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criminal cases; and to think of some milder method of terminating disputes concerning civil rights. The punishment for crimes became more severe, and the regulations concerning property more fixed; but the princes, whose province it was to inflict the one, and to enforce the other, possessed little power. Great offenders despised their authority; smaller ones sheltered themselves under the jurisdiction of those from whose protection they expected impunity. The administration of justice was extremely feeble and dilatory. An attempt to punish the crimes of a chieftain, or even of his vassals, often excited rebellions and civil wars. To nobles haughty and independent, among whom the causes of discord were many and unavoidable, who were quick in discerning an injury, and impatient to revenge it; who deemed it infamous to submit to an enemy, and cowardly to forgive him; who considered the right of punishing those who had injured them as a privilege of their order, and a mark of independence; such slow proceedings were extremely unsatisfactory. The blood of their adversary was, in their opinion, the only thing which could wash away an affront: where that was not shed, their revenge was disappointed, their courage became suspected, and a stain was left on their honour. That vengeance, which the impotent hand of the magistrate could not inflict, their own could easily execute. Under governments so feeble, men assumed, as in a state of nature, the right of judging, and redressing their own wrongs; and thus assassination, a crime of all others the most destructive to society, came not only to be allowed, but to be reckoned honourable.

The history of Europe, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, abounds with detestable

instances of this crime. It prevailed chiefly among the French and Scots, between whom there was a close intercourse at that time, and a surprising resemblance in their national characters. In one. thousand four hundred and seven, the only brother of the king of France was murdered publicly in the streets of Paris; and so far was this horrible action from meeting with proper punishment, that an eminent lawyer was allowed to plead in defence of it before the peers of France, and avowedly to maintain the lawfulness of assassination. In one thousand four hundred and seventeen, it required all the eloquence and authority of the famous Gerson to prevail on the council of Constance to condemn this proposition, "That there are some cases in which assassination is a virtue more meritorious in a knight than in a squire, and more meritorious in a king than in a knight." The number o. eminent persons who were murdered in France and Scotland, on account either of private, or polititical, or religious quarrels, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, is almost incredible. Even after those causes, which first gave rise to this barbarous practice, were removed; after the jurisdiction of magistrates, and the authority of laws, were better established, and become more universal; after the progress of learning and philosophy had polished the manners and humanized the minds of men; this crime continued in some degree. It was towards the close of the seventeenth century before it disappeared in France. The additional vigour which the royal authority acquired by the accession of James VI. to the throne of England, seems to have put a stop to it in Scotland.

The influence, however, of any national custom, both on the understanding and on the heart, and

how far it may go towards perverting or extinguishing moral principles of the greatest importance, is remarkable. The authors of those ages have perfectly imbibed the sentiments of their contemporaries with regard to assassination; and they who had leisure to reflect and to judge appear to be no more shocked at this crime, than the persons who committed it during the heat and impetuosity of passion. Buchanan deseribes the murder of Cardinal Beaton and of Rizzio, without expressing those feelings which are natural to a man, or that indignation which became an historian. Knox, whose mind was fiercer and more unpolished, relates the death of Beaton and of the duke of Guise, not only without censuré, but with the ufmost exultation. On the other hand, the bishop of Ross mentions the assassination of the earl of Murray with some degree of applause. Blackwood dwells upon it with the most indecent triumph, and ascribes it directly to the hand of God. Lord Ruthven, the principal actor in the conspiracy against Rizzio, wrote an account of it some short time before his own death, and in all his long narrative there is not one expression of regret, or one symptom of compunction, for a crime no less dishonourable than barbarous. Morton, equally guilty of the same crime, entertained the same sentiments concerning it; and in his last moments, neither he himself, nor the ministers who attended him, seem to have considered it as an action which called for repentance; even then he talks of David's slaughter as coolly as if it had been an innocent or commendable deed. The vices of another age astonish and shock us; the vices of our own become familiar, and excite little horror. ROBERTSON.

ALBERT BANE.

Ir appears to me a very pernicious mistake, which I have sometimes seen parents guilty of in the education of their children, to encourage and incite in them a haughty and despotic behaviour to their servants; to teach them an early conceit of the difference of their conditions; to accustom them to consider the services of their attendants as perfectly compensated by the wages they receive, and as unworthy of any return of kindness, attention, or complacency. Something of this kind must indeed necessarily happen in the great and fluctuating establishments of fashionable life; but I am sorry to see it of late gaining ground in the country of Scotland, where, from particular circumstances, the virtues and fidelity of a great man's household were wont to be conspicuous, and exertions of friendship and magnanimity in the cause of a master used to be cited among the tra ditional memorabilia of most old families.

When I was, last autumn, at my friend Colonel Caustic's in the country, I saw there, on a visit to Miss Caustic, a young gentleman and his sister, children of a neighbour of the colonel's, with whose appearance and manner I was peculiarly pleased." The history of their parents," said my friend, "is somewhat particular, and I love to tell it, as I do every thing that is to the honour of our nature. Man is so poor a thing taken in the gross, that when I meet with an instance of nobleness in detail, I am fain to rest upon it long, and to recall it often; as, in coming hither over our barren hills, you would look with double delight on a spot of cultivation or of beauty.

"The father of those young folks, whose looks

you were struck with, was a gentleman of considerable domains and extensive influence on the northern frontier of our county. In his youth he lived, as it was then more the fashion than it is now, at the seat of his ancestors, surrounded with Gothic grandeur, and compassed with feudal followers and dependants, all of whom could trace their connexion, at a period more or less remote, with the family of their chief. Every domestic in his house bore the family-name, and looked on himself as in a certain degree partaking its dignity, and sharing its fortunes. Of these, one was in a particular manner the favourite of his master. Albert Bane (the surname, you know, is generally lost in a name descriptive of the individual) had been his companion from his infancy. Of an age so much more advanced as to enable him to be a sort of tutor to his youthful lord, Albert had early taught him the rural exercises and rural amusements, in which himself was eminently skilful : he had attended him in the course of his education at home, of his travels abroad, and was still the constant companion of his excursions, and the associate of his sports.

"On one of those latter occasions, a favourite dog of Albert's, which he had trained himself, and of whose qualities he was proud, happened to mar the sport which his master expected, who, irritated at the disappointment, and having his gun ready cocked in his hand, fired at the animal, which, however, in the hurry of his resentment, he missed. Albert, to whom Oscar was a child, remonstrated against the rashness of the deed, in a manner rather too warm for his master, ruffled as he was with the accident, and conscious of being in the wrong, to bear. In his passion he struck his faith

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