Part 11

Probably no character in history has been the theme of more controversy; and while the English speaking world for the most part glories in the triumph of the Reformation, under the bold leadership of John Knox, in Scotland, and the resolute founders of the Established Church in England, it still turns with sympathy and compassion to the fate of the unfortunate queen, made interesting alike by her wit, her beauty and the mystery which always overhung her history. As Scott says: “Her face, her form, have been so deeply impressed upon the imagination, that, even at the distance of nearly three centuries, it is unnecessary to remind the most ignorant and uninformed reader of the striking traits which characterize that remarkable countenance, which seems at once to combine our ideas of the majestic, the pleasing, and the brilliant, leaving us to doubt whether they express most happily the queen, the beauty, or the accomplished woman. Even those who feel themselves compelled to believe all, or much, of what her enemies laid to her charge, can not think without a sigh, upon a countenance expressive of anything rather than the foul crimes with which she was charged when living, and which still continue to shade, if not to blacken her memory. That brow, so truly open and regal—those eyebrows, so regularly graceful, which yet were saved from the charge of regular insipidity by the beautiful effect of the hazel eyes which they overarched, and which seem to utter a thousand histories—the nose, with all its Grecian precision of outline—the mouth, so well proportioned, so sweetly formed, as if designed to speak nothing but what was delightful to hear—the dimpled chin, the stately swan-like neck form a countenance, the like of which we know not to have existed in any other character moving in that class of life where the actresses as well as the actors command general and undivided attention; and no small instance it is of the power of beauty, that her charms should have remained the subject not merely of admiration, but of warm and chivalrous interest, after the lapse of such a length of time.”

“The Monastery,” which comes first in historic order, serves merely as a threshold to “The Abbot.” The general plan of the story was to closely associate two characters in that contentious age holding different views of the Reformation, both sincere, and both dedicated to the support of their own separate beliefs. The scene is laid in the valley of the Tweed, in the neighborhood of Melrose Abbey, which enjoyed for many years, even in the midst of border and national warfare, the immunities of peace. In the portrait of Julian Avenal we recall the fierce Laird of Black Ormiston, the friend and confidant of Bothwell, and his associate in Darnley’s murder. The White Lady of Avenal—a sort of astral spirit, neither fairy nor Brownie, but made up of many elements more Persian than Gothic—can only be excused as part and parcel of the superstition of the times; and the portrayal of Sir Percy Shafton is in no way edifying, save as a satire upon that dudish portion of humanity, the excrescence of that school of Euphuists which took its rise with Sir John Lilly in the age of Elizabeth, and blossomed out again but yesterday in the full blown sunflower of modern estheticism. It is remarkable how history repeats itself, not only in noble deeds and high daring, but also in the social expression of dress and language.

In “The Abbot” we find the government of Scotland almost entirely in the hands of the Protestant party; the queen a captive in Lochleven Castle; the regent Murray, half brother of the queen, at once governor and dictator. The monasteries are demolished, in some cases through religious zeal, in other cases as an act of jealousy and policy; the bold spirit of Knox, which dared to raise its voice in behalf of individual rights and conscience, permeates Scotland. The pulpit becomes a powerful engine for affecting the masses. The Catholics look to France and to Spain for help, and the Protestants to Holland. The prophecy is literally fulfilled: “Nation divided against nation, brother against brother;” the outgrowth of that uncompromising religion of Right, which came not to “bring peace, but a sword.”

