of Spain. Though mild, amiable, and affec- | ed diadem of Maria Antoinette was transtionate, she never possessed her husband's ferred, seemed for a season exempted from the love, but was slighted for a constant succes- ordinary fatality. JOSEPHINE was happy in sion of mistresses, whose presence in her her children; happy in her imperial husband's court was a continual outrage to her feelings. love and his glory; happy in her extraorShe lost the greater number of her children dinary elevation; happy in the respect of her very young, and died broken-hearted at forty- court, where no unblushing rival dared, as in five. She was buried at St. Denis. former reigns, to parade within the circle of the fair sovereign. But the unseen and unsuspected thorn within the crown matrimonial worked its way. Who knows not the anguish of that unmerited and ungrateful divorce, to which she was forced to consent, by the man whom she had materially served, and whom she had so affectionately loved?

Louis XV. 1715.

His wife, MARIA CHARLOTTE LECKZINSKA, daughter of Stanislaus I., the unfortunate King of Poland; was attached to the Count d'Etrées, an officer of the garrison of Weissenburg, where the Polish king and princess resided during their exile; and she was on the point of being united to him, when her hand was demanded for the King of France. She spoke six languages, was fond of painting, and had various accomplishments. Her prospects of conjugal happiness were soon destroyed by the depraved French courtiers, male and female, who made it their task and their triumph to seduce the king from her. Her feelings were wounded by seeing his meretricious favorites appointed to places at court which brought them into contact with her. She mourned over the untimely graves of her son, the dauphin, and his young wife, and several of her children. The sad and forsaken queen endeavored to amuse her mind by writing, drawing, and working for the poor, but she would never give fêtes. Grief for the tragical end of her father (burned to death by his robe-de-chambre taking fire) occasioned an illness of which she died, 1768. She was buried at St. Denis.

Louis XVI. 1774.

The woes of his beautiful and most ill-fated wife are familiar to the world as "household words." The name of MARIA ANTOINETTE recalls, rapidly and vividly, as a flash of lightning, agonies so varied, so intense, so uncommon, that the mind is struck with wonder, horror and compassion, at the hundredth repetition, even as at the first recital. As "all rivers run into the sea, yet it is not full," so the floods of affliction flowed upon her from all sides, yet the ocean of her misery was never full till the last moment of her cruel martyrdom; and the tale of her sufferings, like an ocean, infinite and perennial, has never been exhausted, though the theme of a thousand pens.

Napoleon. 1804.

Her Austrian successor could not be accounted otherwise than unfortunate, since early deprived of empire, parted for ever from a husband whose sincere wish it had been to render her happy, and bereaved by death of her amiable son, if she had but possessed ordinary sensibility. But cold, apathetic, and selfish, MARIA LOUISA evinced but little feeling for her every way blighted boy--none for his imprisoned and fallen father; and her subsequent connection with her one-eyed chamberlain, Count Neipperg, disentitles her to our respect or sympathy. Doubtless the reader will remember how Byron has characterized her heartlessness in his "Age of Bronze," in the sarcastic lines that conclude thus::"Her eye, her cheek betrayed no inward strife, And the ex-empress grows as ex a wife! So much for human ties in royal breasts! Why spare man's feelings when their own are jests ?"

Louis Philippe. 1830.

But who shall withhold his pity from the still living victim of the crown matrimonial respectable ex-queen, AMELIA, the last, and of France? She, in her domestic affections, was happy till the diadem pressed her temples: then, she was destined to weep over the graves of her eldest son (Duke of Orleans), of her lovely daughter, Marie, in the bloom snatched away in the prime of manhood, and of youth, with her nuptial garland just land with her husband, from the rage of his wreathed; and at last to fly into a foreign revolted nation; and to remain in exile, widowed and dethroned.

you a black catalogue of those who have worn And now, reader, have we not laid before the crown matrimonial of France? Out of sixty-seven royal and imperial consorts, there are but thirteen on whose names there is no dark stain of sorrow or of sin. Of the others,

The smooth brow to which the blood-stain- | eleven were divorced; two died by the exe

cutioner; nine died very young; seven were soon widowed; three were cruelly traduced; three were exiles; thirteen were bad in different degrees of evil; the prisoners and the heart-broken make up the remainder. Al! those who were buried at St. Denisabout twenty in number-were denied the rest of the grave; their tombs were broken, their coffins opened, their remains exposed to the insults of a revolutionized populace, and then flug into a trench, and covered with quick-lime.

