Training does not develope the appetites, except the appetites for wholesome food and drink, and a marked preference for roast beef over pie. This quality, perhaps brutal, it does develope-perfect fearlessness and indomitable pluck. Its moral influence is of the first order. The strict maintenance of a tedious course of discipline, with a complete abstinence from all improper diet and habits through long weeks and months, makes no ordinary demand upon genuine energy and manliness. It marks itself upon the character for a life-time. And if the man wins his race, he will remember it and swear by it, and not be found wanting when the next strain is brought to bear upon his manliness. And even defeat will not harm him, for, if he has done his best, he will be proud of that, and if he hasn't he will try harder the next time. Thus much for himself.

Now, further, he helps to bring exercise into popularity. Medical men tell us that we suffer more from lack of proper exercise than from any other cause. The chief advantage of training has not been to our University crews. The inter-collegiate races have popularized the oar, which was at one time rather in disrepute. It is generally admitted to be the best implement of exercise, calling into action, as it does or should do, every important muscle. The impulse has been felt in minor colleges, and students all over the country pull at the oar instead of lying on their backs, because, forsooth, we of Yale and Harvard pull, and it's the thing, and they want to do as other fellows do. And so, from colleges to business offices the influence spreads, doing more good in its ramifications than at the trunk, because less liable to be overdone.

Who can tell how much the general health of our young men in this country has been benefited by the different exercises which we have popularized? Let us not forget that we are at the bottom of it all, and that so surely as we let base ball and running matches, boating and the necessary training die out at Yale and Harvard, so surely this impulse for physical exertion will wear itself out; for young men in these matters do very generally follow our example.

E. T. O.

TRANSLATION FROM PETRARCH.

In this sonnet the poet says that on Good Friday, in the church of Santa Clara in Avignon, he became enamoured of Laura, and blames Love for not causing at that time in her a like effect.

It was the day when the Sun his bright rays was obscuring,
Through his compassion as life from his Maker departed,
When my freedom I lost in a moment unguarded,

Your lovely eyes, O Lady, my homage securing.

Time it seemed not to be for raising defenses

'Gainst the assaults of Love, so went I unfeigning,

Careless and free from suspicion, and hence my complaining,
In the great sorrow of all pious mortals commences.
Love stole upon me unheeding and stripped of all armor.
Found to my heart, by my eyes, the way unprotected
Since of our tears, they are made the issue and portal.
So, to my seeming, the god no great glory effected
When he had pierced me defenseless, alone, with his arrow
Showing not even his bow to you armed and immortal.

THE CASKET LETTERS.—AN HISTORICAL STUDY.

`HAT Mary, Queen of Scots, was the most incompe

THA

tent ruler that could be inflicted upon a nation in a period of revolution; that she evidently misunderstood the era which she attempted to guide; that she was a trifler in the midst of the gravest environments, and that she used the fascination of a most charming person and the grace of a most polished mind for the mere purpose of captivating and ensnaring admirers, abundantly ap pears upon the pages of her most uncompromising defenders. Whether she was guilty of adultery with Both well, whether she connived with him to murder her husband, and whether she, by transcending Clytemnestra in guilt, furnishes additional weight to the maxim that "truth

is stranger than fiction," depends, in a great degree, upon the correct answer to the question: "Were the casket letters genuine or forged?"

These famous letters derive their name from an elegantly enameled silver casket which Mary brought with her from France and gave to the Earl of Bothwell, her subsequent husband. In it he preserved her letters to himself, some love sonnets written by Mary, a bond signed at Seton, in which Mary pledged herself to marry him as soon as his separation from his "pretended wife" should be accomplished by form of law, and another bond, drawn up at Craigmillar, contemplating the murder of Darnley. These documents were, of course, of inestimable value to Bothwell, both as a proof that he acted not as principal but as accomplice in the murder of Mary's lawful husband, and as a check upon her in case she should wish to discard him when she no longer needed him for her atrocious designs.

