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" to the equity of our cause and to the " cruel pursuit of the tyranniful enemy." After the assassination of Beaton, in 1546, it is true, the time did come in Scotland-first during the continued regency of Arran till 1554, and then during the regency of the Queen-mother, Mary of Guise, from that date onwards -when the Reformation made strong its political connexions. Out of the medley of interests one after another attached itself to this as the progressive cause; this and that noble either threw his weight into it for the first time, or came back to it reassured; and so it devolved on a politico-religious league of nobles and other men of note, styling themselves "the Lords and Brethren of the Congregation," and opposing the Queen-mother and her French troops, to finish the business by a bout of negotiation and of civil war, to cut the connexion between Scotland and the Papacy, and to tumble down the already undermined edifice of the Romish system and worship within the land. In this, however, there took place only what must take place anywhere when a similar revolution has to be effected, and what took place largely enough in the Germanic empire, where the Reformation originated, and in other countries where it spread. I believe also that Scotland presented, even in this stage of the revolution, almost an exceptional instance of the overpowering effect of individual exertions by men of the spiritual order, and of the dispersed popular energy, upon the general conduct of the movement. There were the resolute preachers the Roughs, the Willocks, the Methvens and others-keeping the doctrines alive for which Hamilton and Wishart had died, and shaping them into the form which nobles and lairds

had to accept as their creed, and did accept more or less earnestly; and, above all, from 1555, when Knox returned from his first exile of eight years, there was his vehement spirit, which never feared the face of man, leading, advising, rousing, standing unabashed amid lords and earls, and swaying them right and left. Once again, indeed, Knox left his

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native land for a time, as too hot to hold him, and, pursued by a sentence of interdict and outlawry, settled pastor in Geneva. Even in exile, however, he continued to be a power among his countrymen; and, in the "Appellation" which he sent over, in 1558, "from the cruel and most unjust sentence pronounced against him by the false Bishops and Clergy of Scotland," we see that he at least did not consider the Reformation a matter only of aristocratic concern. After appealing to "the "Queen-Regent, estates, and nobility, " as the chief heads for this present of "the realm," and requiring of them that, "in public preaching" he might again "have place among them at large "to utter his mind," he addresses a special appeal to the same effect to "the Commonalty" as such. "Neither would "I," he there says, "that you should "esteem the reformation and care of "religion less to appertain to you "because you are not kings, rulers, "judges, nobles, nor in authority. Be"loved brethren, you are God's creatures, "created and formed in His image and "similitude, for whose redemption the "most precious blood of the only"beloved Son of God was shed, to "whom He has commanded His gospel "and glad tidings to be preached, and "for whom He has prepared the "heavenly inheritance, so that you do "not obstinately refuse, and disdainfully "contemn the means which He has "appointed to obtain the same-namely, "His blessed gospel, which he now "offers you to the end that ye may be "saved. For the gospel and glad tidings "of the Kingdom, truly preached, is "the power of God to the salvation of

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finally returned in 1559, were these words forgotten. He stood by the commonalty then, and they stood by him. In sermon and in counsel he spoke his mind to "my lord Duke, his grace, with his friends"-i. e. to Arran, now Duke of Chatelherault, who had come over once more to head the Reforming side, and to the aristocratic following who had come with him-in language which conveyed but a sorry impression of their real worth to a cause which had made its first progress without them, and of which he prophesied that, "whatever should become of the mortal carcases of himself and others, it would, "in "despite of Sathan, prevail in the realm " of Scotland." And so, in the last triumph of that cause, the commonalty did contribute, if only by those iconoclastic tumults which then, as now, formed the only mode of expression open to a commonalty as such, and which, in this case, were so violent that he had to check them.

