Covenanters invaded Nithsdale, he fled to Carlisle, where he remained three months. In his absence his house at Terregles was forcibly entered, and the best of his furniture and some of his plate carried off. In 1644 he was excommunicated, and the same year, for joining Montrose at Dumfries, his life and property were pronounced forfeited by the Commissioners of Estates. Beyond this he seems to have taken no part in Montrose's career, at first so victorious, but which terminated so disastrously at Philiphaugh. Fined 10,000l. Scots in 1647; quartered upon first by the Royalists, and afterwards by the Covenanters; charged with nine months' maintenance of troops, Lord Herries had a hard time of it; and he presented a petition for redress, which though favourably listened to, did him so little real good that in 1661 he estimated his losses at 77,3327. 12s. Scots. To this Lord Herries Abercrombie* ascribes a History of Scotland, the only portion of which now existing is to be found in a MS. in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh. It was printed by the Abbotsford Club in 1836, under the title Historical Memoirs of the Reign ' of Queen Mary of Scots, and a portion of the History of King James the Sixth; by Lord Herries.' If not always to be relied on, it is still a work of considerable importance and interest. Its real author will perhaps never be certainly known; but Mr. Fraser brings forward some strong evidence in favour of its being of higher antiquity than the date adopted by Abercrombie.

Passing by the fourth Earl of Nithsdale, who demands no special notice from us, we come to William, the last earl of the name. In 1715 he at once joined the ranks of the Old Pretender. But for his being a Romanist he would have been placed at the head of the movement in the north of Scotland, which was accordingly entrusted to Lord Kenmure. But when their forces, after a short gleam of success, were obliged to surrender at Preston, Nithsdale's bonnie lord' was among the number of those taken prisoner and sent to the Tower. Though no history of the Maxwells would be complete without some notice of what followed, we cannot do here more than remind our readers of the loving devotion and successful bravery of the lovely, accomplished, and famous heroine, Lady Winifred Herbert, daughter of the Marquis of Powys, and Countess of Nithsdale. This much however we may say, that the story of the escape, told so simply and yet so touchingly by

* Martial Achievements of the Scots' Nation. 1715. VOL. CXL. NO. CCLXXXVI.

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the countess, in a letter to her sister who was Abbess of the English Augustine Nuns at Bruges, is given at length by Mr. Fraser, together with two pages of facsimiles, in his second volume. His version, which differs in many places from the hitherto published copies, is taken from the original letter now in the possession of Lord Herries. The signature is gone, evidently taken by or for some voracious collector of autographs.

The earl and countess took up their residence on the Continent, and especially at Rome. It is sad to find from their letters, many of which are here printed, to what straits they were often reduced. The earl died in 1744, the year before the second attempt of the Stuarts to recover their former kingdom. The countess survived him for five years. forfeited earldom has never been restored.

The

The only surviving son succeeded to the Nithsdale and Herries estates on the death of his father, the necessary documents for proving the conveyance of these estates to him before the earl's attainder having been lodged in a place of security by Lady Nithsdale. Family troubles had taught him wisdom, and he took no share in the rising of '45, though his letters show that his heart was very much in the matter, and no one would have been more ready than himself to join the movement if there had been any reasonable hopes of success. The lazy

lord,' as his wife called him, found more charms in a quiet and retired life. His only children were daughters, one of whom died unmarried, the other, Winifred, became the wife of Mr. W. H. Constable, of Everingham, in Yorkshire, the grandfather of the present Lord Herries. Under what circumstances this title was restored will be explained presently.

Besides the Maxwells already mentioned, Mr. Fraser has given us a very interesting account of the fourth Lord Herries of Terregles, who was so intimately connected with Mary Queen of Scots. We can give but the merest outline of his life here, and must even pass by such curious passages as his tragic wooing of the border heiress,' which Mr. Fraser has described. In his tenure of the office of Warden of the Marches he reminds us of the eighth Lord Maxwell, who appears and disappears with the vagaries of a will-o'-the-wisp. Nor was it only in this matter that this smooth-tongued plausible person,' as Froude describes him,* gave proofs of his versatility. At one time Mary's most trusted friend, at another exciting her suspicions; in 1565 imploring the protection of Elizabeth against the enemies, with whom he is within a month joined

History of England, vol. ix. p. 166.

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heart and hand; riding one day to Edinburgh to remonstrate with his sovereign on her intended marriage with Bothwell, and in a few weeks' time recommending him to her as a husband; labouring in August for her release from Loch Leven, in December astonishing his friends by a speech in Parliament in which he recognised the authority of the king and regent, and that very same month binding himself to hazard his life for the queen. No wonder Throgmorton used of him the strong language he used to Cecil: The Lord Herryes ys the connynge horseleache and the wysest of the wholle faction, but as the Quene of Scotland sayethe of hym, there ys no bodye 'can be sure of hym: he takethe pleasure to beare all the worlde in hande: we have good occasyon to be well ware of him. Sir, yow remember how he handled us when he delyvered Dunfryse, Carlaverocke, and the Harmytage into our handes. He made us beleave all should be ours to the Frythe, and when wee trusted hym best, how he helped to chase 'us awaye, I am sure you have not forgotten. Here amongst 'hys owne countreymen he ys noted to be the moost cautelous 'man of hys natyon. It may lyke you to remember he suffred hys owne hostages, the hostages of the Lard of Loughanver and Garles hys nexte neyghboures and frendes, to be hanged for promesse broken by hym. Thys muche I speake of hym, because he ys the lykelyest and moost dangerous man to 'inchaunte yow.' He died suddenly at last in Edinburgh. He was on his way at the time to the lodgings of one William Fowler, in the time of sermon, to hear the boys bicker,' when he fell down and expired.

