Houfe in Edinburgh where Mary Queen of Scots was confined. 313 ing brought to Craigmiller's lodgings, who was then Provost of the town, a ftrong guard was placed upon her, and She was left to her reft, without so much as any of her maids being allowed to wait upon her; all which the bore with a patience and fortitude of mind becoming a Chriftian Queen: only as he was carried along the streets, he could not refrain from hedding abundance of tears, caufed by the vile and fcurrilous reproaches of the mob. three diftinct causes. ift, The clofe connection which in early times fubfified between Scotland and France, and, of courfe, the adoption of the French mode of building. adly, The defire (in turbulent times) to be under the protection of the caftle. And 3dly, the fingular fituation of the old town, which, being built on the ridge of a hill, gave oppor tunity of making the backs of the houses ten or twelve ftories high, although the fronts of them towards the street appear to be only fix or seven. Fig. 2, in the fame plate, is an ancient feal of block tin, found in making the South Bridge at Edinburgh, A.D 1786, and is in the poffeffion of James Brown, efq; architect. It is fuppofed to be the arms of Arnot, and is a fpecimen of the feals ufed for writings, impreffions of which were directed to be given in to the fheriff-clerks of the different counties in Scotland, by act of Parliament in the time of Queen Mary. Fig. 3, is a white cornelian feal, found, in 1772, to the South of Lundie-house, Fifethire, in the field renowned for the battle fought between the Scots, com The next morning, when he looked out of her window, the first object that prefented to her fight was a banner, fully displayed, and fixed foregainft her window, whereon was painted her dead husband King Henry, lying under the fhade of a tree, with the young Prince upon his knees, with thefe words pro ceeding out of his mouth, Judge and revenge my caufe, O Lord! Upon the viewing of this she burst into tears; and calling upon the people who were gazing upon her in the ftreets, the faid, Good people, either fatisfy your cruelty and hatred by taking away my miferable life, or relieve me from the hands of fuch inhuman and miferable traitors.manded by Conftantine their King, and This being fpoken and accompanied with all the moving circumftances of the brightest Majefty that ever fun thined upon in the greatest mifery, it was no wonder that their hearts were melted into compaffion fo running immediately to arms, they had certainly fet her at liberty, had not the rebels foftened their tempers by telling them, that they were going to convey her to her palace of Holyrood-houfe, where he was to have her liberty as much as ever. Towards the evening the was conveyed to her palace, accompanied by the acclamations of a mob: but the rebel Lords immediately met in council, to confider what was further to be done; and it was agreed to among them, that the fhould be fent prifoner to the caftle of Lochlevin, to remain there during her life, and that the royal authority thould be established in the perfon of her fon t." It may not be amifs here to fay fomething refpecting the peculiar fpecies of architecture formerly ufed in Edinburgh. It feems to have arifen from * Sir Simon Prefton, of Craigmiller, was Lord Provost of Edinburgh A.D. 1567. + See Makenzie's Lives of the Scotch Writers, vol. III. p. 294-Spotfwood's Hiftory-and Crawford's Memoirs. GENT. MAG. April, 1788. the Danes, led by their King Humba Mr. URBAN, O. R. St. Alban's, April 9. BS. BSERVING in your valuable Magazine for March, p. 225, a copy of an original letter of the Protector Cromwell; it has induced me to fubmit one from the original in my pof fellion, which if you think worthy a place, you will oblige, Yours, &c. T. C. For Colonell Cox*, Captaine of the Militia To be left with the Poft M'r of S'r, *Colonel Cox then lived at Beaumont's, a farm little more than a mile from St. Ala ban's. wealth wealth was then in, from the old cavalier and advice of the Parliament, but of all that OLIVER P. Mr. URBAN, Lincoln, March 2. CHARITY any the Chriftian HARITY defervedly obtains the virtues; and the fervent manner with which it is every where recommended and enforced, eminently diftinguishes Chriftianity above every other religion. But there is nothing in which the generality of mankind are more mistaken, than the true effence of this virtue. Charity does not confift in the mere diftribution of alms, or indifcriminate relief of every fupplicant. It is to be eftimated from the heart. A truly charitable perfon will regard all his fellowcreatures with an eye of love and tendernefs; their diftreffes will always find a ready tear, and their wants a supply proportionable to his circumftances and fituation in life. Yet his philanthropy will not prevent him from making the proper diftinctions in the objects of his charity, or from felecting, among a