footsteps still remain impressed upon the dust.1 Then did the servant claim to be discharged of his oath, saying: 'See, my lord, hitherto I have pointed out to your pious desire the stations of Christ upon earth; what remaineth beyond I cannot do, seeing that here he took flight into heaven.' When he heard this the knight burst into tears, with groaning of the heart, and prostrated himself on the ground, placing his mouth in the dust that he might obtain hope from the Eternal Love. Rising erect at length and gazing to heaven with streaming eyes: 'O God,' said he, 'Thou didst undergo in this land a pilgrimage of labour and sorrow for my salvation, and I, coming hither out of love for Thee, have followed the ways of Thy holy journey up to this place; even as I believe that Thou didst here leave the world and go to the Father, so command that here my soul may be received into peace.' Thus saying, he paid the debt of nature and went to rest in Christ. The aforesaid bishop related another thing, how that between the place of Olivet (where the Lord replied to the chiding Jews: "If these should hold their peace, the very stones will cry out') and the gate of Jerusalem (which he entered for his passion, seated upon an ass), you could not lift a pebble and break it without finding within it the likeness of a human tongue, that, as is evident, the Creator's word may be fulfilled. It pleases me to add in this place what ought to have found a convenient place in the beginning of this eighth part, forasmuch as it happened at that time, although I did not receive timely notice of this matter. Now there lived in the city of Milan a celebrated man named Francis, abounding in riches, intent upon usury, and, which is worst of all things, contumaciously disdaining to pay tithes to God and the Church. The rector of the parish, taking no notice for a while in hopes of amendment, at length became so incensed by this [conduct] that he pronounced sentence [of excommunication] against him, and demanded without delay papal letters confirmatory of the published sentence. But while the rebel was biting his lips and uttering threats, one of these days, he invited the parson of the church, half in spite and half in jest, to dine with him. The other declined this, unless he would comply with the commands of the Church. Suspend the sword of sentence for the nonce,' said he [Francis], and come, so that I may be able to confer 1 Mandeville (ob.1372) states that in his time the imprint of the left foot still remained on the stone. reasonably with you.' When they had sat down to a splendid banquet, having the servants in attendance to wait upon them, the man of wavering faith said: "Sir rector, why should I care for the vexation of your sentence, seeing that I possess all that you behold, and soundness of heart to book? But if you would compel me to believe that your malediction can avail to do me hurt, curse that white bread placed before you, that I may see what virtue may be in your authority.' Whereupon, while the man of the Church was disquieted in conscience as being unworthy because of his own character, and the other as a reprobate insisted, lest the faith should suffer reproach, he stretched forth his hand, trusting in the goodness of God, and said boldly, ‘On behalf of Almighty God and by authority of the most high Pontiff, I place thee, oh bread, prepared for the use of that rebel, under the ban of anathema!' No sooner was this spoken than the bread displayed a smoky hue and the cracks of staleness. When the impenitent1 man saw this, he exclaimed in terror: 'Since you have shown sufficiently what you can effect by cursing, I now beg that you will show me what power you have in absolving. Then the ecclesiastic, made more confident through the grace granted to him, by the same power restored the bread to its original appearance. The layman, in consequence, immediately feeling sorrow and devotion said: How long is it, sir father, that I have defrauded God and the Church, yea, and my own soul also, of what was due in tithes ? '—' . said the other. 'Then,' said he [Francis], 'I offer satisfaction for my rebellion; moreover I entreat for solemn absolution in presence of the clergy, and I now endow the church over which you preside with an annual rent of twenty marks.' This said, they both rise from table and hasten to the parish church; and the bells being rung, clergy and people hurry in, and, when the occasion has been explained, the priors of the Church perform the desired absolution. At that very hour, certain clerics, who afterwards informed me of the circumstances, travelling from Scotland to Bologna, entered the city. Dismounting from their horses they hastened thither still fasting, to witness and marvel [at the event]. In the same year died Alan de Mora, about Eastertide, and Sir John of Galloway, formerly Prior of Lanercost. 5 1 Imperitus in Stevenson's text, probably a misreading for impenitens. 