But it is time to give some account of the able and valuable volumes for which we are almost entirely indebted for the materials used in the foregoing sketch of the Maxwells. These, with some other volumes equally valuable, owe their existence to the following circumstances. In 1848 the descendants of the Earl of Nithsdale were restored in blood, and Mr. W. Constable Maxwell of Nithsdale and Everingham presented a petition to the House of Lords, in which he prayed to have the title and honours of Lord Herries of Terregles restored to him. The earliest notice of the name of Herries occurs as far back as 1150, when William de Heryz witnessed a donation of Henry Prince of Scotland to the monasteries of Wederhall (Wetheral) and Holme Cultram, in Cumberland. The first knight of the family was John Herries, who received from King David Bruce a charter in which Terregles was created a barony in 1364. Sir Hubert Herries sat as a 'Lord of Parliament' in 1489, and perhaps this was the time when the family was first

raised to the peerage; but the original documents connected with the creation have all perished. The second lord was slain at Flodden; the third was the Lord Herries whose eldest daughter, as we have seen, married Sir John Maxwell, afterwards Lord Herries by a new creation. When the male descendants of Sir John's eldest brother, Robert the sixth Lord Maxwell, terminated in the Earl of Nithsdale, who died in 1667, the descendants of Lord Herries became the representatives of both the Maxwell and Herries peerages. But the question to be decided was whether the heirs male only or the heirs female could claim the honours. Mr. Maxwell's petition accordingly was opposed by Mr. W. Maxwell of Carruchan, on the ground that he was the eldest male heir, and as such entitled to the titles of Earl of Nithsdale, Lord Maxwell, and Lord Herries. The House of Lords in 1858 decided, as far as the Herries was concerned, in favour of the heirs female. Had Mr. Maxwell of Carruchan been successful he would not have long enjoyed his victory, for in 1863 he died without issue, and in him the Carruchan branch of the Maxwells became extinct. He had however been fortunate enough to engage the services of Mr. Fraser, whose name is so well known in connexion with the history of Scottish families, and we rejoice to think that the results of his researches were not thrown away when the Maxwell case was decided. The first fruits appeared in two goodly quartos: Memoirs of the Maxwells of Pollok,' the oldest of all the branches of the Maxwell family, which were published in 1863. In 1865 he edited Inventories of the Muniments of the families of Maxwell, Herries, and Nithsdale in the • Charter Room at Terregles,' a work of which unfortunately no more than twenty copies were printed. 'Before that volume was completed,' he says, the late Mr. Marmaduke Maxwell of Terregles arranged that I should undertake a history of the families of Maxwell and Herries, and also edit the printing of their charters and correspondence. results of the eight years' labour upon a subject which had ' previously so long engaged my attention, now appears in the present work, under the general title of "The Book of Car"laverock," a title sufficiently appropriate for a record of the house of Maxwell, as the castle of that name, so celebrated in history for its memorable sieges, is now the oldest inheritance of the family.' (Pref. p. xii.) The earldom of Nithsdale has not been restored; and if there are in existence any persons that can claim the title in the male line, they must be sought for apparently among the descendants, if any, of William Maxwell, the representative of the Maxwells of Breconside in

6

The

Kirkgunzeon, who was first of all a merchant at Bristol, and afterwards went to New York.

But we cannot take leave of this distinguished family, whose fortunes we have followed so long, without a passing allusion to the last and not the least illustrious of its alliances. In the course of this year Joseph, the third son of the present Lord Herries, has allied himself in marriage to Mary Monica, only surviving child of the late James Hope-Scott, the granddaughter of John Gibson Lockhart, the great-granddaughter and sole lineal representative of Sir Walter Scott-names dear to Scotland, dear to literature, dear to ourselves, for they revive the traditions of past years, and they point, we trust, to a long and happy future. The estates and heirlooms of Abbotsford will thus pass into a branch of the Maxwell family, allied to the great name of Scott, and Maccuswell returns to the enchanted banks of the Tweed.

ART. III.-1. London Lyrics. By FREDERICK LOCKER. New Edition. London: 1874.

2. The Courtly Poets from Raleigh to Montrose. Edited by J. HANNAH, D.C.L. London: 1870.

3. The Poems of Winthrop Machworth Praed. With a Memoir by the Rev. DERWENT COLERIDGE. London: 1864.

4. The Greek Anthology. By Lord NEAVES. Edinburgh: 1874.

5. Lyra Elegantiarum.

Specimens of Vers de
Edited by F. LOCKER.

A Collection of some of the best
Société in the English Language.
London: 1864.

6. Two Centuries of Song. With Critical and Biographical Notes by WALTER THORNBURY. London: 1866.

IN

N poetry and creative art the ancient world left little or no room in which the modern could demonstrate its superiority. Science has multiplied the appliances for the diffusion of knowledge, and invention has achieved many and extraordinary triumphs, but the individual mind has not shown itself capable of higher flights of imagination than those of the old poets. In these later centuries we have seen but one poet capable of sustaining the mantle of Homer. And the superiority of the ancients is equally undoubted when we consider those slighter efforts in verse which are confessedly of a somewhat ephemeral character, and meant principally to embody only the feelings of the age in which they are written. Horace was the