to huge stone ovens, and although King Darnodilla was no longer in the northwest, and Kenneth of Ila, and Grime of Stratherne, and Patrick of Dunbar, were no more, and the famous LittleJohn was but a skeleton, into whose thigh-bone, as Boetius relates, you could thrust your arm-though all these worthies were now but voices in the wind, and but shadows in the mist, the chivalry of the country was as brilliant as ever, save that the progress of civilization had clouded it for a time with the spirit of luxury and avarice.

That merging, in fact, of the two nations which has only taken place in what we may almost call our own days, and which forms both the glory and the strength of Great Britain, had already commenced when the patriotism of Wallace once more inflamed the spirit of national animosity. The Scotch nobles began to learn enough law French to know that acquisition might properly be termed conquest, and they were not slow to give in their adherence to the feudal system, which only called for submission from them in proportion as it gave them lands, and which gave them power and dominion, which could be estimated at a money value in the current coin of the realm. The country began to be settled; it had speculated, so to speak, in warfare for a considerable period, and now those who had won began to call in and secure their winnings. This is always a period of great discontent to two sets of persons-those who have lost, and those who have no other pursuit save the indulgence of the hope of winning. Fifty persons committed suicide in the week succeeding the drawing of the last lottery in England; and on the conclusion, as it appeared for the moment, of the lottery of warfare, which had been played so long between the two countries, the unportioned gentlemen of Scotland retired with Wallace to the north in a state of Patriotic despair, with which we may fairly suppose some little selfishness to have mingled.

The story of William Wallace is a happy union of the romantic histories of Alfred the Great and Robin Hood; but he was unlike the latter, for he had an aim in life; and he was unlike the former, for he never attained it. He was the happy accident of an unhappy state of things. His life is a ballad in the mouth of history; but

history in singing it wears the usual woe-begone aspect of ballad singers.

After a certain time spent in roinantic adventures and hairbreadth escapes

"The prowess and deeds of arms for which this patriot was distinguished, and bis perfect knowledge of all the passes and defiles of the mountains, and the singular art which he possessed of commanding the most restless and daring spirits, pointed him out to the weirds as the deliverer of his country, and the seer of Greildowne, the far-famed Thomas the Rhymer, and other prophetic visionaries distinguished him as the person destined to deliver Scotland from the slavery of the English, and the only man who could restore the race of their ancient kings."

Wallace, however, does not appear to have had any defined political views. Protection for himself from the vengeance of the English, and the freedom of his country from their presence, appear to have been the bounds of his ambition, so far as he was conscious of it himself. The solemn expression by the seers and bards of hopes which were but politely veiled, commands and warnings of what was expected of him, must have filled him with perplexity; for the whole national system was disorganised, the hydra of faction arose against him, and he soon saw that he could not attempt to exercise the proper functions of government without adding the horrors of civil war to those of foreign invasion. For the safety of his country, he resigned a command which he was the only person worthy of holding, and indignantly retired.

But though Wallace had retired from his country in disgust, he never ceased to interest himself in its fortunes, to exert himself in its behalf. He urged Philip to assist his old allies, and to use his influence to have his sovereign, Baliol, liberated from the Tower. Philip listened courteously to his representations, but practically avoided giving a decisive answer, by sending Wallace himself, as his accredited agent, to discuss the affairs of Scotland with Pope Boniface the Eighth, to whose decision they had been referred. A more ingenious method of getting out of a difficulty could scarcely have been devised. The Pope so far interfered in the affair, as to demand that Edward should deliver up to himself Baliol, who was still kept a close prisoner in

the Tower. It flattered the pride of the Papacy to hold possession of a crowned king, although his sovereignty was but nominal. The English monarch remembered that the Pope had Gascony in his gift, and at once gave up his prisoner to the legate, the Bishop of Vicenza, in presence of a notary, requesting that he might "be sent to the Pope as a seducer of the people, and a perjured man ;" and allowing him, on condition of not interfering in Scottish affairs, to dispose of his large English estates, and to retire from the kingdom. This was building a bridge of gold for a flying enemy, and deprived the patriots of their most exciting topic of enthusiasm. But the Scots still struggled for liberty, and in the succeeding year took place that siege of the stronghold of the Maxwells, the Castle of Caerlaverock, which equals in interest any of which an account remains.

