enormous, and if developed might support a vast population in comfort, besides contributing largely to the wants of other nations. One of the strongest arguments which the advocates of the Euphrates Valley railway advance is, in fact, this-that Mesopotamia, if opened up and ruled well, is fitted to be the granary of all Asia. That may be an exaggeration, and even if it is not, it is no justification for the railway, corn being transmitted far cheaper by the rivers, which are already there, than any railway could ever do it; but there can be no doubt that these regions are supremely fertile, and as little that, once thoroughly established in the Gulf, the influence of our presence must be most beneficial even on countries which are outside our direct sway. Trade would be developed, and better government in the Sultan's dominions must follow our advance. Or if not, then we should be justified in 'protecting' Syria in the same way that we have protected many an Indian dependency, and ought now to protect Persia.

These speculations can scarcely be considered beside the point when such grave political issues are in question; but apart from them this stands forth distinct: we cannot any longer allow Russia to come down on us without doing something to protect ourselves. What that something must be, depends in some degree on the imminence of the danger. If Russia does not want the Gulf just yet, we might pursue for a short time our old diplomatic policy. If she does, we can either let her pursue her way unmolested, merely protecting our water way via Suez, and relying on her not molesting us in the Gulf, or vigorously take the initiative to prevent her ever getting there. As our rulers estimate these probabilities they will act; but to us it ap

pears as if there need be no hesitation on the matter, and that every motive of prudence and humanity dictates on our part a speedy and vigorous advance. If we temporise till Russia reveals her intention in deeds, it may be too late. And while Russia's main purpose is the conquest of Constantinople, she will be the easier turned back on the road to Hindostan. So, if we value our commerce and our freedom, or set any store by the work we are doing in the East, and the interests we have at stake there, we must do what is best to save them now. Scruples about such a miserable institution as the Persian monarchy, the history and conditions of which, under the present race of kings, and for a century before, have been so uniformly degrading, ought not to stand in the way for a moment. The mistake of treating Persia with the consideration shown to a civi lised power, is one of the most absurd which our diplomatists ever made. Of what use is it making treaties with a power whose one idea is 'backsheesh,' of whom Sir John Malcolm says, 'Gold will buy anything you like to ask'? And yet we fear strongly that this, the very worst, the most irritating and profitless course of all, is the one which will now be pursued. Our Government will i lean on this broken reed still, and wil awake to the folly of so doing only when it has pierced its hand. Help to Persia now means ruling it; and if we are not prepared to do that, then let it wholly alone. There is, we repeat, no middle way. Russia never paused an hour for all our treaties, though we have persisted once and again in making our selves ridiculous in the eyes of the world by vain efforts thus to stop her.

A treaty of the old kind and in the old spirit might really be a bait to Russia to advance. Knowing our hesitancy of yore, she might occupy

Teheran a month after the treaty was signed, and compromise herself beyond the possibility of retreat should we suddenly repent ourselves and resolve on war, while a vigorons action on our part might entirely prevent the occurrence of so calamitous a crisis. Backed by English bayonets, ruled by English statesmen, Persia would soon be formidable; supplied only with English gold and English promises,

Persia is but made a more tempting morsel for the enemy.

If it is dangerous, therefore, to have Russia in the Persian Gulf, we must take it ourselves, and that at once, with all that is necessary to render its possession secure; if we do not want it, and are not afraid of India from that quarter, then, don't let us play with Persia like a terrier with a hot chestnut, let us leave it altogether alone.

A

BOUT five miles south of Edinburgh, on the southern slope of the Pentland Hills, is the house of Woodhouselee, which has been in the possession of the distinguished family of the Tytlers for more than a century. Like many other houses in different parts of the country, though they are now rapidly disappearing, Woodhouselee has long been in the popular mind credited with its ghost. In the Memoir of P. F. Tytler, by the Rev. John W. Burgon (1859), we meet with a very vivid account of this ghost from the pen of Miss A. F. Tytler. 'There was,' she says, 'one bedroom in the house, which, though of no extraordinary dimensions, was always called the big bedroom. Two sides of the walls of this room were covered with very old tapestry representing subjects from Scripture. Near the head of the bed there was a mysterious-looking small and very old door which led into a turret fitted up as a dressing-room. From this small door the ghost was wont to issue. No servant would enter the big bedroom after dusk, and even in daylight they went in pairs. To my aunt's old nurse, who constantly resided in the family, and with her daughter Betty, the maid (a rosy-looking damsel), took charge of the house during the winter, Lady Anne (the ghost) had frequently appeared. Old Catherine was a singularly interesting-looking person in appearance, tall, pale, and thin, and herself like a gentle spirit from the unseen world. We talked to her often of Lady Anne. "'Deed," she said, "I have seen her times out o' number, but I am in no ways fear'd; I ken weel she canna gang beyond her commission; but there's that silly feckless thing

Betty, she met her in the lang passage ae night in the winter time, and she had nae a drap o' bluid in her face for a fortnight after. She says Lady Anne came sae near her, she could see her dress quite weill: it was a Manchester muslin with a wee flower." Sir Walter Scott, we are told, 'used to laugh at this "wee flower," and hope that Lady Anne would never change her dress.'

Connected with every ghost is a story, though we may well be allowed to doubt whether sometimes the ghost owes its existence to the story or the story to the ghost. In some cases the ghost seems to make its appearance first, and then a story has to be found or made to account for it; in others there is first the story, and in course of time the ghost, being anxiously looked for, naturally reveals itself. This dis tinction would be of some service to us if we were to treat of the history or the philosophy of ghosts, and we shall have to refer to it afterwards; but in the meantime it is not necessary for us to pur sue the subject farther, seeing that it is not the ghost, but the story with which it is connected, that we have at present to deal.

