116 LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF SCOTLAND.* MISS AGNES STRICKLAND is certainly one of the most graceful, pleasing, and intelligent of our modern lady-writers. She may not be a woman of positive genius, like Hemans or Baillie; but all her productions-and she has written much in her day both of prose and verse-testify to her possession of an intellect at once acute and highly cultivated. Her "Lives of the Queens of England," a series forerunning that on the female royalties of Scotland, now partly in our hands, obtained the decided approbation of the public, and very deservedly. It was superficial to a certain extent, beyond question, though not so much from any failure on the part of the authoress to consult the best sources of information, as from the want of skill, seemingly, to base thereon those profound and philosophical summations, which distinguish the true masterhand in history. We can scarely charge this, however, as a fault upon Miss Strickland; since, were we to do so, the lady might readily defend herself, by pointing to the popular character and purport of her work, as one in which deep reflection and extensive original research were neither reasonably to be looked for, nor likely to have been very acceptable, or even useful, if proffered. We must recollect the chief objects in view, and content ourselves if these have been well executed. Miss Strickland, after all, could scarcely have been expected to bury herself for months, like a petticoated Tytler, in the "dowie dens" of the British Museum, all uncatalogued as its shelves are, in order to rake up some dozen or so of new facts about our bygone British Princesses. talogued," however, by the way, we must not now call the great National Library, since the appointed cataloguers, after years of labour, have actually got through the letter A, have attacked the Bs, and will probably, in the course of the next five years, come in sight of the C, like the Ten Thousand Greeks on their march under Xenophon.† Accessible or inacessible, however, as the knowledge contained in the Museum Library may be, we repeat that we blame not Miss Strickland here for not more laboriously hunting out originality. She has consulted all printed authorities diligently. Omissions and mistakes form totally different matters; and, if any such defects occur in her " Queens of Scotland," the fair authoress must pardon us for alluding to them without reserve. "Unca * By AGNES STRICKLAND. Vol. 1. Edinburgh: William Blackwood & Sons. The late Dr Thomas Gillespie of St Andrews tells somewhere a good anecdote relating to the Ettrick Shepherd, which may not inaptly be given here, while casually alluding to the famous Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks from Persia. The Shepherd, while walking on a hillside one day with Dr Gillespie, suddenly startled his companion by standing still, and exclaiming energetically, Oaλassn! Ondassy! As this Greek expression, signifying "The sea, the sea!" was the very one used by the enraptured Ten Thousand when they came in sight of the Euxine, and saw in it a period to their toils and dangers, the classical doctor was amazed at the exclamation of his friend, both because the ocean was not in sight, and because he had never dreamed of the Shepherd being so learned a Theban. Following the looks of the honest Bucolican, however, he soon found a key to the mystery. The Shepherd had his gaze fixed on a buxom damsel, who was engaged in washing (perhaps tramping) clothes by the burnside below; and his admiring exclamation had no reference whatever to "Oceanus old," but simply to "The lassie! The lassie!" 117 Having, by this general commendation of Miss Strickland, guarded against any misinterpretation, we would now ask, en passant, and before going farther, where in the world this biographical sort of work is to end? The lives of men and women, of different classes of society, have of late been taken unlimitedly, the execution being in some cases dexterous, and in others rather ruthless and butcherly. Plutarch set us a standard example, certainly, of biographical writing, but he selected his' subjects on the score of their great merits and superior eminence in the world. Now-a-days, the mere profession and place create the claim to the honours of the Memoir. All of this order and that order are placed promiscuously before us, from strings of Lord Chancellors, down to lists comprising every poor Player that ever fretted his hour upon the stage. This looks very like book-making for mere book-making's sake. But ours is a tome-compounding age, and must, we suppose, be allowed its swing; only, if the system survives much longer, we shall confidently expect to be presented by-and-by with the "Lives of the London Draymen, accompanied with special notices of the heroes of the Haynau affair, by an Eye-witness of their proceedings "-or with the "Lives of the Edinburgh Cadies, by Dugald Mactavish, long time a member of that honourable corps." Or what says the reader to the Annals of the Speech Criers? Or the street Ballad Singers? Even, in the case of Miss Strickland, we are not safe from such inflictions; for, though her present work be addressed to really worthy objects, who shall assure us that the Lives of the Ladies of Honour will not follow, in long procession, those of their royal mistresses? The thought is appalling, especially when we consider what the actual lives of these dames d'honneur too often were. Dii avertant! 66 The new royal series of Miss Strickland is entitled "Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses connected with the Regal Succession of Great Britain." It is painful to commence with fault-finding, but we are bound to declare this heading most grossly inapplicable, since no Queen of Scotland whatever receives a word of notice, until after an English Princess" had connected the royal line of Scotland with the succession of Great Britain. The long roll of the queens-proper of Scotland, who preceded Margaret Tudor, wife of James IV., Miss Strickland has deemed altogether unworthy of attention; and yet she fondly imagines herself to have done all that the case demanded. "Who were the Queens of Scotland?" she complacently says; "this work will, we trust, answer that question satisfactorily." The last four of some hundred regal dames or so only are given, and yet the account is assumed to be a satisfactory one of the whole of the Queens of Scotland! Our Caledonian bile is here some deal stirred, we confess. Far be it from us to assert, that the earlier queens-proper of the north of Britain merited individual notices in each and every case, but the lives of not a few were replete with interest and romance, and several of them, assuredly, were much more deserving of notice, from the worth of their characters, than some of Miss Strickland's royal