This castle was beautifully situated, having the Irish Sea on the west, and a rich country surrounded by an arm of the sea on the north; whilst on the south side there were numerous dangerous defiles of wood and marshes and ditches, which, with the river and the sea on two sides, rendered it almost unapproachable; and, therefore, the English could only advance to the

attack on the eastern side where the hill slopes. "On the day appointed," says Walter de Exeter, who accompanied the expedition, "the whole host was ready, and the good King with his household then set forward against the Scots, not in coats and surcoats, but on powerful and costly chargers, and well and securely armed. There were many rich caparisons embroidered on silks and satins, many a beautiful pennon fixed to a lance, and many a banner displayed. And afar off was the noise heard of the neighing of horses; mountains and valleys were everywhere covered with sumpter-horses and waggons, with provisions and sacks, with tents and pavilions."

Amongst the host which thus encamped on the plain before the small but brave garrison in the Castle of Caerlaverock, was Prince Edward, in command of the third division of the army, a handsome, brave and intelligent youth, bearing, with a blue label, the arms of his father, and seeking occasion to display his prowess. The

last squadron was commanded by the King himself, and in the midst of it floated his banner, displaying the three leopards courant, of fine gold set in red, fierce, haughty, and cruel; which signified that the King was dreadfully fierce and proud to his enemies.

The army was soon encamped and covered the eastern slopes by which the attack was to be made, with tents of white and coloured cloth, and huts of wood, whose floors were strewed with leaves, herbs and flowers, gathered in the forest. Ships arrived with engines and provisions, and the first attack was made without loss of time. It was repulsed with vigour; and then a troop of select bachelors, together with two troops of Bretons and men-at-arms from Lorraine, made a second advance.

And then the chivalry of Great Britain displayed all its splendour. Amongst the bravest knights shone conspicuous Bertram de Montboucher, with his silver shield; Gerard de Gondrouville, with his shield of vaire, and the good Baron of Wrighton. Little less distinguished were Badlionere and Cromwell the handsome and brave, who, with his white lion rampant, crowned with gold, glided between the stones. Thomas de Richmont brought up the lances to the brink of the ditch and would scarcely give way before the overwhelming shower of missiles. Of those who advanced under Henry de Graham scarcely two returned unhurt or brought back their shields entire. Ralph de Gorges, a newlydubbed knight, who had all his harness and attire of gold and azure, was more than once brought to the ground, while the fragments of Haworth's shield, who bore himself nobly, were more than once seen to fly in the air. The drawbridge appears to have been the scene of the most vigorous attack, and was surrounded by a troop of heroes anxious to signalize their skill and bravery. There many a shining shield of silver, many a lance and pennon were alternately displayed; and as one baron and his followers were wounded, or forced to retire before the besieged, another host of knights advanced to the charge, assailing the gate, and shouting their respective war cries.

The whole scene must rather have resembled a tournament, or birth-day

spectacle, than actual warfare. As the July sunset turned the old grey castlewalls to crimson gold, whilst from one direction joyous groups came bearing large armsful of heath and flowers and wild game from the glen, and fish from the stream; and from another direction came the weary warriors, pausing now and then to unstring a bow, to unloose a casque, the bell from some neighbouring convent would sound deeply and sweetly over wood and hill, and reach the mariners rocking idly out at sea.

The care and research which are visible in Mr Low's account of the life and fortunes of Wallace are apparent in a greater degree in his life of Robert Bruce, which, indeed, forms the bulk of the volumes before us. But, whilst it is superior to any life of the patriot King of Scotland which has yet been written, its somewhat ungraceful style frequently reminds us, to its own disadvantage, of the facile elegance of Sir Walter Scott's volumes on the same subject. This defect, however, so far as it exists, is hidden by the richness and abundance of the new historical matter which Mr Low has here offered to the perusal of the general reader.

