and approve of our tears, as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure vir tuc.

With regard to the queen's person, a circumstance not to be omit

own beauty. Formed with the qualities that we love, not with the talents that we admire; she was an agreeable woman rather than an illustrious queen. The vivacity of her spirit, not sufficiently tempered with sound judg-ted in writing the history of a female ment, and the warmth of her heart, reign, all contemporary authors which was not all times under the agree in ascribing to Mary, the restraint of discretion, betrayed her utmost beauty of countenance, and both into errors and into crimes. elegance of shape, of which the To say that she was always unfor- human form is capable. Her hair tunate, will not account for that was black, though, according to long and almost uninterrupted suc- the fashion of that age, she frecession of calamities which befel quently wore borrowed locks, and her; we must likewise add, that of different colours. Her eyes she was often imprudent. Her pas- were a dark grey, her complexion sion for Darnly was rash, youthful, was exquisitely fine, and her hands and excessive. And though the and armis remarkably delicate both sudden transition to the opposite as to shape and colour. Her staextreme, was the natural effect of ture was of a height that rose to her ill-requited love, and of his in- the majestic. She danced, she gratitude, insolence, and brutality; walked, and rode with equal grace. yet neither these, nor Bothwell's Her taste for music was just, and artful address and important ser- she both sung and played upon the vices, can justify her attachments lute with uncommon skill-Toto that nobleman. Even the man- wards the end of her life she be ners of the age, licentious as they gan to grow fat; and her long cenwerc, are no apology for this un- finement, and the coldness of the happy passion; nor can they in-houses in which she was imprisonduce us to look on that tragical and ed, brought on a rheumatism which infamous scene which followed up-deprived her of the use of her on it with less abhorrence. Hu- limbs. No man, says Brantome, manity will draw a veil over this ever beheld her person without part of her character which it can- admiration and love, or will read not approve, and may, perhaps, her history without sorrow. prompt some to impute her actions to her situation, more than to her dispositions; and to lament the unhappiness of the former, rather than accuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary's sufferings exceed, both in degree and in duration, those tragical distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sorrow and commiseration; and while we survey them, we are apt altogether to forget her frailties, we think of her faults with less indignation,

Robertson.

Speech of Adherbal to the Roman Senate, imploring their assistance against Jugurtha.

Fathers!

It is known to you that king Micipsa, my father, on his deathbed, left in charge to Jugurtha,

his adopted son, conjunctly with my unfortunate brother Hiempsal and myself, the children of his cwn body, the administration of the kingdom of Numidia, directing us to consider the senate and people of Rome as proprietors of it. He charged us to use our best endcavours to be serviceable to the Roman commonwealth, in peace and war; assuring us, that your protection would prove to us a defence against all enemics, and would be instead of armies, fortifications, and

treasures.

illustrious monarchs, find myself, without any fault of my own, destitute of every support, and reduced to the necessity of begging foreign assistance against an enemy who has seized my throne and kingdom; if my unequalled distresses were all I had to plead, it would become the .catness of the Roman commonwealth, the arbitress of the world, to protect the injured, and to check the triumph of daring wickedness over helpless innocence. But, to provoke your vengeance to the utmost, Jugurtha has driven me from the very

people of Rome gave to my ancestors, and from which my grandfather and my father, under your umbrage, expelled Syphax and the Carthaginians. Thus, fathers, your kindness to our family is de

While my brother and I were thinking of nothing but how to re-dominons which the senate and gulate ourscives according to the directions of our deceased father, Jugurtha-the most infamous of nankind! breaking through all ties of gratitude and of common humanity, and trampling on the authority of the Roman common-feated, and Jugurtha, in injuring wealth-procured the murder of me, throws contempt on you. my unfortunate brother, and has driven me from my throne and native country, though he knows I inherit from my grandfather Massinissa, and my father Micipsa, the friendship and alliance of the Ro

mans.

