)fi 27 .F78 -opy 1 ^3. -•■^■^^^^I^l^s^^ - 3 7U ft~~e ^w, *~^ ^~-» 7 ■ :■ FROM wm% t X e u- "V o r h PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN LITERARY BUREAU 7E. ; j ®w Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. — • • > •..- antes AMES ANTHONY F.ROUDE, the historian, was born at Totness, Devonshire, England, and is now fifty-four years old. He was the son of R. H. Froude, Archdeacon of Totness, and was edu- cated at Westminster and Oxford, where he early developed abilities which forecast his future brilliant career. He has written " The Lives of the English Saints," " Shadows of the Clouds," " The Nemesis of Faith," " Short Studies on Great Subjects," and other works. He is now engaged upon a History of Ireland. But the great work on which his reputation mainly rests, and which will carry that reputation down to posterity side by side with that of Hume aud Macaulay, is the " History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Eliza- beth." Few historical works have had such a sale (Scrib- ner & Co. have sold over one hundred and fifty thousand in the United States alone), and probably no other one ever caused so much warmth of feeling and angry discussion. This was principally owing to the fact that Mr. Froude 's estimate of the characters of those two great historical personages, Henry VIII. and Mary Stuart, was directly con- trary to the estimates of all previous historians, and opposed §>£ ■ -= I 4 James A to the convictions or prejudices of the great mass of the - sh people. It is from this work that the selections embodied in this pamphlet are taken. Mr. Froude has beer I by the American Literary Bureau to lecture in this country during the fall and winter - 2 — 73 upon the "Relations between England and Ire- land " — a theme which has attracted universal attention, both in Great Britain and the Unite : In view of his presence among us. it is believed I "Gems " will be acceptable to all who love to read beautiful thought in beautiful langua_. [n electing them the diffi- culty has been, among so many gems, to decide which to choose. Nor has anv attempt been made to group them with reference to their places in history ; they are simply separate pearls on one thread. In a re-. - h of Mr. Froude. Mr. Justin McCarthy "I can I irp ::;;:. od broad differences of opinion arising out of his lectures in the United States. I cannot imagine their being rece: ...irerence, or failing to hold the attention of the public. * * * * He has imagination ; pathetic and dramatic instinct which enables a man to enter unto the emotions and motives, the likir._ f the people of a renetrating and thrilling; his language often rises to the dignity of a poetic eloquence. The figures he conjures up are always the semblances of real men and women. They are never wax-work or lay :lothed in words, or purple rags of descrip- out with straw into an awkward like :;:e hu- man form. The one distinct impression we carry away from Frond; is figures." a$Ms. ^T1|C ^Toronation-ilancant of ^tltie IRolcnn. GLORIOUS as the spectacle was. perhaps, however, it passed nnhe Those eyes were watching all for another object, which now drew near. In an open space behind the Constable there was seen approaching " a white chariot," drawn by two palfreys in white damask which swept the ground, a golden canopy borne above it making music with silver bells : and in the chariot sat the observed of all observers, the beautiful occasion of all this glittering homage : fortune's plaything of the hour, the Queen of England — queen at last '. — borne along upon the waves of this sea of. glory, breathing the perfumed incense of greatness which she had risked her fair name, her delicacy, her honour, her self-respect, to win : and she had won it. There she sate, dressed in white tissue robes, her fair hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and her temples circled with a light coronet of gold and diamonds — most beautiful — loveliest — most favored, perhaps, as she seemed at that hour, of all England's daughters. Alas ! " within the hol- low round of that coronet — " Kept Death his court, and there the antick sate. Scoffing her state and grinning at her pomp ; Allowing her a little breath, a little scene To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks. Infusing her with self and vain conceit. As if the flesh which walled about her life Were biass impregnable ; and humored thus. Bored thro' her castle walls ; and farewell. Queen !" Eatal gift of greatness ! s<» dangerous ever '. so more than dangerous in those tremendous times when the fountains are broken loose of the great deeps of thought, and nations are in the throes of revolution ; when ancient order and law and traditions are splitting in the social earthquake . and as the opposing forces wrestle to and fro, those unhappy ones who stand out above the crowd become the symbols of the struggle, and fall the victims of its alternating fortunes. And what if into an unsteady Gems from Froude. heart and brain, intoxicated with splendor, the outward chaos should find its way, converting the poor silly soul into an image of the same confu- sion, — if conscience should be deposed from her high place, and the Pan- dora box be broken loose of passions and sensualities and follies ; and at length there be nothing left of all which man or woman ought to value, save hope of God's forgiveness. Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a summer morning, Queen Anne Boleyn will leave the tower of London, — not radiant then with beauty on a gay errand of coronation, but a poor wandering ghost, on a sad tragic errand, from which she will never more return, passing away out of an earth where she may stay no longer, into a presence where, nev- ertheless, we know that all is well — for all of us — and therefore for her. But let us not cloud her short-lived sunshine with the shadow of the future. She went on in her loveliness, the peeresses following in their car- i riages, with the royal guard in their rear. In Fenchurch-street she was ! met by the children of the city schools ; and at the corner of Gracechurch- | street a masterpiece had been prepared of the pseudo-classic art, then so J fashionable, by the merchants of the Styllyard. A Mount Parnassus had been constructed, and a Helicon fountain upon it playing into a basin with four jets of Rhenish wine. On the top of the mountain sat Apollo with Calliope at his feet, and on either side the remaining muses, holding lutes or harps, and singing each of them some " posy " or epigram in praise of the queen, which was presented, after it had been sung, written in letters of gold. From Gracechurch-street the procession passed to Leadenhall, where \ there was a spectacle in better taste, of the old English Catholic kind, quaint perhaps and forced, but truly and even beautifully emblematic. There was again a " little mountain " which was hung with red and white roses ; a gold ring was placed on the summit, on which, as the queen ap- peared, a white falcon was made to " descend as out of the sky," — " and then incontinent came down an angel with great melody, and set a close crown of gold upon the falcon's head ; and in the same pageant sat Saint Anne with all her issue beneath her ; and Mary Cleophas with her four children, of the which children one made a goodly oration to the queen of the fruitfulness of St. Anne, trusting that like fruit should come of her." With such "pretty conceits," at that time the honest tokens of an English welcome, the new queen was received by the citizens of London. These scenes must be multiplied by the number of the streets, where some fresh Gems from Froude. fancy met her at every turn. To preserve the festivities from flagging, every fountain and conduit within the walls ran all day with wine ; the bells of every steeple were ringing ; children lay in wait with songs, and ladies with posies, in which all the resources of fantastic extravagance were exhausted ; and thus in an unbroken triumph — and to outward appearance received with the warmest affection — she passed under Temple Bar, down the Strand, by Charing Cross to Westminster Hall. The king was not with her throughout the day ; nor did he intend to be with her in any part of the ceremony. She was to reign without a rival, the undisputed sove- reign of the hour. Saturday being passed in showing herself to the people, she retired for the night to " the king's manour house at Westminster," where she slept. On the following morning, between eight and nine o'clock, she returned to the hall, where the Lord Mayor, the city council, and the peers were again assembled, and took her place on the high dais at the top of the stairs under the cloth of state ; while the bishops, the abbots, and the monks of the abbey formed in the area. A railed way had been laid with carpets across Palace Yard and the Sanctuary to the abbey gates, and when all was ready, preceded by the peers in their robes of parliament, the Knights of the Garter in the dress of the order, she swept out under her canopy, the bishops and the monks "solemnly singing." The train was borne by the old Duchess of Norfolk, her aunt, the Bishops of London and Win- chester on either side " bearing up the lappets of her robe." The Earl of Oxford carried the crown on its cushion immediately before her. She was dressed in purple velvet furred with ermine, her hair escaping loose, as she usually wore it, under a wreath of diamonds. On entering the abbey, she was led to the coronation chair, where she sat while the train fell into their places, and the preliminaries of the cere- monial were despatched. Then she was conducted up to the high altar, and anointed Queen of England, and she received from the hands of Cran- mer, fresh come in haste from Dunstable, with the last words of his sen- tence upon Catherine scarcely silent upon his lips, the golden scepter, and St. Edward's Crown. Did any twinge of remorse, any pang of painful recollection, pierce at that moment the incense of glory which she was inhaling V Did any vision flit across her of a sad, mourning figure which once had stood where she was standing, now desolate, neglected, sinking into the darkening twilight of a life cut short by sorrow ? Who can tell? At such a time, that iiirure - would have weighed heavily upon a noble mind, and a wise mind would have been taught by the thought of it. that, although life be fleeting as a dream, it is long enough to experience strange vicissitudes of fortune. But Amu- Boleyn