closet with the Earl of Bothwell, she called aloud for them to give her a knife to kill herself with. Those who were in the room adjoining the closet heard her.'* There is also evidence of Bothwell regarding her as a person requiring to be watched, that he might work out his ends successfully. In her own communication to the French court respecting the marriage, she speaks as follows:- When he saw us like to reject all his suit and offers, in the end he showed us how far he had proceeded with our whole nobility and principals of our estates, and what they had promised him under their own handwriting. If we had cause, then, to be astonished, we remit us to the judgment of the king, the queen, and others our friends. Seeing ourself in his power, sequestered from the company of our servants and others of whom we might ask counsel; yea, seeing them upon whose counsel and fidelity we had before depended, whose force ought and must maintain our authority, without whom in a manner we are nothing, beforehand already won over to his wishes, and so we left alone as it were a prey unto him; many things we resolved with ourself, but could never find a way of escape. And yet gave he us little space to meditate with ourself, ever pressing us with continual and importunate suit.' It may be asked if this is the language in which she could have been expected to write to a friendly potentate respecting a husband whom she had married under the influence of an infatuated passion, as represented by her enemies. In short, while there is no worthy evidence of any love on Mary's part towards Bothwell, or of a single motive of another kind which she could have for such a marriage; while, on the contrary, it was, as the event proved, likely to be most injurious to her; there is abundant evidence of the affair having sprung from the ambition of this profligate man, and been effected by the assistance of a set of his compeers, who saw in this step a sure means of effecting an object long desired by them-the destruction of a ruler opposed to them in faith, and whose continuance in power was dangerous to the Protestant cause. In five weeks from the marriage these men had immured the queen in Lochleven, while Bothwell was an outlaw roaming through the northern seas.

The whole subsequent conduct of Mary respecting Bothwell is accordant with the supposition of the marriage having been contrary to her will. She parted with him at Carberry without a sigh. In her letters after that event, she is not found alluding to him. That she declined a proposed divorce the month after their parting, may be considered as owing to her haying been pregnant of a daughter, now ascertained to have been born at Lochleven, and who died a nun in France. The trial got up between Elizabeth and the Scotch lords, during her imprisonment in England, with a view to establish her guilt, ended, as is well known, in a complete failure. But the crowning evidence on the exculpatory side is in the circumstances connected with the death of Bothwell. This wretched man perished in a Danish prison ten years after his fall. Mary then wrote as follows to the Archbishop of Glasgow:- Information has been received here of the death of the Earl of Bothwell, and that before his decease he made an ample confession of his crime, and declared himself the guilty author of the assassination of the late king, my husband, of which he expressly acquitted me, testifying to my innocence on the peril of his soul's damnation; and since, if this be true, this testimony would be of the greatest value to me against the false calumnies of my enemies, I beg of you to investigate the truth by all the means possible. Those who were present at this declaration, which was afterwards signed and sealed by them in the form of a last will and testament, are Otto Braw, of the castle of Elcembro; Paris Braw, of the castle of Vascut; Mr Gullunstame, of the castle of Fulkenster; the Bishop of Skonen,

and four magistrates of that town. If De Monceaulx, who has formerly trafficked in that country, would make a voyage thither to inquire more particularly, I would be glad to employ him for the purpose, and to furnish money for his travelling expenses.' Now this document, which Mary wished to be produced, was sent to Elizabeth, but by her suppressed. Morton, who was now regent in Scotland, is at the same time found imprisoning a man for spreading a report of the existence of such a document. Prince Labanoff has, however, obtained an original and undoubted copy of Bothwell's declaration, showing that the account which Mary had heard of it was correct. A man in Bothwell's circumstances could have no motive to clear the character of Mary, if she had actually been guilty. The publication of this important document is deferred by the prince till he shall give us an eighth and final volume, stating his own impressions from the interesting series of papers contained in the seven already published.