O wretched prince! O cruel reverse of fortune! O father Micipsa! is this the consequence of your generosity, that he whom your goodness raised to an equality with your own children, should be the murderer of your children? Must then the royal house of Numidia always be a scene of havock and blood? While Carthage remained, we suffered, as was to be

For a prince to be reduced, by villany, to my distressful circumstances, is calamity enough; but my misfortunes are heightened by the consideration, that I find my-expected, all sorts of hardships self obliged to solicit your assist- from their hostile attacks; our enance, fathers, for the services emy near; our only powerful ally, done you by my ancestors, not for the Roman commonwealth, at a any I have been able to render you distance; while we were so cirin my own person. Jugurtha has put cumstanced we were always in it out of my power to deserve any arms, and in action. When that thing at your hands, and has forced scourge of Africa was no more, me to be burthensome before I we congratulated ourselves on the could be useful to you. And yet, prospect of established peace. But if I had no plea but my undeserv-instead of peace, behold the kinged misery, who, from a powerful dom of Numidia drenched with royprince, the descendant of a race of al blood, and the only surviving son

those whom his violence has laid low, will in his turn feel distress, and suffer for his impious ingratitude to my father, and his bloodthirsty cruelty to my brother.

of its late king flying from an adopt- | your judgment. Do not listen to ed murderer, and seeking that safety the wretch who has butchered the in foreign parts, which he cannot son and relations of a king, who command in his own kingdom. gave him power to sit on the Whither-O whither shall I fly? same throne with his own sons.If I return to the royal palace of I have been informed that he lamy ancestors, my father's throne bours by his emissaries to prevent is seized by the murderer of my your determining any thing against brother. What can I there expect, him in his absence, pretending but that Jugurtha should hasten to that I magnify my distress, and imbrue in my blood those hands might for him have staid in peace which are now reeking with my in my own kingdom. But, if ever brother's? If I were to fly for re- the time comes when the due venfuge or for assistance to any other geance from above shall overtake court, from what prince can I hope him, he will then dissemble as I protection if the Roman common- do. Then he, who now, hardenwealth gives me up? from my owned in wickedness, triumphs over family or friends I have no expectations. My royal father is no more he is beyond the reach of violence, and out of hearing of the complaints of his unhappy son. Were my brother alive, our mutual sympathy would be some al-O dearest to my heart-now gone leviation; but he is hurried out of life in his early youth, by the very hand which should have been the last to injure any of the royal family of Numidia. The bloody Jugurtha has butchered all whom he suspected to be in my interest. Some have been destroyed by the lingering torment of the cross; others have been given a prey to wild beasts, and their anguish made the sport of men more cruel than wild beasts. If there be any yet alive, they are shut up in dungeons, there to drag out a life more intolerable than death itself.

Look down, illustrious senators of Rome! from that height of power to which you are raised, on the unexampled distress of a prince, who is, by the cruelty of a wicked intruder, become an outcast from all mankind. Let not the crafty insinuations of him who returns murder for adoption prejudice

O murdered, butchered brother!

for ever from my sight!-But why should I lament his death? He is indeed deprived of the blessed light of heaven, of life, and kingdom at once, by the very person who ought to have been the first to hazard his own life in defence of any one of Micipsa's family; but as things are, my brother is not so much deprived of these comforts, as delivered from terror, from flight, from exile, and the endless train of miseries which render life to me a burden. He Kes full low, gored with wounds, and festering in his own blood: but he lies in peace; he feels none of the miseries which rend my soul with agony and distraction, whilst I am set up a spectacle to all mankind of the uncertainty of human affairs. So far from having it in my power to revenge his death, I am not master of the means of securing my own life; so far from being in

a condition to defend my kingdom from the violence of the usurper, I am obliged to apply for foreign protection for my own person.

Fathers! senators of Rome! the arbiters of the world!-to you I fly for refuge from the murderous fury of Jugurtha.-By your affection for your children, by your love for your country, by your own virtues, by the majesty of the Roman commonwealth, by all that is sacred, and all that is dear to you-deliver a wretched prince from undeserved, unprovoked injury; and save the kingdom of Numidia, which is your own property, from being the prey of violence, usurpation, and cruelty.