English heroines. In proof of this averment, we may point specially to one striking instance, that, to wit, of Margaret, wife of Malcolm III., and sister of Edgar Atheling, the last heir of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy. Besides the stirring vicissitudes of her early days, caused by the treachery of the Godwins and the Norman in vasion, the career of Margaret, after she had wedded the king of Scotland, presented many impressive features. It seems even highly probable, that this princess was largely instrumental in establishing those legal, social, and moral improvements, which have rendered her husband's reign a chief land-mark in Scottish history. This supposition is founded at once on her talents, her accomplishments, and her piety. Her consort, Big-Headed (Canmore) as he was, had received so wretched an education, that he could not even decipher one word of a printed book. Fordun tells us, that, "although he could not read, he used often to turn over the leaves, and kiss the prayer-books, and books of devotion, which he had heard his wife say were dear to her." Here we find indirect yet strong evidence, as well of a cultivated and pious mind in Margaret, as of her influence over her spouse. But her repute for piety is still more strongly marked by the fact, that she was placed as a saint in the Roman Calendar at her decease, and the 10th of June assigned for ever as the day of her celebration-feast. When it is considered, therefore, how many of the permanent constitutional laws of Scotland originated in the reign of Canmore, and that he himself was utterly illiterate (putting his seal to deeds, for example, by "biting the white wax with his tooth "), it is not going too far to ascribe much of the good done by Malcolm III. to the counsels and aid of his accomplished queen. Margaret lay sick when informed of the death of her lord at the siege of Alnwick. "She was not at all dismayed (says an old author), but thanked God that had thought her worthy to undergo those trials she hoped would refine her soul, and consume the dross of her sins. She then let a few tears drop from her melting eyes, and emitted many pious ejaculations to heaven, whither her happy soul, now disengaged from all attachments on earth, in a few minutes followed!" In political respects, even, this royal lady was an important personage. The third Norman monarch of England, Henry I., was glad, for reasons of state, to obtain the hand of Matilda, daughter of Malcolm and Margaret; and it was through her that the Plantagenets finally claimed to represent both the Saxon and the Norman dynasties. But Margaret left sons, through whom all the following kings of Scotland might have asserted a right to the English throne, on the score of royal Saxon descent, clearly superior to that of the Plantagenets. Now, we put it to our readers, nay to Miss Strickland herself, if this royal lady (casually noticed, if we remember rightly, in the account of the English Queens) did not merit an ample memoir in any work professing to give a history of the Queens of Scotland? Many similar cases of omission, resulting from the circumscribed plan of our authoress, might be cited, such as those of the two consorts of Robert III., the rivalry of whose several descendants long troubled poor Scotland; but to only one still more glaring instance of omission shall we here particularly advert. A work which does not devote half a volume, at the very least, to the story of Jane of Somerset, consort of the first James, has no title, say we, to be called a history of the Queens of Scotland. No, Miss Agnes! It is of no use to hold up your hands deprecatingly, and tell us that the story of the fair Jane was alluded to in the lives of the Queens of England. It deserved half a volume, we reiterate, and, moreover, here-here, where you profess to give the annals of the queens of the "north countrie." On the head of omissions, then, we come, and cannot but come, to the conclusion, that these are so many and so great, as to render the title of the work before us a misnomer wholly. It should have been styled simply a history of the four last Queens of Scotland-for Anne of Denmark, wife of James VI., was an English, as much as a Scottish Queen, and, as such, received her meed of notice in the royal Anglican series. It gives us much pleasure to avow that the objections now made to the limited plan pursued by Miss Strickland, involve nearly all that is really unfavourable in our view of her work. The annals of Margaret Tudor, queen of James IV., occupy two-thirds of the volume before us, and present by far the most extended and satisfactory account of that princess which has ever been put in type. It gives any thing but a flattering picture, on the whole, of the daughter of Henry VII., and shows her to have possessed only too many of the characteristic qualities of her brother Henry VIII. With the able assistance of Miss Strickland, we shall glance at the career of the lady. The life of Margaret Tudor seems to have been but one long scene of trouble and discontent, ambition and avarice constituting the most notable features of her temperament. When sent to Scotland to her royal fiancé, Margaret had barely attained the age of fourteen. Her passage northwards formed a continuous and brilliant ovation; sheriff handing her over to sheriff, and noble to noble, till she passed from the English into the Scottish counties, there similarly to be met and entertained. King James first saw his betrothed at the Castle of "Acquick" or "Acqueth," as it is styled by John Young, Somerset Herald, who attended the English princess, and has left a curious description of her northern reception. Our readers would hardly make out " Acqueth" for themselves, and must know, therefore, that the place meant is Dalkeith. James IV., at this time about thirty, was a prince of princes in aspect― "For hazel was his eagle eye, His short curl'd beard and hair; So aptly quotes Miss Strickland from Scott. Scarcely had Margaret been installed in her apartments on arriving, when a cry of "The King! The King!" rang through the Castle of Dalkeith; and with the impetuous gallantry of his nature, attired simply in his hunting dress, James presented himself before, and saluted his young bride. Whoso desires to see the details of the subsequent royal marriage, may consult our authoress, or the epithalamial poem of Dunbar, "The Thistle and the Rose." Margaret, now Queen of Scotland, on the third day after the nuptials, gave a striking indication of her discontented nature, since, notwithstanding all the feastings and tiltings provided for her amusement, she thus wrote to her sire, in a letter which has been preserved, "Sir, as for news, I have none to send, but that my Lord of Surrey is in so great favour with this king here, that he cannot forbear the company of him at |