hope for, and its Whigs affecting to fear, the exiled Stuarts in their distant retirement; but one party just as ready as the other with fine birthday clothes at the Hanoverian Court, and traditionary Jacobitism falling into the constitutional opposition of more recent times. Never was there an age when men were less likely to sacrifice themselves, and put their fortunes and lives in peril, for a banished and half-forgotten gentleman, with all the charm of manner and person peculiar to his race. There seems every reason to believe that such a nature, sweetened by prosperity, might have come to a finer development than ever Stuart yet had attained since the first James of Scotland, the poet of the race. But such was not the intention of Providence, in all things so inscrutable, and in none more so than in the determination of the influences King. There were a hundred solid reasons which cramp or guide the development of why George and his family should lie heavy character. England did but stand and look on the English mind. He was no English- on while the young Chevalier drew near man, nor even pretended to be. He had none her coasts, greeting him with the look of of the qualities that make a man personally popular, except courage. He gave the world an example of dull profligacy on the one side, and unnatural family discords on the other, such as the public mind, however little toned to virtue, invariably resents. In all his public acts he made it apparent that his new kingdom was nothing to him in comparison with his native principality - "a province to a despicable electorate," as Pitt boldly and bitterly said. Yet so deeply had the dangers of civil war stamped themselves on men's minds; or so bent were all on personal well-being, safety, and such success as was practicable; or so dull was the level of public feeling at a moment when no public leader possessed the thrill of sympathetic genius, and every man schemed and struggled for himself, that notwithstanding all the drawbacks that attended the Hanoverian race, no touch of ancient love seems to have awakened in the English heart towards the young, noble, and hopeful Pretender, who thus set out with his life in his hand to claim his hereditary place. The whole nation, occupied with its own affairs, and sullenly awaiting the result of its last experiment in kingmaking, abstracted itself from all new contests, and looked on, angry to have its quiet disturbed, indignant at the thought of new expenses, unmoved by the romance of the situation or by the daring of the Adventurer. At this moment of his career there can be no doubt that of all the alarm which might be supposed to startle a shopkeeper at the appearance of any riot which would put his goods and traffic in danger - putting up her shutters, locking her till, in unheroic tremor and still more unheroic calm awaiting the issue. The noblest of Jacobite families, they who had kept up anxious relations with the exiled Court for years (and there was scarcely one family of importance, scarcely one eager statesman, who had not one time or other offered services to or excited the expectations of that Court), adopted this attitude. So long as nothing was to be done, they were content to speak of the Prince's advent as if it would bring them salvation; but as soon as he appeared, the warmest prayer they had to utter was, that he would keep away from them and depart from their coasts. Men who are in possession of all the best gifts of fortune may be pardoned for not rushing blindly into an enterprise which is likely to conduct them to the Tower and the block; but yet it must be recollected that the men who thus stood apart and let their Prince dash himself to pieces against the great wall of a nation's passive resistance, had given him for years a theoretical allegiance, had supported his pretensions, kept up his hopes, and maintained before his eyes a gleam of perpetual possibility. They were all waiting, they professed, for the moment when it would be wise to make the attempt. Such waiting young princes in Europe Charles Edward was no matter of life and death to them. was personally one of the most promising. Their circumstances were in no way desHis education had been bad, but his mind perate-their lands and livings were sewas open. He was full of noble natural cured, and even public life was not shut gifts, if not of intellect at least of charac- against them. But with him it was life or ter-a gracious, magnanimous, valiant death. Charles Edward went first to Paris, where mand the embarkation." His letters are he was kept for some time in great retirement, seeing nobody, not even the King and afterwards to Gravelines, a little fortified town on the dreary line of coast between Calais and Dunkirk, where he lived in more utter seclusion still, attending the preparations for the expedition and watching their progress. From this spot, for the first time, amid the mists and storms of winter, full of excitement, alarm, and doubt. Nobody knew, it is evident, how far the people were to be calculated upon. The agitated Whig world, which felt itself on the edge of a revolution, on one side of the Channel, with Walpole for an interpreter, waiting an event which "to me must and shall be decisive," as he says, with an earnestness which, considering his perfectly private position, he looked across the angry Channel upon seems uncalled for; and, on the other, on England with such thoughts as may be con- the border of the separating sea, Charles ceived. On that monotonous shore, linger- Edward, eager, breathless, full of hope, ing upon the margin of the wild sea, catch- waiting with a still more burning eagerness ing glimpses, as the clouds lifted and fell, of the island-kingdom of his forefathers, the Adventurer becomes his own historian; but his record is of facts only, not of sentiments and feelings. His sole attendant was a Highland gentleman, one of the busy conspirators of the time, in whom he seems to have been able to repose scanty faith. "The situation I am in is very particular," he writes, "for