Mr. Hume is an attractive writer, but as a historian it is long since people ceased to rely upon him for facts. The passage here quoted is a characteristic exemplification of his extraordinary carelessness. According to Mr. Hosack, the short sentence cited contains three distinct and palpable mistakes. In the first place, the paper containing the depositions of Paris was authenticated by no judicial authority. Secondly, it was not given in regularly and judicially; for it was secretly sent to London in October, 1569, many months after the termination of the Westminster conferences. Lastly, it was impossible that it could have been canvassed at the time by those whom it concerned; for it was not only kept a profound secret from the queen and her friends during her life, but it was not made public for nearly a century and a half after her death. The depositions of Paris were first given to the world in the collections of Anderson in 1725. It did not at all suit Murray's purpose to produce Paris in open court. So, after being tortured, he was executed, and in place of a witness who might have told what he saw and heard, was produced a so-called deposition professedly written by a servant of Murray, and attested by two of his creatures, Buchanan and Wood, both pensioners of Cecil, and both enemies of the Queen of Scotland. Buchanan, of course, had full cognizance of the Paris deposition, for he subscribed it as a witness; and yet we have the singular fact that, although he appended to his _Detectio_ the depositions of Hay, Hepburn, and Dalgleish, that of Paris is omitted. Again, in his _History of Scotland_, published subsequently, although he refers to Paris in several passages, he is still silent as to his deposition. The solution of this seeming singularity is simple. He rejected it for its manifest extravagance and absurdity, which, he wisely concluded, could not impose on the worst enemies of the queen. Fable and fiction answering Mr. Froude's purpose just as well as authentic history, he of course accepts the "Paris" paper as perfectly true. A successful writer of the romance of history, Mr. Froude deserves great credit for his industry in gathering every variety of material for his novel without any absurd sentimental squeamishness as to its origin.