complete beauty;" adding, that "by the study of the liberal arts and sciences, especially painting, music, and poetry, she had so embellished her natural good qualities, that she appeared to be the most amiable Princess in Christendom." On the occasion of her marriage, not only were the brains of all the jewellers, embroiderers, and tailors of Paris put in requisition, but a whole host of French poets felt themselves suddenly inspired. Epithalamiums poured in from all quarters, spiced with flattery of all kinds, few of which have been borne down the stream of time so honourably for their author's abilities as that of Buchanan, who, having long struggled with poverty, had at last risen to independence, under the patronage of Cardinal Lorraine. This poem is well known, but is not more complimentary than that of Joachim du Bellay, who, after comparing Mary to Venus, concludes his song with these lines:-- "Par une chaîne à sa langue attachée Hercule à soi les peuple attiroit; Mais celle ci tire ceux qu'elle voit Par une chaîne à ses beaux yeux attachée." Homage, so general, cannot have been entirely misplaced, or very palpably exaggerated. In Scotland, through the instigation of the Queen Regent, Mary's nuptials, which were far from being agreeable to a numerous party, were celebrated with probably less sincere, and certainly much more homely expressions of pleasure. Orders were sent to the different towns "to make fyres and processions general." Mons-Meg, the celebrated great gun of Edinburgh Castle, was fired once; and there is a charge of ten shillings in the treasurer's accounts of that year paid to certain persons for bringing up the cannon "to be schote, and for the finding and carrying of her bullet after she was schote frae Wardie Muir to the Castel of Edinburgh,"--a distance of about two miles. A play was also enacted, but of what kind it is difficult to say, at the expense of the city of Edinburgh. CHAPTER V. MARY THE QUEEN DAUPHINESS, THE QUEEN, AND THE QUEEN DOWAGER OF FRANCE. Shortly after the espousals, Mary and her husband retired to one of their princely summer residences. Here she unostentatiously discharged the duties of a respectful and attentive wife, in a manner which gained for her the admiration of all who visited them. Delightful as society and amusements must at that age have been to her, she readily accommodated herself to the peculiar temper of Francis, and seemed willing, for his sake, to resign all the gaieties of the court.