worship according to the rites of the Romish church. The manner however in which this last law was inforced, while it evinces their zeal, proves them at the same time to have been not less strangers to the principles of toleration and humanity, than the tyrants whose yoke they had just thrown off.

Their new scheme of ecclesiastical polity was adjusted, chiefly, under the influence and by the authority of Knox. Already from their own observation of the abuses of the Popish prelacy sufficiently disinclined to episcopacy, they were farther goaded by that Reformer, who during his residence at Geneva had viewed with admiration the churchregimen established by Calvin, to adopt the Presbyterian system of discipline. Yet was it not deemed expedient, in the outset, to depart altogether from the ancient form. Instead of Bishops, their great leader proposed to establish ten or twelve Superintendents in different parts of the kingdom; with power, as their name implied, to inspect the lives and doctrine of the inferior clergy, to preside in the inferior judicatories of the church, and to perform several other parts of the episcopal function. And in order to give greater strength and consistency to his system, Knox with the assistance of some other pastors drew up the First Book of Discipline,' which contained the model or platform of

*Their jurisdiction, however, was confined to sacred things. They neither claimed a seat in parliament, nor asserted any pretension to the dignity of the former Bishops.

+ The compilers of this work paid particular attention to the state of education. They required, that a school should be built in every parish for the instruction of youth in the principles of religion, grammar, and the Latin tongue; and pro

the intended policy, and presented it to a convention of the estates held in the beginning of the year 1561.

In the course of this year, Mary Queen of Scots* arrived in her native country, from which, though she was now only nineteen, she had been absent thirteen years; and, on the Sunday after her arrival, she commanded mass to be celebrated in the royal chapel.

posed that a College should be erected in every notable town,' in which logic and rhetoric should be taught along with the learned languages. Thus they seem, in fact, to have meditated a revival of the system adopted by some of the ancient republics, in which the youth were considered as the property of the community rather than of their parents; obliging the nobility and the gentry to educate their children, and furnishing means for the instructing of such of the lower classes as discovered talents for learning,

It is delightful to observe the restoration of religion and letters thus going hand in hand. Every where indeed the Reformation had the most powerful influence, direct and collateral, on the general promotion of literature. It roused the mind from it's long lethargy and servility, induced the study of the sacred languages, threw open the Scriptures, discarded the unintelligible jargon of the schools, and admitted common sense to exercise it's due sway in the decision of controversies.

*Widow of Francis II. King of France. Sargent has attached to the common editions of his Mine' an Ode upon her journey, in which Knox and Cromwell are strikingly characterised. Brantome, also, has a pathetic passage upon the circumstances, which attended the first few miles of her voyage. Of a violent temper, and habits at once dissipated and superstitious, the growth of the Court of France, she speedily betrayed the disgust which she conceived for her natural subjects. "How sone that ever her French fillokes, fidlars, and otheris of that band gat the hous alone (says Knox, in his Historie ') thair mycht be sene skipping not veray comelie for honest women. Her comune talk was in secrete, that'sche saw nothing in Scot land bot gravity, quite repugned altogidder to her nature, for sche was brocht up in joyeusetie.""

This step occasioned loud murmurs among the Protestants, who attended the court; and Knox with his accustomed boldness declared from the pulpit, that one mass was more fearful unto him, than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the realm, on purpose to suppress the whole religion!' The animosity of the people indeed against Popery, aggravated by their apprehensions of seeing it restored, was so vehement, that the Queen's servants belonging to the chapel were grossly insulted; and farther violence in all probability would have ensued, had not the Prior of St. Andrew's, one of the heads of the Reformed party, seasonably interposed. Through his persuasion, chiefly, the Queen and her domestics were permitted to enjoy the exercise of their religion unmolested. But Knox's freedom of speech was not so readily forgiven. Mary sent for him, and they held a long conference* together, in the presence of her half-brother, the Prior of St. Andrew's, upon different subjects; in the course of which, in answer to her charge, that he had written a work against her just authority,' he told her, that as Plato, though in his book of the Commonwealth' he condemned many things then maintained in the world, lived notwithstanding under such policies as were at that time universally received, without farther troubling of any state; even so was he content to do, in uprightness of heart, and with a testimony of a good conscience.'

