was in the midst of the scene, and acquainted even with the secrets of state at that time, could be ignorant of that which was proclaimed to all the world? If it should be alleged that Melvil, writing in his old age, might have forgotten this glaring fact, (the excuse commonly made for his inaccuracies,) I am afraid that the apology will detract as much from the credibility of his Memoirs as the charge which it is brought to repel. 2. In estimating the degree of regard due to the censures which Melvil has passed on the regent’s conduct, we must keep in view the political course which he himself steered. Sir James appears to have been a man of amiable dispositions, whose mind was cultivated by the study of letters; but those who have carefully read his Memoirs must, I think, be convinced that his penetration was not great, and that his politics were undecided, temporizing, and inconsistent. He was always at court, and always tampering with those who were out of court. We find him exposing himself to danger by dissuading his mistress from marrying Bothwell, and yet countenancing the marriage by his presence; acting as an agent for those who had imprisoned the queen, and yet intriguing with those who wished to set her at liberty; carrying a common message from the king’s lords to the earl of Murray upon his return out of France, and yet secretly conveying another message tending to counteract the design of the former; supporting Murray in the regency, and {340} yet trafficking with those who wished to undermine his authority. I do not call in question the goodness of his intentions in all this: I am willing to believe that a desire for the peace of the country, or attachment to the queen, induced him to go between, and labour to reconcile, the contending parties. But when parties are discordant――when their interests, or the objects at which they shoot, are diametrically opposite, to persevere in such attempts is preposterous, and cannot fail to foster and increase confusions. Who believes that the Hamiltons were disposed to join with the king’s party? or that the latter, when unassured of the assistance of England, were averse to a junction with the former? Yet Melvil asserts both of these things. Mem. 85, 86, 90. Who thinks that there was the smallest feasibility in what he proposed to the regent as “a present remedy for his preservation?” or believes that Maitland would have consented to go into France, and Kircaldy to deliver up the castle of Edinburgh? The regent heard him patiently; he respected the goodness of the man; but he saw that he was the dupe of Maitland’s artifices, and he followed his own superior judgment. For rejecting such advices as this (and not the religious proverbs, and political aphorisms, which he quoted to him from Solomon, Augustine, Isocrates, Plutarch, and Theopompus) has Melvil charged him with refusing the counsel of his oldest and wisest friends. Mem. 102‒104.