The first pages of “The Abbott” portray life in the feudal castle of Julian Avenal, a retainer of the Protestant regent. In the strict character of Minister Warden we have a sketch of the preacher of the period, thoroughly in earnest, exceedingly austere, who seldom jested, believing that “life was not lent to us to be expended in idle mirth, which resembles the crackling of thorns under the pot.” We see the ruins of costly shrines and sainted springs, and, in the midst of desolation, hear the eloquent lamentations of mourners pouring out their sorrow like the prophets and poets of old over their lost Jerusalem. We come upon a party of mummers, headed by the “Abbot of Unreason,” desecrating the high altar of St. Mary, turning the ritual of the church into ridicule, emphasizing a custom which was not wholly discouraged at stated intervals by the clergy in their day of power; a custom inherited perhaps from the Roman carnival, tolerated alike by the Greek and Romish churches. We are conveyed to Edinburgh, then as now, the most picturesque city of Europe; we see the intrigues of the court; we witness a melée in the streets between the Leslies and the Seytons, and it is not until we are half through the volume that we are introduced to Queen Mary, the Captive, about whom the whole interest of the story gathers. We see her in an island fortress of the Douglas, confronting with haughty eloquence the stern Melville, Ruthven and Lindsey, sent by the regent to obtain her signature to renounce all right to the throne of Scotland. We hear the plea of both sides distinctly stated, and transcribe a passage which throws light upon the question at issue:

“Madam,” said Ruthven, “I will deal plainly with you. Your reign, from the dismal field of Pinkiecleuch, when you were a babe in the cradle, till now that you stand a grown dame before us, hath been such a tragedy of losses, disasters, civil dissensions and foreign wars, that the like is not to be found in our chronicles. The French and English have, with one consent, made Scotland the battle-field on which to fight out their own ancient quarrel. For ourselves, every man’s hand hath been against his brother, nor hath a year passed over without rebellion and slaughter, exile of nobles, and oppressing of the commons. We may endure it no longer, and, therefore, as a prince to whom God hath refused the gift of hearkening to wise counsel, and on whose dealings and projects no blessing hath ever descended, we pray you to give way to other rule and governance of the land, that a remnant may yet be saved to this distracted realm.”

“My Lord,” said Mary, “It seems to me that you fling on my unhappy and devoted head those evils, which, with far more justice, I may impute to your own turbulent, wild, and untamable dispositions—the frantic violence with which you, the magnates of Scotland, enter into feuds against each other, sticking at no cruelty to gratify your wrath, taking deep revenge for the slightest offenses, and setting at defiance those wise laws which your ancestors made for stanching of such cruelty, rebelling against the lawful authority, and bearing yourselves as if there were no king in the land; or rather as if each were king in his own premises. And now you throw the blame on me—on me, whose life has been embittered—whose sleep has been broken—whose happiness has been wrecked by your dissensions. Have I not myself been obliged to traverse wilds and mountains, at the head of a few faithful followers, to maintain peace and to put down oppression? Have I not worn harness on my person, and carried pistols in my saddle, fain to lay aside the softness of a woman, and the dignity of a queen, that I might show an example to my followers?”

We see the queen at last, under compulsion, and with hasty indifference, subscribe the roll of parchment; the boat containing the three envoys turns its bow toward Edinburgh, and the square tower of Lochleven holds a desolate heart, and a queen without a throne. The winter months go by, a long monotony, now and then relieved by sharp encounters of wit and sarcasm between Queen Mary and her keeper, the Lady Douglas, proprietress of the castle. We hear among her attendants whisperings of escape from the hated prison; we see George Douglas, moved by her beauty and gracious art, no longer her jailer, but a friend aiding in the attempt; we see in Scott’s graphic description the most minute and accurate account presented in any narrative or history, of the successful adventure after the first failure. We see her in that disastrous battle at Langside, where her followers were driven back by the regent’s forces, and hear the queen’s sad words, more sad because so literally true, as she pronounced them over the dead body of the young Douglas: “Look—look at him well,” said the queen, “thus has it been with all who loved Mary Stuart!—The royalty of Francis, the wit of Chastelar, the power and gallantry of the gay Gordon, the melody of Rizzio, the portly form and youthful grace of Darnley, the bold address and courtly manners of Bothwell—and now the deep-devoted passion of the noble Douglas—naught could save them—they looked on the wretched Mary, and to have loved her was crime enough to deserve early death! No sooner had the victims formed a kind thought of me, than the poisoned cup, the ax and block, the dagger, the mine, were ready to punish them for casting away affection on such a wretch as I am!”

