Mr. Hosack's treatment of the question of the authenticity of the silver-casket letters is exhaustive. More than a century ago, Goodall fully exposed the forgery, and he has never been satisfactorily answered. Mr. Froude, of course, accepts them without discussion. The conferences at York and the proceedings at Westminster are presented as only a lawyer can present them. Mary's cause gains by the most rigid scrutiny. Mr. Froude does not know enough to analyze and intelligibly present serious matters like these. He prefers a series of sensational _tableaux_ and highly-colored dissolving views, producing for authorities garbled citations and his own fictions. Mr. Hosack's testimony, independently of its great intrinsic merit, is valuable because of his nationality and of his religion, and we hope to see his work republished in the United States. His closing page concludes thus: "In the darkest hours of her existence--even when she hailed the prospect of a scaffold as a blessed relief from her protracted sufferings--she never once expressed a doubt as to the verdict that would be finally pronounced between her and her enemies. 'The theatre of the world,' she calmly reminded her judges at Fotheringay, 'is wider than the realm of England.' She appealed from the tyranny of her persecutors to the whole human race; and she has not appealed in vain. The history of no woman that ever lived approaches in interest to that of Mary Stuart; and so long as beauty and intellect, a kindly spirit in prosperity, and matchless heroism in misfortune attract the sympathies of men, this illustrious victim of sectarian violence and barbarous statecraft will ever occupy the most prominent place in the annals of her sex." FOOTNOTE: [7] _Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers._ Embracing a Narrative of Events from the Death of James V., in 1542, until the Death of the Regent Murray, in 1570. By John Hosack, Barrister-at law. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1869. _Histoire de Marie Stuart._ Par Jules Gauthier. Vol. i. Paris. 1869. STABAT MATER. Stabat Mater dolorosa, Juxta crucem lacrymosa, Dum pendebat Filius: Cujus animam gementem, Contristatam et dolentem, Pertransivit gladius. ENGLISH TRANSLATION[8] Broken-hearted, lo, and tearful, Bowed before that Cross so fearful, Stands the Mother by the Son! Through her bosom sympathizing In his mortal agonizing Deep and keen the steel has gone. GREEK TRANSLATION.[9] Ἵστη Μήτηρ ἀλγέουσα παρὰ σταυρῷ δακρύουσα, ἐκρημνᾶτο ὡς Τέκνον· ἧς τὴν ψυχὴν στενάχουσαν, πολύστονον, πενθέουσαν διέπειρε φάσγανον.