spirit of independency, which was reviving in England, here shone forth in its full lustre, and received new accession from the aspiring character of those who, being discontented with the established church and monarchy, had sought for freedom amidst those savage deserts.
Queen Elizabeth had done little more than given a name to the continent of Virginia; and, after her planting one feeble colony, which quickly decayed, that country was entirely abandoned. But when peace put an end to the military enterprises against Spain, and left ambitious spirits no hopes of making any longer such rapid advances towards honor and fortune, the nation began to second the pacific intentions of its monarch, and to seek a surer, though slower expedient, for acquiring riches and glory. In 1606, Newport carried over a colony, and began a settlement; which the company, erected by patent for that purpose in London and Bristol, took care to supply with yearly recruits of provisions, utensils, and new inhabitants. About 1609, Argal discovered a more direct and shorter passage to Virginia, and left the track of the ancient navigators, who had first directed their course southwards to the tropic, sailed westward by means of the trade winds, and then turned northward, till they reached the English settlements. The same year, five hundred persons, under Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, were embarked for Virginia. Somers’s ship, meeting with a tempest, was driven into the Bermudas, and laid the foundation of a settlement in those islands. Lord Delawar afterwards undertook the government of the English colonies: but, notwithstanding all his care, seconded by supplies from James and by money raised from the first lottery ever known in the kingdom, such difficulties attended the settlement of these countries, that, in 1614, there were not alive more than four hundred men, of all that had been sent thither. After supplying themselves with provisions more immediately necessary for the support of life, the new planters began the cultivating of tobacco; and James, notwithstanding his antipathy to that drug, which he affirmed to be pernicious to men’s morals, as well as their health,[*] gave them permission to enter it in England; and he inhibited by proclamation all importation of it from Spain.[**] By degrees, new colonies were established in that continent, and gave new names to the places where they settled, leaving that of Virginia to the province first planted. The Island of Barbadoes was also planted in this reign.
* Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 621.
Speculative reasoners, during that age, raised many objections to the planting of those remote colonies; and foretold that, after draining their mother country of inhabitants, they would soon shake off her yoke, and erect an independent government in America: but time has shown, that the views entertained by those who encouraged such generous undertakings, were more just and solid. A mild government and great naval force have preserved, and may still preserve during some time, the dominion of England over her colonies. And such advantages have commerce and navigation reaped from these establishments, that more than a fourth of the English shipping is at present computed to be employed in carrying on the traffic with the American settlements.
Agriculture was anciently very imperfect in England. The sudden transitions, so often mentioned by historians, from the lowest to the highest price of grain, and the prodigious inequality of its value in different years, are sufficient proofs, that the produce depended entirely on the seasons, and that art had as yet done nothing to fence against the injuries of the heavens. During this reign, considerable improvements were made, as in most arts, so in this, the most beneficial of any. A numerous catalogue might be formed of books and pamphlets treating of husbandry, which were written about this time. The nation, however, was still dependent on foreigners for daily bread; and though its exportation of grain forms a considerable branch of its commerce, notwithstanding its probable increase of people, there was, in that period, a regular importation from the Baltic, as well as from France and if it ever stopped, the bad consequences were sensibly felt by the nation. Sir Walter Raleigh, in his Observations, computes that two millions went out at one time for corn. It was not till the fifth of Elizabeth, that the exportation of corn had been allowed in England; and Camden observes, that agriculture from that moment received new life and vigor.
The endeavors of James, or, more properly speaking, those--of the nation, for promoting trade, were attended with greater success than those for the encouragement of learning. Though the age was by no means destitute of eminent writers, a very bad taste in general prevailed during that period; and the monarch himself was not a little infected with it.
