hasty, impatient words might escape him; but I never saw him really out of humour. He had a drunken, stupid groom, who used to provoke him; and who, from this uncommon circumstance, was called by the children 'the man that puts papa in a passion;' and I think he continued all his life putting papa in a passion, and being forgiven, for I believe he died in his service.

nerve.

"In the year 1787 Lord North's sight began rapidly to fail him, and in the course of a few months he became totally blind, in consequence of a palsy on the optic His nerves had always been very excitable, and it is probable that the anxiety of mind which he suffered during the unsuccessful contest with America, still more than his necessary application to writing, brought on this calamity, which he bore with the most admirable patience and resignation; nor did it effect his general cheerfulness in society. But the privation of all power of dissipating his mind by outward objects, or of solitary occupation, could not fail to produce at times extreme depression of spirits, especially as the malady proceeded from the disordered state of his nerves. These fits of depression seldom occurred, except during sleepless nights, when my mother used to read to him, until he was amused out of them, or put to sleep.

"In the evenings, in Grosvenor-square, our house was the resort of the best company that London afforded at that time. Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. Sheridan occasionally; and Lord Stormont, Lord John Townshend, Mr. Windham, Sir James Erskine, afterwards Lord Rosslyn, his uncle, then Lord Loughborough, habitually frequented our drawing-room; these, with various young men and women, his children's friends, and whist-playing ladies for my mother, completed the society. My father always liked the company of young people, especially of young women who were sensible and lively; and we used to accuse him of often rejoicing when his old political friends left his side and were succeeded by some lively young female. Lord North, when he was out of office, had no private secretary; even after he became blind, his daughters, particularly the two elder, read to him by turns, wrote his letters, led him in his walks, and were his constant companions.

"In 1792 his health began to decline; he lost his sleep and his appetite; his legs swelled, and symptoms of dropsy were apparent. At last, after a peculiar uneasy night he questioned his friend and physician, Dr. Warren, begging him not to conceal the truth; the result was, that Dr. Warren owned that water had formed upon the chest, that he could not live many days, and that a few hours might put a period to his existence. He received this news not only with firmness and pious resignation, but it in no way altered the serenity and cheerfulness of his manners; and from that hour during the remaining ten days of his life, he had no return of depression of spirits. The first step he took, when aware of his immediate danger, was to desire that Mr. John Robinson (commonly known by the name of the Ratcatcher) and Lord Auckland might be sent for; they being the only two of his political friends whose desertion had hurt and offended him, he wished before his death to shake hands cordially and to forgive them. They attended the summons of course, and the reconciliation was effected. My father had always delighted in hearing his eldest daughter, Lady Glenbervie, read Shakspeare, which she did with much understanding and effect. He was desirous of still enjoying this amusement. In the existing circumstances, this task was a hard one; but strong affection, the best source of woman's strength, enabled her to go through it. She read to him great part of every day with her usual spirit, though her heart was dying within her. No doubt she was supported by the Almighty in the pious work of solacing the last hours of her almost idolised parent. He also desired to have the French newspaper read to him. At that time they were filled with alarming symptoms of the horrors that shortly after ensued. Upon hearing them, he said, 'I am going, and thankful I am that I shall not witness the anarchy and bloodshed which will soon overwhelm that unhappy country.' He expired on the 5th of August, 1792.

"Lord north was a truly pious Christian and (although from his political view of the subject) I believe that one of the last speeches he made in Parliament was

against the repeal of the Test Act, yet his religion was quite free from bigotry or intolerance, and consisted more in the beautiful spirit of Christian benevolence than in outward and formal observances. His character in private life was, I believe, as faultless as that of any human being can be; and those actions of his public life which appear to have been the most questionable, proceeded, I am entirely convinced, from what one must own was a weakness, though not an unamiable one, and which followed him through his life, the want of power to resist the influence of those he loved.

"I remain, my dear lord, gratefully and sincerely yours,

"CHARLOTTE LINSDAY.

"Green-street, February the 8th, 1839."

IV.

Elizabeth's conduct to Mary, Queen of Scots.

