&c. &c.

ROBERTSON begins his history of Scotland with remarking, that nations, as well as men, arrive at maturity by degrees; and the events which happened during their infancy or early youth cannot be recollected, and deserve not to be remembered. The gross ignorance which anciently covered all the North of Europe, the continual migrations of its inhabitants, and the frequent and destructive revolutions which these occasioned, render it impossible to give any authentic account of the origin of the different kingdoms now established there. Every thing beyond that short period to which well-attested annals reach, is obscure; an immense space is left for invention to occupy; each nation, with a vanity inseparable from human nature, hath filled that void with events calculated to display its own antiquity and lustre.

The origin of the Scots is obscure and uncertain. Their language, however, their manners, their customs, their laws and religious rites, indicate that they migrated from the adjacent continent. The malignant policy of Edward I. of England, who in the thirteenth century destroyed the national records, has greatly increased this obscurity.

The reigns previous to that of James I. were less fertile of events and of illustrious men. Accordingly, our historian begins his delineations of character with that of

JAMES I.

Or this monarch he says, that during the continuance of a truce he was seized by the English, and ungenerously detained a prisoner almost nineteen years. During that period, the kingdom was governed, first by his uncle Robert, Duke of Albany, and then by Murdo his son. Both these noblemen aspired to the crown, and their unnatural ambition, if we may believe most of our historians, not only cut short the days of Prince David, the King's elder brother, but prolonged the captivity of James. They flattered themselves that they might step with less opposition into a throne when almost vacant; and dreading the King's return, as the extinction of their authority, and the end of their hopes, they carried on the negotiations for obtaining his liberty with extreme remissness. At the same time, they neglected nothing that could either sooth or bribe the nobles to approve of their scheme. They slackened the reins of government; they allowed the prerogative to be encroached upon; they suffered the most irregular acts of power, and even wanton instances of oppression, to pass with impunity; they dealt out the patrimony of the crown among those whose enmity they dreaded, or whose favour they had gained, and reduced the royal authority to a state of imbecility.

He adds, that while detained a prisoner by the English, he saw their nobles great, but not independent; a King powerful, though far from absolute; he saw a regular administration of government, wise laws enacted, and a nation flourishing and happy, because all ranks of men were accustomed to obey them. Full of these ideas he returned into his native country, which presented to

him a very different scene. The royal authority, never great, was now contemptible. The ancient patrimony and revenues of the crown were almost totally alienated. During his long absence, the name of a King was little known, and less regarded. The license of many years had rendered the nobles independent. Universal anarchy prevailed. The weak were exposed to the rapine and oppression of the strong. In every corner some barbarous chieftain ruled at pleasure, and neither feared the King nor pitied the people.

James was too wise a prince to employ open force to correct such inveterate evils. Neither the men nor the time would have borne it. He applied the gentler and less offensive remedy of laws and statutes. He gained the confidence of his people by many wise laws, tending to re-establish order, tranquillity, and justice in the kingdom. He endeavoured to secure these blessings to his subjects, while he discovered his intention to recover those possessions of which the crown had been unjustly bereaved. The patience and inactivity of the nobles seconded the royal efforts. The splendour and presence of a king, to which they had been long unaccustomed, inspired reverence. James was a prince of great abilities, and conducted his operations with much prudence. He was in friendship with England, and closely allied with the French King. He was adored by the people, who enjoyed unusual security and happiness under his administration.

Proceeding too far, however, in his favourite plan of humbling the nobles, they united against him, and conspiracies were formed against his life. Informed of this, he fled to a monastery near Perth, and was soon after murdered there in the most cruel manner. It was the misfortune of James that his maxims and manners were too refined for

the age in which he lived. Happy had he reigned in a kingdom more civilized, his love of peace, of justice, and of elegance, would have rendered his schemes successful, and instead of his perishing because he attempted too much, a grateful people would have applauded and seconded his efforts to reform and improve them.

JAMES II.

SUCCEEDED his father when a minor. During his minority he was assisted by Crichton, who had been the minister of James I. aided by Sir Alexander Livingston. Jealousy and discord were the effects of their conjunct authority; and each of them, in order to strengthen himself, bestowed new power and privileges upon the great men whose aid he courted. While the young Earl of Douglas, encouraged by their divisions, erected a sort of independent principality within the kingdom; and forbidding his vassals to acknowledge any authority but his own, he created knights, appointed a privy council, named officers civil and military, assumed every ensign of royalty but the title of king, and appeared in public with a magnificence more than royal.

Crichton, the principal agent in the scene, did not relinquish the design of humbling the nobles, and he endeavoured to inspire his pupil with the same sentiments. But what James had attempted to effect slowly, and by legal means, his son and Crichton pursued with the impetuosity natural to Scotsmen, and with the fierceness peculiar to that age. Douglas having contemned the authority of an infant prince, was by Crichton decoyed to an interview in the castle of Edinburgh, and both he and his brother murdered. The next earl was, by

the promises of the young king, led into the same snare, who ventured to meet him in Stirling castle. Urged by the king to abandon the confederacy of the nobles, he obstinately refused; then the king drew his dagger, and exclaimed, "If you will not, this shall," and stabbed him to the heart. An action so unworthy of a king filled the nation with astonishment and horror. The earl's vassals ran to arms. Both armies met at Abercorn. That of

the earl, composed chiefly of borderers, was far superior to that of the king's, and had not an ac commodation taken place, a single battle must, in all probability, have decided whether the house of Stewart or of Douglas was henceforth to possess the throne of Scotland.

James did not suffer this circumstance to pass unimproved; he procured the consent of parliament to laws more advantageous to the prerogative, and more subversive of the aristocracy, than were ever obtained by any former or subsequent monarch of Scotland. Each of these statutes undermined some of the great pillars on which the power of aristocracy rested. During the remainder of his reign, this prince pursued the plan which he had begun with the utmost vigour; and had not a sudden death, occasioned by the splinter of a cannon which burst near him at the siege of Roxburgh, prevented his progress, he wanted neither. genius nor courage to perfect it; and Scotland might, in all probability have been the first kingdom in Europe which would have seen the subversion of the feudal system.

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