On the origin of letters among the Greeks, the genius of poets and orators, as might naturally be expected, was distinguished by an amiable simplicity, which, whatever rudeness may sometimes attend it, is so fitted to express the genuine movements of nature and passion, that the compositions possessed of it must ever appear valuable to the discerning part of mankind. The glaring figures of discourse, the pointed antithesis, the unnatural conceit, the jingle of words; such false ornaments were not employed by early writers; not because they were rejected, but because they scarcely ever occurred to them. An easy, unforced strain of sentiment runs through their compositions; though at the same time we may observe, that, amidst the most elegant simplicity of thought and expression, one is sometimes surprised to meet with a poor conceit, which had presented itself unsought for, and which the author had not acquired critical observation enough to condemn.[*] * The name of Polynices, one of OEdipus’s sons, means in the original “much quarrelling.” In the altercations between the two brothers, in Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, this conceit is employed; and it is remarkable, that so poor a conundrum could not be rejected by any of these three poets, so justly celebrated for their taste and simplicity. What could Shakspeare have done worse? Terence has his “inceptio est amentium, non amanthim.” Many similar instances will occur to the learned. It is well known that Aristotle treats very seriously of puns, divides them into several classes, and recommends the use of them to orators.
A bad taste seizes with avidity these frivolous beauties, and even perhaps a good taste, ere surfeited by them: they multiply every day more and more in the fashionable compositions: nature and good sense are neglected: labored ornaments studied and admired: and a total degeneracy of style and language prepares the way for barbarism and ignorance.
Hence the Asiatic manner was found to depart so much from the simple purity of Athens: hence that tinsel eloquence which is observable in many of the Roman writers, from which Cicero himself is not wholly exempted, and which so much prevails in Ovid, Seneca, Lucan, Martial, and the Plinys.
On the revival of letters, when the judgment of the public is yet raw and unformed, this false glitter catches the eye, and leaves no room, either in eloquence or poetry, for the durable beauties of solid sense and lively passion. The reigning genius is then diametrically opposite to that which prevails on the first origin of arts. The Italian writers, it is evident, even the most celebrated, have not reached the proper simplicity of thought and composition; and in Petrarch, Tasso, Guarini, frivolous witticisms and forced conceits are but too predominant. The period during which letters were cultivated in Italy was so short, as scarcely to allow leisure for correcting this adulterated relish.
The more early French writers are liable to the same reproach. Voiture, Balzac, even Coraeneille, have too much affected those ambitious ornaments, of which the Italians in general, and the least pure of the ancients, supplied them with so many models. And it was not till late, that observation and reflection gave rise to a more natural turn of thought and composition among that elegant people.
A like character may be extended to the first English writers; such as flourished during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, and even till long afterwards. Learning, on its revival in this island, was attired in the same unnatural garb which it wore at the time of its decay among the Greeks and Romans. And, what may be regarded as a misfortune, the English writers were possessed of great genius before they were endowed with any degree of taste, and by that means gave a kind of sanction to those forced turns and sentiments which they so much affected. Their distorted conceptions and expressions are attended with such vigor of mind, that we admire the imagination which produced them, as much as we blame the want of judgment which gave them admittance. To enter into an exact criticism of the writers of that age, would exceed our present purpose. A short character of the most eminent, delivered with the same freedom which history exercises over kings and ministers, may not be improper. The national prepossessions which prevail, will perhaps render the former liberty not the least perilous for an author.
If Shakspeare be considered as a man, born in a rude age, and educated in the lowest manner, without any instruction either from the world or from books, he may be regarded as a prodigy: if represented as a poet, capable of furnishing a proper entertainment to a refined or intelligent audience, we must abate much of this eulogy. In his compositions, we regret that many irregularities, and even absurdities, should so frequently disfigure the animated and passionate scenes intermixed with them; and at the same time, we perhaps admire the more those beauties, on account of their being surrounded with such deformities. A striking peculiarity of sentiment adapted to a singular character, he frequently hits, as it were by inspiration; but a reasonable propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold. Nervous and picturesque expressions, as well as descriptions, abound in him; but it is in vain we look either for purity or simplicity of diction. His total ignorance of all theatrical art and conduct, however material a defect, yet, as it affects the spectator rather than the reader, we can more easily excuse, than that want of taste which often prevails in his productions, and which gives way only by intervals to the irradiations of genius. A great and fertile genius he certainly possessed, and one enriched equally with a tragic and comic vein; but he ought to be cited as a proof, how dangerous it is to rely on these advantages alone for attaining an excellence in the finer arts.[*] And there may even remain a suspicion, that we overrate, if possible, the greatness of his genius; in the same manner as bodies often appear more gigantic, on account of their being disproportioned and misshapen. He died in 1616, aged fifty-three years.