*

Richard II., husband of the gentle childqueen, Isabel de Valois, (daughter of Charles VI. and Isabel of Bavaria,) was dethroned and murdered. Henry V. survived his marriage with Isabel's sister, Catherine de Valois, but two years; and on his death, in the Does history show any parallel to this list flower of manhood, England's glory was long of queens and empresses in any civilized obscured; and from the second marriage of country? With pride and pleasure we conthe same Catherine, descended Henry VIII., trast with it our English history; for though the greatest tyrant that ever oppressed this several of our queens have had sorrows, the realm. Charles I., husband of Henrietta number of the sufferers is smaller, and their Maria, (daughter of Henry and Mary de griefs were (generally speaking) of a more Medicis,) was beheaded. Constance of chastened kind. Nor has the English diadem Provence, Isabel of Augoulême, and Marbeen disgraced by so many examples of wick-garet of Anjou, the partners of the troubled edness, nor by turpitude of so deep a die: and how few are the divorces!-none since the Conquest, save in the reign of one king; We are not about to investigate the causes of In retracing the miseries of the unfortuthe fatality so evidently attending the crown nate royal marriages of Franee, our memory matrimonial of France, with whatever idiosyn- has involuntarily and naturally recurred to crasy, so to speak, in the nation or in the court the familiar lines of Horace, descriptive of it may be connected; nor why the dark sha- unions of an opposite character. If any one dow should spread into other lands when their wishes to adopt those lines, as a good augury sovereigns ally themselves with French royal- for the new "imperial bride," whatever ty. But we cannot help observing the remark-doubts we may feel, we will not in courtesy able fact, that the shadow has rested upon our British crown when shared with a daughter of France. The two persons among our queens consort notorious for their wickedness, were both French princesses, Eleanor of Aquitain, divorced by Louis VII., and married by Henry II. of England; and Isabel

This number only refers to the royal consorts from the time of Charlemagne; others of earlier date were buried at St. Denis, and subsequently exhumed.

reigns of Henry III., John, and Henry VI., though not daughters of French kings, were, nevertheless, French womeu.

gainsay him :

"Felices ter et amplius

Quos irrupta tenet copula: nec malis Divulsus querimoniis,

Supremna citiùs solvet amor die."*

"Thrice happy they, in pure delights,
When love with mutual bond unites,
Unbroken by complaints or strife,
Even to the latest hours of life."

-FRANCIS and PYE's Horace.

From the Eclectic Magazine.

THE MARTYRS AND HEROES OF THE COVENANT.*

Dalness." Thomas Aird, also, who, like | ed boy was then educating under the divinest John Howe, is "strong as an earth-born of all influences for producing the fresh and Titan, and yet beautiful as a woman, and vigorous volume which the full-grown man with the fiery air of a seraph breathing now presents to the public. Mr. Gilfillan around his vast form," and who is the truest has been singularly fortunate in finding and delineator of Scottish character and scenery working upon fields that were comparatively that has appeared since Burns, was well able uncultivated. In an age when literary men, to follow the blue banner of the Covenant like the seed of Abraham, outnumber the from its first unfurling on the slopes of stars, and when they seem to be clinging in Dunse-law, until it sunk down among the myriads around every available "coigne of moors, drenched and dappled in blood. vantage," he steps boldly forward, and sees, to Yet the significant facts that this great man his surprise, that the high places of the is still an honorary member of the once cele- earth have been shunned by the timorous brated, but now degenerate, Blackwood club, crowd. Until the present volume appeared, and an editor, moreover, of a protectionist no direct attempt had been made to present newspaper, afford clear and certain evidence along with a luminous historical sketch of that he, like his friend Wilson, would have the Covenanting times, an analysis of the failed in drawing some of the lessons from character, literature, aims, and attained obthe struggles of the past that are demanded jects of the men themselves, and to separate by the progressive spirit of the present age. the soul of goodness from the dross and darkThomas Carlyle, too, could have depicted ness of those days of blood. Thus, the richest in his own wild way the persecutions endur- materials ever await the hands which can alone ed by his stern presbyterian fathers, and mould them into divine shape and subsistence. wept melodious tears over the many brave The records of English Puritanism, preserved spirits who perished in the prison or in the in the Letters and Speeches of Cromwell, dripping cave of the rocks, on the scaffold, lay buried under a chaos of rubbish, until or on the mountain-side; for the "poor pea- Carlyle came and cleared away the dustsant Covenanters struggling, battling for heaps from one of the noblest heroisms that very life in rough, miry places," is a vision was ever transacted on this earth. And did of the past that must ever remain sacred and Shakespeare build up his Lears, Richards, dear to his manly heart. But his intense Timons, and Macbeths out of the dry deand increasing aversion to the very faith that tails of history and the fragments of legendopened the windows of heaven to the mar- ary lore that were passing away into obtyr, and lighted his brow with divine glory, livion? utterly unfits him for entering thoroughly into the soul of the struggle; nor can we imagine Mackail, Cameron, Peden, or Cargill, smiling down well-pleased from their spheres of light when placed on the musterroll of merely earnest men, of whom Mahomet was not the least. We conclude, then, that George Gilfillan was the very man to supply this blank in our literature; and the masterly, condensed, yet comprehensive manner in which he has treated the theme has added another laurel to his crown. The thoughtful youth who sat under the shadow of a green summer tree by the banks of the murmuring Earn, and heard the mingling voices of many worshippers filling the solitudes of the hills with "plaintive martyrs worthy of the name;" and listened yet more intently when his father contrasted that peaceful assembly in the open air with the conventicles of the Covenanters, who stood with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other, and cast ever and anon wistful glances at the sentinel on the neighboring height; that same deep-heart

