The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1870-03-06
Morning Star and Catholic Messenger
NV ORLEANS. SUNDAY, MARCH 8. 1870.
rroudss History Of England.

l
Queen of Scots. And it is fitting finale TO
work, which throughout, has only served as
convenient medium for ventilating the rancor
fercely burning in the authors heart against,
not merely the Church itself, but the truth of
history. As an historian, he is wholly unrelia-
BILE as a master of English and pictorial effect
he may have hosts of admirers-for all else he |
is q blind and bigoted partisan. In his treat
ment of that part of his subject which relates
to the unfortunate Queen of Scotland, he is
simply fiendish. Even those who believe, in
her guilt, either in whole or in part, indignant
ly spurn Froude's unmanly and demoniacal
handling. Thus q critic in tho GALAXY for
March, says:
There is something specially to be said of
these closing volumes at least of the grand,
dark central figure on which SO much labor,
not of love, has been bestowed. Mr.. Froud's
Mary Stuart is conducted to her death in these
volumes with grim solemn irony worthy of
n Grand InqusitOr and his Act of Faith. Moth
ically impressive and CHASTITY than the descrip-
tion of the execution of the Queen of Scots.
This scene is artistically admirable; it closes
as the finishing up of Fieldings Jonathan
Wild" disposes of tho great humori5t's prince
of scoundrels. But throughout the whole of
Froude's history we have been haunted by an
unpleasant doubt, which these concluding vol
nmes greatly strengthen-the doubt whether
the author has not been working in the spirit
of dramatist and a poet quite as much as
Schiller did on the one side, or Swinburne Oh
Stuart He seems to have made up
his mind to create complete and perfect type
of wickedness in woman-Messalina, Semira-
mis-, Lucrezia Borgia, Pompadour, and Becky
Sharp all in one FACILITATING frame-and to
have written his Mary Stuart up to that stand
ard. He persists in regarding the woman as
conscious hypocrite, whose display of pious and
brave resignation on the very scatfold was not
the result even of fanatical and supersttious
self-delusion, but deliberate piece of play
acting, planned and performed for the malign
purpose of casting new stigma upon her enc
mics in her very death. This is, we con-
WINGED, a theory false not merely to this partic-
ular figure in history, but false to the whole
history of human nature. We do not believe
there ever was such a woman in reaflfe as Mr..
Froude has drawn in Mary Stuart But the
historian exults over his picture, and positive
ly revels in sardonic joy over the most revolt
ing details of Marys execution, over the expos
ure of the false hair and the withered checks,
over the stripping of the corpse, and the reve-
lation of the Assesses which distigured the
form once SO lovely. Positively, Mr. Froude
reminds of Swinburne in the cold cruel ex-
ultatiOn of these passages. For Elizabeth,
while he explicitly admits her worst van
tiles, falsehoOd and crimes he always has eX-
cuse, federation, explanation, mitigating plea
of some kind; for Mary he has neither the calm,
just consideration of the historian, nor the pity
of the generous man. Mr.. Froude illustrates
the reverse Of Pygmalion's story: he has crea-
ted figure and fallen into hate of it. 1t is as
painter of historical portraits that he shows
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We &ppend n few passages to show Will
h+ <,l;s,; ,.;d,oss ,r Loot b, or :.
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The Queen of Scots as she swept in seemed
as if coming to take part in some solemn page
ant Not muscle of her face could be seen tc
culver; she assembled the scaffold with abso
lutte composure looked round her smiling and
sat down Shrewsbury and Kent followed
and took their places the sheriff stood at he,
left hand and Beale then mounted a platform
ueaa cue a,aa alou a. !n al me assem-
teTested in the words which were consrnina
- her to death. "Madam," said Lord Shrewsbury
70 ner wn zen sne ,eaaihg was enaea You neal
your dntv y she answered and rose os IL tT
kueel and pray. The Dean of Peterboronpb
DR.. Fletcher: approached the rail "Madam.
he began with low obeisance. .stbe Oneen,s
most excellent Majesty'-thrice he commenced
his sentence wanting words to nursue II WbeT