was not noble and was not wise. — too probably she felt nothing but the delicious, all-absorbing, all-intoxicating present; and if that plain, suffering face presented itself to her memory at all, we may fear that it was rather as a foil to her own surpassing loveliness. Two years later she was able to exult over Catherine's death ; she is not likely to have thought of her with gentler feelings in the first glow and flush of triumph. x *f;iil of $Holscg. TP)UT the 1 toning gth was arrived; slowly the hand had -*— crawled along the dial-plate: slowly, as if the event would never come : and wrong was heaped on wrong : and oppression cried, and it seemed as if no ear had heard its voice : till the measure of the circle was at length fulfilled, the Angers touched the hour, and as the strokes of the great hammer rang out above the nation, in an instant the mighty fabric of iniquity was shivered into ruins Wolsey had dreamed that it might still stand, self-reformed as he hoped to see it : but in his dread lest any hands but those oi friends should touch the work, he had " prolonged its sickly days." waiting for the convenient season which was not to be : he had put off the meeting of Parliament, knowing that if Parliament were would be unable to resist the pressure which would be brought to bear upon him ; and in the impatient minds of the people he had identified himself with the evils which he alone, for the few last years had hindered from falling. At length he had fallen himself, and his dis- grace was celebrated in London with enthusiastic rejoicing as the inaugura- tion of the new . jFanatits. ri^HE surest testimony to wise and moderate measure? is the disapproval — 1— rif fan«tiAB .if -ill L-in.^^ of fanatic* of all kinds. Gems from Froude. fflut 50 *lt* cult j| of ([Inilcr.stamliug a flrcvious ^gc. T N periods like the present, when knowledge is every day extending, and -*- the habits and thoughts of mankind are perpetually changing under the influence of new discoveries, it is no easy matter to throw ourselves back into a time in which, for centuries, the European world grew upon a single type, in which the forms of the father s thoughts were the forms of the son's, and the late descendant was occupied in treading into paths the foot- prints of his distant ancestors. So absolutely has change become the law of our present condition, that it is identified with energy and moral health ; to cease to change is to lose one's place in the race ; and to pass away from off the earth with the same convictions which we found when we entered it, is to have missed the best object for which we now seem to exist. It has been, however, with the race of men as it has been with the planet which we inhabit. As we look back over history, we see times of change and progress alternating with other times when life and thought have set- tled into permanent forms ; when mankind, as if by common consent, have ceased to seek for increase of knowledge, and, contented with what they possess, have endeavored to make use of it for purposes of moral cultiva- tion. Such was the condition of the Greeks through many ages before the Persian war ; such was that of the Romans till the world revenged itself upon its conquerors by the introduction among them of the habits of the conquered ; and such again became the condition of Europe when the Northern nations grafted the religion and the laws of the Western empire on their own hardy natures, and shaped out that wonderful spiritual and political organization which remained unshaken for a thousand years. lllaiu Speech, MEN engaged in a mortal strife usually speak plainly. Blunt words strike home ; and the euphuism which, in more ingenious ages, dis- covers that men mean the same thing when they say opposite things, was as yet unknown or unappreciated. ®€>- 1) 10 Gems from Froude. ^\\t Wscndia^ af| Sir ||ltoma3 Mp*\** ri^IIE scaffold had been awkwardly erected, and shook as he placed his -■- foot upon the ladder. " See me safe up," he said to Kingston ; " For my coining down I can shift for myself." He began to speak to the peo- ple, but the sheriff begged him not to proceed, and he contented himself with asking for their prayers, and desiring them to bear witness for him that he died in the faith of the Holy Catholic Church, and a faithful servant of God and the king. He then repeated the Miserere psalm on his knees ; when he had ended and had risen, the executioner, with an emotion which promised ill for the manner in which his part in the tragedy would be accomplished, Jbegged his forgiveness. More kissed him. " Thou art to do me the greatest benefit that I can receive," he said. " Pluck up thy spirit, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very short ; take heed, therefore, that thou strike not awry for saving of thine honesty." The executioner offered to tie his eyes. " I will cover them myself," he said ; and binding them in a cloth which he had brought with him, he knelt and laid his head upon the block. The fatal stroke was about to fall, when he signed for a moment's delay while he moved aside his beard. "Pity that should be cut," he murmured; "that has not committed trea- son ! " With which strange words, the strangest perhaps ever uttered at such a time, the