OUR OWN STORY.*

a

AMIDST the crowds of human life the isolation of individuals frequently strikes us as a great problem. In former ages to be lonely was to be either a miser, a witch, or a hermit; but the kind of loneliness which gave this reputation was a material one, and consisted in a mountain-cave, or little hut at the foot of a hill, surrounded by a garden in which the herbs had grown uncouth and weirdlike by neglect. But the lonely ones of the present day live in the most crowded thoroughfares: they are not seldom to be met with at dinner parties, and frequently at evening assemblies; yet their loneliness is none the less real, and though they gather no gold, work no spells, and strive not to atone, by purposed seclusion, for any particular sins, they are misers, witches, and hermits. They hoard up their feelings and affections; they exert a mysterious influence on all with whom they come in contact;

THE CHESSPLAYER'S ANNUAL FOR 1856.† CHESS is perhaps the only game which has a literature of its own. This is because it is the only game of universal adaptation: the cricketer must have a quicker eye and a stronger arm than his fellow mortals; the cardplayer a greater love of excitement, a more perfect endurance of monotony; so, of course, to the formation of a good chessplayer certain faculties are required, which one man possesses more fully than another, but anybody with a brain of tolerable clearness can, to a certain extent, play chess.

Chess is catholic. Russian princes, German mathematicians, Hungarian revolutionists, English poets, the young and old, the sage and simple, gentlemen and ladies, all play chesswe were about to add, the poor as well as the rich. We hope the day will come when no cottage in England, whether of agriculturist or artizan, will be without its chess-board-a hope which we borrow from Mr. T. E. Cour, in the Chessplayer's Annual."

This little volume is perfectly readable, even for its literary merits. Its editor's contributions have a picturesque sparkle, equal to anything of the kind in modern literature. Special

favourites with all readers will be the tales entitled the "Professor's Daughter," and the "Promissory Note." The former is an autobiographic sketch of a young gentleman who went to Germany to study chymistry under an eccentric chess-loving disciple of Berzalius, and who mated the Professor's pretty daughter in more ways than one: the latter is a curious history of the difficulties a chessplayer fell into, by promising to pay £100 to a stranger, in the event of his wife's becoming as good a player as the aforesaid stranger's cara sposa. The result (among other things) is a gradual descent in the quality of the dinners, and a fearful arrear in the matter of shirt-buttons; and the moral, of course, is, that it is inadvisable for ladies to addict themselves too strongly to chess. Unluckily the fascinating way in which the game is described somewhat neutralises this excellent moral lesson.

Among the other contributors of literary matter, we find the name of Mortimer Collins. His articles are en

titled " "The Magic Chessmen," and

"Chess Skolia." The former is a myth of the school of Praed and Ingoldsby: the latter an attempt to revivify a good old after-dinner custom of the Greeks. Mr. Collins is an occasional contributor of our own, and we shall, therefore, say nothing further of his articles.

Captain Kennedy contributes a desultory paper containing some interesting descriptions of chess lions. Mr. Cour contributes a dialogue in which the claims of chess to the name of a science, and its value as au instrument of intellectual culture, are ably maintained. Its votaries have been among earth's giants, and its dwarfs also, and it is recorded that the only way in which his friends could vanquish Robert Simson, the mathematician, was by asserting some erroneous doctrine in physical science in the midst of a game, when his anxiety for the cause of truth made him forget the perils of his ivory king.

MADELINE CLARE; OR, THE IMPORTANT * SECRET.

