inspired by the sympathetic zeal of the Romish church, or the enthusiasm of Scottish chivalry,

In perusing the letters addressed to Dr. Robertson on the publication of this book, it is somewhat remarkable

ton likewise desires me to transmit to you his thanks and compliments in the strongest terms.

"Though your work has been scarce a fortnight in the hands of the public, I can already inform you, upon the authority of the best judges, that the spirit and elegance of the composition, and the candor, moderation, and humanity which run through it, will secure you the general approbation both of the present age and of posterity, and raise the character of our country in a species of writing, in which of all others it has been most defective.

"If the second volume of the State Papers of Lord Burleigh published since Christmas here, had appeared before your history had been finished, it would have furnished you with reasons for entertaining a less favorable opinion of Mary queen of Scots in one or two points, than you seem at present possessed of. The principal is with regard to her last intrigues and correspondences, which were the immediate cause of her death. And I could wish you had likewise seen a manuscript account of her trial in Lord Royston's possession. This account is much fuller than Camden's, whose history is justly to be suspected in every thing relating to her; or than any other, that has yet seen the light. It contains so ample a state of the evidence produced of her guilt, as, I think, leaves no doubt of it; notwithstanding that the witnesses were not confronted with her; a manner of proceeding, which, though certainly due to every person accused, was not usual either before her time or long after.

"You conclude in the note, vol. i. p. 307, in favor of her innocence from any criminal intrigue with Rizzio from the silence of Randolph on that head. But I apprehend, that in opposition to this allegation you may be urged with the joint letter of that gentleman and the Earl of Bedford of 27th March, 1566, in your appendix, No. xv. p. 22.

"I desire you to make my compliments acceptable to Sir David Dalrymple and Mr. Davidson, and believe me to be," &c.

FROM SIR GILBERT ELLIOT TO DR. ROBERTSON.

"Dear sir, Admiralty, January 20th, 1759. "Millar has just sent me the History of Scotland. I cannot imagine why he should delay the publication so long as the first of February, for I well know that the printing has been completed a great while. You could have sent me no present, which on its own account I should have esteemed so much; but you have greatly enhanced its value, by allowing me to accept it as a memorial and testimony of a friendship which I have long cultivated with equal satisfaction and sincerity. I am no stranger to your book, though your copy is but just put into my hands: David Hume so far indulged my impatience, as to allow me to carry to the country during the holidays, the loose sheets which he happened to have by him. In that condition I read it quite through with the greatest satisfaction, and in much less time than I ever employed on any portion of history of the same length. I had certainly neither leisure nor inclination to exercise the function of a critic; carried along with the stream of the narration, I only felt, when I came to the conclusion, that you had greatly exceeded the expectations I had formed, though I do assure you these were not a little sanguine. If, upon a more deliberate perusal, I discover any blemish, I shall point it out without any scruple: at present, it seems to me that you have rendered the period you treat of as interesting as any part of our British story: the views you open of policy, manners, and religion, are ingenious, solid, and deep. Your work will certainly be ranked in the highest historical class; and, for my own part, I think it besides, a composition of uncommon genius and eloquence. I was afraid you might have been interrupted by the the reformation, but I find it much otherwise; you treat it with great propriety, and in my opinion, with sufficient freedom. No revolution, whether civil or religious, can be accomplished without that degree of ardor and passion, which, in a later age, will be matter of ridicule to men who do not feel the occasion, and enter into the spirit of the times. But I must not get into dissertations:-I hope you will ever believe me, with great regard," &c.

that I have not found one in which he is charged with the slightest unfairness towards the queen; and that, on the contrary, almost all his correspondents accuse him of an undue prepossession in her favor. “I am afraid," says Mr. Hume, "that you, as well as myself, have drawn Mary's character with too great softenings. She was undoubtedly a violent woman at all times. You will see in Murden proofs of the utmost rancor against her innocent, good-natured, dutiful son. She certainly disinherited him. What think you of a conspiracy for kidnapping him, and delivering him a prisoner to the king of Spain, never to recover his liberty till he should turn Catholic? Tell Goodall, that if he can but give me up Queen Mary, I hope to satisfy him in every thing else; and he will have the pleasure of seeing John Knox and the reformers made very ridiculous."

"It is plain," says Mr. Walpole, "that you wish to excuse Mary; and yet it is so plain that you never violate truth in her favor, that I own I think still worse of her than I did, since I read your history."

Dr. Birch expresses himself much to the same purpose. "If the second volume of the state papers of Lord Burleigh, published since Christmas here, had appeared before your history had been finished, it would have furnished you with reasons for entertaining a less favorable opinion of Mary Queen of Scots in one or two points, than you seem at present possessed of."

Dr. John Blair, too, in a letter dated from London observes to Dr. Robertson, that "the only general objection to his work was founded on his tenderness for Queen Mary." "Lord Chesterfield," says he, "though he approves much of your history, told me, that he finds this to be a bias which no Scotchman can get the better of."