lips most famous through Europe for eloquence and wis- dom closed for ever. * * * -* * # This was the execution of Sir Thomas More, an act which was sounded out into the four corners of the earth, and was the world's wonder, as well for the circumstances under which it was perpetrated as for the preter- natural composure with which it was borne. Something of* his calmness may have been due to his natural temperament, something to an unaffected ' weariness of a world which in his eyes was plunging into the ruin of the latter days. But those fair hues of sunny cheerfulness caught their color from the simplicity of his faith ; and never was there a Christian's victory over death more grandly evidenced than in that last scene, lighted with its lambent humor. History will rather dwell upon the incidents of the execution than at- tempt a sentence upon those who willed that it should be. It was at once most piteous and most inevitable. The hour of retribution had come at length, when at the hands of the Roman church was to be Gems from Fronde. 1 1 required all the righteous blood which it had shed, from the blood of Ray- mond of Toulouse to the blood of the last victim who had blackened into ashes at Smithfield. The voices crying underneath the altar had been heard upon the throne of the Most High, and woe to the generation of which the dark account had been demanded ! Jhihi toivartls <£>otl the jingle lament of all HAD it been possible for mankind to sustain themselves upon the sin- gle principle, " Fear God and keep his commandments ; for that is the whole duty of man," without disguising its simplicity, their history would have been painted in far other colors than those which have so long- chequered its surface. This, however, has not been given to us ; and per- haps it never will be given. As the soul is clothed in flesh, and only thus is able to perform its functions in this earth, where it is sent to live ; as the thought must find a word before it can pass from mind to mind ; so every great truth seeks some body, some outward form in which to exhibit its powers. It appears in the world, and men lay hold of it, and represent it to themselves, in histories, in forms of words, in sacramental symbols; and these things, which in their proper nature are but illustrations, stiffen into essential fact, and become part of the reality. So arises, in era after era, an outward and mortal expression of the inward immortal life ; and at once the old struggle begins to repeat itself between the flesh and the spirit, the form and the reality. For awhile the lower tendencies are held in check ; the meaning of the symbolism is remembered and fresh ; it is a living language, pregnant and suggestive. By and bye, as the mind passes into other phases, the meaning is forgotten ; the language becomes a dead language; and the living robe of life becomes a winding sheet of corrup- tion. The form is represented as everything, the spirit as nothing ; obedi- ence is dispensed with ; sin and religion arrange a compromise ; and outward observances, or technical inward emotions, are converted into jug- glers' tricks, by which men are enabled to enjoy their pleasures and escape the penalties of wrong. Then such religion becomes no religion, but a falsehood ; and honorable men turn away from it, and fall back in haste upon the naked elemental life. @# Gems from Froude. TT was a swift sentence, and swiftly to be executed. Five days were -*- allowed him to prepare himself ; and the more austere features of the penalty were remitted with some show of pity. He was to die by the axe. Mercy was not to be hoped for. It does not seem to have been sought. He was past eighty. The earth on the edge of the grave was crumbling under his feet ; and death had little to make it fearful. When the last morning dawned, he dressed himself carefully — as he said, for his marriage- day. The distance to Tower Hill was short. He was able to walk ; and he tottered out of the prison-gates, holding in his hand a closed volume of the New Testament. The crowd flocked about him, and he was heard to pray that, as this book had been his best comfort and companion, so in that hour it might give him some special strength, and speak to him as from his Lord. Then opening it at a venture, he read : " This is life eter- nal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." It was the answer to his prayer ; and he continued to repeat the words as he was led forward. On the scaffold he chanted the Te Deum, and then, after a few prayers, knelt down, and meekly laid his head upon a pillow where neither care nor fear nor sickness would ever vex it more. Many a spectacle of sorrow had been witnessed on that tragic spot, but never one more sad than this ; never one more painful to think or speak of. When a nation is in the throes of revolution, wild spirits are abroad in the storm ; and poor human nature presses blindly forward with the burden which is laid upon it, tossing aside the obstacles in its path with a recklessness which, in calmer hours, it would fear to contemplate. !f)ow < |i^isf a rtnu jcs arc Jlca3umL "TTT E measure the magnitude of the evils which human beings endure * » by their position in the scale of society ; and misfortunes which private persons would be expected to bear without excessive complaining, furnish matter for the lamentation of ages when they touch the sacred head which has been circled with a diadem. Gents from Froude. 