Such are the leading points of the evidence now brought out in favour of the innocence of Mary. It is an evidence which will not be satisfactory to the sectarian spirit still alive respecting the history of her times; but to minds independent of that influence, it will carry much weight. The wonder with candid persons will now be, that they did not long ago suspect the soundness of the prevalent views respecting Mary, seeing that she was exactly in those circumstances which make fair treatment next to impossible. All monarchs succeeded by new and hostile dynasties, all statesmen and all political ideas superseded by others of an opposite stamp, are sure to be misrepresented. Knowing these things, it appears strange that we did not long since suspect the vulgar history of Queen Mary, merely from the circumstance that the representatives of opposite religious and political systems had been in possession of power ever since her time. We might have been startled, if by nothing else, by reflecting that Mary is held infamous on a merely suspected connexion with the crime of murder, while Elizabeth, who is known for certain to have taken measures to have Mary assassinated, who called Sir A. Pawlett a precise fellow, because he would not do the deed, and who actually did murder Mary under form of law, is handed down as a paragon of excellence. The impartial public has been deficient in shrewdness, but we trust it will not be deficient in manfulness to express its sense of the new bearing of this question.

FARMING PAST AND PRESENT. NOTHING could be more erroneous than the attempt which is sometimes made to draw a line of distinction between the principle of raising food and the production of wares in wool, in linen, in wood, or in iron. The one is about as much a manufacture as the other; a trading with capital, an endeavour to accumulate profits, from the supply of a marketable commodity, in the shortest time, and by the cheapest process. It is true that at one time a wider difference existed between the culture of the soil and those arts which are usually termed manufactures; but that period has long since passed, and the two great branches of industry are every day more closely approximating. The farmer-we speak more particularly of Scotland-no longer builds his own sheds, makes his own harness, or fashions the implements by which he prepares the soil, but calls in the assistance of the mason, the joiner, mechanist, and chemist, himself taking only the last division of the labour by which the commodity is produced. Thus it is that farming, as a branch of industry, differs in no respect from cotton weaving: it is an art, to the perfection of which other arts must contribute their share; its demands upon their aid becoming numerous in proportion to the demands upon its produce. Nothing could be more conclusive of this view than a contrast between the realities of British farming in 1845, and those which existed sixty or eighty years ago.

Let us take, in the first place, the erections of the farm-stead, as these in every case must form the first step towards an establishment. At the period to which we refer these were little better than mud-huts, being constructed of turf, or of alternate layers of turf and stone, and covered with straw, heath, or rushes. There might be some small necessity for carpentry in the framing of the roof or door, but otherwise the whole could be accomplished by the hands on the farm. Now, a first-rate Scottish farm-stead will cost several thousand pounds, requiring the joint labour of the architect, builder, joiner, slater, plumber, and ironsmith. The walls are of well-worked stone, the woodwork usually of foreign timber, thereby calling in the assistance of the timber-merchant and ship-owner, and the slates or tiles also imply the work of another class of artisans. Indeed, a well-appointed farm-stead, with all its offices, its water-pipes, liquid manure-tanks, boiling and steaming apparatus, slicing, chopping, and thrashing machines, requires in every respect as great a variety of labour and mechanical skill as does the erection of any other factory. Or let us look at the interior of the buildings, and compare the rough rude finish of a century ago with the finely-paved, plastered, and partitioned stalls of the present day. Then, the cow-houses and stables were dark, dingy, ill-cleaned hovels; now, they are lighted and ventilated, and their inmates fed and curried with a care exceeding that we are ashamed to own itwhich some would grudge to bestow on their peasantry. In the mere erections of a farm, therefore, there is scarcely a point in common between the two periods; no comparison between the frail hovel of turf and straw, and the substantial structure calculated to endure for centuries. We never look, in fact, from the top of the passing coach at a farm-stead, with its symmetrical lines of elegant architecture and its tall chimneystalk, but we feel we have a factory before us, as much as if a spinning-mill or iron-foundry formed the prospect. Again, in directing our attention to the soil, either as regards the amount under culture, or the style of cultivation, nothing could be more strikingly different. Eighty years ago, only a few fields around the homestead came under the plough, the rest were left in rough pasture, heather, or furze, as laid down by the hand of nature. Nothing could be more truly primitive than the agriculture of our grandfathers. Fences were few, and these of turf or dry stones; hedges and beltings of wood were only coming into fashion round the mansions of the proprietors. Draining was unknown; the dry knolls and slopes alone were tilled; the meadows were left for hay; any spring or superabundance of water on ploughed land was led off by an open furrow, to expend itself in the next lower level; trenching was never thought of; and altogether, culture, in the literal acceptation of the term, was of the most imperfect description. Nor were the crops aimed at anything beyond what might have been expected from such a style of cultivation. Oats, peas, barley or bigg, and an attempt at wheat on some of the better lands, may be said to have constituted the whole agricultural produce of Scotland; for potatoes were merely known as a novelty, and turnips, beet-root, carrots, the artificial grasses, and other green crops, were heard of only as things peculiar to more favoured climates. At present, what is the state of matters, at least in the more available districts? Every acre that the plough and spade can reach is under culture; substantial fences of stone and lime, hedgerows and ornamental paling, are things quite common; and beltings and clumps of wood are thickly scattered over the face of the country, alike for shelter and ornament. Draining and trenching are working wonders on the soil and climate; every rough place is made smooth; the furze, heath, and broom are supplanted by crops of grain; and bogs and morasses are converted into fertile fields. Crops that our forefathers never could have dreamed of, are now reared luxuriantly under the climate of Scotland, creating a total revolution both in our style of living and in

