall things these last two or three days has brought forth spreads over my mind; for God knows I never so much as suspected any such thing; all I fear'd was only some rising if the King should happen to die; and that I only collected out of the obvious things that every body sees as well as I doe, and to prevent that took more pains than perhaps any man in England did, in particular with my unfortunate friends, to let them see that nothing brought in Popery so fast in Q. Marie's days as the business of L. Jane Grey, which gave it a greater advance in the first moneth of that reigne than otherwise it is likely it would have made

during her whole life. So that I had not the least suspition of this matter; yet if my Lord Russell calls for my attendance now, I cannot decline it, but I shall doe my duty with that fidelity as if any Privy-Counsellour were to overhear all that shall passe between us.

but

'I am upon this occasion positively resolved never to have any thing to doe more with men of business, particularly with any in opposition to the Court, but will divide the rest of my life between my function and a very few friends, and my laboratory; and upon this I passe my word and faith to you, and that being given under my hand to you I doe not doubt you will make the like engagements to the King; and I hope my L. Privy Seal will take occasion to doe the like, for I think he will believe me. I ask nor expect nothing but only to stand clear in the King's thoughts; for preferment, I am resolved against it, tho' I could obtain it; but I beg not to be more under hard thoughts, especially since in all this discovery there has not been so much occasion to name me as to give a rise for a search, and the friendship I had with these two, and their confidence in me in all other things, may show that they know I was not to be spoke to in any thing against my duty to the King. I doe beg of you that no discourse may be made of this, for it would look like a sneaking for somewhat, and you in particular know how farre that is from my heart; therefore I need not beg of you, nor of my Lord Halifax, to judge aright of this message; but if you can make the King think well of it, and say nothing of it, it will be the greatest kyndness you can possibly doe me. I would have done this sooner, but it might have lookt like fear or guilt, so I forbore hitherto, but now I thought it fit to doe it. I choose rather to write it than say it, both that you might have it under my hand, that you may see how sincere I am in it, as also because I am now so overcharged with melancholy that I can scarce endure any company, and for two nights have not been able to sleep an hour. One thing you may, as you think fit, tell the King, that tho' I am too inconsiderable to think I can ever serve him while I am alive, yet I hope I shall be able to doe it to some purpose after I am dead; this you understand, and I will doe it with zeal; so, my dear friend, pity your melancholy friend, who was never in his whole life under so deep an affliction, for I think I shall never enjoy myselfe after it, and God knows death would be now very welcome to me; doe not come near me for some time, for I cannot bear any company, only I goe oft to my Lady Essex and weep with her; and indeed the King's carriage to her has been so great and worthy, that it can never be too much admired, and I am sure, if ever I live to finish what you know I am about, it and all the other good things I can think of shall not want all the light I can give them. Adieu, my dear friend, and keep this as a witnesse against me if I ever fail in the performance of it. I am, you know, with all the zeal and fidelity possible, your most faithful and most humble Servant,

In a note the author adds some further and curious proof of Burnet's character; but we have only room to intimate that the abject letter just quoted did not succeed, that its writer was disgraced, and forced to go abroad, till the Revolution in which he was

an active agent restored him; when King William conferred on him a mitre. Brisbane was married to one of the Napier family, which accounts for the letter being found by our author.

Perhaps the most interesting and novel particulars brought to light by Mr. Napier are to be found in the Introductory Chapter, where the first Lord Napier is the principal figure, although King Charles, and still more the contemporary statesmen of Scotland, are prominent characters. Lord Napier appears to have been a pure and eloquent patriot, as well as a deeply-learned man, among a foully cunning and grossly dishonest class of his countrymen,-the judges of the land, the officers of state, and the leaders among the aristocracy. No wonder that Scot of Scotstarvet wrote a work about the period and persons in question, which he significantly entitled the Staggering State of the Scots Statesmen." To show of what unmanageable materials some of these magnates were made, take the following particulars :

66

"At length Charles effected that memorable progress in the month of June 1633. On the night before his coronation, he was feasted in the Castle of Edinburgh by the old Earl of Mar, whom he had beheld at his feet, crutches and all, stirring pity to cause injustice.' On the morrow, when seated in the great hall of the Castle, to receive the crown which some would fain have filched from him, it was Hay, the crabbed Chancellor-he whose manner was to interrupt all men when he was disposed to speak, and the King too '—that now, in the name of the estates of the kingdom, spake to the King.' Among the six noblemen, whom his Majesty selected to support the bearers of his canopy, was Lord Napier. Rothes, the father of the future Covenant, carried the sceptre-and Lorn, the deeper and more deadly promoter of the Rebellion, assisted to bear the train.

