"And since we parted?"
"Oh, since we parted, my life has been vulgar enough. I have ransacked civilized life to the bottom, and found it a heap of unredeemed falsehoods. I do not say it from common disappointment, for I may say I succeeded in every thing I undertook."
"Except Miss Temple," I said, interrupting, at the hazard of wounding him.
"No. She was a coquette, and I pursued her till I had my turn. You see me in my new character now. But a month ago, I was the Apollo of Saratoga, playing my own game with Miss Temple. I left her for a woman worth ten thousand of her—but here she is."
As Nunu came up the companionway from the cabin, I thought I had never seen a breathing creature so exquisitely lovely. With the exception of a pair of brilliant moccasins on her feet, she was dressed in the usual manner, but with the most absolute simplicity. She had changed in those five years from the child to the woman, and, with a round and well-developed figure, additional height, and manners at once gracious and dignified, she walked and looked the chieftan's daughter. St. John took her hand, and gazed on her with moisture in his eyes.
"That I could ever put a creature like this," he said, "into comparison with the dolls of civilization!"
We parted at Buffalo—St. John with his wife and the chiefs to pursue their way westward by Lake Erie, and I to go moralizing on my way to Niagara.
In the flourishing periods of the Grecian and Roman commonwealths, the forms of their governments, the state of society, and the passions and manners of the times, were more favorable to the developement of great talents, than have existed in any other age, or among any other people. In Athens and Rome, every citizen was a public man. The great powers of government were exercised by the people themselves in their primary assemblies. The practice of delegating the higher attributes of sovereignty to a small number of persons periodically elected is one of the greatest improvements, which the lights of modern experience have introduced into the constitutions of free governments. The advantages which are gained by this system in favor of internal tranquillity, the steadiness and permanency of political institutions and the security of private rights, can scarcely be estimated too highly, or purchased at too great a price. But nearly in the same proportion as this improvement contributes to the general tranquillity and the personal security of the citizen, does it narrow the field for the operation of great talents. The individual power of each man is hardly felt in the harmonious working of the great machine of government, and its character soon comes to depend much more on the system than on the genius of those by whom it is conducted. Precedents, fixed opinions, long established policy and constitutionalmaxims, throw an invisible net work over those, who are at the head of affairs, which a giant's strength cannot break through. An ordinary share of talent, enlightened by experience, is found to be about as useful in the regular movement of the system, as the highest gifts of genius.
But it was otherwise in the republics of Athens and Rome. There the power of the system was nothing, and the genius of the individual every thing. In the agitations of these popular commonwealths, the great actors on the stage were driven to a life of unremitted exertion. The revolutions of popular favor were sudden and appalling, and always liable to be carried to great extremes. A decisive moment lost might be fatal to the hopes of a whole life. Their powers were, therefore, constantly wound up to the utmost intensity of action. Second rate men, who are abundantly able to go through with the regular and quiet routine of official duty in our modern bureaus, would be quickly blown down by the storms which shook the tribunes of those turbulent democracies. The very imperfections in their political systems contributed to develope the genius of their statesmen, and necessarily called into action every faculty of the mind.
In all free and popular governments, eloquence is one of the principal instruments of power, and the fairest field is presented for its operations where the general powers of government are put in motion by the immediate agency of the mass of the people. In all the nations of modern Europe, where the semblance of deliberative assemblies is preserved, these are composed of a small and select number of persons; and in these small bodies, when a reasonable space is allowedfor the coercive power of party training, for the operation of the subtle and diffusive poison of executive influence, and in some cases, for the gross and palpable application of direct corruption, the province of eloquence will be found to be greatly narrowed. Her most persuasive accents fall on ears that are spellbound by a mightier power, and on the most important questions, the votes are often counted, before deliberation commences. But this complicated machinery cannot be brought to bear with the same effect on the whole body of the citizens. If their movements are more irregular, and liable to greater excesses, they have their origin in the purer and more noble impulses of the heart. The natural love of equity, the instinctive principles of disinterestedness and generosity, originally implanted in the heart of man by the author of our being, cannot easily be extinguished in a whole people. After the tools of faction, and the minions of power, have exhausted the arts of corruption, these holier elements of our nature will kindle into spontaneous enthusiasm, when lofty and generous sentiments are brought home to the bosom in the accents of a manly and pathetic eloquence. The great and unsophisticated springs of human action are always touched with most effect in large assemblies. In these the prevailing tone of feeling, when highly exalted, spreads through the whole by a secret sympathy, with the rapidity of the electric fluid.
It was before such an audience that eloquence uttered her voice in ancient times. The orators of Greece and Rome brought their genius to bear directly on the popular mind. The public assemblies which were then held were for actual deliberation. It wasnot a mockery of consultation on matters upon which all opinions were definitely made up. They came together to be instructed, and were open to the seductive arts of their orators even to a fault. The objects of deliberation also were of the greatest moment, the fortunes of a province or a kingdom, the safety of the republic, the honor, or perhaps the life of the orator himself or his nearest friends. Every motive which hope or fear or pride or party could suggest, to animate the passions, was brought to act on the speaker's mind, and all depended on a doubtful decision, which was to be made on the spot, and before the separation of the assembly. These contests were not of rare occurrence. They were coming up continually. They were upon the most magnificent theatre in the world, and before judges who united a most refined and discriminating taste with an extraordinary degree of susceptibility to all the charms of a passionate and harmonious eloquence. The orators, therefore, were kept in constant training. Their faculties had no time to cool.
They had no intervals for luxurious repose. The dignities to which they had risen were watched by powerful and jealous rivals, always ready to wrest from them their honors, and they could be retained only by the same efforts by which they were won.
In these ancient republics eloquence was substantial and effective power and led to the highest dignities, which the most aspiring genius could hope to attain. It was cultivated with an assiduity bearing a just proportion to the honors with which it was crowned. The education of the orator commenced in his cradle, and did not terminate until he had reached the fullmaturityof manhood; or, to speak more correctly, it comprisedthe whole business of his life. All his studies were made subservient to the art of speaking, and the course of instruction descended into the most minute details which could improve him in his action or elocution. It was this entire devotion to a favorite and honored art, which raised it to a height of perfection, which it has never since been able to reach, and which produced those prodigies in the oratorical art, which have been the admiration and the despair of succeeding ages.
In the most brilliant period of antiquity there were two styles of eloquence cultivated by the different orators. One, calm, subtle and elegant, addressed almost exclusively to the understanding. In the time of Cicero this was called the Attic style, and those who belonged to this school assumed no little credit on the supposed purity of their Attic taste. The other affected a style of greater warmth and brilliancy, and intermingled with the scrupulous dialectics of the former, frequent appeals to the passions, and adorned their discourses with all the beauties which could captivate the imagination. What was then denominated the Attic style, forms the prevailing characteristic of modern oratory. It is cool and didactic. It relies almost wholly on the powers of a cultivated logic and seldom attempts to reach the understanding through the medium of the heart. It requires little reflection to determine which of these styles would bear away the palm before a popular audience. The former leaves one half the faculties of the hearer dormant, while the latter addresses itself to all the powers of man, the moral as well as the intellectual, instructs the reason while it agitates the passions, and gives at the same time one powerful and impetuous movement to the whole man.But if any one doubts upon this matter let him go to the pages of Demosthenes and especially to that most perfect of all his orations, in which he was contending with his great rival for the glory of a whole life in the presence of all that was most illustrious in Greece,—his oration for the crown. He will find from the beginning to the end, a clear and exact logic. But it is logic raised into enthusiasm by the dignity and elevation of sentiment by which it is surrounded. He will not find a metaphor or an observation introduced merely for the purposes of ornament. It is a continued stream of clear, rapid and convincing argument. But it is argument enveloped in a torrent of earnestness and exaggeration, environed with a blaze of anger and disdain and passion—it is argument clothed in thunder, which could no more be listened to with a composed and tranquil mind than the flashes of lightning could be viewed with an unblinking eye. Strip Demosthenes of these accompaniments, of these accessories, if you please to call them so, and you will leave enough perhaps to satisfy our modern Attics, but this residue will be no more like the living Demosthenes who "fulmined over Greece," than the unformed block of marble is like the Belvidere Apollo, or a naked skeleton like a living man.
It is said that the state of manners in modern society would not bear those bold appeals to the passions which abound in the ancient orators. We are ingenious in taking to ourselves credit even for our inferiority, and it is contended that our understandings are more cultivated and our passions more under the dominion of reason. If there be any foundation for this opinion it must be received with many qualifications. It has becomea fashion of late to decry the manners and morals of the republics of antiquity. That their manners differed in many respects from the modes of fashion established in what is called good society in modern times is admitted, but it does not follow that the advantage is on our side. There is still less foundation for the opinion that in their intellectual powers the Greeks and Romans were less cultivated than the most polished nations of our times. There never existed a nation in which the intellectual education of the whole body of the people was carried to so high a pitch as in Athens. However extravagant the assertion may be thought, it is indisputably true that the "mob of Athens," as the people of that renowned commonwealth are affectedly called, were of a more refined, severe and critical taste in every thing that pertains to the beauties of eloquence than the members of the British House of Commons have been, at any period of its existence, from the first meeting of the Wittenagemote to the present day. They would allow, says Cicero, in their orators no violation of purity or elegance of language.Eorum religioni cum serviret orator, nullum verbum insolens, nullum odiosum ponere audebat.Many a speech has been cheered by the "hear hims" of the Treasury Bench in that house, which would have shocked the discriminating and critical ears,aures teretes ac religiosas, of that extraordinary people. The whole testimony of antiquity concurs in proving their extreme delicacy and fastidiousness in every thing which belongs to taste in letters and the arts.
There was another peculiarity in the circumstances of these ancient republics which favored the cultivation of eloquence. The press, that great engine by whichpublic opinion is moved in modern times, was then unknown. Addresses in the assemblies of the people were not only the ordinary but almost the sole mode by which public men could influence or enlighten public opinion. All political discussion assumed this form and these popular harangues composed a very large portion of the literature of the times. The language of oral communication naturally assumes a tone of greater vivacity and passion than that of the closet. The predominance of this species of composition must have had a powerful influence in forming the national taste and would naturally impart its prevailing tone to every other species. Such seems to have been the fact. The philosophers and historians caught something of the animated and rhetorical manner of their public speakers, and in that species of eloquence which is suited to the nature of their subjects, surpass the moderns nearly as much as their orators do. Plato stands as far above all rivals in this particular, as his countryman and disciple Demosthenes. The easy and graceful movement of his dialogue, the splendid amplification and harmonious numbers of his declamation and the warm and animated glow of moral enthusiasm, which he has thrown over his mystical speculations, render his works the most perfect specimen of philosophical eloquence ever yet produced. His example will also show what importance was attached to style alone by the teachers of ancient wisdom. The last labors of a long life, which had been devoted to the most sublime philosophy of the age, were employed in retouching and remodelling the inimitable graces of his rich and flowing periods;musæo contingens cuncta lepore.
A superiority scarcely less imposing in this respect will be found in their historians. Their genius was also kindled by a coal from the altar of the orators. I am ready to acknowledge the great merit of the classic historians of modern times. I am not insensible to the calm and sustained dignity of Roberston, to the melody of his full and flowing style, though it sometimes fills the ear without filling the mind. He must be a much more morose critic who is not delighted with the simple and unaffected elegance of Hume, and with that admirable facility with which he intermingles the most profound reflections in a narration always easy, copious and graceful. Nor can the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire be forgotten in an enumeration of those who have done honor to this branch of literature. After all that has been said and written against him, he has left a work which the world will not willingly suffer to die. The Randolphs and Taylors and Chelsums by whom he was assailed, have passed into an easy oblivion, but the great work of the historian will always find a place in every library and a reader in every well educated man. The pomp and stateliness of his style sometimes bordering on the turgid may provoke a sneer from those who look only to the surface, but he had a mind enriched by various and extensive learning, which he has exuberantly and tastefully displayed in every page of his work. It may also be admitted that in modern times history has in its general character received something more of a philosophical tone. But what it has gained on the side of philosophy it has more than lost on that of eloquence.
Compare the triumvirate of English historians in this respect with the inestimable remains of antiquity, andthere is a disparity as striking as it is difficult to be accounted for. In this, as in every other department of literature, the Romans were the imitators of the Greeks; but in history while they imitated they surpassed their masters. The two great historians of Rome stand above all that preceded as well as all that followed them. The history of the rise of the Roman republic, from a small band of outlaws to the uncontrolled mastery of the world, is the most extraordinary chapter in the history of the human race. The annals of mankind present nothing that resembles it. A splendid or an affecting story may be degraded or belittled by being told in an unworthy style. But the style of Livy never falls below the dignity of his subject. His eloquence is as magnificent as the fortunes of the eternal city. In splendor of language, in glowing and picturesque description, in warmth and brilliancy and boldness of coloring, and in the dignified and majestic movement of his whole narrative, there is nothing in the literature of any country which will bear a comparison with the Decads of Livy. He is always on the borders of oratory and poetry, without ever passing the soberness of history.Mille habet ornatus, mille decenter habet.
The golden age of letters in Rome was as short as it was brilliant. It scarcely surpassed in duration the ordinary term of human life. Commencing with Cicero, it closed with the generation who were his cotemporaries, the last who breathed the free air of the republic. But in the universal corruption of taste and morals that followed the extinction of liberty, there arose one man, Tacitus, whose genius belonged to a happier age. In his own, it has been remarked withas much truth as beauty, he stands like a column in the midst of ruins. It has been said that the secret of his style belongs to the circumstances of his life, as well as to the peculiar temperament of the man. He wrote the history of his own times, and they presented but few bright spots on which the eye could repose with pleasure. But he paints the features of that dark and fearful peace, of that awful and portentous silence of despotism, convulsed as it was by internal dissensions and agitated by all the vices of a profligate populace and an abandoned nobility, in words of enchantment. While they seem to express every thing that is terrible in tragedy, they suggest to the imagination more than meets the ear. No man could have described those scenes as he has done but one who had seen and felt them. His vivid and graphic pictures speak at once to the eye, to the imagination, and to the heart; and without any of the parade or ostentation of eloquence, he impresses on the mind of the reader all the feelings which seem to prevail in his own.
The current of fashion has for some time been setting strongly against classical learning. In an age of so much intellectual activity as the present, all sorts of new opinions are received with favor. The most extravagant have their hour of triumph until they are chased from the stage by some new absurdity, or until the restless love of change is drawn off to some more startling paradox. This insatiable thirst for novelty is carried into literature as well as other things. But the principles of good taste are unchangeable. They have their foundations deeply laid in nature and truth, and the tide of time which sweeps into oblivion the sickly illusions of distempered imaginations, passes over these unhurt. The Bavii and Maevii of former ages, wholike those of later times enjoyed for their hour the sunshine of fashionable celebrity, have been long ago gathered to their long home, but the beauties of Homer and Virgil are as fresh now as they were at the beginning. Independent of the arguments commonly used in favor of classical learning, there are two considerations which recommend these studies to peculiar favor in this country. I advert to them the more willingly, because they have not been usually urged in proportion to their importance.
The first is addressed to our literary ambition. If there be any department of elegant literature in which we may hope to surpass our European ancestors and cotemporaries, it is in eloquence. It is the fairest and most hopeful field which now remains for literary distinction. In every other the moderns, if they have not equalled, are not far behind the ancients. Their poetry can scarcely claim an advantage over that of the moderns, except what it owes directly to the superiority of the ancient languages. But if we except some of the finest productions of the French pulpit in the reign of Louis XIV. there is nothing in modern literature which approaches the eloquence of antiquity. The most accomplished of our forensic and parliamentary speakers are at an immeasurable distance from the perfection of the ancient orators. If there be any modern nation, which may hope to emulate them with some prospect of success, it is our own. In our free institutions and in the free genius of our countrymen we have all that is necessary. The soil is prepared and we are already a nation of debaters. But if we would add to the faculty of fluent speaking the gifts of eloquence, these must be sought where the ancients found them, in a patient and persevering devotion tothe art. We must be made sensible both of its dignity and its difficulty, and nothing can so effectually give us this knowledge as a familiar acquaintance with the inimitable remains of the orators of Greece and Rome.
