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The beeches sighed through all their boughs; ON READING DORA WORDSWORTH'S REC

From The Quarterly Review. THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.

COLLECTIONS of family papers have of late years much increased in both size and numbers. Even where no one of the name has risen to historical importance there are chests full of documents and letters that are lavishly poured forth. At present it not unfrequently happens that the records of a single not always very eminent house take. up as many printed pages as would have been deemed sufficient thirty years ago to instruct a young student in the whole history of England or almost of Europe.

seats. The book is not for sale; and the impression, we observe, has been limited to 150 copies, so that we should consider it beyond our sphere, and printed only for private circulation, had not Lord Herries made it publici juris by presenting a copy in July last year to the Library of the British Museum.

Mr. Fraser, as editor of this collection, seems to us to have done his part with we may say at least - perspicuity and candour. We have only to complain that, in the first half, at all events, of the eighteenth century, to which in these volumes our attention has been exclusively directed, he has made himself but very slightly

We are far, however, from complaining of this abundance. Even when a man acquainted with the other writers of the was not himself distinguished, he may have had companionship or common action with those who were. By such means a thousand little traits of character may come unexpectedly to light. Still oftener there may, nay, there must, be reference to the domestic economies, the modes of living and the manners and customs of past times. Thus, when family papers are selected with care and edited with judgment as was eminently the case, for example, with the "Caldwell Collection," comprised in three quarto volumes, and printed for the Maitland Club in 1854 -they scarcely ever fail to yield fruit of price to the historian.

In the collection now before us are contained the records of the Maxwell family, belonging to Lord Herries, the present head of that ancient house, and confided by him to Mr. William Fraser for arrangement and annotation. The result has been a truly splendid work. These are two quarto volumes of the largest size, almost, indeed, rising to the dignity as they certainly exceed the usual weight of folios. The one volume is of 604 pages, the other of 590: Vix illud lecti bis sex cervice subirent,

Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus.

No expense, we may add, has been spared in the beautiful types, in the facsimiles of ancient autographs, and the engravings of family portraits or family

The Book of Carlaverock. 2 vols., large quarto. Edinburgh, 1873 (not published).

time. From this cause, as we conceive, he has left in obscurity some points which a wider reading would have enabled him to clear. To give only one instance for we should take no pleasure in any long list of minute omissions Mr. Fraser, in Lady Traquair's letter of January 1724, has failed to see, or certainly, at least, has failed to explain, that the "Sir John " therein mentioned was one of the cant names for the Chevalier de St. George, or the Pretender, as we used to call him. Nor has he observed that the document there discussed is a letter of that Prince, dated August 20, 1723, and printed by Mr. Fraser in one of his preceding pages.

Of the many personages who in these volumes are presented to us, there is only one that we shall here produce. We desire to give our readers some account of that lady who saved her husband's life from the extremest peril, by the rare combination of high courage and inventive skill, a determined constancy of purpose, and a prompt versatility of means.

Lady Winifred Herbert was the fifth and youngest daughter of the Marquis of Powis; himself descended from the second son of the first Herbert Earl of Pembroke. The exact year of her birth is nowhere to be found recorded. The Marquis, her father, was a zealous Roman Catholic, and, as may be supposed, a warm adherent of James the Second. He followed that Prince in his exile, held the post of Lord Chamberlain in his melan

setting out to join Forster with a small band of retainers. Considering the principles of Lord Nithsdale in Church and State, his course could not be doubtful. He, too, at the head of a few horsemen, appeared in Forster's camp, and shared the subsequent fortunes of that little To Lord Kenmure, who was a

choly Court, and received from him fur-1 Scottish Peers of the southern counties, ther the patent of Duke, which was never acknowledged in England. He died in 1697, but his wife and daughter continued to reside at St. Germains under the protection of the Queen, Mary of Modena. William fifth Earl of Nithsdale had been left a minor by his father's untimely death, but was brought up by his surviv-army. ing parent in the same principles of de- Protestant, was assigned the chief comvoted attachment to the house of Stuart mand of the Scottish levies. But, as Mr. and to the Church of Rome. On attaining Fraser tells us, "the Earl of Nithsdale, his majority he repaired to St. Germains, from his position, and from the devotion and did homage to the Prince, whom he of his family to the House of Stuart, continued to regard as his rightful King. would have been placed at the head of the A more tender motive arose to detain insurrection in the north of Scotland had him. He fell in love with Lady Winifred he not been a Roman Catholic." But Herbert, who proved no inexorable though Mr. Fraser has printed "north," beauty. They were married in the spring he, beyond all doubt, means "south." of 1699, and he bore away his bride to There was never any question as to either his house and fair gardens of Terregles. Kenmure's or Nithsdale's command beSince her noble exploit in the Tower yond the Forth. these gardens have been examined with interest for any trace of the departed heroine. But, as Mr. Fraser informs us, they have been greatly changed since her time. Only some old beech hedges and a broad green terrace still remain much the same as then."