nobody knows where I am, or what is become of me, so that I am entirely buried as to the public, and cannot but say that it is a very great constraint upon me, for I am obliged very often not to stir from my room for fear of somebody noticing my face. I very often think that you would laugh heartily if you saw me going about with a single servant, buying fish and other things, and squabbling for a penny more or less. I have every day large packets to answer, without anybody to help me but Bohaldie. Yesterday I had one that cost me seven hours and a half." These packets included the correspondence of secret agents, of friends in England, and of the councillors about the French King - all the different machinery by which the great invasion was to be completed. Thus he waited secluded, with England in sight, till the ships were fitted out and the soldiers marshalled which should enable him to put for the outset of the expedition, - make a curious picture. So deep were the apprehensions of the ruling Whigs among whom Horace lived, that he writes, with such consolation as he could muster, to his friend Mann, the envoy at Florence. "Trust to my friendship for working every engine to restore you to as good a situation as you will lose, if my fears prove prophetic," he writes; but the only real gleam of comfort he has is, that the populace, always so ready to be led away by a name, had been seized with a horror of the French invasion. "The French name will do more harm to the cause than the Pretender's service," he says. All this fright on the one hand, and hope on the other, came to an end without the striking of a blow. The French fleet was watched and pursued, and let slip, by the English admiral, old and prudent, who had been sent out to look for it; but another guardian, more potent than even an English fleet, watched the British coasts. "There have been terrible winds these four or five days," Horace writes, catching at the straw of good fortune. The storm "blew directly upon Dunkirk," beating back the invading vessels. "Some of the largest ships, with all the men on board, were lost," says Lord Mahon; "others were wrecked on the coast, and the remain his fortune to the touch - a moment of su- der were obliged to put back to the harheart, sick with disappointed hope, downcast, and heavy, but not crushed or helpless, who went back once more alone to the dreary little seaport, to wait some gleam of better fortune. To all the world around him his business was secondary. France, politely regretful, turned aside and went off to her own concerns. Jacobite England gave a doubtful, distant, sentimental homage, so long as the Deliverer would but keep away from her. Had the Prince been a man of his father's calibre, no doubt he would have dropped salt tears into the angry surf of the wild Channel that lay between preme anxiety, and yet more supreme hope. The news reached London before long, and made the peaceful population tremble. Early in February, Horace Walpole, scoffing, supposes "the Pretender's son," then in Paris, was "as near England as ever he is like to be." But a week after his tone is mightily changed. The "imminence of our danger" are the words on Horace's lips. "Don't be surprised if you hear that this crown is fought for on land," he writes. "As yet there is no rising; but we must expect it on the first descent." "There is no doubt of the invasion," he adds, on the 23d February; "the young Pretender is at Calais, and the Count de Saxe is to com bour with no small injury." After all these elaborate preparations, this storm sufficed to discourage France from her project. The royal exile, who had embarked so eagerly, was put ashore again, in that dejection which follows too triumphant hopes. A plan so large and elaborate, collapsing so suddenly and utterly, has few parallels in history. In England, it is evident, nobody believed it was over by this one encounter with the winds. "That great storm certainly saved us from the invasion then," writes Horace Walpole, in the middle of March. But of all the the expedition, the only individual who seems to have thought more of it after setting foot on French soil, was the one princely heroic kingdom. But though it came to something very much like this in the end, at that moment he was dissuaded from such a venture. After a while he went to Paris, where he lived privately, wearily waiting for succour and encouragement from the French Court, then actually at war with England. "I have taken a house within a a league of this town, where I live like a hermit," he writes to his father in the beginning of June. In November he is still no farther advanced. "As long as there is life, there is hope, that's the proverb," he writes in his weariness. "You may imagine how I must be him and his kingdom, and abandoned the out of humour at all these proceedings, hopeless desperate attempt. But Charles when for comfort I am plagued out of my Edward was of other mettle. The moment life with tracasseries from our own people, had come when he must do or die. Wild who, it would seem, would rather sacrifice hopes of victory, no doubt, were in his mind; me and my affairs than fail in any private but it is evident that other thoughts vis-view of their own." Already he had begun ions of the possibility of death on the field, to see the disastrous influences which were a violent glorious end- were also present in the field against him, and that the diffibefore him. The only thing impracticable culties in his own camp would be as heavy was to return to the languid misery of Italian a strain on his courage and patience as any dependence - the death-in-life of his Roman without. "Our friends in England are captivity. No hereditary enthusiasm for afraid of their own shadow, and think of the house of Stuart moves the mind of the little but diverting themselves," he adds, present writer; but he would be a passion- mournfully, "otherwise we should not need less observer, indeed, who could look upon the King of France." By degrees he learned the forlorn and dauntless figure of this