Peter's ship; for He neither sleeps nor slumbers who beholds all your doings, and sees your thoughts, but shall require the blood at your hands of the smallest one that shall perish through your negligence.' Many years of civil and ecclesiastical misrule had prepared the way for the downfall of the Medieval Church; but the chief cause of its utter and irretrievable overthrow was the wickedness of the priesthood, proofs of which, under their own hand, so to speak, are brought before us in these volumes. It was this which gave sharpness to the satire of Lindsay and weight to the sermons of Knox. Errors of doctrine might have been corrected or excused, but clerical immorality had become so general and so inveterate as to admit of no cure. The sins of the clergy led to utter recklessness and most unclean living among the laity. Of the offences of both orders the chief causes were two-the ecclesiastical rules which enforced the celibacy of the clergy, and the laws prohibiting marriages within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity and affinity. Both abuses were common to the whole of Western Christendom, but the latter rule was practically carried out in Scotland with a shameless corruption exceeding that of any other nation. Dispensations from the canons could be easily purchased by those who were able to afford it; and the marriage tie, indissoluble in theory, was unloosed with the utmost facility at the bidding of the rich, on the pretext of some original nullity in its constitution. At the Reformation the artificial restraints of the Canon Law were set aside, and the degrees of propinquity within which marriage was forbidden were made conformable to those laid down in the Holy Scriptures. One redeeming virtue may justly be claimed for the ecclesiastics. To the last they were good landlords, and their vassals and tenants found they had made a bad exchange when they were handed over to the new lay lords who grasped the possessions of bishops and abbots. A most faithful account of Scotland in this respect is to be found in the pages of the Monastery. In matters also of more importance the genius of Scott has preserved a true picture of the time. The Sub-Prior Eustace represents a class of ecclesiastics zealous for the Church, and zealous also for moral purity and goodness, but whose influence was of no avail against that of men like Abbot Boniface, and far worse persons than the indolent Abbot of St. Mary's, who filled the high places of the northern hierarchy. We have endeavoured to show that Mr. Robertson's Preface affords, in fact, a consecutive history of the legislation and administration of the Church before the Reformation in Scotland. It is as full as the materials, whether of record or of chronicle, allow. It is as learned, as sagacious, as honest, as the most impartial student can desire. We have marked no omissions, and venture to assert that no critic will find authorities misinterpreted, or cunningly drawn to speak against their true meaning. Many points of the greatest interest are raised, which we have no space to discuss. The double marriage of Mary and Bothwell is given with perfect precision, and then a marginal note asks, ' Was the marriage of Bothwell, a divorced adulterer, with Queen Mary, lawful in the judgment of the Reformed Church of Scotland?' with all the history and law that go to the answering of that question. Just there, too, the lawyer will find (so far as we know) the only account of the passing away of the old Consistorial jurisdiction of the Church-the courts, be it noted, which took cognisance not merely of church offences, and of heresies, but of marriage, of legitimacy, of status, of succession, and testaments and latter wills-of all the most important questions affecting family relations. He will find an absolute 'surcease of justice' in the Court of the Bishop and his official, or, as the author notes it on his margin, a cessation of consistorial jurisdiction' from 24th August 1560 to 8th February 1564, brought to an end, at length, by the establishment of the now defunct Commissary Court, whose powers have merged in the Court of Session. A body of 'Notes' appended to the second volume is quite full of the most rare and curious learning. The Council of Edinburgh in 1559 is, strictly speaking, the conclusion of Mr. Robertson's volumes. But in his Appendix, and in the notes to his Preface are found some papers which throw light on the relations of Queen Mary with the Pope and the Council of Trent. One other paper in the Appendix, of a somewhat earlier date, is a presentation and institution by James IV. to the Chapel-Royal of Kirkheugh, or St. Mary-of-the-Crag at St. Andrews. This document illustrates the right claimed by the Scottish kings, and by other sovereigns in the middle ages, to be the ordinaries of their own chapels. Such a claim was as repugnant to the principles of the great medieval bishops as it was to those of the Scottish Covenanters; and the ancient ecclesiastics, to whom a scriptural quotation never came wrong, would have delighted in the ironical application made in an after age of the words of Amaziah to Amos:-O thou seer, go flee thee away into the the land of Judah and prophesy there, but prophesy not again any more at Bethel, for it is the king's chapel, and it is the king's court.' The last pages of the Preface contain a most interesting account of the Culdees-especially those of St. Andrews-a subject on which so much nonsense was formerly written. Their real history is not exhausted even by Dr. Reeves's valuable treatise, and these pages are full of that learning which no one save the author possessed. On various matters discussed in these volumes, scholars may differ from some of Mr. Robertson's opinions; but they will hardly be able to point out a fact misstated or not supported by his authorities. His acquaintance with everything bearing upon his subject enabled him to avoid those errors in minor details which writers of ability, but of insufficient information, are so apt to fall into. We have observed only a single slip of this kind, and he was led into it by copying Theiner, who had evidently misread his manuscript. We refer to a writ, said to be addressed to a Bishop of Oxford early in the thirteenth century, three hundred years before the foundation of that see. Mr. Robertson quotes a remark of Lord Hailes, speaking of his