The second consideration is of a political character. The feudal governments of Europe may have an interest in discouraging a taste for these studies. The literature of antiquity, in its prevailing tone and character, is deeply impregnated with the free spirit of the age in which it was produced. Nothing can be more repugnant to that temper of patient servility which it is the policy of such governments to foster. Nothing can more powerfully invigorate those generous feelings which are inspired by the consciousness of freedom, than a familiarity with the historians and orators of Greece and Rome. There is an uncompromising spirit of liberty breathing its divine inspirations over every page, wholly irreconcilable with that courtly suppleness which is adapted to the genius of these governments. These proud republicans had no superstitious veneration for anointed heads. They were accustomed to behold suppliant royalty trembling in the antichambers of their Senate, or its haughty spirit still more humbled in swelling the triumphal pomp of their generals and consuls. These sights served to nourish a profound feeling of the dignity, which is attached to the person of a freeman, a feeling more deeply engraved on the spirit of antiquity than any other sentiment of the heart. It seems to have constituted the very soul of their genius, and it breathes its sacred fires through every ramification of their literature. So intimately was it incorporated with the very elements of their intellectual nature, that nothing could extinguish it short of those calamities which spread their deadlymildews over the fires of genius itself. After the constitutional liberty of the country sunk under the weight of military despotism, its scattered flames still broke out at intervals in the few great men who arose to throw a gleam of brightness over the surrounding gloom. It shewed itself in the pathetic and affecting complaints of Tacitus, and burst forth in the bitter and indignant sarcasms of Juvenal. The venerable father of song declared in prophetic numbers that the first day of servitude robbed man of half his virtue, and Longinus, the last of the ancient race of great men, holds up the lights of fifteen centuries experience to verify the words of the poet. It is democracy, says he, that is the propitious nurse of great talents, and it is only in democracy that they flourish. Let the minions of legitimacy then extinguish if they can the emulation of ancient eloquence; it is their most dangerous enemy; but let us, who inherit the liberties of the ancient republics, cherish it with a sacred devotion. It is at once the child and the champion of freedom.
Religion, as introduced to us by our Saviour, attracts our attention and enlists our affections, not by any solemn pomp or formal parade, but by her beautiful and interesting simplicity, her real and intrinsic worth. Nor has she been introduced to us, merely that shemay dwell in our temples to be gazed at from a distance and occasionally adored. No. She has been introduced to us, that we might take her familiarly by the hand, conduct her into our houses and seat her by our firesides,—not as an occasional visitor there, but as an intimate friend—perfectly free and unreserved, ever ready to lend her aid in making home the abode of happiness, or to go forth with us and assist in elevating and purifying the pleasures and the intercourse of social life; ever ready to assist in the various labors of life—to guide and cheer the conversation—to bend over the bed of sickness, or to mingle her sympathies with those who are mourning. It is her office to elevate and improve mankind, not by looking down upon them from above, but by dwelling familiarly and habitually among them, restraining, by the respect which her presence inspires, every thing impure and unholy, until she has awakened aspirations after the pure, the holy, the spiritual, the infinite and eternal. Such was the Christian Religion as introduced to us by our Saviour. Would that she might ever remain such, an inmate of our houses, a member of our family circles, whose form and features are familiar to our children, and for whom their attachment grows with their growth and strengthens with their strength. But such have not, it would seem, been the feelings of mankind in regard to her. They, filled with admiration, perhaps, for her excellence, and fearing, lest she might be treated with rude familiarity, have thought to add to her dignity and to increase the respect entertained for her, by enveloping her in the folds of unintelligible mysteries, and by suffering her to be approached only in a formal manner, upon the set days when and the appointed places whereshe holds her levees. The consequences of this have been such as might have been expected. While there are multitudes of admirers of Religion, as one of a higher order of beings altogether above and beyond themselves, there are few who make her the companion of their daily walk—few who take her to themselves and, in the firm conviction that they were made for each other, leave all things else, cleave unto and become one with her.
Would that we might all embrace Christianity as she is in herself—as she was introduced to us by our Saviour, in all her simplicity—in all her purity—that we might make her the companion of our lives—the friend of our hearts. She is one, who will with readiness accompany us wherever we go—pointing out to us the way of our duty and the sources of our happiness. Are we children she will teach us the duties of children. Are we parents she will instruct us in our duties as parents. In prosperity she will increase our happiness—in adversity she will sweeten our cup—in sickness she will alleviate our pains, and, when called away by the stern summons of death, she will accompany us and introduce us into the society of heaven with which she is intimate—the society of our God—of Jesus our Saviour—and of the spirits of the just made perfect, concerning whom she has often conversed with us, making us acquainted with their principles, feelings and characters, and exerting within us a desire to be with them.
'Like ivy, woman's love will clingToo often round a worthless thing.'
'Like ivy, woman's love will clingToo often round a worthless thing.'
Immediately after the horrid murder of young Darnley, Mary of Scotland removed from the scene of his death to Sterling, ostensibly on a visit to her infant son. Thither she was followed by all the gay members of her court, among whom were the Earl of Bothwell and Balfour, the suspected murderers. A short time previous to this journey Mary had received a letter from one of her subjects in the north, strenuously recommending a young and interesting female to her protection, who, as the letter stated, had especial reasons for sojourning awhile in the neighborhood of the court. Mary with her usual benevolence kindly received the lovely stranger, and was so won by her grace and melancholy beauty, that with the thoughtlessness of her impulsive character, she installed her in the royal household and admitted her to the closest intimacy of mistress and servant. Her affections daily increased for one of whom she knew nothing, except that she was reported to have sprung from a noble but impoverished family, and had been drawn to court by her interest in a dear relation, or perhaps lover. The queen did not trouble herself to inquire into particulars, at a time when her own affairs not only engrossed her thoughts, but the attention of all Europe. Certain it was, that whatever had drawn Ellen Craigh to the Scottish court, it was no desire to partake of its pleasures.Though she occasionally mingled with the ladies of Mary's household, and even listened with silent interest to the scandal which recent events had given rise to, she sedulously secluded herself from the gallants of the court, and on no occasion had been known to leave the immediate apartment of the queen, except for a short space each day, when the relative who had drawn her from home might be supposed to occupy her attention.
On the day our story commences, Throgmorton, the English ambassador, had arrived at Sterling with despatches, which had been forwarded from London after the first news of young Darnley's death reached the court of St. James. Mary, eager to conciliate the imperious Elizabeth, had ordered an entertainment to be made in honor of her ambassador, and yielding to his first request, or rather demand for an audience, had been more than an hour closetted with him, in the little oratory which communicated alike with her audience-room and sleeping chamber.