13 pifticttltics in % fflaii ojf ^tmlcr£famlittg l|i?torir> THE SCOTS. "TTTHOEYER has attended but a little to the phenomena of human na- * ' ture, has discovered how inadequate is the clearest insight which he can hope to attain into character and disposition. Every one is a perplexity to himself and a perplexity to his neighbors ; and men who are born in the same generation, who are exposed to the same influences, trained by the same teachers, and live from childhood to age in constant and familiar inter- course, are often little more than shadows to each other, intelligible in super- ficial form and outline, but divided inwardly by impalpable and mysterious barriers. And if fi'om these whom we daily meet, whose features are before our eyes, and whose minds we can probe with questions, we are nevertheless thus separated, how are the difficulties of the understanding increased when we are looking back from another age, with no better assistance than books, upon men who played their parts upon the earth under other outward cir- cumstances, with other beliefs, other habits, other modes of thought, other principles of judgment ! We see beings like ourselves, and yet different from ourselves. Here they are acting upon motives which we comprehend ; there, though we try as we will, no feeling will answer in unison. The same actions which at one time are an evidence of inhumanity may arise in another out of mercy and benevolence. Laws which, in the simpler stages of society, are rational and useful, become mischievous when the problem which they were meant to solve has been complicated by new elements. And as the old man forgets his childhood — as the grown man and the youth rarely comprehend each other — as the Englishman and the Frenchman, with the same reasoning faculties, do not reason to the same conclusions — so is the past a perplexity to the present ; it lies behind us as an enigma, easy only to the vain and unthinking, and only half solved after the most earnest efforts of intellectual spmpathy, alike in those who read and those who write. Such an effort of sympathy, the strongest which can be made, I have now to demand on behalf of Scotland, that marvellous country, so fertile in genius and chivalry, so fertile in madness and crime ; where the highest heroism co-existed with preternatural ferocity, yet. where the vices were the vices of strength, and the one virtue of indomitable courage was found d^g @ Gems from Fronde. alike in saint and sinner. Often the course of history will turn aside from the broad river of English life to where tbe torrents are leaping, passion- swollen, down from the northern hills. It will open out many a scene of crime and terror ; and again, from time to time, it will lead us up into the keen air, where the pleasant mountain breezes are blowing, and the blue sky is smiling cheerily. But turn where it may in the story of Scotland, weakness is nowhere ; power, energy, and will are everywhere. Sterile as is the landscape when it will first unfold itself, we shall watch the current winding its way with expanding force and features of enlarging magnifi- cence, till at length the rocks and rapids will have passed — the stream will have glided down into the plain to the meeting of the waters, from which, as from a new fountain, the united fortunes of Great Britain flow on to their unknown destiny. fflkit Character of a Skua* itqjcmls xtjroi^ the point from ivhicjt it in WitwtA. f F^HERE are many scenes in human life which, as a great prophet teaches -*- us, are either sad or beautiful, cheerless or refreshing, according to the direction from which we approach ' them. If, on a morning in spring, we behold the ridges of a fresh-turned plowed field from their northern side, our eyes, catching only the shadowed slopes of the successive furrows, see an expanse of white, the unmelted remains of the night's hailstorm, or the hoarfrost of the dawn. We make a circuit, or we cross over and look be- hind us, and on the very same ground there is nothing to be seen but the rich brown soil swelling in the sunshine, warm with promise, and chequered perhaps with a green blade bursting through the surface. Both images are true to the facts of nature. Both pictures are created by real objects really existing. The pleasant certainty, however, remains with us, that the winter is passing away and the summer is coming ; the promise of the future is not with the ice and the sleet, but with the sunshine, with gladness, and hope. .^l~ •.•;••- ' :- - : :''J\:^^-^}f.^^>- Gems from Froude. 