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 " 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

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

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comparison with the style of their English contemporaries; and at the era when Dr. Robertson's History closes, some of the purest and most correct performances of the age may be selected from the correspondence of our Scottish statesmen.

This era was followed by a long and melancholy period, not less fatal to genius than to morals; and which had scarcely arrived at its complete termination, when Dr. Robertson appeared as an author; aspiring at once to adorn the monuments of former times, when Scotland was yet a kingdom, and to animate his countrymen by his example, in reviving its literary honors.

Before quitting this first work of Dr. Robertson, I must not omit to mention (what forms the strongest testimony of its excellence) the severe trial it had to undergo in the public judgment, by appearing nearly at the same time with that volume of Mr. Hume's History, which involves an account of Scottish affairs during the reigns of queen Mary and king James. It is not my intention

to attempt a parallel of these two eminent writers: nor, indeed, would the sincerity of their mutual attachment, and the lively recollection of it which still remains with many of their common friends, justify me in stating their respective merits in the way of opposition. Their peculiar excellencies, besides, were of a kind so different, that they might be justly said (in the language which a Roman critic employs in speaking of Livy and Sallust) to be pares magis quam similes. They divide between them the honor of having supplied an important blank in English literature, by enabling their countrymen to dispute the palm of historical writing with the other nations of Europe. Many have since followed their example, in attempting to bestow interest and ornament on different portions of British story; but the public voice sufficiently acquits me of any partiality when I say, that hitherto they have only been followed at a distance. In this respect, I may with confidence apply to them the panegyric which Quinctilian pronounces on the two great historians of ancient Greece; and, perhaps, if I were inclined to characterize the beauties most prominent in each, I might, without much impropriety, avail myself of the contrast with which that panegyric concludes: