, in the agony of the
moment, the fear and remorse which every association with Darnley
conjured up, is painted "from the heart outwards," not "from the skin
inwards," if ever there were such a painting in the world. Scott
hardly ever failed in painting kings or peasants, queens or
peasant-women. There was something in the well-marked type of both to
catch his imagination, which can always hit off the grander features
of royalty, and the homelier features of laborious humility. Is there
any sketch traced in lines of more sweeping grandeur and more
impressive force than the following of Mary Stuart's lucid interval of
remorse--lucid compared with her ordinary mood, though it was of a
remorse that was almost delirious--which breaks in upon her hour of
fascinating condescension?--

"'Are they not a lovely couple, my Fleming? and is it not
heart-rending to think that I must be their ruin?'

"'Not so,' said Roland Graeme, 'it is we, gracious sovereign,
who will be your deliverers.' '_Ex oribus parvulorum!_' said
the queen, looking upward; 'if it is by the mouth of these
children that heaven calls me to resume the stately thoughts
which become my birth and my rights, thou wilt grant them
thy protection, and to me the power of rewarding their
zeal.' Then turning to Fleming, she instantly added, 'Thou
knowest, my friend, whether to make those who have served me
happy, was not ever Mary's favourite pastime. When I have
been rebuked by the stern preachers of the Calvinistic
heresy--when I have seen the fierce countenances of my
nobles averted from me, has it not been because I mixed in
the harmless pleasures of the young and gay, and rather for
the sake of their happiness than my own, have mingled in the
masque, the song or the dance, with the youth of my
household? Well, I repent not of it--though Knox termed it
sin, and Morton degradation--I was happy because I saw
happiness around me: and woe betide the wretched jealousy
that can extract guilt out of the overflowings of an
unguarded gaiety!--Fleming, if we are restored to our
throne, shall we not have one blithesome day at a blithesome
bridal, of which we must now name neither the bride nor the
bridegroom? But that bridegroom shall have the barony of
Blairgowrie, a fair gift even for a queen to give, and that
bride's chaplet shall be twined