number, a few worthy perfons, who are more peculiarly deferving of his affiftance. And there are in the neighbourhood of every one perfons of this defcription. The hapless orphan-the widow finking under poverty and forrow, oppreffed by a number of children, deprived of the only comfort that could render the afflictions of life tolerable to her, and which enhanced all the joys of it-the man who has feen better days, but whom unforefeen accidents have reduced to indigence-to fuch does true charity open her arms with the warmest and moft fincere expreffions of love and protection. The wisdom of the Legislature has taken care that every parifh fhall provide for its own poor. To relieve the cafual itinerant beggar is, therefore, to counteract the intentions of the Legislature, and, in many inftances, to profides, the diftreffes which every day mote vice, and encourage idleness. Bepafs before our eyes are not the moft "The comdeplorable in themselves. mon fupplicant (as an elegant author has obferved) fubmits, without a blush, to folicit alms of all he meets; and, from having been always involved in poverty, his ideas of happinefs are accommodated to his ftate of penury. But there are others who feel a more delicate diftrefs, and, inftead of their misfortunes forcing them into the world to feek redrefs, the recollection of their past happier lot drives them into folitary retirement, there to lament their unhappy fate." There Lincoln Charitable Affembly.-Justices of the Peace. There is an inftitution at Lincoln which I do not remember to have met with at any other place, calculated to relieve private afflictions of this nature. A lady and gentleman, who wish to relieve fome widow in diftrefs, or fome perfon of reduced circumstances, make what is called a charitable assembly for them. They fix upon an evening, and, in their own names, fend cards of invitation round the town, "requesting the favour of your company at the charitable affembly for the relief of ———‚” After tea, the mafter and mistress of the ceremonies hand about plates to the company, when every one gives what he pleafes above a filling. Thefe meetings are very well attended by all the people of the first fashion, and very confiderable fums are fometimes collect ed. The rest of the evening is spent in dancing and card-playing. Thus the happiness of a diftreffed individual is infured, to the amufement and gratification of those who contribute to it. The utility of these institutions, besides the innocent pleafure they promote, is obvious and friking; and it is a pity that they are not more generally adopted. Your Magazine, Mr. Urban, from its refpectability, and very extenfive circulation, has appeared to me the propereft vehicle for recommending thefe inftitutions to the public notice; and I fhould feel a peculiar fatisfaction if, from the inhabitants of any other town taking this hint, I fhould be the remote caufe of alleviating the misfortunes of a fellow-creature. Yours, &c. J. C. I on March 31. Mr. URBAN, HAVE read with pleasure the letter (vol. LVII. pr. 9. 105) concerning incorporated boroughs, in which that fubject is treated with the fagacity of an Antiquary, and the temper of a philofopher. The curfory reflection juftices of the peace, with which the letter clofes, caught my eye; and I am heartily forry that your correfpondent, inftead of tagging it on to the end of a letter, had not referved it for the fubject of a future one. Indeed, Sir, thefe worthy gentlemen merit his notice. It is poffible they may afford matter for panegyric, for cenfure they certainly do. If his Majefty's lieutenants of counties are not more attentive to the birth, parentage, and education, as well as irves, fortunes, charaders, and behavi 315 our, of thofe who apply to have their names inferted in the commiffion, in a very few years it will be found difficult to prevail on men of fortune and abilities to act, and run the risk of attending quarter fellions. You may obferve, Ĭ have united fortune and abilities as two indifpenfable requifites; for I am fo unfathionable as to think, that these united are abfolutely neceffary towards forming a refpectable bench of juftices. Without the firft, contempt, without the latter, error and oppreffion take place. The little property I have is in two remote parts of England. In the first, the neighbouring juftice is a well-meaning man, with fome fhare of parochial knowledge. But, alas! all his good qualities are rendered ufelefs by paffions ungovernably furious, a fantastic whimfical wife, and a penchant for frilly enforcing the game-laws. If any one is fo injudicious as to venture to difagree with him in opinion, if his wife happens, by her ftrange fancies, to excite the mirth or notice of his neighbours, or if a longing woman prefumes, in fpite of the ftatute, to talte hare's fleth, neither prudence nor pity can prevent the most violent rage, and the most inveterate