voured by sending unto the said Bacon to know what is done for her, and instead of satisfaction, have received an insolent letter of contempt, penned after his proud manner of writing, -my husband nor my brother knowing nothing, as being secluded and thrust out from all privity of dealing therein,I am forced to beseech your Lordship to let me know what order is taken for her. And thus being sorry I have such cause to complain of his bad dealing, whom your Lordship heretofore recommended to me, and whose folly hath lately more abounded in procuring the said Cunstabell to be knighted, being of himselfa man of very mean estate,-whereby he hath taken all ordinary means of thriving from him,craving pardon for my boldness, I humbly take my leave. From Drury Lane, this 28th of November, 1607.

"Your Lordship's poor well willer to my best power, < DOROTHE PAKINGTON.'

In these remarks we have endeavoured to clear the fame of Lord Salisbury from the groundless imputations cast upon it by the biographers and admirers of Essex, Raleigh, and the Bacons. In the absence of all evidence to the contrary, it has been found an easy task to account for the failings and misfortunes of these eminent men by attributing them to the intrigues and the selfishness of Cecil. It has been presumed that, in the collection of his papers at Hatfield, proofs might be found to confirm these imputations, though Dr. Haynes, who edited a portion of them, had distinctly stated more than a century ago, that the noble Lord, who gave him free access to these manuscripts and leave to publish them, had never desired him to suppress unfavourable statements, and was 'as far from requiring any such management of the character of his great ancestor, as his ancestor was from standing in need of it.' The remark is strictly true, whether

applied to the father or the son; and historians may disabuse themselves of the notion, so freely indulged in, that the papers at Hatfield contain evidence unfavourable to the first Earl. The correspondence is full, minute, and explicit. It reveals the whole life of the man, velut in tabula, from day to day and from year to year, without interruption. No portion of it has been suppressed or mutilated to conceal awkward facts, or make the worse appear the better cause. So far from confirming the imputation of selfishness, envy, and secret intrigue in preventing the advancement of his rivals, real or supposed, the whole evidence points the other way. The letters addressed to Sir Robert by those who required his good offices, even when they had done little to deserve his kindness, the continual appeals made to generosity by his political rivals, their friends, their relatives, and their associates, point him out as a man who was both gentle and forgiving, ready to interpose in behalf of those who needed his interposition, open and accessible to pity. Elizabeth, towards the close of her reign, did not grow less exacting of obedience; she was not more inclined to overlook political offences—a severity which might well be forgiven, considering the numerous plots against her life and her reputation, the ingratitude of many, the conspiracies of not a few. If the closing years of her reign were free from bloodshed; if out of those who joined in the treason of Essex-and among them were the Earls of Rutland, Bedford, and Southampton, Lord Sandys, Lord Monteagle, Lord Cromwell, and a hundred and fifty more of the best blood of England-none forfeited their lives except the Earl and a few inferior agents, that result was due to the wisdom and moderation of Cecil. It was the same in the Gunpowder and other plots, during the reign of her successor plots in which more were implicated than the Government thought good to divulge. For it was the cha

racter of this minister to discourage severity, and not drive the guilty to desperation by excluding them from all hope of repentance and forgiveness. If there is any exception to this remark, it is to be found in his treatment of the Roman Catholics, but even here his inclination to tolerance is remarkable. For the matter of priests,' he wrote to James, 'I condemn their doctrine, I detest their conversation, and I foresee the peril which the exercise of their function may bring to this island; only I confess that I shrink to see them die by dozens, when at the last gasp they come so near loyalty; only because I remember that mine own voice, amongst others to the law [for their death] in Parliament was led by no other principle, than that they were absolute seducers of the people from temporal obedience.'9

The world knew him merely as a statesman, and his abilities as a statesman few will deny. But he was not so exclusively a politician or a statesman as his father. He was a man,' as Dr. Birch justly remarks, ' of quicker parts, a more spirited writer and speaker than his father.' His correspondence shows that he had more wit and liveliness, and a more general and genial culture. Weighed down by the cares of State, brought up in more terrible times, Lord Burghley was seldom seen to smile. He never unbosomed himself until the gates of Theobalds were closed upon him. Then, in the companionship of his children, he found himself a child again, entering into their romps and amusements without a thought beyond them. But Robert, his son, though equally attached to his children, unbent himself more freely in the circle of his immediate friends; was warm, generous, and constant in his attachments, and sociable in his companionship; now drinking a friendly glass with Sir George Carew, now smoking with Sir Roger Ashton, the King's Cham

Bruce p. 34. From the Hatfield Papers.

berlain, a friendly pipe, in spite of 'The Counterblast against Tobacco.' But to do adequate justice to his merits, to set his character in its true light, is the province of the biographer and historian, not of the reviewer. What is here said, and much more might be said, may possibly contribute to a juster estimate of this great statesman.

M

THE STUARTS.1

For this splendid monument to the memory of the Stuarts we are indebted to the devotion of a lady. An Englishwoman by birth, an Italian by adoption, as she informs us in her preface, Madame la Marquise Campana de Cavelli combines in herself the opposite characteristics of the two races. To the passionate imagination and enthusiasm of the Italian she unites the conscientious labour and research we are accustomed to appropriate to the natives of our own country. Inspired with a strong and almost romantic sympathy for the Stuarts, or at all events for Mary d'Este, the unhappy consort of James II., as the sole Italian who had ever mounted an English throne, the Marquise has no intention of suffering her feelings to evaporate in useless enthusiasm. Like a thorough Englishwoman, she has set to work to justify her predilections; and we have the result in two magnificent volumes, the first instalment of six, containing letters, journals, portraits, engravings of rare prints and medalseverything, in short, that can throw any light on the manners, the reigns, the exile, the deaths of an unhappy race devoted to misfortune by a sort of inevitable fatality, like the Labdacidæ of old. Beginning at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which the Marquise visited in 1864, and where she seems to have

From the Quarterly Review for July, 1872, under the following heading: Les derniers Stuarts à Saint-Germain-en-Laye; Documents inédits et authentiques prisés aux Archives publiques et privées. Par la Marquise Campana de Cavelli. Paris, 1871. Tomes i. ii. 4to.