After the murder of Ritzio by a band of assassins, of which Darnley was the leader, the queen and her husband had been separated, until they were compelled to meet at Stirling, where the right of baptism was administered to their only son. Previous to this, the court had been at Craigmillar, where the bond was signed in which certain noblemen banded themselves together for the murder of the King. At Stirling, to the surprise of everybody, the Queen pardoned Morton, who was in exile in consequence of his participation in the Ritzio murder, and pardoned, also, all but two of the noblemen whom Darnley informed his wife had been co-conspirators with him in the crime. According to Froude "the proclamation of Morton's pardon was his (Darnley's) death knell, and the same night, swiftly, without word spoken or leave taken he stole away from Stirling and fled to his father. That at such a crisis he should have been attacked by a sudden and dangerous illness was, to say the least of it, a singular coincidence. A few miles from the castle blue spots broke out over his body, and he was carried into Glasgow languid and drooping with a disease which the court and the friends of the

court were pleased to call small pox." The Queen spent her Christmas with Bothwell at Drummond Castle, and in a few days returned to Stirling, while Bothwell went south to receive the exiles. On the 14th of January she carried the Prince to Edinburgh, where Bothwell joined her. From this place she wrote a letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, complaining of Darnley's conduct, while he himself was lying sick, and she was living with Bothwell. On the 23d she determined to visit Darnley, and set out for Glasgow, accompanied by her lover. They spent the night at Callendar, and in the morning Bothwell returned to Edinburgh while she continued on to Glasgow.

On arriving at Glasgow, and after her first interview with the King, it is presumed that she wrote to Bothwell the first of the casket letters, in the following terms:

*

*

*

*

"I pretend that I believe what he (Darnley) says; you never saw him better or heard him speak more humbly. If I did not know that his heart was wax and mine a diamond wherein no shot can enter but that which comes from your hand, I could almost have had pity on him; but fear not, the plan shall hold to the death. * He has ever a tear in his eye; he desires I should feed him with my own hands. I am doing what I hate. Would you not laugh to see me lie so well, and dissemble so well, and tell truth betwixt my hands. We are coupled with two bad companions. The Devil sundered us and God knit us together to be the most faithful couple that ever he united. This is my faith-I will die in it. I am writing to you while the rest are sleeping, since I cannot sleep as they do, and as I would desire that is in your arms, my dear love; whom I pray God preserve from all evil and send you repose." "**

From these two brief extracts can be inferred the tone and animus of the casket letters.

On departing from Edinburgh Bothwell entrusted this precious box to Sir James Balfour, his confidential friend, and a party to the Craigmillar bond. After the unexpected defeat and hasty flight from Carberry Hill, Bothwell sent a servant to relieve Balfour of his trust and restore to him the casket, which, since the capture of Mary, was doubly valuable to him. Sir James gave the casket to the messenger, but at the same time sent secret

* Froude, Vol. VIII.

intelligence of his act to the Earl of Morton, who waylaid the bearer and captured these most conclusive proofs against the writer of complicity with the murder.

It will be necessary, for a moment, to explain Balfour's conduct. He was drawn into the conspiracy at Craigmillar because he believed, as the bond states, that "it was expedient and profitable for the common weal that such a young fool and proud tyrant (as the King) should not bear rule of them," and he was totally ignorant that he was being deceived by Bothwell, or that the murder was only to serve him as a stepping stone to Darnley's place. When, now, he perceived the relation between the Queen and Bothwell and became aware of the deception, indignant at being duped, he betrayed his friends, as was the custom in those wild times, to their enemies. I am thus particular in relating his conduct, because the fact that the casket passed through the Earl of Morton's hands has been considered proof against their authenticity, whereas, by explaining the action of Sir James Balfour, one can readily discover the reason of the transfer. If the letters contained in this casket are genuine, no ingenuity of argument, even when aided by that sentiment of gallantry which always pleads for Mary in every generous bosom, can withstand their testimony against the Queen. If forged, like meaner culprits, she is entitled to the benefit of a doubt.

From a careful examination of an author whom Robertson draws upon for his views, who has "inquired into the affairs of that period with great industry, and has published a demonstration of the forgery of the casket letters," I am able to gather the following reasons for doubting their authenticity. The writer founds his argument upon evidence internal and external. His evidence internal, briefly stated, is as follows:

1. The French copy is plainly a translation from Buchanan's Latin copy, which is only a translation of the Scottish copy, and hence the assertion that Mary wrote. them in French is groundless, and the whole letters are gross forgeries.