edition of the Scottish Canons of the Thirteenth Century:"They were lately offered to the public, with some explanatory notes. For the benefit of those who may be inclined to publish any tracts concerning the antiquities of Scotland, I must observe that twenty-five copies of the Canons were sold.' The taste for accurate history has somewhat improved since Hailes's time; but perhaps it is hardly to be expected that a book like Mr. Robertson's will ever become what is called a popular work. There is a large class for whom the subject possesses no attractions; and even of some of those who take an interest in it, the taste has been perverted by writers who indulge in a reckless prodigality of confident assertion and startling incident, a method entirely opposed to the accurate research and calm impartiality of the author of the Concilia Scotia. But with all who study history as history ought to be studied, Mr. Robertson's work will be both a treasure in itself and a key to open the stores laid up in the records and language of an earlier age. ART. IV.-Julian den Frafaldne. Af CARSTEN HAUCH. THERE are few intellectual phenomena in modern European history more wonderful than the sudden rise and rapid development of Danish literature. Before the time of Holberg, the Molière of the North, who flourished during the first half of the eighteenth century, Denmark could scarcely be said to possess any literature at all. She owned, indeed, her ancient heritage of the Eddas and the Sagas in common with the two Scandinavian sister kingdoms, and she could also point to a singularly rich and extensive ballad-poetry, forming perhaps her noblest legacy from the old medieval times. But of literature, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, she was almost wholly destitute. Holberg, at once historian, satirist, and dramatist,-a man grandly endowed by nature, and who had sedulously cultivated the gifts bestowed on him,-was the true awakener of intellectual energy and enterprise among his countrymen. He it was who with trenchant sarcasm attacked the folly and stupidity for in truth their character and conduct deserve no gentler epithets-of the so-called literati of his age, and by indicating the radical defects that vitiated the entire taste and tendencies of the period, paved the way for a thorough reform in sentiment, in manners, and in literature. We need not wonder, therefore, that the Danes still fondly revere Holberg's memory, and look back to his multifarious labours as indicating the real commencement of their modern literary annals. Yet, great as without doubt were Holberg's merits, it must not be forgotten that from the date of his death in 1754 until the close of last century, his influence and example seem to have been productive of comparatively little fruit. Throughout the course of those forty or fifty years, intellectual sterility as a rule distinguished the Danish people. We meet, doubtless, with names like Ewald, Wessel, and Baggesen-names that would confer high honour on the literature of any nation,-but the general spirit of the period was dull, drowsy, and barren, and evinced slight promise of the better day which was to come. With the first years of the nineteenth century there dawned a new era for Danish literature. It was in these years that the earliest poems of Oehlenschläger appeared, and the power and beauty which pervaded them were soon fully recognised. Intellectual effort among the Danes burst simultaneously into the richest bloom. A whole host of writers arose, fired by Oehlenschläger's example, and all owing something, more or less, to the inspiration of his genius,-writers who gained for them selves renown in their own land, and even in certain instances acquired a European reputation. Grundtvig, Ingemann, Hauch, Heiberg, Hertz, Winther, and Paludan-Müller, may be particularly mentioned, as holding high rank in the band of poets, novelists, and critics who adorned the records of Danish Îiterature during the first thirty or forty years of the present century. Thanks to their successful achievements, the literature of their native country is now recognised as an intellectual power in Europe. Formerly that literature was either ignored by the thinkers of other nations, or deemed a minor branch of the literature of Germany, a sorry little twig depending from the colossal Teutonic tree. Now, on the contrary, men's minds are awakening to the consciousness of the fact, that in Denmark there does really exist an original, self-subsistent literature, not to be compared, of course, for a moment, in point of extent, with the German, yet characterized by wonderful vitality and beauty, and within its necessarily narrow limits. displaying an opulent 'many-sidedness,' hardly less various and versatile than that of Germany itself. Even in Britain, proverbially slow to comprehend the phases of any foreign literature, the Danish authors are beginning to find those who can appreciate and admire them; and we may with reason expect that the number of such persons will continue to increase. For, to us, it is a hopeful symptom, that among many educated Englishmen and Scotchmen, the tide seems setting, at present, in the direction of the Scandinavian North. dinavian scenery, Scandinavian manners and customs, Scandinavian literature, have become to them objects of interest and attraction; and of the last of these objects we think we may safely affirm, that the more they know of it the more they will study and love it. A fresh, healthy breath of life. pervades the whole of Scandinavian literature, and not least that branch of it to which we have been referring in the previous remarks. The slightest glance at the pages of any Scandinavian work of merit, whether Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian, will furnish ample proof of the assertion we have made. Scan In the present paper it is our purpose to give some account of a recently published volume, by the veteran Danish poet, Carsten Hauch. Hauch is one of the last surviving literary links that connect the new generation of Danish authors with their predecessors in the former part of the century; and the mere mention of his name leads us back to the period when Oehlenschläger was at the summit of his renown, and had gathered around him a phalanx of younger followers to imbibe his spirit and to emulate his genius. But Hauch, although now |