erous force the light-flashing darts of
question; but she, no way daunted, comprehending him, meeting full in
the face the prodigious thrust. A brave young creature of twenty
confronting the great Reformer, in single combat so to speak, and
retiring from the field, not triumphant indeed, but with all the honours
of war, and a blessing half extorted from him at the end, she secures a
sympathy which the weaker in such a fight does not always obtain, but
which we cannot deny to her in her bright intelligence and brave defence
of her faith. When his friends asked him, after this first interview,
what he thought of the Queen, he gave her credit for "a proud mind, a
crafty wit, and an indurate heart." But curiously enough, though the
effect is not unprecedented, the faithfulness of genius baulks the
prejudices of the writer, and there is nowhere a brighter or more genial
representation of Mary than that which is to be found in a history full
of abuse of her and vehement vituperation. She is "mischievous Marie," a
vile woman, a shameless deceiver; every bad name that can be coined by a
mediaeval fancy, not unlearned in such violences; but when he is face to
face with this woman of sin it is not in Knox to give other than a true
picture, and that--apart from the grudging acknowledgment of her
qualities and indication of evil intentions divined--is almost always an
attractive one.

He, too, shows far from badly in the encounter. In this case, as in so
many others, the simple record denuded of all gloss gives at once a much
better and we do not doubt much more true representation of the two
remarkable persons involved, than when loaded with explanations, either
from other people or from themselves. It cannot be said that Knox is
just to Mary in the opinions he expresses of her, as he is in the
involuntary picture which his inalienable truthfulness to fact forces
from him. It must be remembered, however, that his history was written
after the disastrous story had advanced nearly to its end, and when the
stamp of crime (as Knox and so many more believed) had thrown a sinister
shade upon all her previous life. Looking back upon the preliminaries
which led to such wild confusion and misery, it was not unnatural that a
man so absolute in judgment should perceive in the most innocent bygone
details indications of depravity. It is one (whether good or bad we will
not say) consequence of the use and practice of what may, to use a
modern