revenge. Without any justice in the neighbourhood of property or importance fufficient to withitand his outrages, he is degenerated into that worst of all defpots, a judicial tyrant. In the other parith, the principal juftice is a good-natured fox-hunter, who fpends his days on horfeback, and his evenings in eating and drinking. He regularly attends the juftice-meeting; and, when bufinefs begins pouring in, he opens as follows, first taking out his watch: "Well, Gentlemen, you are better acquainted with Burn and Blackftone than I am; you will recollect that dinner is to be ready at four." He then retires to an adjoining room, which he devotes to a more pleafing amusement with the landlord's daughter-his bum ble brethren are too well-bred to break in on his pleafures. Thus, though faturally a good kind of man, he gives up his neighbours to pettifoggers and halfgentlemen, who torture the laws to bafe purposes of petty quarrels, low prejudice, and mercenary cabal. But this is a fubject your correfpondent Bradwardin is fo much better qua lified to difcufs, that I willingly renge my half-finished outline for his materig LENIS ET ACER. hand to fill up. I Mr URBAN, March 11. HAVE been long a reader and admiter of your Magazine, and, having received much pleasure and inftruction from it, am bound in gratitude to give a teftimony in favour of it, by way of aniwer to Mr. J. Berington's letter, and your note fubjoined, p. 124. I have always attended to your felcction of matter with attention, and have eer oblerved you to act with all the judgement, impartiality, fpirit, and candour, fuitable to your undertaking, in regard to every religion, political party, art, fcience, circumftance, &c. &c. The confequence is, that I place fo much confidence in you, as to be fully of opinion, that your examination of the pieces offered for infertion is a fufficient obftruction to the admiffion of all improper ones, without having recourfe to the rigid reftrictions propofed by Mr. B; restrictions which would deprive you of your female, your noble, and your youthful correfpondents. The feminine writer declines public notice; the peer likes not to difclofe his title; and the youth is unwilling to expofe the firft fallies of his genius to the fevere criticisms of his elders. Writers of various other defcriptions would alfo cease communicating with you; among whom would be myfelf. My meanings will always ftand the ftricteft teft of moral investigation; yet I chufe not to proclaim my name any more than I fhould my religion, though I have not the fhadow of a reafon for being afhamed of either; I only am not defirous of parti. cularifing myself. When you reject my letters, I fubmit to your fuperior judgement contentedly; when you infert them, I feel my telf obliged. I only infift on impartiality and exact copying. The part of Mr. B's plan, which he fill adheres to, would, in one refpect, anfwer extremely well to him, who fcruples not expofing his name, as it would generally fecure to him an undisputed field of battle; for, however erroneous and controvertible his affertions and opinions might be, they could not be oppofed by any perfon, how able foever, who was not willing to become a public difputant: hence Mr. B. would often have the fatisfaction of enjoying imaginary triumphs. But, on the other hand, he would lie under the difadvantage of feldom receiving antwers to his enquiries; for if your readers could not gratify him without publishing their names, few of them would do it at all. 3 Go on as you have done. Mr. Urban; you cannot do better. If you fhackle your correfpondents, you crush the spirit of your Mifcellany. In perufing Agricola's reply to Candide (p. 104), I derived much fatisfaction from the objections made by Agricola to the ill-judged propofition for private executions, which, if adopted, would prove a fource of many evils, and a ftab to the conftitution of this country. To evince the dangerous tendency of the idea, I take leave to obferve, that the public execution of the fentence paffed by law on capital convicts is a check on the royal prerogative, in fome measure necessary towards the prefervation of our rights. To give an inftance explanatory of my affertion, I fuppofe it poffible that, were private executions to be established, the executive power might collufively grant life in return for parliamentary intereft. Even one folitary vote, in a hard conteft, might fave from juftice a murderer. Within the confined walls of a prifon, deceptive executions might be conducted without difficulty. The expofure of criminals' bodies might be easily evaded under many plausible pretences, for people would not be very peremptory in requiring to fee objects fo unpleasant. The Crown cannot make fuch an improper ufe of its pardoning power publicly; but it might act in the private manner alluded to with impunity; and we cannot be too watchful in guarding againft the extenfion of