* Invenire etiam barbari solent, disponere et ornare non nisi eruditus.--PLIN Jonson possessed all the learning which was wanting to Shakspeare, and wanted all the genius of which the other was possessed. Both of them were equally deficient in taste and elegance, in harmony and correctness. A servile copyist of the ancients, Jonson translated into bad English the beautiful passages of the Greek and Roman authors, without accommodating them to the manners of his age and country. His merit has been totally eclipsed by that of Shakspeare, whose rude genius prevailed over the rude art of his contemporary. The English theatre has ever since taken a strong tincture of Shakspeare’s spirit and character; and thence it has proceeded, that the nation has undergone, from all its neighbors, the reproach of barbarism, from which its valuable productions in some other parts of learning would otherwise have exempted it. Jonson had a pension of a hundred marks from the king, which Charles afterwards augmented to a hundred pounds He died in 1637, aged sixty-three.
Fairfax has translated Tasso with an elegance and ease, and at the same time with an exactness, which, for that age, are surprising. Each line in the original is faithfully rendered by a correspondent line in the translation. Harrington’s translation of Ariosto is not likewise without its merit. It is to be regretted, that these poets should have imitated the Italians in their stanza, which has a prolixity and uniformity in it that displeases in long performances. They had, otherwise, as well as Spenser, who went before them, contributed much to the polishing and refining of the English versification.
In Donne’s satires, when carefully inspected, there appear some flashes of wit and ingenuity; but these totally suffocated and buried by the harshest and most uncouth expression that is any where to be met with.
If the poetry of the English was so rude and imperfect during that age, we may reasonably expect that their prose would be liable to still greater objections. Though the latter appears the more easy, as it is the more natural method of composition, it has ever in practice been found the more rare and difficult; and there scarcely is an instance, in any language, that it has reached a degree of perfection, before the refinement of poetical numbers and expression. English prose, during the reign of James, was written with little regard to the rules of grammar, and with a total disregard to the elegance and harmony of the period.
Stuffed with Latin sentences and quotations, it likewise imitated those inversions, which, however forcible and graceful in the ancient languages, are entirely contrary to the idiom of the English. I shall indeed venture to affirm, that, whatever uncouth phrases and expressions occur in old books, they were chiefly owing to the unformed taste of the author; and that the language spoken in the courts of Elizabeth and James, was very little different from that which we meet with at present in good company. Of this opinion, the little scraps of speeches which are found in the parliamentary journals, and which carry all air so opposite to the labored: rations, seem to be a sufficient proof; and there want not productions of that age, which, being written by men who were not authors by profession, retain a very natural manner, and may give us some idea of the language which prevailed among men of the world. I shall particularly mention Sir John Davis’s Discovery.
Throgmorton’s, Essex’s, and Nevil’s letters. In a more early period, Cavendish’s life of Cardinal Wolsey, the pieces that remain of Bishop Gardiner, and Anne Boleyn’s letter to the king, differ little or nothing from the language of our time.
