In the Scottish College at Paris were deposited several manuscripts relating to the unfortunate Mary, which, in all probability, have been destroyed during the French Revolution, with many other valuable documents. It is said that when the celebrated David Hume last visited that city, the Principal shewed him some of these important manuscripts, and asked why he had written so unfavourably of the Queen, without having previously consulted them? The Principal then put some original letters into his hand, upon reading which the historian burst into tears. Mary, in her opinion of her own sex, seems to have materially differed from Selden, who, in his TableTalk, observes, "That men are not troubled to hear men dispraised, because they know that, though one be naught, there is still worth in others: but women are mightily troubled to hear any of themselves spoken against, as if the sex itself were guilty of some unworthiness;" for when one of the Cecil family, a minister to Scotland from England, in Mary's reign, was speaking of the wisdom of his Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, Mary stopped him short by saying, Seigneur Chevalier, ne me parlez jamais de la sagesse d'une femme; je connois bien mon sexe, la plus sage de nous toutes n'est qu'un peu moins sotte que les autres." 66 How well Mary understood Latin will appear from the following impromptu, which she wrote in her way to Fo theringay Castle, when within the power of her savage rival. Stopping for a few hours at Buxton, with her diamond ring she wrote on a pane of glass at the inn where she halted, Buxtona, quæ calidæ celebraris nomine lymphæ, Forte mihi posthac non adeunda, vale! How sweet a poet she was will also appear from the following affecting verses, which she wrote, as she saw for the last time the coast of France, when she was coming over to Scotland, and which seem prophetic of her future misery. Adieu, plaisant pays de France! O ma patrie La plus chérie, Qui as nourri ma jeune enfance; Adieu, France! adieu nos beaux jours! N'a eu de moi que la moitié ; Une partie te reste, elle est tienne; Je la fie a ton amitié, Pour que de l'autre il te souvienne. For the gratification of the reader curious in such matters, I am indebted to a literary friend in Scotland for the following copy of the first letter which this unhappy Princess ever wrote in English: "Master Knoleis, y hauu har sum news from Scotland, y send zou to da the double of them. Y wreit to the Quin my gud sister, and pray zou to do the lyk conforme to that y spak zesternicht unto zou, and sut 68 MARY'S FIRST LETTER. hasti ansur y refer all to zour discretion, and will lipne beter in zour gud dalin for me nor y con persuad zou nemli in this langasg excus mi ivel wretein, for y nevver used it afor, and am hasted ze schal si mi bel whiulk is opne it is sed Saterday mi unfrinds wil be vth zou y sey nothing but trast weil, and ze send one to zour wiff zo may asur her schu wald a bin welcome to a pur stranger hua nocht bien aquainted with her wil notch bi over bald to wreit bot for the aquantans betwix ous, y wil send zou litle tokne to rember zou of the gud hop y hauu in zou ques ze send a met messager y wald wysh ze bestouded it reder upon her nor ain uder, thus after my commendations y prey God hauu zou in his kipin. Your asurede gud frind, Excus my ivel wretein the furst time. MARIE R. James the Fifth, the father of Mary, when he was dying at Falkland, of a broken heart, on account of the miscarriage at Solway Moss, predicted the disasters that impended over her and Scotland, "It came," said he, "with a woman," (alluding to the family of Stuart having obtained the crown by marrying into the family of Bruce,) " and it will be lost by one." To return to Holyroodpalace. This palace is of a square form. The western or principal front is heavy and gloomy, consisting of two double towers, connected by a gallery, surrounded by a ballustrade, in the middle of which is a handsome portico, adorned with four Doric columns, which support a cupola in the form of an imperial crown, under which is a clock, and over the gateway are the royal arms of Scotland, as borne before the Union. The front to the east is very light and elegant; it consists of three stories; between the windows of the first are pilasters of the Doric order; between those of the second, pilasters of the Ionic; and between those of the third are an equal number of the Corinthian. The greater part of the present palace was designed by Sir William Bruce, a distinguished architect in the reign of Charles II. executed by Robert Mylne, who has a monument erected to his memory in the burying-ground of the antient monastery adjoining. Close to the palace stand the remains of the chapel or church of Holyrood-house, the last relict of the wealthy abbey of that name. From the appearance of the ruins, the observer cannot fail to conclude that the chapel must have been a beautiful specimen of the Gothic architecture.. James II. of England, repaired and fitted it up with considerable taste and splendour; a throne was erected for the Sovereign, twelve stalls for the Knights of the Order of the Thistle, and an organ; and Mass was performed with great solemnity, a celebration which induced the people, at the Revolution, in their fury against popery, to spoil it of all its ornaments, and to leave it a naked pile: with the same sacrilegious rage which characterised the early phrensy of the French Revolution, they tore open the graves of the royal and illustrious dead interred within its walls. The reader will be as vexed to hear as I am to report, that this beautiful building owes its ruin more to the ignorance of an architect than to the barbarous zeal of an infuriated mob. At the instance of the Duke of Hamilton, the hereditary Keeper of the Palace, the Barons of the Exchequer issued a sum of money for repairing it; the walls were infirm with the age of six hundred years, and, instead of raising a slight roof, the sapient architect formed a massy one of flag-stones, which fell in on the 2d of December, 1768. The great eastern Gothic window fell so recently as in the severe winter of 1795. The belfry at the west end is tolerably entire. The remains of Lord Belhaven, who opposed the Union of the two kingdoms in a very eloquent, and, at the time, a much-celebrated speech, were interred within the roofless walls of the chapel. The environs of the palace are a sanctuary for insolvent debtors. That a pile of building should be capable of extending protection to any one against the just claims of the suffering creditor, that it should erect a barrier against the law, is disgraceful to the government in which such privileges are permitted to exist. Adjoining to the palace is an extensive park, the appearance of which would naturally confirm an Englishman, especially had he entered Scotland by Berwick, in the suspicions which he had been taught to entertain of |