PREFACE.

TH

HE eight letters, twelve fonnets, and two marriage-contracts, which either in their fubfcriptions, in their compofition, or in both, have been attributed to the

pen

of

the

the unfortunate Mary, and on which principally is founded all the flander that has been raised against her, have been as fingular in their fortune as they are in their nature. Sufpected for forgeries by numbers, at the time of their original appearance; and condemned equally by numbers, for certain forgeries; they gained by degrees upon good opinion of the public, till they nearly came at last into the full poffeffion of it. In this kind of pre-eminence they continued to our own days.. They carried a commanding boldness in their air and manner. And nothing impofes more readily upon the easy faith of the world, than the bold teftimony of a confident witness.

The

But

The most important of these papers, the letters, had however been very strongly encountered at first by a Defence of Mary's Honour, which was published by her worthy adherent, Lesley, bishop of Rofs, and which was at once lively, convincing, and pointed. this was instantly fuppreffed by the violence of Queen Elizabeth. No vindication of Mary was fuffered to appear. Many were published on the continent; yet none of them durft venture upon English ground. And at the fame time the Detection of Mary's Doings by Buchanan, that daring effort of fabricated calumny, in which the principal of the two contracts, all the fonnets, and all the letters were originally published, received every recommendation that could be lent it by authority. It was prefented in form to Elizabeth herself. It was circulated with industry by her minifters. In that period of our government, fuch artifices of tyranny would carry a peculiar efficacy with them. They could not fail of fuccefs. The reputation of Mary was affaulted on every fide, in vigorous and artful appeals to the public. She was debarred from all counter appeals in her own defence. From the malicious partiality

of mankind to flander, the energy of a vindication is no ways equal to the force of an accufation. What then must be the force of the one, when the other is not permitted to accompany it; when this is fuppreffed, and that is fupported, by all the exertions of authority in the government, and by all the habits of obedience in the people? The confequence was very natural. The fonnets, contracts, and letters were received as authentic teftimonies of Mary's guilt. The opinion of the public became fixed upon the point. And a flander, that has once got poffeffion of the general faith, is the moft difficult of all prejudices to be removed.

But in 1754 a wonderful revolution began to take place in the history of these established evidences. Mr. Goodall, keeper of the Advocate's library at Edinburgh, ftepped forward, with a courage that feemed to border upon rashness, in order to prove them mere forgeries, and to disabuse the deceived public. He was a man very conversant with records. He was, therefore, in the habit of referring affertions to authorities. He was alfo actuated perhaps by a spirit of party, as a party had been then formed in the nation

concerning the point. Something more vigorous than the abftracted love of truth, is generally requifite to every arduous undertaking. But, whatever were his motives, his enterprize was honourable, and his execution powerful. He entered into an examination of the papers with confiderable spirit. He went through it with confiderable addrefs. He even proved the letters to be forgeries in fo clear a manner, that one is aftonifhed it had never been done before. This fhews, indeed, the little attention which had been paid to the fubject, in care to substantiate, or in zeal to deftroy, the fundamental credit of the whole. And that forms one of those grand difcoveries, which muft neceffarily be very rare in the hiftory of any nation, and therefore reflect a peculiar honour upon the individual who makes them.

Yet fuch was the factious credulity then prevailing generally in the island, that this work, one of the moft original and convincing which ever were publifhed, made its way very flowly among us. Even fome of our firft-rate writers prefumed to fet themfelves against it. Dr. Robertfon, a difciple of the old school of flander, wrote a formal differtation