Sallust.

that experience could teach, and was a perfect master of the military art, as it was practised in the times wherein he lived. His constitution enabled him to endure any hardships, and very few were equal to him in personal strength, which was an excellence of more importance than it is now, from the manner of fighting then in use. It is said of him, that none except himself could bend his bow. His courage was heroic, and he possessed it not only in the field, but (which is more uncommon) in the cabinet, attempting great things with means that to other men appeared totally unequal to such undertakings, and steadily prosecuting what he had boldly resolved, being never dis turbed or disheartened by difficulties, in the course of his enterprizes; but having that noble vigour

The Character of William the Con- of mind, which, instead of bending

queror.

to opposition, rises against it, and seems to have a power of controuling and commanding fortune herself.

Nor was he less superior to pleasure than to fear: no luxury soften

The character of this prince has seldom been set in its true light; some eminent writers have been dazzled so much by the more shining parts of it, that they have hard-ed him, no riot disordered, no sloth ly seen his faults; whilst others, out of a strong detestation of tyranny, have been unwilling to allow him the praise he deserves.

relaxed. It helped not a little to maintain the high respect his subjects had for him, that the majesty of his character was never let down He may with justice be ranked by any incontinence or indecent examong the greatest generals any cess. His temperance and his chasage has produced. There was unit- tity were constant guards, that seed in him activity, vigilance, intre- cured his mind from all weakness, pidity, caution, great force of judg- supported its dignity, and kept it ment, and never-failing presence of always as it were on the throne.mind. He was strict in his disci- Through his whole life he had no pline, and kept his soldiers in per- partner of his bed but his queen: fect obedience; yet preserved their a most extraordinary virtue in one affection. Having been from his who had lived, even from his earlivery childhood continually in war, est youth, amidst all the license of and at the head of armies, he joined camps, the allurements of a court, to all the capacity that genius could and the seductions of sovereign powgive, all the knowledge and skiller! Had he kept his oaths to his

riage vow, he would have been the best of kings: but he indulged other passions of a worse nature, and infinitely more detrimental to the public than those he restrained. A lust of power, which no regard to justice could limit, the most unrelenting cruelty, and the most insatiable avarice possessed his soul.It is true, indeed, that among many acts of extreme inhumanity, some shining instances of great clemency may be produced, that were either effects of his policy, which taught him this method of acquiring friends, or of his magnanimity, which made him slight a weak and subdued enemy, such as was Edgar Atheling, in whom he found neither spirit nor talents able to contend with him for the crown. But where he had no advantage nor pride in forgiving, his nature discovered itself to be utterly void of all sense of compassion; and some barbarities which he committed, exceeded the bounds that even tyrants and conquerors prescribe to themselves.

people as well as he did his mar-ployed the properest means for the carrying on a very iniquitous and violent administration. But that which alone deserves the name of wisdom in the character of a king, the maintaining of authority by the exercise of those virtues which make the happiness of his people, was what, with all his abilities, he does not appear to have possessed. Nor did he excel in those soothing and popular arts, which sometimes change the complexion of a tyranny, and give it a fallacious appearance of freedom. His government was harsh and despotic, violating even the principles of that constitution which he himself had established. Yet so far he performed the duty of a sovereign, that he took care to maintain a good police in his realm; curbing licentiousness with a strong hand, which, in the tumultuous state of his government, was a great and difficult work.How well he performed it we may learn even from the testimony of a contemporary Saxon historian, who says, that during his reign, a man might have travelled in perfect security all over the kingdom with his bosom full of gold, nor durst any kill another in revenge of the greatest offences, nor offer violence to the chastity of a woman. But it was a poor compensation, that the highways were safe, when the courts of justice were dens of thieves, and when almost every man in authority, or in office, used his power to oppress and pillage the people.The king himself did not only tole rate, but encourage, support, and As to his wisdom in government, even share these extortions. Though of which some modern writers have the greatness of the ancient landed spoken very highly, he was indeed estate of the crown, and the feudal so far wise that, through a long un-profits to which he legally was enquiet reign, he knew how to sup- titled, rendered him one of the richport oppression by terror, and em-est monarchs in Europe; he was

Most of our ancient historians give him the character of a very religious prince; but his religion was after the fashion of those times, belief without examination, and devotion without piety. It was a religion that prompted him to endow monasteries, and at the same time allowed him to pillage kingdoms; that threw him on his knees before a relic or cross, but suffered him unrestrained to trample upon the liberties and rights of mankind.