*

THE whole subject of Mary's conduct has been involved in controversy, chiefly by the partisans of the House of Stuart after the Revolution, and somewhat also by the circumstances of the Catholic party in both England and Scotland taking her part as an enemy of the Reformed religion. Elizabeth's conduct towards her has also in a considerable degree been made the subject of political disputation. But it may safely be affirmed that there are certain facts, which cannot be doubted, which indeed even the most violent partisans of both those princesses have all along admitted, and which tend to throw a great, though certainly a very unequal degree of blame upon both. Let us first of all state those unquestioned facts.

1. It is certain that Darnley, Mary's second husband, was foully murdered, and equally certain that Mary was

*This Appendix has been added in deference to the suggestion of a friend, whose sound judgment and correct taste are entitled to command all respect, and who considered that an unjust view would be given of Elizabeth's conduct if no addition were made to the sketch in the text.

generally suspected, and was openly charged, as an accomplice of the murder, if not the contriver of the crime.

2. Yet it is equally certain that instead of taking those active steps to bring the perpetrators to punishment, required both by conjugal duty and by a just desire to wipe off the stain affixed to her character, she allowed a mere mock trial to take place which outraged every principle of justice, while she refused Lennox the father's offers of evidence to convict the murderers.

3. Bothwell had only of late been admitted to her intimate society; he was a man of coarse manners and profligate character, universally accused and now known to have been the principal in the murder. No one pretended at the time seriously to doubt his guilt; yet immediately after the event she married him, and married him with a mixture of fraud, a pretence of being forced to it, so coarse that it could deceive nobody, and so gross as only to be exceeded by the still grosser passion which actuated her whole conduct.

4. That he was married when the intimacy began, is not denied. Nor is it doubted that she consented to marry him before his former marriage had been dissolved.

5. The divorce which dissolved it was hurried through the Courts in four days, by the grossest fraud and collusion between the parties. Hence Mary was as much guilty of bigamy in marrying him as was the Duchess of Kingston two centuries later; for the Duchess produced also a sentence of separation a mensa et thoro in her defence, obtained with incomparable greater formality—but obtained through collusion, and therefore considered as a nullity-and she was accordingly convicted of the felony.

6. These acts of Mary were of so abominable a nature that all rational men were turned away from supporting her, and her deposition was almost a matter of course in any Christian or indeed any civilized country. But as regards Elizabeth:

1. When Mary took refuge in England, all her previous misconduct gave Elizabeth no kind of title to detain her as a prisoner, nor any right even to deliver her up a prisoner at the request of the Scots, had they demanded her.

2. In keeping her a prisoner for twenty years under various pretexts, Elizabeth gave her ample license and complete justification for whatever designs she might form to regain her liberty.

3. The conspiracy of Norfolk looked only to the maintaining of her strict rights, the restoration of her personal liberty, and her marriage with that ill-fated nobleman, which she was willing to solemnize as soon as she could be divorced from Bothwell, who having lived for some years as a pirate, afterwards died mad in a Danish prison.

4. Babington's conspiracy included rebellion and also the assassination of Elizabeth; and great and certainly very fruitless pains are taken by Mary's partisans to rebut the proof of her having joined it. She, indeed, never pretended to resist the proof that she was a party to the conspiracy in general; she only denied her knowledge of the projected assassination. But supposing her to have been also cognizant of that, it seems not too relaxed a view of duty to hold that one sovereign princess detained unjustifiably in captivity by another for twenty years, has a right to use even extreme measures of revenge. In self-defence all means are justifiable, and Mary had no other means than war to the knife against her oppressor.

5. For this accession to Babington's conspiracy, chiefly, she was brought to trial by that oppressor who had violated every principle of justice and every form of law, in holding her a prisoner for twenty years.

6. Being convicted on this trial, the sentence was executed by Elizabeth's express authority: although, with a complication of falsehood utterly disgusting, and which holds her character up to the scorn of mankind in all ages, she pretended that it had been done without her leave and against her will, and basely ruined the unfortunate man, who, yielding to her commands, had conveyed to be executed the orders she had signed with her own hand.

The pretence upon which the proceeding of the trial may the most plausibly be defended, is that a foreign prince while in this country, like all foreigners within