The hour for robing had long passed, and Ellen Craigh was alone in the royal bed-chamber, waiting the appearance of her mistress. She might have been taken for a sorrowing angel, as she sat in the embrasure of a window, with the mellow-tinted light streaming through the stained glass over her tresses of waving gold, and flooding her small and exquisite figure with a brilliancy almost too gorgeous to harmonize with the delicate cheek and sorrowful blue eyes, which, at the moment, wore an expression of suffering which nothing on earth can represent, so patient and holy was it. She continued in one position, listlessly swaying the cord of twisted gold, which looped back the curtain falling in magnificent volumes over the upper part ofthe window, or pulling the threads from a massive tassel and scattering them one by one at her feet, till the carpet around looked as if embroidered over and over with the glittering fragments. The indistinct voices which came from the oratory, where the queen and the ambassador were seated, fell unheeded upon her senses, till a tone was mingled with theirs which started her to sudden life. She leaped up with an energy that sent the mutilated tassel with a crash against the window, and flinging back the tapestry which concealed the door of the oratory, bent her eye to a crevice in the ill-fitted pannel. The beating of her heart was almost audible, and the thin slender hand which held back the tapestry quivered like a newly prisoned bird, as she gazed with intense eagerness into the apartment. The queen sat directly opposite the door. At her right hand was placed a dark handsome man, of about thirty, with a haughty and almost fierce array of countenance, dressed in a style of careless magnificence, which bespoke a love of display rather than true elegance in his choice of attire. A subdued smile lurked about his lips, and he seemed intently occupied in counting the links of a massive gold chain, which fell over his doublet of three-piled velvet, studded and gorgeously wrought with jewels and embroidery. Now and then he would drop his hand carelessly over the queen's chair-arm, and fix his black eyes with a bold and admiring gaze on her features, with a freedom which bespoke more of audacious love, than of respect for the royal beauty. She not only submitted to his free glance, but more than once returned it with one of those looks which had scattered sorrow through many a Scottish bosom.
Throgmorton sat little apart. He had been speakingin a strain of calm expostulation; but marking the interchange of glances between the queen and her haughty favorite, he became indignant, and addressed Bothwell with a degree of cutting contempt, which turned the lurking smile on the nobleman's lip to a curl of bitter defiance. Heedless of the royal presence, he stood up, and rudely pushing the council-table from before him, half drew his sword, as if to punish the offender upon the spot. Throgmorton endured the blaze of his large fierce eyes with calm composure, and deliberately measuring his person from head to foot with a contemptuous glance, was about to resume his discourse; but the queen rose from her seat, and placing her white and jewelled hand persuasively on Bothwell's arm, she fixed her beautiful eyes full on his, and uttered a few low words of entreaty; then turning to the envoy, her exquisite face flushed with anger and her eyes flashing like diamonds, she exclaimed,
"Leave our presence, sir ambassador, and thank our moderation that thou art permitted to depart in safety, after this insult to our most trusty and faithful follower! Nay, my lord of Bothwell, put thy hand from that sword-hilt—this matter rests with us—doubt not, thy honor as well as that of thy mistress shall be duly righted."
The frowning nobleman pushed back his blade with a clang, and turned moodily away.
The queen looked on him gravely for a moment, and then turning to the Englishman proceeded with less of vehemence than had accompanied her last command.
"The message of our loving cousin has given us a surfeit of advice. To-morrow we will resume the subject," she said, forcing one of the resistless smiles,which she could call up at will, to brighten her lips; and with a graceful wave of the hand, she motioned him to withdraw.
The envoy bowed low and left the room without further speech. But the door was scarcely closed, when, with sudden self-abandonment, the queen threw herself into her chair, and burst into a passion of tears. Bothwell, who was angrily pacing the room, approached, and sinking to one knee took her hand tenderly in his. She looked at him a moment through her tears, murmured a few broken words, and dropping her face to his shoulder, wept bitterly.
Poor Ellen Craigh witnessed the whole scene. She heard Bothwell's expressions of soothing endearment, and saw the beautiful head, with its garniture of brown tresses, fall with such helpless dependence on his shoulder. A moment, and the queen drew the snowy hand, sparkling with tears and jewels, from her eyes, and sat upright. With a choking sensation the poor girl gazed on that face, in its transcendent loveliness, till a mist gathered before her eyes, and the words of Bothwell came broken and confusedly to her ear. When they left the oratory a few moments after, her hand fell nerveless to her side, the tapestry swept over the door with a rustling sound, and staggering a few paces into the chamber, she fell her whole length upon the carpet, her golden hair sweeping back from her bloodless forehead, her pale lips trembling and her slight limbs as strengthless as an infant's. Thus she lay for a time, and then tears gushed profusely from her shut eyes. After which she arose to a sitting posture, with her feeble hands twisted the scattered ringlets round her head, and arose; but so pale, sowo-begone, her very heart seemed crushed forever. Dragging herself to her favorite seat in the embrasure of a window, she leaned her temple against the stained glass, and murmured—
"Enough!—oh, enough!—I must go home now." But while the words of misery trembled on her lips, the door was flung open, and Mary Stewart entered the apartment. The room was misty with the purple glow of sunset, and the queen passed her shrinking attendant without observing her. Hastily advancing to a table, she took up a golden bird-call, and blew a peremptory summons; then throwing herself into a chair which stood opposite a small table, on which glittered the splendid paraphernalia of a French toilette, she waited the appearance of her attendants. Ellen Craigh made a strong effort and arose.
