Of physical beauty there is no question that she possessed an extraordinary share--perhaps more than any woman of that or any other age. Like her mother, she was of lofty stature and peculiar dignity of bearing, whilst she inherited from her father an exact symmetry and the most graceful proportions. James V., though he made bad use of his physical advantages, was one of the comeliest and best-limbed men in his dominions. Mary’s hand was a model for a sculptor, whilst every gesture and every movement of her body was at once womanly and dignified. But it was the Queen’s face that riveted the attention, and fascinated both sexes with its entrancing loveliness. Other women might be beautiful; other women might have had the same smooth, open brow, the same chiselled features and pencilled eyebrows, the same delicate chin and white full neck and bosom--ay, even the same long, soft hazel eyes, and rich dark chestnut hair; but where was the woman in Europe whose glance, like hers, raised from under those sweeping eyelashes, found its way straight to the heart; whose smile seemed at once to entreat and to command, to extort obedience and bestow reward, like sunlight penetrating the coldest object and warming and brightening all within its sphere? Yes, there was many a beautiful woman in France and Scotland, not to mention such fair dames at the English court as did not fear to provoke the displeasure of ‘good Queen Bess’ by too engaging a deportment or too becoming an attire; but there was only one Mary Stuart, as many an aching heart in steel-clad bosom was fain to confess to its cost. And yet on that fair face was often to be remarked an expression of melancholy, as though produced by some vague foreboding of evil, such as cast a shadow over the countenances of so many of the Stuarts. Even James V., though he could revel with the noisiest, and sing many a merry stave of his own writing, amongst which ‘We’ll go no more a roving By the light of the moon,’ is not the least suggestive and poetical, bore on his brow this mysterious presage of evil, although it was perhaps more apparent, as well it might be, in the pensive lineaments of his descendant, the first Charles, and the surpassing beauty of his peerless daughter, Mary Queen of Scots. Was it this that the soothsayer meant, when Mary of Guise took her beautiful child, then a mere infant, to the famous Nostradamus, and bade him cast her horoscope, and fortell her destinies? The sage looked on the blooming face, turned so artlessly towards his own, and announced in his deep grave tones, ‘There is blood on that fair young brow!’