The great glory of literature in this island during the reign of James, was Lord Bacon. Most of his performances were composed in Latin; though he possessed neither the elegance of that, nor of his native tongue. If we consider the variety of talents displayed by this man, as a public speaker, a man of business, a wit, a courtier, a companion, an author, a philosopher, he is justly the object of great admiration. If we consider him merely as an author and philosopher, the light in which we view him at present, though very estimable, he was yet inferior to his contemporary Galilaeo, perhaps even to Kepler. Bacon pointed out at a distance the road to true philosophy: Galilaeo both pointed it out to others, and made himself considerable advances in it. The Englishman was ignorant of geometry: the Florentine revived that science, excelled in it, and was the first that applied it, together with experiment, to natural philosophy. The former rejected, with the most positive disdain, the system of Copernicus: the latter fortified it with new proofs, derived both from reason and the senses. Bacon’s style is stiff and rigid: his wit, though often brilliant, is also often unnatural and far-fetched; and he seems to be the original of those pointed similes and long-spun allegories which so much distinguish the English authors: Galilaeo is a lively and agreeable, though somewhat a prolix writer.
But Italy not united in any single government, and perhaps satiated with that literary glory which it has possessed both in ancient and modern times, has too much neglected the renown which it has acquired by giving birth to so great a man. That national spirit which prevails among the English, and which forms their great happiness, is the cause why they bestow on all their eminent writers, and on Bacon among the rest, such praises and acclamations as may often appear partial and excessive. He died in 1626, in the sixty-sixth year of his life.
If the reader of Raleigh’s history can have the patience to wade through the Jewish and rabbinical learning which compose the half of the volume, he will find, when he comes to the Greek and Roman story, that his pains are not unrewarded. Raleigh is the best model of that ancient style which some writers would affect to revive at present. He was beheaded in 1618, aged sixty-six years.
Camden’s history of Queen Elizabeth may be esteemed good composition, both for style and matter. It is written with simplicity of expression, very rare in that age, and with a regard to truth. It would not perhaps be too much to affirm, that it is among the best historical productions which have yet been composed by any Englishman. It is well known that the English have not much excelled in that kind of literature. He died in 1623, aged seventy-three years.
We shall mention the king himself at the end of these English writers; because that is his place, when considered as an author. It may safely be affirmed, that the mediocrity of James’s talents in literature, joined to the great change in national taste, is one cause of that contempt under which his memory labors, and which is often carried by party writers to a great extreme. It is remarkable, how different from ours were the sentiments of the ancients with regard to learning. Of the first twenty Roman emperors, counting from Caesar to Severus, above the half were authors; and though few of them seem to have been eminent in that profession, it is always remarked to their praise, that by their example they encouraged literature. Not to mention Germanicus, and his daughter Agrippina, persons so nearly allied to the throne, the greater part of the classic writers whose works remain, were men of the highest quality. As every human advantage is attended with inconveniencies, the change of men’s ideas in this particular may probably be ascribed to the invention of printing; which has rendered books so common, that even men of slender fortunes can have access to them.
That James was but a middling writer, may be allowed: that he was a contemptible one, can by no means be admitted. Whoever will read his Basilicon Doron, particularly the two last books, the true law of free monarchies, his answer to Cardinal Perron, and almost all his speeches and messages to parliament, will confess him to have possessed no mean genius. If he wrote concerning witches and apparitions; who, in that age did not admit the reality of these fictitious beings? If he has composed a commentary on the Revelations, and proved the pope to be Antichrist; may not a similar reproach be extended to the famous Napier; and even to Newton, at a time when learning was much more advanced than during the reign of James? From the grossness of its superstitions we may infer the ignorance of an age; but never should pronounce concerning the folly of an individual, from his admitting popular errors, consecrated by the appearance of religion.
Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the preëminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions. The speaker of the house of commons is usually an eminent lawyer; yet the harangue of his majesty will always be found much superior to that of the speaker, in every parliament during this reign.
Every science, as well as polite literature, must be considered as being yet in its infancy. Scholastic learning and polemical divinity retarded the growth of all true knowledge. Sir Henry Saville, in the preamble of that deed by which he annexed a salary to the mathematical and astronomical professors in Oxford, says, that geometry was almost totally abandoned and unknown in England.[*] The best learning of that age was the study of the ancients. Casaubon, eminent for this species of knowledge, was invited over from France by James, and encouraged by a pension of three hundred pounds a year, as well as by church preferments.[**] The famous Antonio di Dominis, archbishop of Spalatro, no despicable philosopher, came likewise into England, and afforded great triumph to the nation, by their gaining so considerable a proselyte from the Papists. But the mortification followed soon after: the archbishop, though advanced to some ecclesiastical preferments.[***] received not encouragement sufficient to satisfy his ambition; he made his escape into Italy, where he died in confinement.
* Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 217 ** Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 709.
*** Rymer, tom. xvii. p. 96.
NOTES.
[Footnote 1: NOTE A, p. 10. The parliament also granted the queen the duties of tonnage and poundage; but this concession was at that time regarded only as a matter of form, and she had levied these duties before they were voted by parliament. But there was another exertion of power which she practiced, and which people in the present age, from their ignorance of ancient practices, may be apt to think a little extraordinary. Her sister, after the commencement of the war with France, had, from her own authority, imposed four marks on each tun of wine imported, and had increased the poundage a third on all commodities. Queen Elizabeth continued these impositions as long as she thought convenient. The parliament, who had so good an opportunity of restraining these arbitrary taxes when they voted the tonnage and poundage, thought not proper to make any mention of them. They knew that the sovereign, during that age, pretended to have the sole regulation of foreign trade, and that their intermeddling with that prerogative would have drawn on them the severest reproof, if not chastisement. See Forbes, vol. i. p. 132, 133. We know certainly, from the statutes and journals, that no such impositions were granted by parliament.]
[Footnote 2: NOTE B, p. 20. Knox, p. 127. We shall suggest afterwards some reasons to suspect, that perhaps no express promise was ever given.
Calumnies easily arise during times of faction, especially those of the religious kind, when men think every art lawful for promoting their purpose. The congregation, in their manifesto, in which they enumerate all the articles of the regent’s mal-administration, do not reproach her with this breach of promise. It was probably nothing but a rumor spread abroad to catch the populace. If the Papists have sometimes maintained that no faith was to be kept with heretics, their adversaries seem also to have thought, that no truth ought to be told of idolaters.]
p. 225, 228. Lesley, lib That there was really no violation of the capitulation of Perth appears from the manifesto of the congregation in Knox, p. 184, in which it is not so much as pretended. The companies of Scotch soldiers were, probably, in Scotch pay, since the congregation complains, that the country was oppressed with taxes to maintain armies.
Knox, p, 164, 165. And even if they had been in French pay, it had been no breach of the capitulation, since they were national troops, not French. Knox does not say, (p. 139,) that any of the inhabitants of Perth were tried or punished for their past offences, but only that they were oppressed with the quartering of soldiers; and the congregation, in their manifesto, say only that many of them had fled for fear.
This plain detection of the calumny with regard to the breach of the capitulation of Perth, may make us suspect a like calumny with regard to the pretended promise not to give sentence against the ministers. The affair lay altogether between the regent and the laird of Dun; and that gentleman, though a man of sense and character, might be willing to take some general professions for promises. If the queen, overawed by the power of the congregation, gave such a promise in order to have liberty to proceed to a sentence, how could she expect to have power to execute a sentence so insidiously obtained? And to what purpose could it serve?]
that this article was agreed to verbally, but that the queen’s scribes omitted it in the treaty which was signed. The story is very unlikely, or rather very absurd; and in the mean time it is allowed, that the article is not in the treaty; nor do the congregation, in their subsequent manifesto, insist upon it. Knox, p. 184. Besides, would the queen regent, in an article of a treaty, call her own religion idolatry?]
[Footnote 5: NOTE E, p. 25. The Scotch lords, in their declaration, say, “How far we have sought support of England, or of any other prince, and what just cause we had and have so to do, we shall shortly make manifest unto the world, to the praise of God’s holy name, and to the confusion of fell those that slander us for so doing; for this we fear not to confess, that, as in this enterprise against the devil, against idolatry and the maintainers of the same, we chiefly and only seek God’s glory to be notified unto men, sin to be punished, and virtue to be maintained; so where power faileth of ourselves, we will seek it wheresoever God shall offer the same.” Knox, p. 176.]