4J{imUi[ off Bartthg* Tl^HE murder of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, is one of those incidents -*- which will remain till the end of time conspicuous on the page of his- tory. In itself the death of a single boy, prince or king though he might be, had little in it to startle the hard world of the sixteenth century. Even before the folly and falsehood by which Mary Stuart's husband had earned the hatred of the Scotch nobility, it had been foreseen that such a frail and giddy summer pleasure-boat would be soon wrecked in those stormy waters. Had Darnley been stabbed in a scuffle or helped to death by a dose of arsenic in his bed, the fair fame of the Queen of Scots would have suffered little, and the tongues that dared to mutter would have been easily silenced. But conspiracies in Scotland were never managed with the skillful villany of the Continent ; and when some conspicuous person was to be removed out of the way, the instruments of the deed were either fanatic religionists, who looked upon themselves as the servants of God, or else they had been wrought up to the murder point by some personal passion which was not contented with the death of its victim, and required a fuller satisfaction in the picturesqueness of dramatic revenge. The circumstances under which the obstacle to Mary Stuart's peace was disposed of challenged the attention of the whole civilized world, and no after-efforts availed in court, creed, or nation, to hide the memory of the scenes which were revealed on that sud- den liu-htnino:-flash. EFORE the sixteenth century had measured half its course, the shadow -■— ' of Spain already stretched beyond the Andes ; from the mines of Peru and the custom-houses of Antwerp the golden rivers streamed into her im- perial treasury; the crowns of Arragon and Castile, of Burgundy, Milan, Naples, and Sicily, clustered on the brow of her sovereigns ; and the Span- iards themselves, before their national liberties were broken, were beyond comparison the noblest, grandest, and most enlightened people in the known world. Gems from Fronde. Catholics ami protystante alita ^|croic* HERE, therefore, we are to enter upon one of the grand scenes of his- tory, a solemn battle fought out to the death, yet fought without ferocity, by the champions of rival principles. Heroic men had fallen, and were still fast falling, for what was called heresy ; and now those who had inflicted death on others, were called upon to bear the same witness to their own sincerity. England became the theatre of a war between two armies of martyrs, to be waged, not upon the open field, in open action, but at the stake and on the scaffold, with the nobler weapons of passive endur- ance. Each party were ready to give their blood ; each party were ready to shed the blood of their antagonists ; and the sword was to single out its victim in the rival ranks, not as in peace among those whose crimes made them dangerous to society, but, as on the field of battle, where the most conspicuous courage most challenges the aim of the enemy. It was war, though under the form of peace ; and if we would understand the true spirit of the time, we must regard Catholics and Protestants as gallant sol- diers, whose deaths, when they fall, are not painful, but glorious ; and whose devotion we are equally able to admire, even where we cannot equally approve their cause. Courage and self-sacrifice are beautiful alike in an enemy and in a friend. And while we exult in that chivalry with which the Smithfield martyrs bought England's freedom with their blood, so we will not refuse our admiration to those other gallant men whose high forms, in the sunset of the old faith, stand transfigured on the horizon, tinged with the light of its dying glory. Columbus am l ^EojJtfnti^us* A REVOLUTION had passed over England of which the religious change -*--*- was only a single feature. New avenues of thought were opening on all sides with the growth of knowledge ; and as the discoveries of Columbus and Copernicus made their way into men's minds, they found themselves, not in any metaphor but in plain and literal prose, in a new heaven and a new earth. Gems from Fronde. 3|xccnftcnL of J^jiru ^uecu off §>cois. ri^HE end had come. She had long professed to expect it, but the clear- -*- est expectation is not certainty. The scene for which she had affected to prepare she was to encounter in its dread reality, and all her busy schemes, her dreams of vengeance, her visions of revolution, with herself ascending out of the convulsion and seating herself on her rival's throne — all were gone. She had played deep, and the dice had gone against her. Her last night was a busy one. As she said herself, there was much to be done and the time was short. A few lines to the King of France were dated two hours after midnight. They were to insist, for the last time, that she was innocent of the conspiracy, that she was dying for religion, and for having asserted her right to the crown ; and to beg that out of the sum which he owed her, her servants 1 wages might be paid, and masses provided for her soul. After this she slept for three or four hours, then rose and with the most elaborate care prepared to encounter her end. At eight in the morning the Provost-Marshal knocked at the outer door which communicated with her suite of apartments. It was locked and no one answered, and he went back in some trepidation lest the fears might prove true which had been entertained the preceding evening. On his returning with the sheriff, however, a few minutes later, the door was open, and they were confronted with the tall, majestic figure of Mary Stuart stand- ing before them in splendor. The plain grey dress had been exchanged for a robe of black satin ; her jacket was of black satin