also that the King of France was little likeprincely young man, gazing on his hered-ly to aid him with more than vague promisitary kingdom across the salt and bitter es of service. He was ready himself to set waves, and making up his mind to all the out with a single footman if necessary dangers, all the toils and hardships, of one "put himself in a tub, like Diogenes!" he last struggle for his rights, without a thrill of generous sympathy. He was no philosopher, to consider the weeping train of orphans whom his enterprise would leave fatherless; his was no cruel imagination, capable of realising the pitiless horrors with which a frightened country should stamp out the remnants of rebellion. Himself brave, clement, tender, and magnanimous, how could Charles Stuart conceive of the butcheries of Cumberland? The spirit of his race rose in him to its one last outburst. Error and misfortune ran in the blood - but the Adventurer on that lonely shore seems to have cast off for the moment the dreary memories of the English Stuarts, and served himself heir to the noble old Jameses gallant to "The says, with half-ironic, half-pathetic humour. monarchs of a barbarous-gallant people es which led him to take the final step, in the Commons' kings! The time had come when all the nobleness, patience, valour, and courage of the old stock should burst again into flower - one of its best blossoms, and its last. So eager was the Prince to enter upon the great work of his life, that he proposed to the brave old Earl Mareschal to embark in a herring-boat and make his way to Scotland, with characteristic trust in the ancient "After such scandalous usage as I have received from the French Court, had I not given my word to do so, or got so many encouragements from time to time as I have had, I should have been obliged in honour, and for my own reputation, to have flung myself into the arms of my "I should think it proper (if your Majesty pleases) to be put at his Holiness's feet, asking his blessing on this occasion; but what I chiefly ask is your own, which I hope will procure me that of God Almighty upon my endeavours to serve you, my family, and my country, which will ever be the only view of your Majesty's most dutiful son, "CHARLES P." friends, and die with them, rather than live lon- | money, next to troops, will be of the greatest ger in such a miserable way here, or be obliged help to me. to return to Rome, which would be just giving up all hopes. I cannot but mention a parable here, which is, a horse that is to be sold, if spurred, does not skip or show some sign of life, nobody would care to have him even for nothing; just so, my friends would care very little to have me, if after such usage, which all the world is sensible of, I should not show that I have life in me. Your Majesty cannot disapprove a son's following the example of his father. You your This letter is sufficient to demonstrate self did the like in the year '15; but the circum- that Charles's imperfect education had toler stances now are indeed very different by being much more encouraging, there being a certainty of succeeding with the least help, the particulars of which would be too long to explain, and even impossible to convince you of by writing, which has been the reason that I presumed to take upon me the managing all this without even letting you suspect that such a thing was brewing. Had I failed to convince you, I was then afraid you might have thought what I had a mind to do to be rash, and so have absolutely forbid my proceedings, thinking that to acquire glory I was capable of doing a desperate action. But in that case I can't be sure but I might have followed the example of Manlius, who disobeyed his father's orders on a like occasion.. Let what will happen, the stroke is struck, and I have taken a firm resolution to conquer or die, and stand my ground as long as I have a man remaining with me. I think it of the greatest importance your Majesty should come as soon as possible to Avignon, but take the liberty to advise that you would not ask leave of the French ably well answered the purpose of all true At last the little expedition got under weigh. It was in the middle of July, sixteen months after the failure of the proposed invasion, that Charles at last set sail from St. Nazaire, at the mouth of the Loire. The vessel in which he embarked he describes as "a frigate" carrying "twenty odd guns, and an excellent sailer," which had Court; for if I be not immediately succoured, been procured for him by "one Rutledge they will certainly refuse you. And this refusal will be chiefly occasioned by our own people, who will be afraid to have you so near for their own private views, and so suggest things to the French Court, to prevent you coming till all shall be decided. I am certain if you were once at Avignon you would never be obliged to remove, but in order to our happy meeting on the other side of the sea. and Walsh," the latter of whom commanded the ship. A man-of-war of sixty-seven guns had been procured by the same private individuals, " to cruise on the coast of cotland, and is luckily obliged to go as far north as I do, so that she will escort me without appearing to do it." In his own vessel he had "fifteen hundred fusees, eighteen hundred broadswords mounted, a good quantity of powder, ball, flints, dirks, brandy, &c. I have also got twenty small "Your Majesty may be well assured I shall never be at rest till I bring about the happy day of our meeting. It is most certain that the generality of people will judge of this enterprise by field-pieces, two of which a mule may carry, the success, which if favourable, I shall get and my cassette will be near four thousand more honour than I deserve. If otherwise, all louis d'or." In the man-of-war was "a comthe blame will be thrown upon the French Court pany of sixty volunteers, all gentlemen, for having pushed a young Prince to show his whom I shall probably get to land with me, mettle, and rather die than live in a state unbecoming himself. Whatever happens unfortunate to me