44

The factious insolency of his Scotch nobles which Charles had experienced in England, he now met with, in more dangerous and personal collision, at home.' No sooner had he set his foot in Scotland than he created the chancellor Earl of Kinnoul, a favour which had little effect in molifying the temper of that statesman. Charles had always wished that the primate of Scotland should have precedence of the chancellor ; 'which,' (says Sir James Balfour) the Lord Chancellor Hay, a gallant stout man, would never condescend to, nor ever suffer him to have place of him, do what he could, all the days of his lifetime.' Once again Charles endeavoured to effect this. It was when arranging the pageantry of his coronation with Sir James Balfour, the Lord Lyon, in whose own graphic words we must give the anecdote. I remember that King Charles sent me to the Lord Chancellor, being then Earl of Kinnoul, the day of his own coronation, in the morning, to shew him that it was his will and pleasure, but only for that day, that he would cede and give place to the Archbishop; but he returned by me to his Majesty a very brusk answer, which was, that since his Majesty had been pleased to continue him in that office of chancellor, which, by his means, his worthy father, of happy memory, had bestowed upon him, he was ready in all humility to lay it down at his

Majesty's feet; but since it was his royal will he should enjoy it with the known privileges of the same, never a stol'd priest in Scotland should set a foot before him so long as his blood was hot. When I had related his answer to the King, he said, "Weel, Lyon, let's go to business; I will not meddle further with that old cankered, gouty man, at whose hands there is nothing to be gained but sour words.' Thus even the regal procession, which to the eyes of all Scotland betokened gaiety and gladness, was to the devoted monarch replete with vexation and bitterness. From that hollow pageantry he passed to his Parliament of Scotland, with a spirit lofty, and long chafed, but as placable as it was royal."

Our author quotes an epitaph, which is to be found in James Balfour's manuscript in the Advocates' Library, bearing upon the character of another nobleman of the period, Thomas Hamilton, first Lord Haddington. It runs thus in modern orthography.

"Here lies a Lord, who, while he stood

Had matchless been, had he been-
His epitaph's a syllable short,

And ye may add a syllable to it,

But what that syllable doth import;

My defunct Lord could never do it."

The first Lord Napier, of whom we have already more than once made honourable mention, is represented, indeed, by our author as an almost immaculate character, as well as great by learning and talents. He obtains this high honour in a great measure in the pages before us, because, though described as a rigid Protestant, he would not join the Covenanting or Puritan cause, and because Montrose and he came to entertain the same loyal or royalist opinions. We have found, however, in the documents obtained from the Napier chest, here published for the first time, some evidences of ambition that savour of what in the case of other persons our author would be apt to describe in terms scarcely consonant with pure motives or safe authority. Mr. Napier has been speaking of his Lordship's political sagacity and prophetic views, as handed down in certain papers; and proceeds,

"I find another very interesting paper, all in his own handwriting, which appears to have been addressed to the King himself, a few years before his progress to be crowned in Scotland. Whether it was actually sent to his Majesty, or, if sent, ever suffered to reach him, and how far the scheme proposed was practicable, there is now no means of knowing. But it will be seen from the tenor of it how intensely the writer had felt on the subject of the fatal effect of those mists of ignorance and mistakings,' as to the affairs of Scotland, in which the King was continually enveloped, by those who, for the sake of petty and private interests, so treacherously practised upon the facilities of his disposition.

**Offers of useful service to your Majesty, some few propositions being first premised whereby the use of that service may be better

known.