the capabilities of the country as to population. Wheat and potatoes may be said to be the staple support of the populace; turnips, beet-root, and the artificial grasses, are the basis of that enormous amount of butcher-meat which is now consumed; oats and barley are now subordinate articles of food. By this high advancement the rental of the land has in some cases been trebled; the farmer is compelled to seek from every square yard its produce; and owing to the equality to which he has brought it by modern skill, he can calculate upon its capabilities with about as much certainty as the engineer can calculate the power of his steam engine, or the printer the number of sheets which his machine will throw off in a given time.

This high state of cultivation could not, however, have been brought about except by improved implements and machinery-without, in fact, the aid of the mechanic, engineer, chemist, and naturalist. Eighty years ago, a few spades and mattocks, rude wooden ploughs and harrows, a wain or two of wicker or of boards, some pack-saddles and rope harness, a flail and a set of winnowing riddles, constituted the sum total of a farmer's mechanical outfit: now, how different is the picture! His ploughs are of iron, and fashioned upon scientific principles as to draught, width and depth of furrow; and we have at this moment upwards of a score of models before us, each laying claim to some advantage as to draught, drilling, subsoiling, trenching, or even to draining, for this process can now be executed by the plough alone. Nay, we have seen the steam plough at work, and have faith in the prediction that, as the surface of the country becomes more easy and regular under the present systems of culture, this gigantic machine will come into very general operation. As with the plough so with the harrow; the wooden implement has been superseded by one of iron, and by other instruments of the same family, as the grubber, the scarifier, the horse-shoe, &c. each being applicable to some special purpose. The clodpole and mallet, which were applied to the refractory glebe of former years, have generally given way to rollers of various kinds; and the hand that used to scatter the seed broadcast, has in many cases only to tend a machine that will do the work with a precision, regularity, and economy, setting the human instrument at defiance. We often wonder what would be the surprise of a departed grand-uncle, who was wont to sow his little acre of turnip by shaking a bottle of seed along the drills, the discharge being regulated by a bit of perforated paper tied over the mouth of the vessel, were he to revisit the world, and see a first-rate turnip machine taking four drills at once, and not only sowing and covering the seed, but dropping and earthing the manure at the same time. Nothing certainly could more excite his simple wonder; and yet the turnip-sowing machine is but one of a hundred similar inventions, all calculated to lessen the sum of rural labour. In former times, the mechanical skill of the country joiner and blacksmith was quite sufficient for the wants of the farmer; nay, these men were mere labourers, fashioning the material which he usually supplied. Now, the system is totally revolutionised: we have the agricultural implement maker,' as a distinct profession, dwelling in cities, possessing large capital, and employing draughtsmen, joiners, turners, engineers, and braziers. New inventions are rising into notice every day; patents are rife; and few of our large towns but have museums, in which the results are displayed for the study of the agriculturist.