I would not be understood, by quoting these passages, to give any opinion upon the subject to which they refer. It is a subject which I have never examined with attention, and which, I must confess, never excited my curiosity. Whatever judgment we form concerning the points in dispute, it leads to no general conclusion concerning human affairs, nor throws any new light on human character. Like any other historical question, in

which the evidence has been industriously darkened by the arts of contending parties, the proofs of Mary's innocence or guilt may furnish an amusing and harmless. employment to the leisure of the antiquary; but at this distance of time, it is difficult to conceive how prejudice or passion should enter into the discussion, or should magnify it into an object of important and serious research. With respect to Dr. Robertson's narrative, in particular, it is sufficiently manifest, that whatever inaccuracies may be detected in it by the labors of succeeding inquirers, they can never furnish to the partisans of Mary, any ground for impeaching his candor and good faith as a writer. All his prepossessions (if he had any on this subject) must have been in favor of the queen ; for, it was chiefly from the powerful interest excited by her story, that he could hope for popularity with the multitude; and, it was only by the romantic pictures which her name presents to the fancy, that he could accommodate to the refinement of modern taste, the annals of a period, where perfidy, cruelty, and bigotry, appear in all their horrors; unembellished by those attractions which, in other states of society they have so often assumed, and which, how much soever they may afflict the moralist, yet facilitate and adorn the labors of the historian.

Among the various circumstances that distinguish Dr. Robertson's genius and taste in the execution of this work, the address with which he interweaves the personal history of the queen with the general events he records, is not the least remarkable. Indeed, without the aid of so interesting a character, the affairs of Scotland, during the period he treats of, could not have derived, even from his hand, a sufficient importance and dignity to engage the curiosity of the present age.

Another difficulty arising also from his subject he appears to me to have surmounted with exquisite skill, In relating the transactions of a foreign country, however remote the period, and however antiquated the manners, it is easy for an historian to avoid in his narrative, whatever might lessen the dignity of the actors, or lower the tone of his composition. The employment of expres

sions debased by common and trivial use, is superseded by the necessity he is under to translate from one language into another; and the most insignificant of his details derive a charm from the novelty of the scenery. The writer, too, who, in this island, employs his genius on the ancient history of England, addresses himself to readers already enamoured of the subject, and who listen with fond prepossessions to the recital of facts consecrated in their imaginations by the tale of the nursery. Even a description of old English manners, expressed in the obsolete dialect of former centuries, pleases by its simplicity and truth; and while it presents to us those retrospects of the past on which the mind loves to dwell, has no tendency to awaken any mean or ludicrous images. But the influence of Scottish associations, so far as it is favorable to antiquity, is confined to Scotchmen alone, and furnishes no resources to the writer who aspires to a place among the English classics. Nay, such is the effect of that provincial situation to which Scotland is now reduced, that the transactions of former ages are apt to convey to ourselves exaggerated conceptions of barbarism, from the uncouth and degraded dialect in which they are recorded. To adapt the history of such a country to the present standard of British taste, it was necessary for the author, not only to excite an interest for names which, to the majority of his readers, were formerly indifferent or unknown, but what was still more difficult, to unite in his portraits the truth of nature with the softenings of art, and to reject whatever was unmeaning or offensive in the drapery, without effacing the characteristic garb of the times. In this task of " conquering," as Livy expresses it, "the rudeness of antiquity by the art of writing," they alone are able to judge how far Dr. Robertson has succeeded, who have compared his work with the materials out of which it was formed.

Nor are these sacrifices to modern taste inconsistent with the fidelity of a history which records the transactions of former ages. On the contrary, they aid the judgment of the reader in forming a philosophical estimate of the condition and character of our ancestors, by counteracting that strong bias of the mind which

VOL. VII.

15

confounds human nature and human life with the adventitious and ever changing attire which they borrow from fashion. When we read the compositions of Buchanan in his native tongue, how completely are his genius and taste obscured by those homely manners which the coarseness of his dialect recalls; and how difficult is it to believe that they express the ideas and sentiments of the same writer, whose Latin productions vie with the best models of antiquity! No fact can illustrate more strongly the necessity of correcting our common impressions concerning the ancient state of Scotland, by translating not only the antiquated phraseology of our forefathers into a more modern idiom, but by translating (if I may use the expression) their antiquated fashions. into the corresponding fashions of our own times.

The peculiar circumstances of Scotland since the union of the crowns, are extremely apt to warp our ideas with respect to its previous history. The happy but slow effects produced by the union of the kingdoms do not extend beyond the memory of some of our contemporaries; and the traditions we have received concerning the condition of our immediate predecessors are apt to impress us with a belief that, at a still more early period, a proportionally less degree of civilization prevailed. It requires an effort of reflection to conceive the effects which must have resulted from the residence of a court; and it is not, perhaps, easy for us to avoid underrating the importance of that court while it existed. During the long and intimate intercourse with England, which preceded the disputed succession between Bruce and Baliol, it was certainly not without its share of that "barbaric pomp," which was then affected by the English sovereigns; nor, under our later kings, connected as it was with the court of France, could it be altogether untinctured with those envied manners and habits, of which that country has been always regarded as the parent soil, and which do not seem to be the native growth of either part of our island. These circumstances, accordingly, appear to have operated so powerfully on the higher orders, that even in their own vernacular tongue, their compositions do not suffer by a