WEST's Humours of Brighthelm- WOOLSTONECRAFT on Educa-

351 tion, &c.

Mont-Blanc, a WRECK of Westminster Abbey,

P.

ERRATA in VOL. LXXVIII.

31, 1. 26, dele the inverted comma before published.

215, 1. 1, after by Bartolozzi,' add, from a painting by Dance. 261, 1. 18, dele the words unlike every other.'

387, 1. 13 from bot. dele thes in concludes.' 410, 1. 6, dele the e in prochaine.'

- 415, 1. 8, read heterophylla.

449, line laft, for Vol. lxxxviii.' r. lxxviii.

593 and 594, the head title to be the fame as at pages 599, 590,

591, and

592.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For JANUARY, 1788.

ART. I. Whitaker's Vindication of Mary Queen of Scots, concluded:
See Rev. for December laft, p. 481.

IN

N our laft, we accompanied Mr. Whitaker in his review of the letters, the fonnets, and the contracts, produced by the enemies of Mary, as evidences of her guilt, and faw him point them out,' to ufe his own words, with the fure finger of truth, to the merited fcorn and derifion of mankind.' Let us now attend to his account of the murder of Darnley,-that great event, which enabled its contrivers, and the perpetrators of the atrocious deed, to effect at laft the downfall of Mary, fo often before attempted in vain.

The great point which the rebels wifhed to eftablish, by all the forgeries that we have already feen, and others that we fhall ftill have occafion to notice, was, that Mary had a foreknowledge of the murder of Darnly, and was confenting to it. It occurred to them, that if they could fupprefs the real confeffions of the fervants of Bothwell, and others, who had been apprehended and executed as affifting in that murder, and fubftitute in their stead other confeffions, fabricated by themselves, thofe confeffions might thus be made to corroborate and give an additional weight to the evidence conveyed by the letters, which they were fully fenfible they greatly ftood in need of. The attempt was a bold one, confidering that feveral of thofe very perfons had been executed in public (probably before any idea of this fecond forgery had occurred to them), and, in the prefence of thoufands, had declared, on the feaffold, that the Queen had no knowledge whatever of that murder; confeffing, at the fame time, that they had been proffered a full pardon, with other rewards, if they would agree to accufe the Queen of that crime,which no temptation would ever induce them to do. Yet, in fpite of these public confeffions, which could have been vouched by multitudes who were ftill alive at the time the forged confeffions were adduced in England in aid of their other evidence, the junto (relying on their own power in Scotland, and the favour of Elizabeth in England, to deter any contradictory eviVOL. LXXVIII. B dence

H

dence from being brought forward) determined to make and produce these pretended confeffions. Thefe confeffions, however, were as carefully concealed from the Commiffioners of Mary, as the letters and fonnets, and therefore could not then be refuted; but they have been fince published, fo as to afford an opportunity of judging of their merits. Our Author, with his wonted perfpicuity, expofes the contradictions in these accounts, the abfurdity and the impoffibility of what they affert for facts, in colours fo ftriking, as to make them appear fuch obvious falsehoods, that no man, who ever examined them with the fmalleft degree of attention, could poffibly mistake them for truth. Who was the forger of thefe pitiful tales, he does not even attempt to difcover; but it is fufficiently plain that it could neither be Lethington nor Buchanan, nor any other perfon who was acquainted with the manners of a court at the time, as they make the witneffes (who lived at court) act and speak like those who were only acquainted with the rude manners of the vulgar. Probably Murray, who difcovered not the full extent of his plots to any one of his affociates, might on this occafion employ fome of his inferior dependents among the Prefbyterian clergy, whofe great patron and fupport he at this period affected to be.-It is now scarce poffible to read fome paffages of these mock confeffions without a fmile.-For example; French Paris, who acted as Gentleman Ufher to the Queen, reprefents himself as coming one morning familiarly into her Majefty's bed-chamber, while he was yet in bed, without any of her women with her,as entering into familiar chat with her in that state-as afterwards taking his breakfaft in the fame apartment, which that morning happened to be an egg; and while he there breakfafted at his eafe, her Majesty even rose and dreffed herself before him. This is of a piece with other parts of the tale which they tell, and which is, in all its circumftances, fo abfurd and ridiculous, and fo clearly contradicted by well-known facts, that our Author, finding no difficulty in completely blafting their credit, fweeps them for ever from the fhelf of hiftorical evidence.

He then enters upon a harder task, that of giving a detailed account of the real hiftory of the murder of Darnly, in which however he acquits himself with his ufual dexterity. It has been long well known that Bothwell performed the horrid deed, and that Morton certainly, and Murray probably, were concerned in the plot. After a long and minute investigation of circumftances, dark in themfelves, and fcattered through many records, widely disjoined from each other, but now drawn together, fo as to afford a body of prefumptive evidence, scarcely to be refifted, our Author proceeds to give the following fummary of the whole :

• As