"Ha, art thou there, my mountain-daisy?" said the queen, looking kindly upon her,—"order lights, and send back the flock of tire-women my silly whistle has brought trooping hitherward—no hands but thine shall robe me to night."
Ellen obeyed, and after a few moments the light from two large candles of perfumed wax broke over the little mirror, with its framework of filigree silver, and flashed upon the golden essence-bottles and scattered jewels which covered the dressing-table. The poor waiting-maid drew back from the brilliant glare with the shudder of a sick heart. The queen looked on her earnestly for a moment, and then putting the golden locks back from her temple, as she would have caressed a child, she said—
"What!—cheeks like new-fallen snow!—lips trembling like the aspen!—and eye-lashes heavy withtears!—how is this, child?—but we bethink us;—was it not some untoward affair of the heart which brought thee to our court? We have been too negligent;—tell us thy grief, and on the honor of a queen, if there be wrong we will have thee bravely righted—so speak freely."
"Oh, no, no!—not here!—never to you."
Here poor Ellen broke off and stood before the queen, her hands clasped, her lips trembling and her large supplicating eyes fixed imploringly on her face.
"Well, well," said the queen soothingly, "at some other time be it—but remember that in Mary Stewart her attendant may find a safe friend as well as an indulgent mistress," and shaking her magnificent tresses over her shoulders, the royal beauty composed herself for the operations of the toilette.
Ellen gathered up the glossy volumes of hair and commenced her task. Her limbs shook, a cold moisture crept over her forehead, and her quivering hands wandered with melancholy listlessness, through the mass of shining ringlets it was her duty to arrange. As she stooped forward in her task, one of her own fair curls fell down and mingled, like a flash of spun gold, with those of her mistress. As if there had been contagion in the touch, she flung it back with a smile of strange, cold bitterness, the first and last that ever wreathed her pure lips; for hers was a heart to suffer and endure, but never to hate; it might break, but no wrong could harden it.
While her toilette was in progress, Mary became nervous and restless, now pushing the velvet cushions from her feet, and then moving the lights about the dressing-table, as if dissatisfied with the arrangement ofevery thing about her. At length she fell back in her chair, buried her face in her hands, and fairly burst into tears. Ellen grasped the back of her chair, and bending her pale face to the queen's ear, murmured—
"Tears are for the deserted—why does the queen weep?"
Mary was too deeply engrossed with her own feelings to mark the exact words, or the tremulous voice of her attendant. She threw the damp hair back from her face, and dashing the tears from her eyes exclaimed—
"No, no! it is nothing—proceed—there! let that ringlet fall thus upon the neck—now our robe, quickly—we shall be waited for at the banquet."
Ellen brought forth the usual mourning robe of black velvet, laden with bugles; but a flush of anger, or perhaps of shame, overspread the queen's face, and with an impatient gesture she exclaimed—
"Not that, girl—not that—I will mock my heart no longer!—away with it, and bring a more seemly garment!—the proud Englishman shall not scoff at our widow's weeds again."
Ellen obeyed, and the queen was soon robed as she had desired. Few objects could have been more beautiful than this dangerous woman, when she arose from her toilette—the perfect, yet almost voluptuous proportion of her form betrayed by the snowy robe, her tapering arms banded with jewels, and her superb waist bound with a string of immense pearls, clasped in front by a single diamond, and terminating where the broidery of her robe commenced, in tassels of threaded pearls. A tiara of small Scottish thistles, crowded amethysts and rough emeralds, burned with a purple lightamong her curls, and the face beneath seemed scarcely human, so radiant was its expression, and so beautiful the perfect harmony of its features. Throwing a careless glance at the mirror—for Mary was too confident of her attraction to be fastidious—she took up her perfumed handkerchief and left the room.
Ellen Craigh gazed after her sovereign till the last graceful wave of her drapery disappeared; then drawing a deep breath, as if her heart had thrown off an oppression quite insupportable, she cast a glance almost of loathing around the sumptuous apartment, and entered the oratory. Dropping on her knees by the chair which Bothwell had occupied, she laid her cheek on the cushion and wept long and freely, as if the contact with somethinghehad touched had a softening influence on her heart. As she arose, the gleam of a handkerchief lying on the floor attracted her attention. She snatched it up with a faint cry of joy, for on one corner she found embroidered an earl's coronet and the crest of Bothwell. Eagerly thrusting the prize into her bosom, she left the oratory and passed into the open street.
It was midnight when Mary Stewart returned to her chamber. The lights were burning dimly on the table, and an air of gloomy grandeur filled the apartment. The queen was evidently much distressed; a deep glow was burning on her cheek, and her usually smiling eyes were full of a strange excitement. She snatched up the little golden call as if to give a summons, and then flung it down again, exclaiming—
"No, no—I could not brook their searching eyes," and with a still more disturbed air she paced the chamber, now and then stopping to divest herself of the ornaments she had worn at the ambassador's festival.
Perhaps for the first time in her life the agitated woman unrobed herself, and flinging back the crimson drapery which fell in heavy masses from the large square bedstead, threw herself upon the gorgeous counterpane and buried herself in the folds, as if they could shut out the evil thoughts that burned in her heart; but it was in vain that she strove for rest—that she gathered the rich drapery over her head and pressed her burning cheek to the pillow; her thoughts were all alive and astray.
It was a mournful sight—that beautiful and brilliant woman yielding herself to the thraldom of a wicked man, and rushing heedlessly to that which was to throw a stain upon her memory, enduring as history itself. Sin is hideous in every form—but when it darkens the bright and beautiful of earth, like a cloud over the sun, we reproach it for its own blackness, and doubly for the brightness it conceals.
As the misguided woman lay, with a hand pressed over her eyes, and one arm, but half divested of its jewels, flung out with a kind of desperate carelessness upon the counterpane, the murmur of an infant voice reached her from a neighboring apartment. She started up and tears gathered in her eyes.