Defeated at every point the crownless queen turns for deliverance to Queen Elizabeth. In her great extremity it did not occur to her that she might risk her liberty and perhaps imperil her life by asking the hospitality of England. Ere she took the fatal step her friends and counselors kneeled at her feet and entreated her to go anywhere but there; but their entreaties were in vain; she crossed the Solway, gave herself up to the English deputy warden, and was lodged for the time in Carlisle Castle. Elizabeth, as Scott says in his “Tales of a Grandfather,” had two courses in her power, alike just and lawful; to afford her the succor petitioned for, or the liberty to depart from her dominions as she had entered them, voluntarily. But great as she was upon other occasions of her reign, she acted on the present from mean and envious motives. She saw in the fugitive a princess who possessed a right of succession to the crown of England. She remembered that Mary had been her rival in accomplishments; and certainly she did not forget that she was her superior in youth and beauty. Elizabeth treated her not as a sister and friend in distress, but as an enemy over whom circumstances had given her power. She determined upon reducing her to the condition of a captive. It is a question whether Elizabeth had a right to take cognizance of the charges against Mary. As a matter of fact her guilt was not proven when she demanded her first trial, and Elizabeth so states it over her own signature; but Mary was transported from castle to castle until the ax and the block at Fotheringay concluded the tragedy of her life.

As in “The Abbot,” so in “Kenilworth” the principal personage of the story—Queen Elizabeth—is not introduced until the story is well under way. In fact, we are introduced to the characters in the inverse ratio of their prominence. The curtain rises on a swaggering soldier of fortune in a country inn—a fit accomplice and lackey of Sir Richard Varney, perhaps the most despised villain in the pages of fiction. Anthony Foster comes next, a snivelling hypocrite, willing to coin soul and body for money. The stately Earl of Leicester, and his noble rival, the Earl of Essex, with gorgeous retinue pass along the stage before us; and the palace doors open at last upon Queen Elizabeth and her court. In the meantime we have caught glimpses, through the prison doors, of Anthony Foster’s dilapidated mansion, of the poor deluded Amy Robsart—the wedded but not acknowledged wife of the Earl of Leicester; we note the grief and manhood of her former lover, Tressilian, vainly entreating her to return to her home, where her broken-hearted father sits by his lonely fireside, too wretched and broken in spirit to find relief in tears.

The story of “Amy Robsart,” as here presented, is almost literally true to fact, although Scott has introduced dramatic incidents not found in the history. In the introduction Scott quotes at length the foundation of the story, as given in Ashmole’s “Antiquities of Berkshire:”

“Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a very goodly personage, and singularly well featured, being a great favorite to Queen Elizabeth, it was thought and commonly reported, that had he been a bachelor or widower, the queen would have made him her husband; to this end to free himself of all obstacles, he commands his wife to repose herself at Anthony Foster’s house; and also prescribed to Sir Richard Varney, that he should first attempt to poison her, and if that did not take effect, then by any other way whatsoever to despatch her. The same accusation has been adopted and circulated by the author of Leicester’s Commonwealth, and alluded to in the Yorkshire Tragedy.”

Scott also quotes an old ballad, written by Mickle, called “Cumnor Hall,” in which the fair Amy bewails her fate:

The dew of summer night did fall; The moon, sweet regent of the sky, Silver’d the walls of Cumnor Hall, And many an oak that grew thereby.

Now naught was heard beneath the skies, The sounds of busy life were still, Save an unhappy lady’s sighs, That issued from that lonely pile.

“Leicester,” she cried, “is this thy love That thou so oft hast sworn to me, To leave me in this lonely grove, Immured in shameful privity?”