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We need not relate in any detail the well-known fate of these hasty levies. They found themselves encompassed at Preston by a regular force under General Wills, and were compelled to surrender without obtaining any better terms than the promise to await the orders of the We may take occasion to observe of Government and protect them from any the new-married pair that there was some immediate slaughter by the soldiery. It diversity in the spelling of their name. was only a short respite that most of the English writers have most commonly in-chiefs then obtained. They were at once serted an i, and made it Nithisdale; but the Earl and Countess themselves signed Nithsdaill.

The Countess bore her lord five children, three of whom, however, died in early childhood. At the insurrection of 1715 they had but two surviving, a son, William Lord Maxwell, and an infant daughter, Lady Anne. And here in ordinary course might close the record of her life, but for the shining events of 1715, which called forth her energies both to act and to endure.

sent off as prisoners to London. The painful circumstances of their entry are described as follows in the journal of Lady Cowper, the wife of the Lord Chancellor :

December 5, 1715. This week the prisoners were brought to town from Preston. They came in with their arms tied, and their horses, whose bridles were taken off, led each by a soldier. The mob insulted them terribly, carrying a warming-pan before them, and say. ing a thousand barbarous things, which some It need scarcely be related even to the of the prisoners returned with spirit. The least literary of our readers how, in 1715, He is above seventy years old. A desperate chief of my father's family was amongst them. the standard of the Chevalier-"James fortune had drove him from home, in hopes to the Third," as his adherents called him have repaired it. I did not see them come - was raised, by Lord Mar in the High-into town, nor let any of my children do so. lands and by Mr. Forster and Lord Der- I thought it would be an insulting of the rela wentwater in Northumberland. Lord tives I had here, though almost everybody Kenmure gave the like example to the went to see them.

The captive Peers being thus brought, York. There she found a place in the to London were sent for safe custody to coach for herself alone and was forced to the Tower, while preparations for their hire a horse for Evans. Nor did her trial by the House of Lords were making troubles end there, as she writes from in Westminster Hall. Here again we Stamford, on Christmas Day, to Lady may borrow from Lady Cowper's jour- Traquair,nal:

The ill-weather, ways, and other accidents, has made the coach not get further than Grentum (Grantham); and the snow is so deep it is impossible it should stir without some change of weather; upon which I have again hired horses, and shall go the rest of the journey on horseback to London, though the snow is so deep that our horses yesterday were in several places almost buried in it. To-morrow I shall set forward again. I

February 9, 1716. - The day of the trials. My Lord was named High Steward by the King, to his vexation and mine; but it could not be helped, and so we must submit, though we both heartily wished it had been Lord Nottingham. . . . I was told it was customary to make fine liveries upon this occasion, but I had them all plain. I think it very wrong to make a parade upon so dismal an occasion as that of putting to death one's fellow-creatures, must confess such a journey, I believe, was nor could I go to the trial to see them receive scarce ever made, considering the weather, by But an earnest desire compasses a their sentences, having a relation among them a woman. If I meet my -Lord Widdrington. The Prince was there, great deal with God's help. and came home much touched with compas- dear Lord well, and am so happy as to be sion. What a pity it is that such cruelties able to serve him, I shall think all my trouble should be necessary! well repaid.

But were they necessary? Certainly not, according to the temper of present times; while in 1716, on the contrary, far from exceeding, they seem rather to have fallen short of the popular expectation and demands.

The trials were quickly despatched. None of the prisoners could deny that they had risen in arms against the King. It only remained for them to plead "Guilty," and throw themselves on the Royal mercy. They were condemned to death as traitors; and the execution of Lord Nithsdale, with that of others, was appointed to take place upon Tower Hill on Wednesday the 24th of the month.

While Forster's insurrection lasted Lady Nithsdale remained with her children at Terregles. But on learning her Lord's surrender and his imprisonment in London, she resolved at once to join him. Leaving her infant daughter in the charge of her sister-in-law, the Countess of Traquair, and burying the family papers in a nook of the gardens, she set out, attended only by her faithful maid, who had been with her ever since her marriage, a Welsh woman, Cecilia Evans by name. A journey from Scotland in mid-winter was then no such easy task. She made her way on horseback across the Border, and then from Newcastle to

...

The writer adds: "I think myself most fortunate in having complied with your kind desire of leaving my little girl with you. Had I her with me, she would have been in her grave by this time, with the excessive cold." It was indeed a season of most unusual rigour. The Thames was fast bound in ice, and many wayfarers throughout were, it is said, found frozen to death.

England

The Countess reached London in safety, but, on her arrival, was thrown by the hardships of the journey into "a violent sickness," which confined her for some days to her bed. All this time she was anxiously pleading for admittance to her Lord in the Tower, which at last, thongh with some difficulty and under some restrictions, she obtained. As she writes: "Now and then by favour I get a sight of him." There are some hurried notes from her at this period to Lady Traquair. But her proceedings are far more fully to be traced in a letter which some years afterwards she addressed to her sister, Lady Lucy Herbert, the Abbess of an English Convent at Bruges. "Dear sister, my It thus commences: Lord's escape is such an old story now, that I have almost forgot it; but since you desire the account, to whom I have too many obligations to refuse it, I will