It would be fruitless to attempt an enumeration of modern agricultural implements and inventions, and yet there are two or three which cannot be omitted in a contrast like the present. In the matter of vehicles and their outfits, nothing could be more widely dissimilar than the attainments of the two periods. For want of good roads, pack-saddles were more numerous than wains or cars; and wains were rude sledges, dragged slowly along by oxen. The harness of the

must not, however, be supposed that all this recent advance in agriculture has left the labourer in his position of eighty years ago. The draining and trenching of the soil have rendered it dry and smooth, and he treads over it more lightly; he has less of rheumatism, and never suffers from ague; machinery has removed in a great degree the necessity of long-continued work and heavy lifts; he is better clothed, and more regularly fed; and on well-managed estates, has a neat and comfortable cottage to dwell in. As improvements proceed, so will his condition be farther improved; every additional appropriation of machinery will lessen his manual labour; and the general advancement of the country will put in his, as in other men's possession, the little luxuries of food and clothing which are so essential to our ideas of comfort. Intellectually, too, he is a superior being; he enjoys a greater amount of freedom; and the expertness he has acquired from moving amid so much improvement and machinery, has fitted him to enter upon other pursuits with greater chance of success than he could possibly have done during the primitive ignorance of a century ago. These are great advantages certainly; and though they do not place the labourer in the proximity to the farmer that existed in former times, still they ought to be regarded as a lengthening of that lever which men, with proper attention, and care, and self-respect, may apply to their own elevation.

Altogether, therefore, it would seem that agriculture, though somewhat later in taking the start, is not in any degree behind the general advance of other industrial pursuits; and that it is every day more closely approximating to them in its modes of operation, in its requirements, and in its results.

BENONI'S MOURNING.

BY FRANCES BROWN.

In the five thousand five hundred and fifty-fifth year of the world, Rabbi Benjamin Benoni, chief doctor of the dispersed of Israel, dwelling in the Gentile city of Granada, made a vow to fast and mourn two days at every full moon for the sins and iniquities of his household.

Rabbi Benjamin Benoni was learned in all the wisdom of the Talmud. He knew to a hair's-breadth how near a Gentile might be approached without pollution, and had written three folio volumes on the proper posture for eating the passover; but the principal exploit of his life was the refutation, in public controversy, of the doctrine maintained by Rabbi Joseph Benjamin Joshua, of Malaga, that it was lawful for a Jew to lift a pin which he saw at his feet on the Sabbath day, which raised his reputation for knowledge and piety to such a height among the Jews of Spain, that they sought his advice and assistance in all difficult cases of conscience, and called him the Solomon of the dispersed. Nor was the rabbi esteemed less righteous than wise. In common with all his people since the Roman ploughshare passed over Zion, he was a man of commerce, and noted for the justice of his dealings with both Jew and Gentile. His zeal against the idolatry of the latter might have rivalled that of the ancient Jehu, had he lived in an age more conducive to its display; but as things were, Benoni had suffered much and often for the faith of his fathers. Born in Poland about the time of his people's banishment from that country by Cassimer the Great, he had early become a wanderer, and persecution had tracked the course of his after years, pursuing him from city to city over the length and breadth of Europe; till, in the sunset of his days, he found a peaceful asylum in the once Moorish, but now Christian city of Granada. Blameless in his life, and most scrupulous in his piety, Rabbi Benjamin Benoni, in the judgment of his people, was entitled to expect every promised blessing annexed to the law of Moses; and some blessings he had received. His business had prospered in every land where he had sought a temporary refuge from Gentile oppression; and his wealth was then believed to exceed that of any

merchant in the city. But a strange affliction had fallen upon the rabbi in his latter days. Of the four children of his youth that grew to years of maturity, there was not one who cared for his age, or loved him as a father: all were gone from him, and he was alone; for the wife of his early choice had died in her summer, and her grave was far away among the hills of Hungary. One was a youth of promise and high hopes, who had become great and famous among the Gentiles for his knowledge of their lore. But he had forgotten his father, and, it seemed, his father's faith also; for he had long ceased to observe the ceremonies of the law, and now dwelt in the city of Salamanca, where he was renowned as a scholar, and much in favour with the Spanish nobility. The other had humbler aspirations. He wedded the maid of his heart, and dwelt in peace among his people, following their path of commerce. Love lit up his hearth, riches increased around him, and men esteemed him liberal and just; yet he never sought the house of his father, nor paused to inquire if it were well with him. The next was a daughter, deemed comeliest among the maids of Israel, fair and stately like the queens of Judah before she was made desolate. But the girl forsook her early faith and kindred for the name and the love of a noble Nazarene, and passed her father on the city streets in all her Christian splendour, as one who dreaded not his wrath, and sought not his friendship. The last was a maiden wise and gentle, but not fair. None had sought her, and she remained unwedded, but left her father in early youth to watch over the orphan children and home of an aged rabbi, and returned to his house no more.