The village maidens of the plain Salute me lowly as they go; Envious they mark my silken train, Nor think a Countess can have woe.

The simple nymphs! they little know How far more happy’s their estate; To smile for joy than sigh for woe— To be content than to be great.

We are introduced to Queen Elizabeth at the palace gate as she takes her royal barge for a morning’s trip upon the Thames: and it is here that Scott introduces with grace the well-known incident of Sir Walter Raleigh placing his mantle upon the ground before the queen to save Her Majesty’s slippers. We see her attempting to reconcile the difference between Leicester and Essex, who bow for the time before her haughty will; and we wonder that her proud spirit, which brooked no opposition, could stop in the midst of state affairs to receive as flattery an allusion to tresses of gold braided in a metaphor of sunbeams; while Leicester, tottering upon the precipice of infamy, by false eloquence brings a blush to her cheek, and conjures her to strip him of all his power, but to leave him the name of her servant. “Take from the poor Dudley,” he exclaimed, “all that your bounty has made him, and bid him be the poor gentleman he was when your grace first shone on him; leave him no more than his cloak and his sword, but led him still boast he has—what in word and deed he never forfeited—the regard of his adored Queen and mistress!”

But it is in the Halls of Kenilworth, where we trace in Scott’s picture at once the greatness and weakness of the woman and the queen. We are introduced to the stately castle which Scott describes with the love of an antiquarian—a lordly structure composed of a huge pile of magnificent castellated buildings, apparently of different ages, revealing in its armorial bearings “the emblems of mighty chiefs who had long passed away and, whose history, could Ambition have lent ear to it, might have read a lesson to the haughty favorite, who had now acquired and was augmenting the fair domain.”

Amid these princely halls, where the clocks for seven days point to the hour of noon as if to indicate one continual banquet, we trace the misery of those who hang on princes’ favors. The picture is a revelation of the frailty of all human aspirations; and we close the volume recalling the words of Burns:

“It’s no, in titles or in rank, It’s no, in wealth like London bank To purchase peace or rest. If happiness has not her seat And center in the breast, We may be wise or rich or great, But never can be blest.”

* * * * *

Is there not an evening to every day? Comes not the morning back again after the most terrific night? Sometimes I have thought—the sun can never rise again; and yet it came back again with its early dawn. The time passes cold and indifferent over us—it knows nothing of our sorrows—it knows nothing of our joys; it leads us with ice-cold hand deeper and deeper into the labyrinth; at last allows us to stand still—we look around and can not guess where we are.—_Tieck._

ASTRONOMY OF THE HEAVENS FOR MARCH.

By PROF. M. B. GOFF.

THE SUN.

This month, on the 1st, we can obtain mean or clock time by making our clocks indicate 12:12⅓ p. m. when the sun crosses our meridian; on the 15th, by making our time pieces 12:09 p. m.; and on the 31st, by making them show 12:04 p. m. On the 1st, 15th, and 31st, the sun rises at 6:33, 6:11, and 5:44 a. m., and sets at 5:52, 6:07, and 6:24 p. m., respectively. And on the same dates, daybreak occurs at 4:58, 4:35, and 4:04 a. m., and end of evening twilight at 7:27, 7:43, and 8:03 p. m., respectively. On the 19th, at 36½ minutes after 11:00 p. m. the sun “crosses the line” (that is, on its journey northward, crosses the equator), and we are accustomed to say that it enters the sign _Aries_, and spring commences. During this month we have also one of the five eclipses of this year. This one occurs on the 27th, and on such a portion of the earth’s surface as to render it invisible to most of our readers, being confined to a region within 42° of the North Pole, and embracing the North Pole, North Sea, Baltic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia, and the Scandinavian Peninsula. In Washington mean time, it begins on the 27th at 10:20.4 a. m., in longitude 9° 28.2′ east, latitude 54° 11.5′ north; greatest eclipse occurs at 11:10.5 a. m., in longitude 7° 50.1′ west, latitude 72° 5′ north; and eclipse ends at six minutes after 12:00 p. m., in longitude 103° 54.3′ west, latitude 87° 12.8′ north. This eclipse will excite little or no interest among astronomers, since the shadow cast by the moon hides only a small portion (about ⅐) of the sun’s disc, and will not afford any opportunity for observing the sun’s corona and the colored prominences (seen till lately only in total eclipses) which have been a source of so much interest and speculation to the scientific world. It may, indeed, not be saying too much to assert that hereafter eclipses of the sun may be looked upon as something to exercise the mathematical ability of students, and not as a means of obtaining a knowledge of the physical properties of that body. For it has already been demonstrated that the colored prominences may be examined at any time when the sun can be seen; and it is believed that Mr. Huggins has accomplished the difficult feat of photographing the corona, so that it too may be scrutinized _at leisure_. The importance of this discovery can be approximately estimated when we remember that, as Mr. Proctor asserts, “adding together all the minutes of total solar eclipse during an entire century, we obtain a period of about eight days during which the corona can be observed.”