[Footnote 6: NOTE F, p. 61. This year, the council of Trent was dissolved, which had sitten from 1545. The publication of its decrees excited anew the general ferment in Europe, while the Catholics endeavored to enforce the acceptance of them, and the Protestants rejected them. The religious controversies were too far advanced to expect that any conviction would result from the decrees of this council. It is the only general council which has been held in an age truly learned and inquisitive; and as the history of it has been written with great penetration and Judgment, it has tended very much to expose clerical usurpations and intrigues, and may serve us as a specimen of more ancient councils. No one expects to see another general council, till the decay of learning and the progress of ignorance shall again fit mankind for these great impostures.]
[Footnote 7: NOTE G, p. 69. It appears, however, from Randolfs Letters, (see Keith, p. 200,) that some offers had been made to that minister, of seizing Lenox and Darnley, and delivering them into Queen Elizabeth’s hands. Melvil confirms the same story, and says that the design was acknowledged by the conspirators, (p. 56.) This serves to justify the account given by the queen’s party of the Raid of Baith, as it is called. See farther, Goodall, vol. ii. p. 358. The other conspiracy, of which Murray complained, is much more uncertain, and is founded on very doubtful evidence.]
[Footnote 8: NOTE H, p. 73. Buchanan confesses that Rizzio was ugly: but it may be inferred, from the narration of that author, that he was young. He says that, on the return of the duke of Savoy to Turin, Rizzio was “in adolescentiæ vigore;” in the vigor of youth. Now, that event happened only a few years before, (lib. xvii. cap. 44.) That Bothwell was young, appears, among many other invincible proofs, from Mary’s instructions to the bishop of Dumblain, her ambassador at Paris; where she says, that in 1559, only eight years before, he was “very young.” He might therefore have been about thirty when he married her. See Keith’s History, p. 388. From the appendix to the Epistolae Regum Scotorum. it appears, by authentic documents, that Patrick, earl of Bothwell, father to James, who espoused Queen Mary, was alive till near the year 1560.
Buchanan, by a mistake which has been long ago corrected, calls him James.]
[Footnote 9: NOTE I, p. 84. Mary herself confessed, in her instructions to the ambassadors, whom she sent to France, that Bothwell persuaded all the noblemen, that their application in favor of his marriage was agreeable to her. Keith, p. 389. Anderson, vol. i. p. 94. Murray afterwards produced, to Queen Elizabeth’s commissioners, a paper signed by Mary, by which she permitted them to make this application to her.
This permission was a sufficient declaration of her intentions, and was esteemed equivalent to a command. Anderson, vol. iv. p. 59. They even asserted that the house in which they met was surrounded with armed men.
Goodall, vol. ii. p 141.]
[Footnote 11: NOTE K, p. 108 Mary’s complaints of the queen’s partiality in admitting Murray to a conference was a mere pretext, in order to break off the conference. She indeed employs that reason in her order for that purpose, (see Goodall, vol. ii. p. 184;) but in her private letter, her commissioners are directed to make use of that order to prevent her honor from being attacked. Goodall, vol. ii. p. 183. It was therefore the accusation only she was afraid of. Murray was the least obnoxious of all her enemies. He was abroad when her subjects rebelled, and reduced her to captivity. He had only accepted of the regency, when voluntarily proffered him by the nation. His being admitted to Queen Elizabeth’s presence was therefore a very bad foundation for a quarrel, or for breaking off the conference, and was plainly a mere pretence.]
