The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-24 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

MEMOIRS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
Two Vols. Bentley, London, 1844.

While acknowledging, which we do readily, the
diligence and ingenuity displayed in these memoirs,
we must beg leave to enter our protest against the
partial and one-sided spirit that animates them. The
author— who, we presume, is a very young man-
is not simply a panegyrist, but a most devoted enthu-
siast of Mary Stuart; he is not content with the sim-
ple admission that " she was more sinned against
than sinning"—more unlucky in the period in which
-she lived, than criminal in her conduct as a woman
and a Queen—but insists that she was a perfect para-
gon of perfection—an angel without spot or stain ;
and, like a true Quixotic knight-errant, he comes
forth armed cap-a-pie, ready to run a tilt against any
one who impugns the character of his Dulcinea. It
must be confessed that he pleads the cause of the
Scottish Queen with • considerable tact, and arranges
his facts judiciously and methodically, passing lightly
over those which tell against him and are most difficult
to be refuted, and laving infinite stress on those which
support his view of the case ; still the cause which he
advocates is so lame a one, and common sense so de-
cidedly against him, that he can scarcely hope to gain
a verdict in his favour, except from the very young
or the very superficial reader of history. Public
opinion is now, we believe, pretty well made up, as
regards the story of Mary and her misfortunes; no
one denies that her lot was a painful, and in some
respects, perhaps, an undeserved one ; her griefs com-
menced at an early' period of her life with the death
of her first husband and her reluctant departure from
the land of her love; and they were aggravated by
the fierce and excited character of the period in which
she lived, the implacable dissensions that reigned among
the people whom she was called to govern, the brutal
and lawless conduct of her nobles, and the intriguing
habits of her councillors. Still, even when all these
mitigating circumstances are taken into consideration,

it cannot be denied that she was guilty of offences
which nothing can justify; and the whole course of
her conduct as respects Bothwell, proves that she was
in a great degree dead to shame and inaccessible to
the " still small whisper" of conscience. Mr. Buck-
ingham has laboured hard to defend her on this ticklish
point, but with far more zeal than success. By
attempting to prove too much, and sinking the im-
partial historian in the advocate, he leaves the ques-
tion, if possible, in a worse state than he found it.
We must protest also against his purblind views of
the character of Elizabeth and of the Regent Murray
—the former of whom he stigmatises as a " monster
and a "bastard," notwithstanding the known fact of
her legitimacy, which a hasty decree of Henry the
Eighth, afterwards retracted, could not control ;
while of Murray—" the good Regent," as he was
justly called—he tells us that he was a mere hypo-
crite in religion, and " possessed all the evil charac-
teristics of his age." Surely this is more boldly than
wisely said ! Of Murray, more than of any other
statesman of his day, it may be urged with perfect
truth that he was in advance of the times in which

he lived. His policy, if sometimes tortuous—and
how could it fail to be otherwise, considering .the
difficult position in which he was placed ?—was, on
the whole, conspicuous by its moderation and equity ;
and in an age when men's minds were heated almost to
madness by religious diScord, he bad the sagacity to
steer successfully between the two great antagonist
parties, and make them both subservient to the State
objects which he had in view. We look on Murray
as one of the most accomplished statesmen that Scot-
land ever produced; who—to. quote the emphatic
language of Milton—" Drew order out of chaos," and
by vindicating the authority of the law, and by re-
storing confidence and tranquillity among a rude
people, whom he found distracted with internal dis-
sensions of the fiercest order, conferred immense
benefits on his country. We quote our author's
closing remarks on Mary Stuart's character, which
will convey a fair idea of the chivalrous and enthu-
siastic spirit in which the work is written :
" Despairing of peace in her own land, she threw her-
self, with generous chivalry of heart, into the arms of
one whom she• had thought her friend ; but found 'a
prison where she had looked for succour and consola-
tion ; and, after nineteen years' of miserable and severe
captivity,' aggravated by every means which heartless
tyranny could devise, she fell a victim to an unjust sen-
tence, by the headsman's hand. But these extraordinary
calamities, while they draw tears froM those who dwell
upon the records of her life, served only to enhance the
excellence of her character. Formed in the justest

mould of perfect beauty, and graced with every charm
which the lavish hand of nature could bestow, the beau-
ties of her person were overshadowed by the perfections
of her refined and cultivated.mind, and these again were
in their turn eclipsed by the peerless excellencies of her
heart. Animated by the profoundest sense of true reli-
gion, she was a tolerant Catholic, in an age when the
ardour of
,persecution yet envenomed the minds of the
Protestant Church, and, extending freedom of belief to
all beneath hei• sway, she sought only for a similar pri-
vilege for herself, while the truly Christian character of
her piety was manifested in acts 'of charity and bene-
volence to all around her. Warm and enthusiastic in
her temperament, she reposed unlimited confidence in all
who gained her favour, and, though sometimes roused by
the severity-of insult into temporary passion, the emi-
nently forgiving. character of her heart caused her to
receive again with good will those who had most deeply
Offiinded against:her peace. Endowed with every quality
which in woman is most highly prized; she endured, with
an unexampled heroism, which true religion could alone
impart, miseries and persecutions which are without an
equal in the history of the world ; and though it may
have been.the lot of others to fill a more distinguished
station amid the -nations of the earth, and to exercise a
more material influence over the destinies of their fellow-
beings, yet, so long as the pure and simple excellence of
a spotless heart are allowed to rise superior to the mere
perfections of person or of mind, and to command the re-
spect, as they enchain the sympathy and affection, of
mankind, the name of Mary Stuart will shine with a pure
and holy lustre, which, deriving its brilliance, not from
those achievements to which -frail and feeble men accord
their highest praise, but, from the unfailing source of
spdtless integrity of heart, will growin radiance in each
succeeding age, and at:ain its highest glory when vice
and error shall have faded from the world, and rectitude
and. virtue shall be recognised its the brightest jewels of
a monarch's crown."

PICTORIAL MUSEUM OF ANIMATED
NATURE.—Parts XII. and XIII.
C. Knight, London, 1844.
We have in these two parts an infinite variety, of
plates, representing birds of all kinds and classes. The
plates, for the most part, are creditably engraved,
and are accompanied by explanatory letter-press de-
scriptions.

ILLUSTRATED COMPANION TO LADY
SALE'S JOURNAL.
Blackwood and Page; Lohdion, 1844.
This is the commencement of a series of pictorial
illustrations of some of the most remarkable incidents
referred to in Lady Sale's well-known journal of her
tedious captivity in Affghanistan. The illustrations.
are all drawn on stone, and to each is attached the
particular description in her Ladyship's narrative
which suggested it. The most interesting print in
the Part before Ifs, is a view of the city of Caubul,
in which we have a minute representation of the
principal street, and several of the most conspicuous
public buildings. The plate, it seems, was engraved
from an original sketch by Lieut. Skinner.

TWO YEARS in FRANCE and SWITZERLAND,
Moxon, London, .1844.

The authoress of this little duodecimo is a lady
named Lamont, who describes, in a series of letters to
her mother, the impressions made on her mind during
a residence of two., years in the countries of France
and Switzerland. She wields, to all appearance, the
pen of a ready writer, and sketches off the grand
mountain scenery of the Swiss lakes, and the manners
of the people with whom she came into contact in the
gay salons of Paris, with nearly equal facility. Some
of her recollections of the late-Marshal Macdonald, of
whom she seems to have seen a good deal during her
Sla3Pinuthe French.-capital, are—entertaining,- thmigh
they wear the appearance of being somewhat over-