"Woe is me!" she exclaimed, "this mad passion makes me forgetful alike of prayer and child."
Folding a dressing-gown about her, she entered the room whence the sound had come, and reappeared with an infant boy pressed to her bosom. After kissing him again and again with a sort of despairing fondness, she bore him to a recess where a small lamp of chased silver burned before a crucifix of the same metal, and an embroidered hassock was placed as if fordevotion. Had she been left alone in the holy stillness of the night, with her lovely babe upon her bosom, and the touching symbol of our Saviour's death before her, the evil influence which was hurrying her on to ruin might have been counterbalanced; but as she knelt with the smiling babe lying on the hassock, her eyes fixed on the crucifix, and the guilty glow ebbing from her cheeks, the door softly opened, and the Earl of Bothwell stole into the chamber. Mary sprang to her feet as if to reprove the insolent intruder, but a sense of modesty, which in all her follies seemed never to have left her, succeeded to her indignation, if indeed she felt any. She glanced at her dishabille with a painful flush, and hastily seating herself, drew her uncovered feet, which had been hastily thrust into a pair of furred slippers, under the folds of her dressing gown, and then requested him to withdraw, in a voice which betrayed as much of encouragement as of reproof.
Without even noticing her request, Bothwell lifted the boy from the hassock, and seating himself, addressed her in a low and gentle tone, which he knew well how to assume. The erring woman listened to the witchery of his voice, till the unnatural glow againdied from her cheek, and she sat with her eyes fixed on his, as a beautiful bird yielding to the fascination of a serpent.
"But thy wife," she said in a low irresolute tone, when Bothwell pressed for a reply to what he had been urging, "much as Mary may love—much as she may sacrifice, she cannot thrust a young and loving woman from a heart she loves and puts her faith in."
"Young and loving!" repeated Bothwell, with a sneer curling his haughty lip, "young and loving!—trulyyour grace must have been strangely misinformed;—she who styles herself Countess of Bothwell nearly doubles the age of her unfortunate husband; and as for love, if she knows any, it is for the broad acres which own him as their master."
A scarcely perceptible smile dimpled the queen's mouth, as she heard this account of her rival, but she made no reply, and Bothwell resumed his tone of earnest entreaty. As he proceeded, his voice and manner became more energetic.
"Say that you consent," he said, "say but a word, and the breath of evil shall never reach you;—say but your hand is mine as a token of assent, and Bothwell will worship you like a very slave."
The queen raised her hand, and though it trembled like an aspen, she placed it in his.
"It is thy queen who is the slave," she murmured in a broken voice, as Bothwell raised the beautiful hand to his lips, and covered it with rapturous kisses.
As he relinquished her hand, it came in contact with that of the child. As if an adder had stung her, she drew it back, and then with a sudden gush of feeling snatched the boy to her bosom and covered it with tears and kisses. Bothwell dreaded the influence of the pure maternal feeling thus expressed. Gently forcing the young prince from her embrace, he whispered—
"Trust him to me, dearest—trust him to one who would spill his heart's blood, rather than give pain to mother or child," and pressing her hand again to his lips, the arch-hypocrite left the room with the same cautious tread he had entered it with.
In a few moments after, he placed the young prince in charge with a creature in his confidence, saying—
"See to it, that none of the Darnley faction get possessionof the brat,—keep him safe, or strangle him at once."
On the next day the Earl of Bothwell left Sterling, and it was whispered that he had been banished from court through the influence of the English ambassador; but conjecture was lost in astonishment, and when, two days after, the court at Sterling was broken up, and the queen, while on her way to Edinburgh, was met by Bothwell, with a force of eight hundred men, and conveyed to Dunbar by seeming violence, men stood aghast at the news; but those who had marked their queen closely during the few preceding days, concurred in the belief that she privately sanctioned the disgraceful outrage.
It was a gloomy and ancient pile—that in which Bothwell had left his deserted wife. In one of its apartments, beside a huge fire-place, in which a few embers smouldered in a sea of ashes, sat an old and wrinkled woman, spreading her withered palms for warmth, and occasionally turning a wistful look to the narrow windows, against which the rain and sleet were beating with real violence. As she listened, the tramp of approaching horses was heard in the court below, and before she had time to reach the door, it was flung open, and the Countess of Bothwell, dripping with wet and tottering with fatigue, flung herself into the arms of her old nurse.
"Sorrow on me," exclaimed the good woman, striving to speak cheerful, "how the child clings to my neck!—look up, lady-bird, and do not sob so—I know but too well how thy journey has speeded—may the curses of an old woman rest——"
"Oh, Mabel, Mabel, do not curse him—do not—we cannot love as we will," exclaimed the poor countess, clinging to the bosom of the old woman, as if to bribe her from finishing the anathema.
"Hush, darling, hush," replied old Mabel, pressing her withered lips fondly to the pure forehead of her foster-child—"he who could help loving thee——but hist, what is all this tramping in the court?—sit down, and I will soon learn."
The old woman divested the trembling young creature of her wet cloak and proceeded to the hall. After a few minutes absence she returned dreadfully agitated; her sunken eyes glowed like live coals, and her bony fingers were clenched together as a bird clutches her prey.
"My own darling," she said in a voice which she vainly strove to render steady, "I had thought not to have given his cruel message, but——"
"Speak on," said the poor young creature, raising her large eyes with the expression of a scared antelope, "I can bear any thing now."
But she broke off with a sudden and joyful cry, for the door had been cautiously opened, and her long absent husband stood before her. Forgetful of his estrangement—of his unkindness—of every thing but his early love—she sprang eagerly to his bosom and kissed him again and again, with the abandonment of a joyful child. It must have been a heart of stone which could have resisted such unbounded tenderness. For one moment, and but for one, she was pressed to her husband's heart, and then he put her coldly away.
