In another page, one of the actors puts a sensible query, and adds a silly remark on the present condition of the Stuart cause:――‘Wonderful!――but why such mystery?――why?――for what should the birth of an heir to the House of Stuart be thus concealed? It had――it yet has friends (in Europe), and its interests must ever be identified with those of France, Spain, and Rome.’ Of this sort of thing, though there be little, there is more than enough; but the reader, as he proceeds, has an opportunity of conceiving a high opinion of Red Eagle’s common sense, and of fully agreeing with him at least in one observation which is put in the following form: ‘Woman!’ said the Tolair, ‘this is no time for bombast and juggling!’ The old Admiral Carter Allen never indulged in either. In his will the gallant sailor calls John and Thomas Allen his _sons_. He does not call Thomas his _foster_ son. Prince Charles Edward spoke of no child in _his_ will but his illegitimate daughter, the Duchess of Albany. The Cardinal of York took the nominal title of king at his brother’s death; and received the duchess into his house. At her death, in 1789, the Crown jewels, which James II. had carried off from England, came into the cardinal’s possession; and these, at the beginning of the present century, he generously surrendered to George III. The cardinal was well assured that no legitimate heir of his brother had ever existed. [Sidenote: _THE LEVER OF POETRY._] The assurance that there was one, however, continued to be made, and that the sons of Tolair were as poetical as they were princely was next asserted. [Sidenote: _POETICAL POLITICS._] In 1848, Mr. Dolman, of London (conjointly with Blackwood), published a poetical manifestation by the Count, John Sobieski Stuart, and his brother, Charles Edward. It had an innocent look, but a mysterious purpose. Its title is, ‘Lays of the Deer Forest.’ The Lays are dedicated to Louisa Sobieska Stuart, by her father and uncle. The second volume, consisting of ‘Notes,’ is dedicated to a Charles Edward Stuart, by _his_ father and uncle. There is something of a poetical fire in the Lays; and much interesting matter on deer-stalking and other sporting subjects in the Notes. The spirit is thoroughly anti-English; very ‘Papistical’ in the odour of its heavily-charged atmosphere, but betraying the combined silliness and ferocity which distinguished the Stuarts themselves, in a hero-worship for the most cruel enemies of England. For instance, in the poem called ‘Blot of Chivalry,’ Charles Edward Stuart, the author, deifies Napoleon, and, if there be any meaning at all to be attached to the words, execrates England. In the ‘Appeal of the Faithful,’ there is a mysterious declaration that the writer, or the faithful few, will not bow the head to Somebody, and there are as mysterious references to things which might have been, only that they happened to be otherwise. [Sidenote: _THE BLACK COCKADE._]