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* Of this conference, Dr. M'Crie has preserved a very curious and interesting account, II. 30-39. The Reformer's sentiments, though firm and earnest, were conveyed in a tone and manner implying the utmost respect; and furnishes abundant proof that the character and deportment of Knox has in nothing been more grossly misrepresented, than in the assertion that he treated his Sovereign with coarseness and incivility.

"And my hope is," continued he, "that so long as you defile not your hand with the blood of the saints of God, neither I nor my book shall either hurt you or your authority; for in very deed, Madam, the book was written against that wicked Jezebel (Mary) of England."

But his firm and uncourtly manner was not calculated to gain upon her mind, nor is there reason to think, that an opposite manner would have been more effectual. His admonitions, however, obliged her to act with greater moderation, and operated most beneficially in awakening the zeal and the fears of the nation, the two chief safeguards at that period of Caledonian protestantism.*

* That she designed to restore the Roman Catholic religion in Scotland, is a fact substantiated by many irrefragable authorities. See M'Crie's Life of Knox, II. note H. 303. This, Hume, for the purpose of misrepresenting the conduct of the Reformers toward her, assiduously keeps out of sight. His whole account indeed of the matter, from her arrival in Scotfand until her marriage with Darnley, is to be regarded as an overcharged satire against not only the Reformation, but also the church and the manners of his native country. Knox never applied to her the name of Jezebel,' till she had ceased to have any claim upon his respect in her political capacity, as the Supreme Magistrate of the realm. And it is so far from being true (according to this subtile advocate of the Stuarts) that "her whole life was, from the demeanour of these men, filled with bitterness and sorrow," that as Dr. M. observes, she retained all "her gayety and ease," till by her imprudent marriage with Darnley she with her own hands planted thorns under her pillow. Her mass was never taken from her: she was allowed to indulge her feasting and her finery; nor was she ever interrupted in these amusements, except when her own husband deprived her of her favourite Italian fiddler, a loss for which she afterward took ample vengeance. That she brought from the dissolute court of France, indeed, nothing but the innocent polish of their

In 1562, beside various other mediations imposed upon him both of a public and a domestic nature, he was employed in reconciling the Earls of Bothwell and Arran; a circumstance which, as the feud had already baffled the authority of the Privy Council, proves how much he was regarded by the most eminent persons in the kingdom. The same year, the Queen learnt, with high satisfaction, that her uncles were likely to recover their former interest at the court of France. Knox hearing of her behaviour, and apprehending that the re-instatement of her relations would operate to the prejudice of the Reformed Faith, delivered a sermon against the ignorance and vanity of princes, and their antipathy to virtue, and to all those in whom the love of virtue appeared. This and other expressions, in reproof of dancing for joy at the displeasure taken against God's people, coming to the ears of the Queen, her Majesty summoned him to a second conference. At the close of it he added (in a strain, which he sometimes used even on serious occasions) "Albeit at your Grace's commandment I am here now, yet can I not tell what other men shall judge of me, that at this time of day am absent from my book, and waiting upon the court!" You will not always be at your book," said the Queen pettishly, and turned her back. As he left the room ⚫ with a reasonable merry countenance,' some of the

manners, and escaped all it's criminal contagion,' is an assertion contradicted even by the confessions of her own friends. Hume himself owned, in his letter to Dr. Robertson, that his grand object was, to make "John Knox, and the Reformers, very ridiculous;" and that with this view, he had "drawn Mary's character with too great softenings." She was, besides, a crafty dissembler. (See M'Crie, II. 80-82.)

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