deficient, imperious in her bearing, clear-sighted for her interests, unscrupulous but profound in her policy, and equally jealous of her claims to admiration as a woman and submission as a sovereign. From this time the intercourse between the two Queens had been a strange mixture of kind professions and pertinacious exaction. Mary sent Elizabeth her miniature, and claimed Elizabeth's in return. Elizabeth addressed a formal condolence to Mary on the death of her husband, but called upon her at the same time to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh. Wherever Mary went, the watchful eye of the English ambassador was upon her, and while she was applying almost every week for safe-conducts for some of her subjects to pass through England, she was unable to obtain one for herself.

After her husband's death she dropped the English arms, and soon accepting the Lord James for her political guide, confined her aspirations to the acknowledgment by Elizabeth and the English parliament, of her right to the succession. Lord James conducted the negotiation with skill and fidelity. Times were fixed for interviews between the two sovereigns, from which Mary hoped more, perhaps, than she would ever have realized. Her position was strengthened too by her judicious conduct in adhering to a strict neutrality between England and France, which seemed to promise well for her feelings towards the Protestants. But Elizabeth loved power too well to submit even to the semblance of division by naming her successor, and Mary, who, unfortunately for her own happiness, had set her heart upon this unsubstantial recognition, was led on through a protracted discussion, to mortifying alternations of hope and disappointment.

Neither did the course of the negotiations for her marriage run smooth. As soon as the death of Francis was known, offers were made for the lovely widow's hand. The King of Sweden and the King of Denmark entered the lists, but were promptly refused. But first of all was Don Carlos, the unfortunate son of Philip II., so long, like Mary herself, an enigma in history, and whose fate, though no longer a mystery, will ever call forth abundant tears through the pages of Schiller and Alfieri. The Cardinal of Lorraine had suggested his name, which seems soon to have found favor with Mary herself. But Catherine de' Medici, alarmed at the union of so many interests hostile to France, prevailed upon the cardinal to avert the danger by exerting his influence in favor of the Archduke Charles, second son of the Emperor. Mary would not listen to it, for he would have disgusted her subjects as a

Catholic and a foreigner, without imposing respect as a rich and powerful prince. Elizabeth would gladly have seen her married to the Count of Arran, and others proposed the Duke of Nemours or the Duke of Ferrara. But there were strong objections to them all, and resolutely adhering to her own choice, she secretly renewed the negotiation with the court of Spain. Philip was not a little embarrassed, for the Emperor was his uncle, and he had been earnestly requested to exert all his influence in favor of the Archduke. "If the marriage (that of the Archduke) had been possible," he writes, "I would have favored it with better will than this other," (Don Carlos). But the interest which he had most at heart was the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in England, and this he hoped to effect by marrying his own heir to the Queen of Scotland and heiress apparent of the English crown. The negotiation, though conducted secretly and by skilful hands, could not wholly escape the watchful jealousy of the Protestants, and Knox perceiving at once the full extent of the danger, resolved to meet it with his usual boldness. This led to another stormy interview with Mary, and an almost open rupture with Murray; but still the earnest reformer persisted. The English interest was with him; and Philip yielding to the renewed entreaties of his uncle, and detecting in his son the first symptoms of those traits which four years afterwards led to his tragic end, broke off the negotiations.*

Mary now resolved to gratify her subjects, Protestant and Catholic, by marrying an "islander." But Elizabeth had resolved that she should not marry at all, and plunged unscrupulously into that labyrinth of tortuous policy which was so congenial to her nature. She proposed Robert Dudley, her own favorite, and to raise him nearer to the rank which she pretended to ask for him, created him Count of Leicester and Earl of Denbigh. Mary, who had first received the suggestion with indignation, was prevailed to listen to it more favorably, and finally declared that she was ready to be ruled and guided in it by Elizabeth. Murray, too, and the Protestant party accepted it, and Mary was to be gratified in her favorite scheme the recognition of her claims to the succession.

At the same time another candidate appeared-Henry Darnley, son of the Count of Lennox, and related by his father

* "Considerada la disposicion de mi hijo y otras cosas que en ello se me representan, y parescerme que deste casamiento no se puede sacar el fruto que yo esperava, que era reduzir al reyno de Escocia y al de Inglaterra á la religion catholica, por la qual sola, y no por otra cosa, me pusiera a todo lo que pudiera venir."Philip to Cardinal Grenville, Aug. 6, 1564.

to the Scotch, and by his mother to the English kings. The Count of Lennox was still in exile in England, but a secret intercourse had long been carried on between his wife and Mary, and the way skilfully prepared for the re-establishment of the exiled family at the first favorable moment. In fact, Lennox returned, though not without opposition, at this critical juncture, and soon after Lord Henry himself appeared at the court of Scotland. He and Mary had already met. Their first interview is said to have taken place in France, while she was still in the mourning chamber, to which regal etiquette confined the queens of France during the first forty days of widowhood. In this room, hung with black and lighted only by tapers, clad in her mourning weeds and long white veil, Mary had received the young prince as bearer of letters of condolence from his father and mother, to their youthful kinswoman and sovereign. And well did the event correspond with this illomened beginning.

soon

As Darnley was a Catholic, his pretensions were eagerly espoused by the Catholic party, and the kingdom was divided between the rival claims of the Protestant Leicester, with the assurance of the English succession, and Darnley, with his Catholic adherence, and his alliance to the two

crowns.