THE novel is as much an attendant on every phase of civilized life as gorgeous

parasitical plants are of the trees of Southern forests. Our streets and lanes have their novels, so have our philosophies and religions. The luxuriant growths of imagination, the flowers of passion, the fruits of taste and feeling, are wreathed and inwreathed into bright, rich robes for our modern days. Sometimes we come upon a work of fiction, which however, declares for itself the possession of an innate vitality; which refuses to be considered as the mere graceful ornament of the actual; and which, not being the actual itself, yet assumes not merely to represent but to imitate it. Such a work appears to us to be "Madeline Clare." It is wealthy English country life on paper. It is a model rather than a picture. Its characters and incidents are vigorous, and give it the appearance of a working model. The uplands rise, varied with noble mansions; the stately woods become purple in the valleys; there is dew on the grass; the birds alone disturb the quiet, lending their voices, as a modern poet has expressed it, to the dumb flowers; there is mist on the plain and sunshine on the hills. The hand of wealth has passed over every scene.

So far as there is a story in the book, it is well written and well managed, and we do not like the plot less because we feel constrained to sympathise with and admire the villain who is its moving power. The course of the story moves over the deep-green herbage of its scenery with so soft and gentle a step, that it scarcely stirs the silent summer atmosphere around it. It never fails to be clothed in a dignified richness and grace. Its most striking and powerful passages are clothed in a repose which by no means conceals their dramatic force.

The error of the book consist in its containing two heroes and two heroines, who all nearly equally claim the reader's attention, and whose characters possess strong points of resemblance. Mabel and Madeline, Philip and Temple, resemble a handsome group of brothers and sisters, whose likeness to each other blends them at once without any artistic grouping into a fair picture. The narrative lulls us into contemplation of its characters, when it ought to excite us into an eager observation of their fortunes.

BEFORE these pages meet the reader's eye, those conferences will probably have closed, on which hang the destinies of Europe. According to the result of these deliberations, either peace will shed its permanent sunshine upon the vast regions now lightened by the transient gleam of an armistice, or war will once more gather its thunders and launch them in renewed devastation over the world.

It is during such a pause-while we are standing in an attitude halfconciliatory, half-menacing, ready to relax our energies into quietude, or string them up again to action--that we can best reflect upon our actual position, and form a sound judgment as to those occurrences which passed by with too bewildering rapidity at the time to be thoroughly appreciated. The series of recent events which, had things continued as they were, might have ranged itself in the perspective of the past, and floated away from before men's minds into the current of history, has suddenly become ice-bound by the suspension of hostilities, retaining the prominence of a present reality, intensely distinct and mapped at our feet as the status quo on which those arrangements are likely to be based, if arrived at at all, towards which the eyes of the world are at this moment turned. The course of the torrent, as it rushed from side to side, undermining, overflowing, spreading, foaming and raging along, apparently the most blind and capricious of forces, may, nevertheless, possibly prove the boundaryline of peace. Where the tide swept, the frontier may be traced; and nations which contributed their substance and their blood to swell the VOL. XLVII.-NO. CCLXXX.

stream, may be found to accept the limit struck out by devastation, and sit down in friendly rivalry on either bank.

At this juncture, too, is it of more special import to scrutinize the conduct of those who have contributed to create the existing state of things, with a view to the equitable adjustment of public approval or censure. No equally favorable opportunity for such a scrutiny can be expected soon to occur. In case the conferences terminate in peace, men's minds will be too much elated by the result to look back with the sternness of impartiality at the conduct of those whose attempts at evil, now that they have proved impotent, provoke their contempt rather than their active indignation:—while if they should unhappily prove abortive, and the European struggle be renewed, there will be no time for retrospect at all; -all eyes must be bent forwardthe face must be towards the foe without, not towards the traitor or poltroon within. New struggles, new triumphs, new reverses, will claim the interest of the hour. Every day will add a viewless film to the veil which will screen public delinquency from public detection; until, by and by, the immunity due to circumstances will be relied on as presumptive proof of innocence, and prescription pleaded in bar of all further scrutiny.

The time, then, is come-it is not likely to last long-when it is expedient to summon the men before us who have contributed to make our actual position, and to ask them what they have done or left undone-in their several spheres of action. In inquiries of this sort, two classes of impuD 2