Encountres. as I am. I have borne with you, John Knox, in all your rigorous speaking against me and my uncles. Yea; I have sought your favor by all possible means-and now I vow to God I will be avenged of you," (often requesting her page for handkerchiefs to dry her tears.) "True it is," replied the Reformer," and when it shall please God to deliver you from that bondage of error and sin into which ye have been nourished for lack of true doctrine, your majesty will find the liberty of my tongue nothing offensive. I must obey Him who commands me to speak plain and flatter no flesh upon the face of the earth." When Mary left France to re-assume her English throne, she confessed her fear of but one person, and that was John Knox, and hence those strenuous efforts which she made to keep him in check, if not convert him to her views. She would send again and repeatedly for him, and argue and threaten and cajole and plead and smile and weep; but all in vain. Others might be silent, because she was a lady-a queen-but passing by all these distinctions, and deaf to all these arguments for silence, Knox knowing her character, and believing her crimes—the immorality of her court and the design of her Papal advisers, was determined she should hear the truth without stint. Take another instance of his fidelity. "What are ye in this commonwealth?" said her majesty at another time. "A subject born within the same, madam," was Knox's valiant answer, "and albeit, I be neither Earl, Lord, or Baron, yet hath God made me a profitable member within the same." After one of these interviews in which he had met, without dismay, her royal censures and threatenings, as he was passing from her presence, one of the courtiers was heard to say, "He is not Right Opinion. Regent Morton. afraid." "Afraid!" was his answer; "why should the pleasing face of a gentlewoman fear me? I have looked in the faces of many angry men, and not been afraid above measure." But he saw in an early conversation what was in the heart of that gentlewoman as others did not. "If there be not in her a proud mind, a crafty wit, and an obdurate heart against God and against his truth, my judgment faileth me." Future developments justified the correctness of this opinion-while, with few exceptions, the Reformer's bold words are deemed a credit to one who knew what the times demanded, and was ready to encounter danger most imminent and fearful in defence of heavenly truth and his country's welfare. It were vain to search the annals of Christendom for an instance of moral courage, love of the truth, fidelity to his ministerial trust, and incessant efforts to do good, "in season and out of season," than were embodied in the life of that illustrious Divine, that bold defender of the Protestant faith, that colossal antagonist of all encroachments of sovereign or subject upon the ancient creed and religious usages of heaven-blest Scotland. Well worthy was he of the eulogium uttered at his grave by the Regent Morton-"There lies he who never feared the face of man!" and well entitled is he to the place which he holds in the respect, the affection, and the semi-religious reverence of the Scottish people. Thomas Carlyle speaks thus of Scotland's debt to John Knox : "Honor to all the brave and true; everlasting honor to brave old Knox, one of the truest of the true! that in the moment when he and his cause amid civil broils, convulsions and confusion, were still struggling for Carlyle's Opinion. Burns. life, he sent the schoolmaster forth to all corners, and said, "let the people be taught!" This is but one and comparatively inconsiderable item in his great message to men. This great message Knox did deliver with a man's voice and strength, and found a people to believe him. The Scotch character originates in many circumstances; first of all, in the Saxon stuff there was to work upon; but next, and beyond all else, the Presbyterian gospel of John Knox. And has Mary no defenders? none who believe that she was more sinned against than sinning? none who deem her worthy of a higher place than she holds in the esteem of the world? Yes; and not a few. The stanzas of the Scottish bard are not more admired for their pathos than responded to for their truthfulness by many of her readers. No one but he who regarded her as a wronged woman could have penned such stanzas as Burns thus put into her mouth, when a prisoner in Fatheringay Castle. "I was the Queen o' bonie France, Where happy I ha'e been Fu' lightly raise I in the moon, As blythe lay down at e'en'. And I'm the Sovereign of Scotland, And mony a traitor there; Yet here I lie in foreign land, And never ending care. But as for thee. Thou false woman! My sister and my fae, Grim vengeance yet shall whet a sword That thro' thy soul shall gae ; The weeping blood in woman's breast Was ne'er known to thee; Nor th' balm that draps on wound and woe Frae woman's pitying e'e. Stanzas-Continued. My son my son! may kinder skies Upon thy fortune shine; And may those pleasures gild thy reign That na'er wad blink on mine! God keep thee frae thy mother's faes Or turn their hearts to thee; And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, Farewell to Holy-Rood, John Knox, and Queen Mary! CHAPTER XXXII. Excursion to the English Lakes. Scenes must be beautiful which daily viewed Long knowledge and the scrutiny of time. THE Counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire, comprise within their limits, what is termed the lake district, a region picturesque beyond that of any other part of England. While to the lover of nature there is much in this region which will not compare unfavorably with the Highlands of Scotland, the antiquarian is well repaid for a visit to the remains of abbeys, castles and druidical altars, and the devotee of literature may here visit the homes of three among the sweetest and most admired poets of his mother tongue, Wordsworth, Southey and Coleridge. The traveler who expects to find in any Scotch "loch" or English "lake," a counterpart to Huron, Superior, or even Michigan and Erie, will be disappointed. The former derive their celebrity from other considerations than extent or utility. Limited in the area covered, belted with mountain ranges, now wild and rocky, and anon beautiful with cultivated fields, and picturesque villas, easily does the eye embrace the whole expanse of one of these placid lakelets of north or mid-Britain. They are places to be visited for their beauty rather than grandeur, and visited they must be, or the traveler will commit an act of omission to be regretted when he reach his fatherland. The reader has accompanied the writer to Scotland-has traversed lochs Katrine |