and approve of our tears, as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure virtue. 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 With regard to the queen's pervivacity of her spirit, not suffici- son, a circumstance not to be omitently tempered with sound judg- ted in writing the history of a female ment, and the warinth 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 arms 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 scr- 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 beners of the age, licentious as they gan to grow fat; and her long conwere, 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 own 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 endeavours to be serviceable to the Roman commonwealth, in peace and war; assuring us, that your protection would prove to us a defence against all enemies, 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 greatness 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 dominons which the senate and 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 regulate ourselves according to the directions of our deceased father, Jugurtha-the most infamous of mankind! 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. 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 myself obliged to solicit your assistance, fathers, for the services done you by my ancestors, not for any I have been able to render you in my own person. Jugurtha has put it out of my power to deserve any thing at your hands, and has forced me to be burthensome before I could be useful to you. And yet, if I had no plea but my undeserved misery, who, from a powerful prince, the descendant of a race of 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 equaiity 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 expected, all sorts of hardships from their hostile attacks; our enemy near; our only powerful ally, the Roman commonwealth, at a distance; while we were so circumstanced we were always in arms, and in action. When that scourge of Africa was no more, we congratulated ourselves on the prospect of established peace. But instead of peace, behold the kingdom of Numidia drenched with rosal blood, and the only surviving son of its late king flying from an adopted murderer, and seeking that safety in foreign parts, which he cannot . command in his own kingdom. your judgment. Do not listen to those whom his violence has laid Whither-O whither shall I fly? If I return to the royal palace of my ancestors, my father's throne is seized by the murderer of my brother. What can I there expect, but that Jugurtha should hasten to imbrue in my blood those hands which are now reeking with my brother's? If I were to fly for refuge or for assistance to any other court, from what prince can I hope protection if the Roman commonwealth 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 alleviation; 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! O dearest to my heart-now gone 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 lies 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. 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 impor tance 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 cou 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-deli-rage was heroic, and he possessed ver a wretched prince from unde- it not only in the field, but (which served, unprovoked injury; and save is more uncommon) in the cabinet, the kingdom of Numidia, which is attempting great things with means your own property, from being the that to other men appeared totally prey of violence, usurpation, and unequal to such undertakings, and cruelty. steadily prosecuting what he had boldly resolved, being never disturbed or disheartened by difficulties, in the course of his enterprizes; but having that noble vigour Sallust. The Character of William the Con- of mind, which, instead of bet ding 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, relaxed. It helped not a little to out of a strong detestation of tyran- maintain the high respect his subny, have been unwilling to allow jects had for him, that the majesty him the praise he deserves. 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 people as well as he did his mar-ployed the properest means for the riage vow, he would have been the carrying on a very iniquitous and best of kings but he indulged violent administration. But that other passions of a worse nature, and which alone deserves the name of infinitely more detrimental to the wisdom in the character of a king, public than those he restrained. A the maintaining of authority by the lust of power, which no regard to exercise of those virtues which justice could limit, the most unre- make the happiness of his people, lenting cruelty, and the most insa- was what, with all his abilities, he tiable avarice possessed his soul.- does not appear to have possessed. It is true, indeed, that among many Nor did he excel in those soothing acts of extreme inhumanity, some and popular arts, which sometimes shining instances of great clemency change the complexion of a tyranmay be produced, that were either ny, and give it a fallacious appeareffects of his policy, which taught ance of freedom. His government him this method of acquiring was harsh and despotic, violating friends, or of his magnanimity, even the principles of that constiwhich made him slight a weak and tution which he himself had estasubdued enemy, such as was Edgar blished. Yet so far he performed Atheling, in whom he found neither the duty of a sovereign, that he took spirit nor talents able to contend care to maintain a good police in with him for the crown. But where his realm; curbing licentiousness he had no advantage nor pride in with a strong hand, which, in the forgiving, his nature discovered it- tumultuous state of his government, self to be utterly void of all sense was a great and difficult work.of compassion; and some barbari- How well he performed it we may ties which he committed, exceed- learn even from the testimony of a ed the bounds that even tyrants contemporary Saxon historian, who and conquerors prescribe to them- says, that during his reign, a man selves. 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 tolerate, but encourage, support, and even share these extortions. Though the greatness of the ancient landed estate of the crown, and the feudal 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. As to his wisdom in government, of which some modern writers have spoken very highly, he was indeed 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 |