The decisive moment came. The difficulties and obstacles of the negotiation had been overcome, Mary had consented to accept a husband from the hands of Elizabeth, and the majority of the kingdom was prepared to abide by her decision. But the Protestant leader had not the self-devotion of her great rival of Spain. Elizabeth knew not how to sacrifice her personal feelings to her duties and her interest as a queen. She loved Leicester; not enough to make her willing to divide her own throne with him; but far too much to allow her to become the willing instrument of raising him to another. She knew that the recognition of Mary as her successor was the indispensable condition of the marriage, and at the last moment, and when she found herself driven from all her subterfuges, she refused to fulfil the condition which she herself had proposed. Mary was indignant. At the moment she burst into tears, and then turning with all the ardor of her nature to the only alternative that had been left her, she pressed on the negotiations with Darnley. Softer feelings soon mingled themselves with the cold suggestions of policy. Darnley was young, handsome, and not devoid of external accomplishments. He tried to please, and was successful. Love was a necessity of Mary's nature,

and now she trusted that she had found an object worthy of her love. Darnley fell sick, and she watched by his pillow. In all her pastimes he became her chosen partner. It was in vain that Murray, who, as chief of the Protestant party, knew that his own favor and power depended upon the marriage with Leicester, opposed Darnley with all his might and skill. It was in vain that Elizabeth threw the Countess of Lennox, who was still in England, into prison, and sent earnest remonstrances through her ambassador. Mary had gone too far to recede even if she had wished it; but her passions were enlisted, and she was resolved to have her will at every hazard. On the 15th of May she assembled the principal nobles at Stirling, and announced to them her intention to marry Darnley. On the same day she made him Count of Ross, and Lord of Ardmannack, with the grant of large estates. The opposite party, assured of Elizabeth's protection, called a general assembly of the clergy for the protection of the Protestant religion. Mary received their delegates kindly, and succeeded in allaying their apprehensions. Murray then had recourse to more violent measures, and formed a conspiracy to seize upon the persons of Darnley and the Queen, who got timely warning of their danger, and escaped. It was evident that they had no time to lose. On the 22d of July the dispensation arrived from Rome, and the 29th was immediately fixed upon for the marriage. Meanwhile Darnley, who had already been made Duke of Albany, received by letters patent the title of king, and was publicly proclaimed at the Cross of Edinburgh the evening of the 28th. Next morning, between five and six, the nuptial ceremonies were performed in the chapel of Holyrood. Mary wore the mourning dress of the first days of her widowhood-a robe of black velvet and a long white veil. When the rites were done, Darnley kissed his bride, and left her to hear mass. Then Mary threw off her mourning, and appeared in gayer costume at the nuptial banquet, where the royal pair were served at table by the first nobles of the court. Money was thrown out to the populace, and the day was closed with dancing and merriment.

A few brief weeks of the intoxication of gratified love followed, and then the clouds began to gather, and deepen and darken, till the last faint beam of earthly hope was shut out forever. But this sad sequel forms an independent period in her melancholy history, to which, perhaps, our readers may not be unwilling to have us return on some other occasion.

THE RECENT PROGRESS OF THE SCIENCES OF ASTRONOMY AND PHYSICS.

(Continued from page 294.)

"HE induced the philosophers of Germany in 1825 to form a Magnetic Association, which numbered eighteen observatories under its direction. The simultaneous observations at places widely separated in the continent of Europe showed that the movements of the needle were affected by causes not limited to a narrow locality, but as extensive as the chain of observatories itself. In 1837 the British Association, aided by the Royal Society and patronized by the government, succeeded in greatly extending the plan and means of observing; and finally a system was organized for making simultaneous observations, at as many stations as possible, in the four quarters of the globe. This great enterprise is known by the name of the Magnetic Crusade." "From Toronto in Upper Canada to the Cape of Good Hope and Van Dieman's Land, from Paris to Pekin, the earth has been covered with magnetic observatories." "Three were established in the United States; one at Philadelphia, one at Cambridge (Mass.), and one at Washington: but we believe that neither one of these is in active operation at the present date. The first was attached to the Girard College, and went into operation in June, 1839," under the superintendence of Prof. Bache.

The instruments used-which are called Magnetometersconsist of long magnetized bars suspended by a bundle of untwisted fibres of silk, and inspected by small telescopes mounted upon stone pillars at a short distance from them. They are three in number. One is for noting the horizontal change of direction; the other two are for making known the variations of the dip, and of the intensity of the earth's force. Some idea may be formed of the minuteness to which the inquiry into the state of the earth's magnetism has been carried in these observations, when it is stated that at the Philadelphia observatory, bi-hourly observations of all the instruments were made; and on certain days called term-days— which are to the number of twenty-four in the year-the same observations were made every two minutes; and this is but a specimen of what is done at all of the observatories.