arbitrary power; it is far more eafy to keep our ground, than to recover it when loft. Agricola's objections are fufficient; yet mine is to be added to them. I am Ereunetes, p. 130, does my remarks on his Effay much honour they deferve not all the epithets he bestows on them; yet that of candid is juft, if my pen coincided with my intention. much gratified in finding that my fentiments on each fubject are approved by Ereunetes, whote principles and knowledge I hold in much efteem. I think attempts might be made in both cafes for procuring redrefs, or at least relief; for though the prefent fyftems are pow erfully supported, yet the excellent maxim of the late good and wife John Jebb thould be always kept in view, viz. "that no effort is ever loft en Impropriety of Material Representations of the Deity. to filling the botanic head to Mr. C's Mr. URBAN, BRADWARDIN. March 18. Tand worthy correfpondent, Mr. HE account which your agreeable Greene, has given of the piece of fculp ture preserved in his Mufeum, I make no queftion may be the true one, namely, that it was meant for a reprefentation of the Bleffed Trinity;" but I should not have been forry if he had not told us fo. We might then, perhaps, by a very harmlefs mistake, have fuppofed that the figure, crowned with the papal tiara, vas defigned for one of the Roman pontifs, embracing an image of Chrift, whofe vicar on earth the fovereign pontif tyles himself But, confidered as what was intended to reprefent the Almighty, though we are fenfible of its futility, I am not fure that it is altogether innocent to exhibit it. This at leaft is certain, that the attempt to make a likenefs of the Deity, by any vifible form, js at once abfurd and profane. It is abfurd, becaufe He who is a fpirit, "whom no man hath feen nor can feet," cannot poffibly be pourtrayed by the fimilitude of any thing created. It is profane, because it derogates from the honour and majefty of God, and tends to increase that propensity which there feems to be in the human mind to think of the Supreme Being under fome definite form, or circumfcribed by fome fpace; to whom indeed, as reigning in Heaven, where his glory is difplayed, our prayers are to be addreffed, but of whom, nevertheless, we should always conceive as being prefent every where, and "filling all in all," Ephef. 1. 23. The fpirituality of the Deity is one of thofe truths which the light of nature fuggefted to the heathen; and they fometimes fpeak with great dignity on the fubject. For," fays Cicero, 66 * Jan. Mag. p. 9. 66 + Tum. vi 16. we 317 can conceive of God himself, as our in tellect conceives of him, in no other manner than as of a mind uncontrouled and free, exempt from all perishable mixture, perceiving and actuating all things, and itself endued with eternal activity," Tufcul. Quæft. lib. I. xxvii. The paffage is a noble one, and truly worthy of its great author. But here, Mr. Urban, a difficulty occurs. For how are we to reconcile fuch ideas as thefe among the heathen with the univerfal prevalence of idolatry and polytheifm? how was it that they, who had fuch fublime, and, as far as they go, juft notions of the Godhead, did not fee the infallible inference from them, that it was the extreme of folly to make any material refemblance of the Deity, and the height of impiety to pay religious worship to Jupiter, to Apollo, and fuch a herd of divinities? Being in poffetfion of the premifes, did it require a great ftretch of intellects to deduce from them their neceffary and evident conclufion? It is not ufually fo; whence was it in this cafe? Have we here, as we feem to have, one of thofe riddles, thofe inconfiftencies in the province of reason, of which Revelation alone enables us to give a fatisfactory account, by informing us what human nature once was, and what it now is? In the truths retained, or the difcoveries made, by unaffifted reason, we fee a glimpse of those talents which man originally poffeffed, when he came forth from the hands of his Creator, formed in the divine image. At the fame time, in the deplorable ignorance and more deplorable errors of the wifeft of the heathen, we have a ftriking and melancholy proof of what man is at prefent, depraved, polluted, blind, groping "amid the blaze of noon," when truth thines around him with brighteft fplendour. But whence is it that these things are to us fo evident, that, did not inconteftible facts fhew the contrary, we could fcarcely believe there ever was a time in civilized life when they were unknown or obfcure? has reafon in these latter days acquired fresh powers? and do we really furpafs the ages of antiquity in abilities and wildom? or is this rather the accomplishment of that which was promifed?"I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and they fhall all know me, from the leaft of them unto the greatest of them," Jer. xxxi. 33, 34. The great leading truths refpe&ting pure and fpi |