which we are in possession, till I fancied I could penetrate through two or three centuries at least, and supply much of the material in which history is deficient.

Scotland has, I think, in spite of its sober, money-making character, always excited a more romantic curiosity than England. This, perhaps, is more owing to its peculiar misfortunes than to any particular difference of disposition. Our own heroes have been as brave, and, no doubt, as loving, but they do not walk under such a halo of pity; and whilst we pry with eagerness into the secrets of the gallant James's, we suffer those of their English contemporaries to be "interred with their bones." I have always felt this strongly, and, at the time of which I speak, I felt it stronger than I was treading upon the very boards which had bounded to their manly steps, and was surrounded by the very walls which possessed the secret whisperings of their hearts. From that identical window, perhaps, had the first James gazed upon the moon, which I saw rising, and fancied that he almost held commune with the eyes of his English beauty.

There, perhaps, had the royal poet entwined her name with the choicest hopes of his bosom, and woven out a tale of happiness which concealed but too securely the assassin and the dagger behind it. There, too, might the courteous and courageous victims of Flodden Field and Solway Moss have planned the loves which characterised their lives, and the wars which concluded them, almost at the same moment. And there might the hapless Mary have first listened to the poisonous passion of a Darnley, or a Bothwell, and afterwards shed the tears of bitterness and self-reproach.

I paced this sad-looking room of rejoicing quite unconscious of the hours that were passing; for I was alone, and in a train of thought which nothing but a hearty shake could have interrupted. Mary, and all her beauty and talents and acquirements, continued floating before me. Her world of lovers and admirers, who, for the most part, were sleeping in a bloody bed, seemed rising one by one to my view, and I wandered with them through their hopes, and their fears, and their sorrows, even to the scaffold, as though I had been the

ghost of one of them myself, and were pos sessed of secrets of which there is no living record.

Many of these ill-fated hearts have, by their nobility or their exploits, or by the caprice of historians, received their full meed of applause and pity; many, no doubt, have sunk into oblivion; and some, in addition to their misfortunes, have left their memories to combat with the censure which has been thought due to their presumption; - of these last, I have always considered the unfortunate Chatelar to have been the most hardly used, and in the course of my musings I endeavoured to puzzle out something satisfactory to myself upon his dark and tragic story.

The birth of Chatelar, if not noble, was in no common degree honourable, for he was great-nephew to the celebrated Bayard, le Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. It is said that he likewise bore a strong resemblance to him in person, possessing a handsome face and graceful figure; and equally in manly and elegant acquirements, being an expert soldier and an accomplished courtier. In addition to

this, says Brantome, who knew him personally, he possessed a most refined mind, and spoke and wrote, both in prose and poetry, as well as any man in France.

Dangerous indeed are these advantages; and Chatelar's first meeting with Mary was under circumstances calculated to render them doubly dangerous. Alone, as she conceived herself, cast off from the dearest ties of her heart, the land which she had learned to consider her native land fading fast from her eyes, and the billows bearing her to the banishment of one with which, as it contained none that she loved, she could feel no sympathy; in this scene of wailing and tears, the first tones of the poet were stealing upon her ear with the spirit of kindred feelings and kindred pursuits. We are to consider that Mary at this time had obtained but little experience, and was, probably, not overstocked with prudence; having scarcely attained the age of nineteen years. Not only, are we told, did she listen with complacency and pleasure to Chatelar's warm and romantic praises of her beauty, but employed her poetic talent in approving and replying to them;

putting herself upon a level with her gifted companion, which was morally certain to convert his veneration into feelings more nearly allied to his nature. Had he not been blamed for his presumption, it is probable that he would have been condemned for his stoicism; and his luckless passion is by no means a singular proof that where hearts are cast in kindred moulds it is difficult to recognize extrinsic disparities. Chatelar saw the woman, and forgot the queen; Mary felt the satisfaction, and was blind to the consequences.

It is much to be lamented by the lovers of truth that none of the poetical pieces which are said to have passed between Mary and Chatelar have been handed down to us. One song would have been a more valuable document in the elucidation of their history than all the annals we possess, and would have taught us, at once, the degree of encouragement and intimacy which was permitted. Whatever it was, it was such as to rivet the chains to which a chivalrous character could offer no resistance; and, from the period of their first meeting, we may consider Chatelar the most enthusiastic of Mary's lovers.