cannot but be the strongest engagement to the French Court to pursue your cause. Now, if I were sure they were capable of any sensation of this kind, if I did not succeed, I would perish as Curtius did to serve my country and make it happy, it being an indispensable duty on me, as far as it lies in my power. Your Majesty may now see my reason for pressing you to pawn my jewels, which I should be glad to have done immediately, for I never intend to come back, and which, though few, will make a show, they having a pretty uniform." With these provisions the Adventurer set out dauntless to invade a great, rich, and warlike kingdom. On the way his escort encountered a British man-of-war, and, disabled with the conflict, had to put back, carrying the sixty volunteers and their pretty uniform away to France again. Nor was it Charles's fault that his own vessel did not join in the combat. His captain threatened to order him down to the cabin ere he would cease his en-ment of youth. "I will!" cried the lad, treaties to that effect. At length the lonely with Highland fervour; "though not anlittle ship, not without pursuit from other other man in the Highlands should draw a wandering cruisers, reached, after a fort- sword, I am ready to die for you!" This night's voyage, the Western Isles. As the invader approached the shore of one of those app wild and rocky islands, an eagle came hovering round the ship. "Old Tullibardine, who first spied the bird, did not choose to take any notice of it, lest they should have eager outburst of devotion, and the sudden emotion with which Charles, wound up to the uttermost, and at the point of despain received the frank allegiance, was the spark that was needed to light the flame. Clanranald and his Duinhewassels, impervious to called it a Highland freat in him." But reason, had no shield to defend them from when he saw the royal creature following this sudden enthusiasm. They did not even the course of the ship, the heart of the old appear to have made any effort to resist Highlander rose within him. "Sir, I hope it. The fire was set to the heather, and this is an excellent omen," he said; "the henceforth every passing breath did but fan king of birds has come out to welcome your the flame. Royal Highness." At such a moment the whole party, thus arrived at the crisis for which they had been so long preparing, were naturally open to all influences; they looked "with pleasure" upon their winged attendant - at first the only mountain prince who welcomed Charles Stuart to the home of his fathers. The story is so well known that it seems almost a work of supererogation to follow its details. The Prince's welcome was undoubtedly cold. He had been invited to Scotland by a parcel of conspirators - men whose lives were always in danger, and to whom a little risk, more or less, did not matter-not by the chiefs to whom he now appealed, who had life and lands, and the lives of their clansmen, to answer for. The condition of their rising had always been the support of a body of French Troops - a kind of assistance which was not so revolting to the Scottish, still less to the Highland While this momentous conference was going on, other Macdonalds waiting at the other end of the deck, half-informed of what was passing and full of excitement, saw "a tall youth of a most agreeable aspect," whose looks moved them, they scarcely knew why. They were told sometimes that he was a young Englishman, sometimes a French abbé, anxious to see the Highlands; yet nature told them otherwise. "At his first appearance I found my heart swell to my very throat," says one spectator. One laird after another came and went from the isles and misty mainland to the little ship, the centre of so many fears and hopes. Each of them came with his burden of remonstrance, his intended protest against the mad enterprise; and each, like young Ranald, went away with fire in his heart and in his eyes, to raise his men and risk his life for the "native Prince," who had thus thrown himself on Highland devotion. Hugh of the mind, as to the English. When they found house of Morar warned Donald of Kinloch he had come among them alone, with seven men only in his company, a thrill ran through the islesmen. They tried hard to support each other in entreaties that he would give up his enterprise, and protestations that it was hopeless; but Charles had a thousand weapons to use against this simple heroic race. While he discussed the matter with several influential Macdonalds, headed by Clanranald himself, his quick eye noted a young Highlander standing apart, in whose face the tide of emotion ran high. While Ranald followed with moving lip and gleaming eye the course of argument- all entreaty on one side, all resistance and reason on the other - his hand sometimes seek moidart that he "did not like the expedition at all, and was afraid of the results." "I cannot help it," said the other: "if the matter go wrong, I'll certainly be hanged, for I am engaged already." When Hugh himself went on into the all-fascinating presence, he lifted his voice, as they all did, in warning. The Prince made answer that "he did not choose to owe his restoration to foreigners, but to his own friends; and that could he get but six trusty men to join him, he would choose far rather to skulk with them among the mountains of Scotland than to return to France." The next glimpse we have of this protesting Hugh, he is importuning "his young chieftain (Clanranald) ing his dirk, his foot beating impatiently on to go ashore immediately, and raise as many the deck, the Prince saw before him the final men as might be sufficient to guard the plea by which he could overcome. Turning Prince's person!" Thus Charles played suddenly towards the agitated youth, "You upon them as a musician on his strings. at least will help me?" he said. Such an ap- They could not resist the contagion of his peal could only have been made by a man high spirit and chivalrous trust in them. himself still thrilling with the self-abandon- | What were lives or lands in comparison to |