The story connected with the Woodhouselee ghost differs from most of its class in occupying prominent place in the history of the country. In this case the story has not been made for the ghost, but the ghost has resulted from the story, though, as we shall after wards see, it has had the effect of considerably changing or altering it.

Perhaps one of the blackest and most dastardly crimes to be met with in the history of Scotland is

the assassination of the Regent Moray by James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. The Regent was on his way from Stirling to Edinburgh, and had spent the night in Linlithgow. Here the assassin had everything in readiness for his bloody work. He stationed himself in a house in the High Street belonging to his relative the Archbishop of St. Andrews. This had E a wooden balcony in front, over which clothes were hung, so as effectually to conceal his movements, and a feather bed was laid on the floor to prevent his footsteps being heard. He barricaded the door towards the street, and had a swift horse ready saddled in the stable behind. Having made these preparations and cut out a small hole to enable him to observe what was going on in the street and to admit the barrel of his caliver, he calmly awaited the arrival of his victim. The Regent is said to have been warned of the danger that threatened him. It would appear that Bothwellhaugh had made several attempts previously to carry his purpose into execution, but without success; and it is said that on this occasion his name was given and the house mentioned in which he would be found concealed. The Regent, however, who had been accustomed to dangers, and had been the frequent object of conspiracies, paid little heed to the warning. He was so far prevailed upon that he consented to leave the town by the opposite gate, and so avoid passing the house indicated. When, however, he came out and mounted his horse, he found the street not easily passable in that direction, and made up his mind to follow out his original intention. It is said that he would have gone

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off at a gallop, but the crowd of people was so great that he could only proceed at a walking pace. Everything was thus in favour of the assassin, and failure was scarcely possible. He fired when his victim was within three yards of him, the bullet passing through the lower part of his body and killing a horse on the other side of him. The Regent put his hand to his side, saying that he was wounded, but was able to alight, and leaning on Lord Sempill, he returned to the house which he had just left. In the confusion the murderer escaped. Before the people could force an entrance into the house he was well on his way to Hamilton Castle, where he arrived a few hours later and was received with every demonstration of joy. The Regent died the same night (January 23, 1570)1 'without speaking a reproachful word of any man; and when reminded by his friends of his having neglected their advice in pardoning Bothwellhaugh after the battle of Langside (in which he was taken prisoner), he meekly replied that they 'should never make him repent of any good he had done in his life.'

Whether we regard its disastrous results as involving Scotland in long years of misery and bloodshed by removing the only man of the time who was capable of maintaining peace among all classes, or its utter fruitlessness of good to the projectors, it was a political assassination of the worst type. could not bring back Mary Stuart to the throne, it failed to place the supreme power in the hands of the Hamiltons, and it did not turn back the tide of the Reformation.

It

There can be no doubt that

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Bothwellhaugh was instigated to the commission of this crime by the powerful faction of the Hamiltons, who had long plotted the Regent's destruction, regarding him as the great obstacle in their way to supreme power. They furnished the assassin with every means for the execution of the deed. The house in which he carried out his purpose belonged to John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews; the caliver with which he perpetrated the act, and the horse on which he effected his escape, belonged to John Hamilton, the Abbot of Arbroath, one of the Duke's sons; and he at once made his way to Hamilton Castle, where he was received with open arms by the Hamilton party, who subsequently furnished him with the means of escaping to France. It would even appear that he had received the promise of a pension from Queen Mary as a reward of his crime; for in a remarkable letter of hers, on hearing of the murder, she expresses her pleasure at the deed, all the more, she says, that it had been done without her knowledge or advice; and adds, that when she comes to make up the scheme for the distribution of her dowry (as dowager Queen of France), 'je n'oublierai la pension du dit Bothwellhaugh,' which can scarcely be understood otherwise than as undertaking the fulfilment of a promise made on her behalf though it might have been without her knowledge. Some will even have it that she was privy to the murder, but for this there does not appear to be sufficient evidence, although there can be no doubt that she heartily approved of

it. She afterwards expressed her sympathy with it in so marked a manner as to decline to recognise it as murder; for in certain articles presented to her for signature by Sir William Cecil, and dated October 5, 1570, she among other

things promises to pursue and pu nish all who had had a hand in the murder of her late husband, Lord Darnley, but in place of the words, The like shall she doe for the pu nishment of the murder of the Earl of Murray,' she had inserted, ‘And that also due punishment be made for the Earl of Murray, according to the laws of the realm,' thus objecting to the use of the term 'murder' in the latter case, and declining to follow it up in the same way as the other.

It has generally been held that Bothwellhaugh had private as well as political or party reasons for acting as he had done. The story is that, having been made prisoner at the battle of Langside, he, with others, had been condemned to death, but his life had been spared by the Regent, who contented himself with the forfeiture of his estates. His wife was heiress of Woodhouselee, and, under the mistaken idea that it would be safe from the sentence of outlawry which affected her husband's estate of Bothwellhaugh, she went and took up her residence there. This property, however, was conveyed to Bellenden, the Justice Clerk, a great favourite of Moray's, and he violently took possession of the house, turning its mistress out of doors in a bitterly cold night to wander in the woods, where she was found next morning furiously mad, and insensible of the injury that had been done her. From that moment Bothwellhaugh is said to have resolved upon Moray's death, regard ing him as the chief author of his calamity, and he thus became an apt tool in the hands of his kinsmen. the Hamiltons, for carrying out their bloody purposes.

This story has been generally received and credited till cently. Mr. James Maidment, however, and following him, Dr. John Hill Burton, have treated it as a myth; on what grounds we shall