[Footnote 12: NOTE L, p. 110. We shall not enter into a long discussion concerning the authenticity of these letters. We shall only remark in general, that the chief objections against them are, that they are supposed to have passed through the earl of Morton’s hands, the least scrupulous of all Mary’s enemies; and that they are, to the last degree, indecent, and even somewhat inelegant, such as it is not likely she would write. But to these presumptions we may oppose the following considerations: 1. Though it be not difficult to counterfeit a subscription, it is very difficult, and almost impossible, to counterfeit several pages, so as to resemble exactly the handwriting of any person. These letters were examined and compared with Mary’s handwriting, by the English privy council, and by a great many of the nobility, among whom were several partisans of that princess. They might have been examined by the bishop of Ross, Herreis, and others of Mary’s commissioners. The regent must have expected that they would be very critically examined by them; and had they not been able to stand that test, he was only preparing a scene of confusion to himself. Bishop Lesley expressly declines the comparing of the hands, which he calls no legal proof. Goodall, vol. ii. p. 389. 2. The letters are very long, much longer than they needed to have been, in order to serve the purposes of Mary’s enemies; a circumstance which increased the difficulty, and exposed any forgery the more to the risk of a detection.
3. They are not so gross and palpable as forgeries commonly are, for they still left a pretext for Mary’s friends to assert that their meaning was strained to make them appear criminal. See Goodall, vol. ii.
p. 361. 4. There is a long contract of marriage, said to be written by the earl of Huntley, and signed by the queen, before Bothwells acquittal. Would Morton, without any necessity, have thus doubled the difficulties of the forgery, and the danger of detection? 5. The letters are indiscreet; but such was apparently Mary’s conduct at that time.
They are inelegant; but they have a careless, natural air, like letters hastily written between familiar friends. 6. They contain such a variety of particular circumstances as nobody could have thought of inventing, especially as they must necessarily have afforded her many means of detection. 7. We have not the originals of the letters, which were in French. We have only a Scotch and Latin translation from the original, and a French translation, professedly done from the Latin. Now it is remarkable that the Scotch translation is full of Gallicisms, and is clearly a translation from a French original; such as make fault, faire des fautes; make it seem that I believe, faire semblant de le croire; make brek, faire brèche; this is my first journey, c’est ma première journée; have you not desire to laugh? n’avez vous pas envie de rire; the place will hold unto the death, la place tiendra jusqu’à la mort; he may not come forth of the house this long time, il ne peut pas sortir du logis de long-tems; to make me advertisement, faire m’avertir; put order to it, metire ordre à cela; discharge your heart, décharger votre coeur; make gud watch, faites bonne garde, etc. 8. There is a conversation which she mentions between herself and the king one evening; but Murray produced before the English commissioners the testimony of one Crawford, a gentleman of the earl of Lenox, who swore that the king, on her departure from him, gave him an account of the same conversation. 9.
There seems very little reason why Murray and his associates should run the risk of such a dangerous forgery, which must have rendered them infamous, if detected: since their cause, from Mary’s known conduct, even without these letters, was sufficiently good and justifiable. 10.
Murray exposed these letters to the examination of persons qualified to judge of them: the Scotch council, the Scotch parliament, Queen Elizabeth and her council, who were possessed of a great number of Mary’s genuine letters. 11. He gave Mary herself an opportunity of refuting and exposing him, if she had chosen to lay hold of it. 12. The letters tally so well with all the other parts of her conduct during that transaction, that these proofs throw the strongest light on each other. 13. The duke of Norfolk, who had examined these papers, and who favored so much the queen of Scots, that he intended to marry her, and in the end lost his life in her cause, yet believed them authentic, and was fully convinced of her guilt. This appears, not only from his letters, above mentioned, to Queen Elizabeth and her ministers, but by his secret acknowledgment to Bannister, his most trusty confidant.
See State Trials, vol. i. p. 81. In the conferences between the duke, Secretary Lidington, and the bishop of Ross, all of them zealous partisans of that princess, the same thing is always taken for granted.
Ibid. p. 74, 75. See, further, MS. in the Advocates’ library, A. 3, 28, p. 314, from Cott. lib. Calig. c. 9. Indeed, the duke’s full persuasion of Mary’s guilt, without the least doubt or hesitation, could not have had place, if he had found Lidington or the bishop of Ross of a different opinion, or if they had ever told him that these letters were forged. It is to be remarked, that Lidington, being one of the