Benoni's heart grew heavy within him as he thought of these things in his lonely chamber. Dust was on his gray locks, and sackcloth was his garment; for it was the time of the full moon, and he mourned, according to his vow, for the great and strange sin of his children. The evening of the second day was come, the hush of the dying twilight had fallen on the great city, and all was silent where the rabbi prayed, looking to the east, the place of morning, and the still promised land to which his fathers had turned through the prayers and wanderings of ages. He prayed long and wept sore; for sorrow was upon him, and he found no comfort. But when the last light was fading, there came a low knock to the chamber door, and a voice of earnest intreaty, which said, 'Benjamin Benoni, for the sake of Jerusalem arise and follow me!'

The rabbi rose astonished, for the voice was strange, and spoke in the old language of the Hebrews, that had long been silent on earth. Without, there stood a man tall and dark, and in the vigour of his years; his garb was of an ancient fashion, his beard long and flowing, and his countenance expressed majesty mixed with sweetness. He beckoned with his hand, and Benoni followed him, though he knew not whither, yet felt as if impelled to go. They left the home of his solitude behind them, and passed through the streets and gates of the city, and then along a great road leading northward, which Benoni, in all his wanderings, had never trod before. It was broad and lonely, and led far away over hill and valley, through forest and desert plain; and by the full bright moon, which shone upon their journey, the rabbi discerned with amazement the long-remembered features of many a far-distant landscape seen in his early journeys: but the ground was smooth beneath his steps, and his feet seemed swift as the wings of an eagle; for he felt no weariness, but journeyed on with that silent guide leagues after leagues, till it seemed to him they had tracked the boundaries of many a Christian realm: they paused at last, where the moon shed her silver rays on the spires of a slumbering city, and the rabbi well remembered the good old town of Presburg.

Midnight lay clear and still on the city of the Magyars; for all its thousands slept, and Benoni's guide conducted him in silence from street to street, till they reached a large but neglected house, whose doors seemed

to open before them; and on entering, the rabbi recognised it as the same which he had occupied twenty years before, when his children were young, and their mother dwelt with him. Benoni would have spoken his surprise, but a spell of silence was upon his lips, and he could utter no sound. The house was still inhabited, but its dwellers saw neither the rabbi nor his guide; though days and nights seemed to pass, and they were with them from hour to hour, marking the manner of their lives at hearth, and board, and prayer. The family were Israelites, and oh how like his own as they once had been! There was a father in the noon of life, a mother fair and gentle, and four young children beautiful and fresh as the first leaves of the vine. Without they had peace, and they felt no want within; yet their home was unhappy; its chambers were solitary and cheerless, for their echoes never woke with the joy of the young, nor the sound of festal gladness: there was a shadow on the mother's beauty cast by unquiet days. The children had sad and thoughtful faces, that told of precocious care; and there were harsh words and fierce disputes that came often among them, as if the thorns of life had grown up early, and choked the flowers of childhood. But Benoni marvelled not; for he saw that the taresower was the high priest of the hearth. The man was one to be well spoken of in the city for grave carriage and integrity; but he sat amid his household as a reprover and a judge, who had no sympathy with their hearts, and no regard to their wishes. None among the doctors of Judah could better interpret the law, and few were more strict in its outward observance; but he made it wearisome to his household by enforcing its thousand ceremonies, and neglecting the 'weightier matters,' which his own example should have taught them by the law of love. Benoni marked the canker working its way to the hearts of the young: he saw the dew of their spring days, the keen relish of life's first enjoyments, that comes no more to those who taste the wormwood, and the blameless desires of childhood, so earnest yet so easily fulfilled, sacrificed day by day to the pride of their father's profitless wisdom, to the folly of his false devotion, and the bent of an evil nature that delighted to rebuke.