This new product of Mr. Gilfillan's pen is pervaded with the same rich qualities of head and heart that are already so familiar to the public. He never fails to leave the stamp of his own strong soul on any work he undertakes. This must invariably be the case when the writings of an author are not the mere offshoots of fancy, nor the abstractions of the logical understanding, nor the records of fugitive feelings, but the spontaneous expressions of the whole man. Some individualities are developed with so much intensity that they are apparent in the substance and structure of every sentence, as the sun is mirrored in the trembling dewdrop as well as in the great sea. Such were those of Burke, Byron, and Burns, among others, in a past generation-of Wilson in his best Blackwood days-of Jean Paul, the Christopher North of Germany-and such, most assuredly, in the present time are those of Gilfillan and Carlyle. The pages of the book before us exhibit the depth of insight, the power of seizing on the salient points of character, the capaciousness of soul, the

The whole land is at rest and still as if thus it had been from immemorial ages; but it wore another aspect from the day when Jenny Geddes, in the High Church of St. Giles, hurled her tripod at the head. of the Dean of Edinburgh, till Claverhouse fell in the pass of Killiecrankie, and carried with him to his unblessed grave the essence of the evil spirit of the times. During that period of convulsion, which lasted upwards of half a century, the historian has to record in rapid succession, among other memorable events, the scene in the Grey Friars' churchyard when the National Covenant was subscribed, and the first ominous drops of blood fell upon the parchment; the ineffectual attempt of Charles I., with his two armies, to trample out the flame of religious freedom in Scotland; the fiery career and bloody end of Montrose; the majestic march of Cromwell through the land; the execution of Argyle, the first in a long line of martyrs; the expulsion, in the depth of winter, of four hundred

courage, the honesty, the withering con- | sky, and the Bass Rock, "like a half-drowntempt for mean men and mean motives, ed hill of the Deluge," shining out in the the earnestness, the richness of imagery, gleam of evening from the sea; we can the originality of thought and the force scarcely believe that such tragic associations of diction that have already won the and events are connected with these places author's way into the hearts of all who love and scenes. the beauty, and feel the impressivensss of Truth. We may not find in these pages such masses of original thought embedded among the finest imagery, like the fragments of an Athenian temple half overgrown with ivy and wild flowers, nor such long swells of eloquence rising as to the sound of many waters, nor such paragraphs of powerful speculation, as are to be found in the "Galleries" and the "Bards." But we see greater ease of movement and style combined with the clear energy of imagination and intellect. The judicial calm and solemnity of the historian beautifully alternate with the consecration and fine frenzy of the poet's dream. More frequently here than in his former works the wings of the seraph are muffled and still, that the quiet eyes of the cherub may not be distracted in their eager gaze. Mr. Gilfillan has shown that he possesses many of those qualities, which, in his introductory chapter, he represents as requisite to a perfect historian. He has shown his capabilities for re-producing the past and re-animating the dead-for sympathizing with enthusiasm even when it borders on fanaticism-for reverently acknowledging the presence of God in the sudden sunbursts as well as in the ordinary current of history for feeling that heroic deeds shed the spirit of solemn beauty over the tamest or the wildest scenes, and that a ring of glory encircles the gravestone of the simplest martyr in the lonely glen-for burning in battle when mean men become mighty in a righteous cause, and for drawing a sure testimony to the truth of the Christian faith from the suf ferings that our forefathers so patiently endured. If the driest recital of the events of those times can lend a charm to the flat pages of Wodrow, it may easily be imagined what new interest they gather from the livelier and warmer representation.

Seldom has any country been the scene of so many strange sights and struggles as Scotland during the seventeenth century. It was 'e stage on which a ghastly tragedy was transacted. But now, when we hear among the wild moors of Galloway and Nithsdale only the whirr of the solitary gorcock and the cry of the ptarmigan-when we see the green shoulders of the Pentland ridge resting so peacefully against the blue

ministers from their kirks and manses; the barbarities of the High Commission Court; the defeat of the Covenanters at Rullion Green, among the Pentlands, by the fierce Dalziel, on a dark November day; the martyrdom of Hugh Mackail, the young, the beautiful, the brave; the conventicles held at morning, noon, and night in the hearts of heathy wildernesses; the murder of Archbishop Sharp on Magus Muir; the Sabbathday at Drumclog, where the Covenanters' war-song was one of the old Hebrew Psalms, and a sudden ray of victory gilded their banner; the darker and bloodier summer's-day at Bothwell Bridge, when the persecutors in turn prevailed and the poor peasants fled before the fiery swords of their fierce assailants; the cruelties inflicted on the prisoners; the increasing enormities committed in the westland shires by Claverhouse and his dragoons, who rode like demons over the land; the shooting of John Brown at the door of his own dwelling, on the Ayrshire wolds, before the eyes of his noble wife; the short but stern struggle at Airsmoss, where Richard Cameron met the death he had prayed for, and Hackstone, after hewing his way through the foremost rank of dragoons, fell down at last, covered with wounds, on the turf of the glen, as a hero would wish to fall; the scouring of ravines and wooded re