So completely in the teeth of all prior accounts of the Scottish Reformation is Mr. Buckle's assertion respecting it that what the old Presbyterian historians of Scotland always guard against is an accusation exactly the reverse. "Adversaries would have it believed," says the old Presbyterian historian, Stevenson, in his introduction to his History of the Church and State of Scotland, "that this "Reformation was tumultuary and effec"tuated by the dregs of the people, " without any lawful call; but, granting, "for the sake of argument, that the "populace were the great, or, let us suppose, the only instruments of the "Reformation, that had been their glory, "not their shame. For, when the safety of the whole is in danger, "nature teacheth," &c. In short, the poor old gentleman goes on to argue that the commonalty had right and reason to do as they did; and then he adds, with all his industry, out of the peerage-book and baronage-book of Scotland, such a list of earls, lords, lesser barons and gentlemen, notable partisans of the Reformation, as might, he thinks, prove that the movement was not wholly No. 22.-vOL. IV.

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plebeian. Had he foreseen the advent of Mr. Buckle as an interpreter of Scottish history, he might have saved himself, the trouble.

Whatever was the historical process of the Scottish Reformation, its character and its effects, as an achieved fact, were singularly democratic. I do not know how it is, but very few Englishmen seem to be aware of the immense, the almost preponderant, share of power and influence assigned to the popular or lay element in the constitution of the Kirk of Scotland. The Kirk of Scotland, as Knox designed it, and as it has always been, except in intervals of compulsory change to Episcopacy, never was an organization of clergymen only, but of clergymen and representative laymen. Takethe First Book of Discipline, prepared by Knox and his associates as a standard for the rule and government of the new Kirk, and what do you find? That, with the exception of certain leading clergymen, who were to act as superintendents of districts or provinces - but who were carefully discriminated from the bishops of the old system-all the clergy were to be equal as ministers of parishes and congregations; that "it "appertaineth to the people and to every "singular congregation to elect their "minister;" that this right of every several congregation "to have their " votes and suffrages in the election of "ministers" must be carefully conserved, and that, in order to its due exercise, if it should chance that, by the neglect of a congregation to elect a minister for themselves, it should devolve on the superintendent and his council to name one for them, then the person so named should appear and expound before the congregation, that they might judge of him, and accept or reject him. Moreover, in every parish or congregation there was to be, besides the minister, a certain number, varying with circumstances, of laymen, styled "elders and deacons," selected once a year from the parishioners or congregation by the minister and the people between them, as "men of best knowledge of God's Word and cleanest life." These

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were to be ecclesiastical office-bearers

along with the minister, forming a kind of court with him for transacting the church-business of the parish, but also assisting him in the work of reading, teaching, and religious admonition. Nay more, these laymen, the parish-assessors of the minister, were also to have a right of vigilance over him. They were to "take heed to his life, manners, diligence, and study;" "if he be worthy "of admonition they must admonish "him; of correction, they must correct "him; and, if he be worthy of depo"sition, they, with consent of the "Kirk and Superintendent, may depose "him," the manner of process in this extreme case being indicated, and the faithfulness of the elders and deacons to their general duty of vigilance farther secured by their obligation once a year to report to the superintendent of the conduct of their minister and even of his family. Although these ordinances of Knox and his associates for the government of the Kirk which they had founded fell into abeyance in this exact form, they remained as a tradition; and, when the Kirk was fully formed, not only was the parity of the clergy among themselves more stringently secured by the abolition of the Superintendents, but a more regular organization was given also to that systematic conjunction of the lay-element with the clerical, in the entire working and procedure of the Kirk, which Knox had prescribed. The Kirk-session, or local ecclesiastical court in every parish, still consisted of the minister and several lay-elders; the Presbytery, or ecclesiastical court for each cluster of contiguous parishes, consisted also of lay-elders along with the ministers; the Synod, or ecclesiastical court for alarge province or district of country, actually. contained a preponderance of lay-elders; and the General Assembly, or national ecclesiastical Parliament, consisted of deputies from the Presbyteries, both lay and clerical, though here with an excess of the clerical. Recollecting all this, one is surely entitled to say that the Reformation in Scotland, whatever it

may have been in its origin, was hugely democratic in its issue. Mr. Buckle's assertion is that the people of Scotland have been perhaps the most priest-ridden people on the face of the earth. Should he ever do his work over again, I would advise him to try a somewhat different assertion, and say that, of all clergies on the face of the earth, the clergy of Scotland have been and are the most people-ridden. The assertion might be able to rest itself in a deeper show of facts, and much more might be made of it as a key to the past history and the present intellectual state of Scotland.