also, looped and slashed and trimmed with velvet. Her false hair was arranged studiously with a coif, and over her head and falling down over her back was a white veil of delicate lawn. A crucifix of gold hung from her neck. In her hand she held a crucifix of ivory, and a number of jewelled Paternosters was attach- ed to her girdle. Led by two of Pauleys gentlemen, the sheriff walking before her, she passed to the chamber of presence in which she had been tried, where Shrewsbury, Kent, Paulet, Drury and others were waiting to receive her. Andrew Melville, Sir Robert's brother, who had been master of her household, was kneeling in tears. " Melville," she said, " you should rather rejoice than weep that the end of my troubles is come. Tell my friends I die a true Catholic. Commend me to my son. Tell him I have done nothing to prejudice his Kingdom of Scotland; and so, good Mel- ville, farewell." She kissed him, and turning, asked for her chaplain. ■i 8 Gems from Fr ovule. " Let us go," she then said, and passing out attended by the Earls, and leaning on the arm of an officer of the guard, she descended the great stair- case to the hall. The news had spread far through the Country. Thousands of people were collected outside the walls. About three hundred knights and gentlemen of the county had been admitted to witness the execution. The tables and forms had been removed, and a great wood fire was blazing in the chimney. At the upper end of the hall, above the fireplace, but near it, stood the scaffold, twelve feet square and two feet and a half high. It was covered with black cloth ; a low rail ran round it covered with black cloth also, and the sheriffs guard of halberdiers were ranged on the floor below on the four sides to keep off the crowd. On the scaffold was the block, black like the rest ; a square black cushion was placed behind it, and behind the cushion a black chair ; on the right were two other chairs for the Earls. The axe leant against the rail, and two masked figures stood like mutes on either side at the back. The Queen of Scots, as she swept in, seemed as if coming to take part in some solemn pageant. Not a muscle of her face could be seen to quiver ; she ascended the scaffold with absolute composure, looked round her smiling and sate down. Shrewsbury and Kent followed and took their places, the sheriff stood at her left hand, and Beale then mounted a platform and read the warrant aloud. In all the assembly Mary Stuart appeared the 'person least interested in the words which were consigning her to death. " Madam." said Lord Shrewsbury to her when the reading was ended, " you hear what we are commanded to do." "You will do your duty," she answered, and rose as if to kneel and pray. ****** She laid her crucifix on her chair. The chief executioner took it as a perquisite, but was ordered instantly to lay it down. The lawn veil was lifted carefully off, not to disturb the hair, and was hung upon the rail. The black robe was next removed. Below it was a petticoat of crimson velvet. The black jacket followed, and under the jacket was a body of crimson satin. One of her ladies handed her a pair of crimson sleeves, with which she hastily covered her arms ; and thus she stood on the black scaffold with the black figures all around her, blood-red from head to foot. Her reasons for adopting so extraordinary a costume must be left to con- jecture. It is only certain that it must have been carefully studied, and that the pictorial effect must have been appalling. jg^ g^ *® Gems from Froude. The women, whose firmness had hitherto borne the trial, began now to give way, spasmodic sobs bursting from them which they could not check. " Ne crier vous," she said, "j'ay prornis pour vous." Struggling bravely, they crossed their breasts again and again, she crossing them in turn and bidding them pray for her. Then she knelt on the cushion. Barbara Mowbray bound her eyes with a handkerchief. "Adieu," she said, smiling for the last time and waiving her hand to them, "adieu, au revoir." They step- ped back from off the scaffold and left her alone. On her knees she repeated the Psalm, In te, Domine, confido, " In thee, Lord, have I put my trust." When the Psalm was finished she felt for the block, and laying down her head muttered: "In manus, Domine tuas, commendo animam meam." The hard wood seemed to hurt, for she placed her hands under her neck ; the executioners gently removed them, lest they should deaden the blow, and then one of them holding her slightly, the other raised the axe and struck. The scene had been too trying even for the practiced headsman of the Tower. His arm wandered. The blow fell on the knot of the handker- chief, and scarcely broke the skin. She neither spoke nor moved. He struck again, this time effectively. The head hung by a shred of skin, which he divided without withdrawing the axe ; and at once a metamorphosis was witnessed, strange as was ever wrought by wand of fabled enchanter. The coif fell off and the false plaits— the labored illusion, vanished. The lady who had knelt before the block was in the maturity of grace and loveliness ; the executioner, when he raised the head, as usual, to show it to the crowd, exposed the withered features of a grizzled, wrinkled old woman. "$***