he was shot at Linlithgow, in revenge for a private injury, on the 23d January, 1570. His death,' says Bishop Spottiswode, was greatly lamented, especially by the commons. A man truly good, and worthy to be ranked among the best governors that this kingdom hath enjoyed; and therefore to this day he is honoured with the title of the Good Regent.""

How truly the Earl of Murray deserved this glorious and comprehensive title, will be a matter, at least, of doubt, with those who look a little attentively at the incidents of his eventful life. As far as the reformation of religion in Scotland was concerned, he, without question, merited well of his countrymen and posterity; for he was a strenuous supporter of the purified system of faith, and of the preachers who promulgated it. But the motive which actuated his public career was, it is to be feared, any thing rather than a disinterested regard for the honour of God,

the good of his native land, or the improvement of mankind. In fact, the thoroughly good public character is an object of rare

Occurrence:

"Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto ;”

and it requires many an age to produce an Alfred, a Washington, or a Kosciusko. Patriots and heroes, as the terms are usually applied, seem to be made of very common stuff;" and if stript of certain glittering external qualities, and unaccompanied by those fortuitous circumstances which have made them the idols of "the million," they will be found to differ from the general herd, merely in their more inordinate ambition, or their greedier appetite for "the bubble, reputation." Such, decidedly, was Murray's patriotism: a sound, and not a substance; the semblance of a feeling, to which his heart did not respond; the specious pretence, that covered designs the most iniquitous, and apologised for actions the most oppressive. Decked in the garb of public worth and private virtue, by the venal, or courtly, or cowardly writers of his own day,

it remained for the freer spirits of modern times to divest the Regent of his borrowed plumes; to shew him in his naked moral and political deformity; and, in spite of the partiality or tenderness of a Hume, a Robertson, or a Dalrymple, to convict him of a dark, and deep, and guilty ambition, that, in the pursuit of its object, hesitated not to plunge into a conspiracy, so foul and atrocious, as scarcely to be paralleled in the evil-fraught records of national history-a conspiracy which planned and effected the false crimination of Mary with her husband's murder; the violation of her person by Bothwell; and her forced marriage to that licentious baron; -a conspiracy which, extending itself as it matured, embraced within the circle of its abettors the wicked and wily Elizabeth, and her time-serving counsellors; and, by the aid of the intrigues, and perjuries, and forgeries of the associated band, reaped at length its wished-for harvest, in the murder of its destined prey. As the proof of the verity of this statement will be given in the course of a few pages, it may here be necessary merely to

remark, that Murray's participation in this horrid scene of villany and oppression obtained the end for which he sacrificed his honour and humanity, the ties of blood, and the feelings of nature; and his pride was gratified by the regency in 1567. But short was his enjoyment of the glittering guerdon; for a violent death dissipated the vision of ambition, and closed his life of plot and intrigue in less than two years after he had reached the elevation, for which he had longed so much, and paid so dearly. The circumstances of his assassination are thus detailed by Dr. Robertson.

Hamilton, of Bothwell-Haugh, was the person who committed this barbarous action. He had been condemned to death soon after the battle of Langside, and owed his life to the regent's clemency. But part of his estate had been bestowed upon one of the regent's favourites, who seized his house, and turned out his wife naked, in a cold night, into the open fields; where, before next morning, she became furiously mad. This injury made a deeper impression on him, than the benefit he

had received; and from that moment he vowed to be revenged upon the regent. Party rage strengthened and inflamed his private resentement. His kinsmen, the Hamiltons, applauded the enterprise. The maxims of that age justified the most desperate course he could take to obtain vengeance. He followed the regent for some time, and watched for an = opportunity to strike the blow. He resolved, at last, to wait till his enemy should arrive at Linlithgow, through which he was to pass in his way from Stirling to Edinburgh. He took his stand in a wooden gallery which had a window towards the street; spread a feather bed on the floor, to hinder the noise of his feet from being heard; hung up a black cloth behind him, that his shadow might not be observed from without; and, after all this = preparation, calmly expected the regent's approach, who had lodged during the night in a house not far distant. Some indistinct information of the danger which threatened him, had been conveyed to the regent, and he paid so much regard to it, that he resolved to return by the same gate through which he