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I do not yet make the assertion myself. That part of my task where it would be necessary to explain in what sense it might be made, is yet to come. moving on to a point where I shall be able to express a good deal of agreement with Mr. Buckle. But between that point and the point which even now I have reached there intervenes still a tract over which I have to accuse him, as hitherto, of historical misrepresentation, of most meagre philosophy in some essential matters, of unjust vilification of men whose bones have long been under the earth in many a Scottish moor, hill-side, and kirkyard, but whose souls, though tongueless to answer him, yet live in us and about us. This kind of criticism is not to my taste. I hope I am one of those who, in literature, have come to the conclusion that it is best, in most cases, never to mind what is done, as one thinks, wrongly by others, but only to do as well as one can oneself. I know also that this writing about the peculiarities of a country which one may be supposed to care for personally more than enough, is apt to nauseate if long continued. But there are cases in which direct opposition is necessary; and the English, loving their own country and its fair fame, are too generous a people to resent even a little excess of speech in their hearing in defence of another, if only the defence shall seem to be called for and to be not uncandidly undertaken.

323

IN PRAISE OF GRANDMOTHERS.

OF dear old things, what one is dearer than a dear old granny?

Not that the subject of my praise need wait till she be downright old to merit it. You, yourself, good reader, have sometimes seen, as I have, and with the same admiration of her still winsome beauty, a young grandmother.

Pink bud and fragrant flower and palegold fruit, upon one lemon-bough, in an Italian summer, group not among the green leaves in more complete and yet suggestive harmony than do the sweet faces of three generations-the baby girl's, her girlish mother's, and the mother's of the girl-wife-among the nestling greeneries of an English home. Not that I forbid my reader's imagination or his memory to cross Tweed northwards, or the Bristol Channel towards the west. I do not lay embargo upon any ship of thought or fancy, adventuring beyond the four seas of Great Britain, to seek for such a group among the tableaux - vivants of the world. Painted where it may be by Nature's hand, the picture has a special and a constant charm. But the fresh hues, the cool tones, the delicate play of lights and shadows, which are wanted for its perfection, are found most often under our own moist and fitful skies. Where the fierce kisses of the sunbeam bring out even the pale juice of the lemon in gold upon its rugged skin, granny's cheek tans and wrinkles early and deep. It will only show in startling contrast against the young mother's and her new-born child's. I do not forget what attractions such contrast has for an artistic eye. And, in themselves, the features of the Southern granddame, grooved, lapped, and folded, and burnt bistre-brown, will often have a weird magnificence. Maybe, no more than seventy summers have wrought the texture and colour of face, neck, and arms, to what we see them; yet, in looking on her, we seem to feel that centuries are long, more

vividly than when we gaze upon the sun-stained marble ruins among which her sheep browse, or upon the ribbed rind of the cork - tree, under whose shade she spins. She has strange eyes, by times-not bleared nor dim, but glowing, in their undiscerned depth, as if with stored heats of all those bygone summers. "Old" is not the word for her. She is antiquity alive. Do you not recognize her? Joab fetched her from Tekoah, because she was "a wise woman." That turbulent soldier-son of Zeruiah felt that a craftier physiognomist than he should scan the angry countenance of David for traces of relenting over Absalom. Those lank arms, desperate, locked Polyxene to those dried breasts; those elf locks, ashen grey, shook at impassible Ulysses, who would lead the maiden to the place of blood! Blood! Ay, those crooked, almost palsied, fingers were dyed red in it, when the false Thracian, that had done her boy to death, fell into her vengeful trap.

