As it is likely some of our readers have never read “Napier’s Life of Montrose,” we think it may not be amiss to insert an extract descriptive of the execution of that nobleman. It need scarcely be mentioned that this is the famous Graham of Claverhouse, whom Sir Walter Scott has drawn with such fine effect in one of his best novels. It was resolved to celebrate his entrance into Edinburgh with a kind of mock solemnity. Thus on Sunday, the 18th of May, the magistrates met him at the gates, and led him in triumph through the streets. First appeared his officers, bound with cords, and walking two and two; then was seen the Marquis, placed on a high chair in the hangman’s cart, with his hands pinioned, and his hat pulled off, while the hangman himself continued covered by his side. It is alleged in a contemporary record, that the reason of his being tied to the cart was, in hope that the people would have stoned him, and that he might not be able by his hands to save his face. In all the procession there appeared in Montrose such majesty, courage, modesty, and even somewhat more than natural, that even these women who had lost their husbands and children in his wars, and were hired to stone him, were, upon the sight of him, so astonished and moved, that their intended curses turned into tears and prayers. Of the many thousand spectators only one, Lady Jane Gordon, Countess of Haddington, was heard to scoff and laugh aloud. Montrose himself continued to display the same serenity of temper, when at last, late in the evening, he was allowed to enter his prison, and found there a deputation from the Parliament. He merely expressed to them his satisfaction at the near approach of the Sunday as the day of rest. “For,” said he, “the compliment you put upon me this day was a little tedious and fatiguing.” Montrose told his persecutors that he was more proud to have his head fixed on the top of the prison walls than that his picture should hang in the king’s bed-chamber, and that far from being troubled at his legs and arms being dispersed among the four principal cities, he only wished he had limbs to send to every city in Christendom, as testimonies of his unshaken attachment to the cause in which he suffered. When Sir Archibald Johnson of Warriston, the Clerk-Register, entered the prisoner’s cell, and found him employed, early in the morning, combing the long curled hair which he wore according to the custom of the cavaliers, the visitor muttered: “Why is James Graham so careful of his locks?” Montrose replied with a smile: “While my head is my own, I will dress and adorn it; but when it becomes yours, you may treat it as you please.”