"How is it that I find your lady here, after my express command to the contrary?" he said, sternlyaddressing the old nurse, while he forced the clinging arms of the countess from his neck.
The poor young creature shrunk from his look, like a flower touched by a sudden frost. Mabel threw her arm around her, and forced her to confront her angry husband.
"Why is she here!" shouted the old woman fiercely, "why is she here, in her own home!—because I could not, would not kill her with her base lord's message!—What! break her heart, and then thrust her forth to die?—Villain!—double-dyed and cowardly villain!—may the curses of a——"
Before the old woman could finish her anathema, the enraged Earl had stricken her grey head to the floor. The frightened countess fell on her knees beside her; but, with a terrible imprecation, Bothwell commanded his attendants to bear his victim from the room, and sternly ordered his trembling wife to remain.
"As you are here," he said, "it is not essential that we meet again; your signature is necessary to this paper; please to affix it without useless delay."
The countess took the paper, which was a petition to the Commissariot-Court for a divorce from her husband. Before she had read the first line, every drop of blood ebbed from her face. She did not faint, but with a degree of energy foreign to her character, she grasped the paper in her hands, as if about to tear it. The Earl seized her wrist, and fiercely demanded her signature.
"Never—never!" exclaimed the poor wife, struggling in his grasp—"Oh, Bothwell, you cannot wish it—you that so loved me—you that promised to love me forever and ever—no, no! you do not mean it—youcannot put your poor wife away thus!—I know that the little beauty you once prized is gone, but tears and sorrow have dimmed it;—bear with me but a little longer—say that you love me yet, and my bloom will come again;—look at me, Bothwell, husband,dearhusband! and say that you did not mean it—that you gave me that horrid paper to frighten me—say but that, and your poor Ellen will worship you forever!"
This energetic appeal had its effect, even in the hard hearted Earl. He endured, and even partially returned the passionate caress with which she had accompanied her words; and when she fell back exhausted in his arms, he bore her to a seat and placed himself beside her.
"Ellen," he said, "I will deal candidly with you—Idolove you, and have, even while in pursuit of another; but you have yet to learn that there is a stronger passion than love—ambition!"
"You do love me—bless you, bless you! Bothwell, for saying so much," she eagerly exclaimed, the affectionate young creature snatching his hand between both hers, and covering it with joyful kisses.
But her joy was of short duration. As the serpent uncoils its glittering folds, so did Bothwell lay bare the depravity and ambition of his heart. Artifice, persuasion and threats were used, and at length he prevailed. The petition for a divorce was signed; but the heart of the poor countess was broken by the effort.
It is almost useless to tell the reader, that the queen of Scots had consented to accompany Bothwell to his castle, but with the appearance of compulsion, on the night of his intrusion into her chamber. It was to prepare for the disgraceful visit, that he had sent orders for the expulsion of his unfortunate wife—orders whichold Mabel had never delivered; and now that he had gained his object, in obtaining her signature to the petition, he proceeded to give directions for the castle to be put in order, for the reception of the royal guest. These arrangements occupied him during most of the night. At length, weary with exertion, he fell asleep in his chair. It was morning when he awoke. The light came softly through a neighboring window, and there, at his feet, with her head resting on his knees, and her thin, pale face turned toward him, lay his wife, asleep. Rest had quieted his ambitious thoughts. He was alone, in the stillness of a new day, with the gentle victim of his aspiring passions lying at his feet, grieved and heart-broken, her eyelids heavy with weeping, and every limb betraying the sorrow which preyed upon her. For a moment his heart relented, and a hot tear fell among her golden curls. Gently, as a mother would remove a sleeping infant, he raised her head, laid it on the cushion of his chair, and left her to her loneliness.
On the next day the Countess of Bothwell left the castle with her nurse, and not three hours after, Mary Stewart entered it in company with its wicked lord.
On the fourth day of Mary's sojourn at Dunbar, she, with the ladies of her train, joined in a stag hunt, which the Earl had ordered for their entertainment. The excitement of the chase had drawn Bothwell, for a moment, from her bridal rein, when an old woman came from a neighboring hut, and in a few ungracious words, invited the queen to rest a while. Mary gracefully accepted the offered courtesy, and some of her attendants would have followed her to the hut; but the old woman motioned them back with a haughty wave of her hand, and conducted the queen alone. Therewas no vestige of furniture in the room, except two small stools and a narrow bed, on which the outlines of a human form were visible. Grasping the queen's hand firmly in her own, the old woman drew her to the bed, and throwing back a sheet, pointed with her long fleshless finger to the form of a shrouded female.
"Look!" she sternly exclaimed, fixing her keen eyes on the face of the queen.
Mary looked with painful interest on the thin face, as white and cold as alabaster, with the golden hair parted from the pure forehead, and a holy quiet settled on every beautiful feature. White roses were scattered over the pillow, and the repose of the dead was heavenly. Mary bent over the corpse, and her tears fell fast and thick among the fresh flowers.
"Alas, my poor Ellen!" she said, turning to the woman, who stood like a statue pointing sternly to the body, "of what did she die?"
"Of a broken heart!" replied the nurse coldly, and with the same icy composure which had marked her conduct, she led her royal visitor to the door, without speaking another word.
Had she explained that Ellen Craigh and the Countess of Bothwell were the same person, regret for the evil she had wrought might have checked Mary in her career of folly. But the death of the deserted wife was kept a secret among the few faithful followers who had accompanied her in her wild expedition to Mary's court, and the nurse, on whose bosom she had yielded up her life. While the courts of Scotland were agitated with the divorce of Bothwell, the haughty man little knew that his gentle wife had ceased to feel his cruelty.