processions, the bridal finery, the jousts and the feasts, the Parliaments and proclamations of laws and high alliances. The reigns of the Jameses contain the history of her rise, her splendour, her climax of beauty and stateliness, without any association of downfall or decay. PART III THE TIME OF THE PROPHETS CHAPTER I UNDER THE QUEEN REGENT There is perhaps among the many historical personages attached by close association to Edinburgh no one so living, so vigorous, so present, as the great figure of the Reformer and Prophet, who once filled the air with echoes of his vehement and impassioned oratory, who led both Lords and Commons, and mated with princes on more than equal terms, the headstrong, powerful, passionate Preacher, who was at once the leading spirit of his time and its most vigorous chronicler. To fill the circle of association, he alone, of all the animated groups who withstood or who followed him, has left us not only a number of books which disclose his mind with all its powers and imperfections, but the very dwelling in which he passed at least the latter part of his life, intact and authentic, a memorial more striking and attractive than any "storied urn or animated bust." Nor are even the associations of burial wanting; for though it is no longer within the solemn enclosure of a churchyard, and there is no certainty that the stone which is supposed to mark the position of the Reformer's grave is historically exact, it is yet sure enough that near by, within reach of the doors of his ancient church, beneath the pavement trodden by so many feet, his remains repose in the centre of the life of the Scottish capital, a position more appropriate than any other that could be imagined. Thus by life and by death this singular and most evident and unmistakable man, still alive in every lineament, is connected with the city in which his life was passed, and in the history of which he can never be forgotten. There may be doubts about other localities, and it may be difficult to identify the houses which have been inhabited and the floors that have been trod by other distinguished personages. Crowding footsteps of the poor have obliterated the record in many a noble house abandoned by history; even the fated steps of the Queen save in one bloodstained closet have left but little authentic trace. But Knox is still present with all the force of an indestructible individuality--in the existing life of the country which took so strong an impression from him, and in the absolutely personal facts of the church in which he preached, the house in which he lived, the stone under which he lies.