The dark seed bore its fruit: the children shunned his presence, and beheld his approach with fear: their laughter died at the sound of his step, and they learned to look upon him as an enemy, whilst round their gentle but simple-hearted mother their gathered affections were twined. She, too, felt her home unblest, and her life weary, for the manner of the husband and father was the same. The tree which she had chosen she found to be a brier. Years of hopeless discontent brought early withering, and at last disease came upon her. She heard the summons of the grave, and grieved not to go, for her wedded life had known no comfort; yet she sorrowed to leave her children, but not to part from the spouse of her youth. He saw his work, but knew it not, for his trust was still unshaken in the power of his vain wisdom and the pride of his long prayers. Benoni grew sad; for, as that fair face faded, its features grew more and more like to those of his lost Jemima, and at length it was her very self. The guide, however, again beckoned him away, and he felt constrained to follow. They left the dwelling and journeyed on; the same great road still stretched before them; but now it wound away like a long river to the west. Again the rabbi found himself passing swiftly through lands traversed before. Many a stately city, the long-desired goal of far-sailing ships and weary caravans; many a dark fortress, that guarded the boundaries of hostile nations, they passed as the wind in its unseen flight; till, fair among her vines, and crowned with the glory of centuries, rose to their view the city of the Seine. The glare of torches and the roll of chariots swept along the never-silent streets, as the gay and noble of the land returned from their long, late revels. Benoni's conductor led him on to a low but open door, far from such scenes, in the quarter inhabited by the sons of toil and Israel.

Well the rabbi knew that house and its narrow chambers, for there, in his wanderings westward, he had once dwelt with his children; but seven long winters had passed over him since then, and days and nights again seemed to glide swiftly by as he and that silent guide beheld the unconscious household. They were the same forms and faces he had seen at Presburg, though changed as if by the march of many years. The children had grown to stately youths and dark-haired maidens; but the mother's glance was wanting, for the light of her love might shine on their path no more. Grayness had come upon the father's locks, and furrows on his brow, but he had learned no lesson from the voice of time: age had only deepened the darkness of his soul, and strengthened in its shadow the love of power and gold. He barred his sons from the love of the Gentile nations, deeming it forbidden, because beyond his knowledge. One was a gifted spirit, strong to think and question, and he despised the faith of Israel because of him who taught it. The other had no gifts, but many graces, and his father esteemed him little, because he had no part in the praise of men. He denied to his daughters the ornaments of youth, and called them sinful vanities; but it was because he valued the smallest coin in his coffers more than the pleasures of his children. Yet he looked with pride on one who walked in beauty; but his glance was cold and careless on her sister, who, though less fair of face, was far more fair in soul. The tares which the old man had planted so early were ripening fast around him; his children already scorned his rebukes, and scarcely heard his counsels, for they had outgrown the fears of childhood, and he had not won the love of their youth: he had made their home solitary, and long habit had rendered them unsocial. Their sphere of society was bounded by each other; and their dwelling was indeed a world to them, but a world which contained in its narrow limits all the evils of the outer earth. The contentions of jarring opinions, the discord of opposing tempers, and the strife of conflicting, though petty interests, banished love and peace from the hearth which should have been their altar-darkened the gray of age, and withered the green of youth.

The rabbi saw, and rejoiced for the gentle mother who had escaped so much in the hush of her early grave; but once more that voiceless conductor beckoned him away from the cheerless dwelling of that joyous city. Their journey was still on the same broad and lonely path towards the place of the setting sun. Swifter still, but still unwearied, Benoni found himself speeding on, rather like one borne upon the waves of a rapid river, than the traveller of the solid earth. But now the way-marks grew more familiar; he knew the white sierras and dark-green woods of Spain, and at last entered at the very gate by which he went forth, the lost but long-beloved city of the Moors. The stranger guided him on through the hushed but well-known streets, till they reached the silence of his own forsaken dwelling. The full moon was still bright above the towers of Granada-though it seemed as if that midnight journey had tracked the course of years and poured the full flood of her silvery splendour on a solitary chamber where an aged man sat silent and alone. Well the rabbi knew that face, though the furrows were deepened, and the eye dimmed with the shadows of life's closing twilight, since he beheld it last. It was the same he had seen among the children at Presburg and the young at Paris. But the old man's household had gone from him one by one, and left him alone in the winter of his days, like a desert to which the pilgrim desires not to look back; for the place which he filled was the dark spot of their memory. Through all its withering and changes, that form had been to Benoni as one familiar, though without a name; yet now, as he gazed on the forsaken man, the rabbi seemed to be transformed strangely and suddenly as men are in their dreams, till it was himself that stood in the moonlit chamber, with all that weight of solitude and years. Benjamin Benoni,' said the