Her gait totters not under its load of years-pride steadies it as she leads the line of women towards the enemy's camp. Let others-Roman matrons, too, his own Volumnia with them-weep and tremble for the fear of him whom they would bend; it is otherwise with Veturia, his own mother. True,

"That, like an eagle in a dovecote, he Fluttered their Volscians in Corioli;"

But the eaglet was of her own brood, and her own breast had hatched his bravery. She was no dove, that his stern eye should flutter her. How grand the story reads in Livy! Coriolanus would kiss her withered cheek: "Hold "off! Will an enemy's lips touch it, or

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a son's? Am I captive or mother in "this tent? Had I never known birth

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father's bold eyes-clinging to Volumnia's gown, yet half-inclined to go toy with the weapons hanging on the tentpole-open those bold eyes wide upon thy grandmother! Thou shalt not hereafter persuade the citizens of Rome, it may be, to do full justice, and to consecrate their chapel of commemoration "Fortunæ Anili," rather than "Fortunæ Muliebri," as its dedication runs. Yet none in Rome shall dare to sneer at an "old woman" in thy hearing when thou art grown a man. "Fortunæ Muliebri," "To the Luck of Ladies;" it was, perhaps, something that Roman ædiles found heart of grace to write up even that!

All very good in its way, and wholesome castigation, I doubt not, for citizens of Livian Rome; yet I maintain that, in full honesty, the legend on the shrine should have been made to run "Fortunæ Anili," - "To the luck of Ladies-dowager."

No, my dear madam! Excuse me; though I am a married man, as you justly say, and "might know better." His mother, not his wife, saved Rome. Volumnia would have let him kiss away her tears, reserving to herself the right of a curtain lecture, when the tent curtain should have dropped upon the deputation, though the tent itself should still have stood pitched in enmity against the gate of Rome. Depend upon it, now that she was once more with Coriolanus, she would cling to him outside Rome or in. But Veturia's frown! the striking of the Volscian camp alone could chase its thundercloud away. "Fortunæ Anili" would have told the truth exactly-"Sacred to the luck of Ladies-dowager." I doubt if ever, spite of Coriolanus, those pagan ancients rose to the right appreciation of grannies. Small wonder, if Horace fail to sing their praise, to give them "suas laudes;" but I can hardly pardon Cicero.

The pagan rhymester of graceful or disgraceful revelries might well ignore the "sua laus" of womanhood, which withers not with age. When only lees are left in emptied amphoræ, when rosegarlands lie leafless on trampled mossbanks, when barbiton-strings are cracked,

and the notes of the girlish voice that trilled to them, then all is over with the toy that he calls woman. Haghood sets in at once, as the dark Italian night falls suddenly, without a gloaming, upon the roseate sky. Forthwith, out of her love-grot, Pyrrha comes, a crook-backed Canidia, to grope among graves and ruins for other charms than those she lost but now. Long centuries of Christendom must pass, to leaven all the lump of human thought and feeling, before a Bacchanalian bard can set a chaste love-ditty to the piping of a granny's treble, and breathe a tenderness that "Thracian Chloe's" passion knew not, into the crooning of "Auld Jean" by her ingle

"John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is bald, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;
And mony a cantie day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither.
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go;
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo."

Well, I forgive the little blear-eyed sipper of Mæcenas's best Falernian. Let him sing rustic joys in couplets of town polish, lolling on purple cushions, at the most recherché dinner-table in Rome. He never was the man to glorify grannies; no, not he. But how shall I pardon Marcus Tullius Cicero ?

It was but yesterday that I took up again, with fresh delight, his essay "On Old Age." How comely are his greybeards, who discourse thereon in good rough Roman language, shaped off by rule of the new-learnt Greek rhetoric! What excellent company are those veterans of well-fought fields! Nestors of debate in a senate still worthy of its name; reverend oracles of the grave college of augurs! Had their talk taken us nowhither with them save into camp, or parliament, or college, we might never have missed what we do miss at

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