2 Blank in original. 5 Resigned with a pension 3 Personatis campanis. 1283, ob. 1289. 4 To the church. 2 1 In the same year died Dervorgilla de Balliol, about whom H. said: Thy peace, oh King of Kings! may we implore These verses are inscribed upon her tomb. In the same year [1293] died John of Kirkby. In the twenty-first year of the king's reign, about the feast of S. Michael, the king's daughter, Eleanor, was given in marriage to Henry, Comte de Bar, by whom he had a son, Edward, and a daughter whom Earl John de Warenne took to wife. In the same year there was granted to King Edward of England a half of their goods by the clergy, a sixth by the citizens, and a tenth part by the rest of the people as a subsidy for his war in Gascony. In this year there was a great scarcity of victual in England, and the suffering poor were dying of hunger. In the twenty-fourth year of this king's reign (1296), his daughter Elizabeth was married to John, son of the Count of Holland, at whose death Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, married her. At the same time Pope Boniface bestowed the archbishopric of Dublin upon William de Hopume, giving him indulgence to be consecrated by any Catholic bishop wheresoever he chose. This William was Provincial Prior of the Order of FriarsPreachers and a Master in Theology; he was jocund in speech, mild in conversation, sincerely religious, and acceptable in the eyes of all men. Having travelled with the king to Flanders, he there received the rite of consecration from my Lord 1 Daughter and co-heiress of Alan, Lord of Galloway, married John de Balliol the Elder, and was mother of John Balliol, King of Scots. She built Sweetheart Abbey (Abbacia Dulcis Cordis) in her husband's memory, causing his heart to be embalmed and placed in a 'cophyne' of ebony and silver which she kept constantly beside her. When she died in 1290 it was buried beside her according to her instructions. 8 29th September. 2 In Dervorvilla moritur sensata Sibilla, Antony of Durham, by whose mediation on the part of the English and the Duke of Brittany's on the part of the French, a truce was arranged between the kings. [The chronology of these later paragraphs has been dislocated in compilation.] (To be continued.) Reviews of Books SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE, KING'S ADVOCATE, OF ROSEHAUGH. His Life and Times, 1636?-1691. By Andrew Lang. Pp. x, 347. Pp. x, 347. With four illustrations. Med. 8vo. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1908. 15s. nett. MR. ANDREW LANG has of late been performing a useful function. It is not exactly that of the Devil's Advocate, for this personage deals only with saints, and his duty is to throw doubts upon their reputation for sanctity-such work he has indeed done, but he has also taken up the cause of the sinners, and if he seeks to show that the former are not without their failings, he discovers for us unsuspected virtues in certain of the latter, who have been in many cases the victims of popular and partisan prejudice. At all events he endeavours to prove that they have not always been so black as they are painted. Sir George Mackenzie is one of those men who have been very generally condemned without much of a hearing. According to popular history, which still continues to flow from the Press, he deserves the epithet which has been prefixed to his name. It is sufficient that he was the public prosecutor under and the legal adviser of the Government to which is justly attributed the many cruelties which mark the period between the Restoration and the Revolution. If the fact be recalled, that he was a gentleman of broad and philosophical views, with some pretensions to literature, it only serves to leave him without excuse as one whose practice did not square with his theories, and who, to serve his own worldly ambitions, did much cruel and ignoble work. While Claverhouse and other rude soldiers performed the actual shedding of blood, it was this cunning lawyer (they say) who was mainly answerable for sending the saints to the scaffold. He has even been held chiefly responsible for the introduction of torture to extract the truth from suspected persons.' The fact that he defended Argyll and other covenanters only affords proof that he was a turncoat. Sir Walter Scott, in one of the finest passages he ever wrote, has well enlisted the popular sympathy, depicting him amidst a group of infernal ghosts joining in their ghastly revelries. Mackenzie, the author of the Religious Stoic-the friend of Evelyn and Dryden-is remembered in Scotland as an unprincipled lawyer-a torturer of covenanters and witches, and a man so fond of blood, that the very manner of his death exhibited Heaven's testimony to the fact. It was certainly his misfortune to have been born and lived his life in Scotland during the seventeenth century. He passed away just as that |