THE MOON

Offers nothing special this month, except as noted, its interference with the sun’s light. Her phases will occur in the following order: 1st quarter, on the 4th, at 8:25 a. m.; full moon on 11th, at 2:32 p. m.; last quarter on 19th, at 6:05 p. m., and new moon on 27th, at 12:39 p. m. In case we have failed to set our clock by the sun, we may do so by the moon, which will cross the meridian on the 1st, at 3:36 p. m.; on the 15th, at 2:37 a. m., and on the 31st, at 4:20 p. m. On the 16th, at 11:18 p. m., she will be furthest from the earth; on the 28th, at 8:18 p. m., nearest the earth; and on the 4th, farthest from the horizon; that is in latitude 41° 30′, the elevation is 67° 19′.

Inferior Planets.

Inferior planets are those whose orbits are inside that of the earth. The first, whose mean distance from the sun may be put down as thirty-five millions of miles, is called

MERCURY.

It has one peculiarity; it twinkles like a star. In this respect it differs from all the other planets. Its nearness to the sun has led some astronomers to believe that the temperature is very uneven, that “every six weeks on an average there is a change of temperature nearly equal to the difference between frozen quicksilver and melted lead.” But later discoveries indicate that temperature dependent on the sun’s rays is influenced much more by the media through which the rays pass, or by which they are absorbed, than the proximity of the sun; and hence Professor Langley argues that Mercury might be a globe on which people like ourselves could have the proper degree of heat to sustain life. Our calendar for Mercury for this month is as follows: On the 1st, it rises at 5:50 a. m.; on 15th, at 5:54 a. m.; and on 31st, at 5:57 a. m. On the same dates it sets as follows: 3:52, 4:52 and 6:25 p. m. On the 30th it will be in superior conjunction with the sun, that is, in a line with the sun and earth, but having the sun between it and the earth. Up to this last date it will be morning star; after that, evening star. On the 26th, at 9:11 p. m., it will be 3° 25′ south of the moon. The only other inferior planet with which we are acquainted is called Venus.

VENUS

Will increase in brilliancy every day this month; but will not shine its brightest till about the third of June. Its time for setting will be as follows: On the 1st, 8:58 p. m.; on the 15th, at 9:28 p. m.; and on the 31st, at 10:03 p. m. Its motion will be direct, and amount to 34° 34′ 37.35″. Its diameter will increase from 14.6″ at the beginning of the month to 17.8″ on the 31st. On the 27th, at 9 p. m., it will be in conjunction with and 3° 34′ north of Neptune.

Superior Planets.

Superior planets are those whose orbits are outside that of the earth, and which are as a consequence, farther from the sun than the earth is. So far as we now know, all the planets except Mercury and Venus, are in the class “superior.” The first of these going outwardly from the sun is called

MARS,