the infurgents in the Lowlands, haftened to fecure the paffes of that river, which he himself croffed at Stirling, and immediately took poffeffion, with a force not exceeding 4000 men, of the heights of Dumblaine. The earl of Mar now advanced to the attack; and the clans of Glengary and Clanronald, which formed part of the enemy's right wing, rushed down upon the royalifts, fword in hand, with fuch determined and irrefiftible impetuofity, that the left wing of the king's army was in a fhort time entirely broke, and general Whetham, who commanded it, carried the news of his own defeat with incredible expedition to Stirling-declaring the ruin of the whole army to be inevitable. In the mean time, the duke of Argyle who commanded the right wing in perfon, charged the enemy with the most heroic ardor, and drove them before him, about two miles, as far as the Loch of Allen, though they repeatedly attempted to rally. On his return from this pursuit, he was unexpectedly confronted by the victorious rebels on their return from the pursuit of Whetham: and each army found itself poffeffed of the ftation occupied, in the early part of the engagement, by the adverfary. In this posture they remained till evening, when the rebels returned to Ardoch, and the duke to Dumblaine; and next day marching back to the field of battle, he carried off the wounded, and several pieces of cannon left by the enemy. Though the engagement was thus indecifive, all the honor, as well as advantage, of the fight, rested with the duke of Argyle, who, with a force fo inferior, had entirely disconcerted the schemes of his antagonist by the moft intrepid personal exertions.—Various fucceffes were obtained alfo by the royalifts in the northern parts of Scotland, where the lofs of Inverness was very feverely felt by the rebels; and Argyle being now joined by large reinforcements, it was with difficulty Mar kept the field till the arrival of the pretender in perfon, who landed at Peter-head, December 26, and immediately iffued various proclamations:

proclamations: One of which was for fummoning a convention of the eftates; a fecond ordering all fencible men to repair to his standard; and a third fixing a day for his coronation. He cherished, however, no fanguine hope of fuccefs: "For me," said he, in a speech addressed to his friends convened in council, "it will be no new thing if I am unfortunate: my whole life, even from my cradle, has fhewn a constant series of misfortunes, and I am prepared, if fo it please God, to fuffer the threats of my enemies and yours." In a very short time the folly and rashness of the enterprise became fo apparent, that on receiving intelligence of the approach of the duke of Argyle, he refolved to embark on board a French fhip lying in the harbor of Montrose, accompanied by the earls of Mar and Melfort, which stretching over to Norway, in order to avoid pursuit, and coasting along the fhores of Germany and Holland, arrived in five days at Graveline: The rebel army retiring northward, quietly dispersed without making any farther effort, or receiving the flightest molestation. The extreme mifconduct and want of capacity apparent in the whole of this enterprise, was decifive of the perfonal difpofition and character of the claimant of the British crown; and the impolitic violence, which had hitherto predominated in the counfels of the new monarch, was happily compenfated by the wretched imbecility of his rival. "Should the pretender ever be restored, it was eafy," lord Bolingbroke tells us, "to fee that the court of St. James's would be conftituted in the fame manner as that of St. Germaine's." On being presented with the draft of a declaration to be difperfed in England, he took exception against feveral paffages, and particularly those by which a direct promise of securing the churches of England and Scotland was made.-"He was told," he said, "that he could not, in confcience, make fuch a promife; and, on being farther urged to compliance, afked with warmth, why the tories were fo defirous to have him, if they expected

C

pected those things from him which his religion did not allow?" And after confulting his confidents and cafuifts, the papers were at length printed, with amendments which exhibited the extreme of Jefuitical prevarication, infomuch that lord Bolingbroke abfolutely refused to countersign them. Intoxicated with fuperftition and enthufiaftic zeal, all efforts were quickly perceived to be loft on a man whose obstinacy and prejudice were fortified by the native narrowness of his understanding. "His religion," says the nobleman just mentioned, " is not founded on the love of virtue, and the deteftation of vice, on a fense of that obedience which is due to the will of the Supreme Being,. or of thofe obligations which creatures formed to live in, a mutual dependence on one another lie under. The fpring of his whole conduct is fear; he has all the fuperftition of a capuchin, but I found in him no tincture of the religion of a prince; and I conversed with very few among the Roman catholics themselves, who did not think him too much a papift." Although the rebellion in both kingdoms was thus happily and speedily fuppreffed, the clemency of the king did not appear fo confpicuous as might have been wished, and reasonably expected. The lords Derwentwater, Nithifdale, and Nairne, with divers other noblemen, being tried in Westminster-hall, received fentence of death, earl Cowper prefiding as lord high steward. And notwithstanding the affecting and urgent fupplications of the counteffes of Derwentwater and Nithifdale, and lady Nairne, who threw themselves at the king's feet, and implored his mercy, no mitigation of the fentence could be obtained; and very many of the lower claffes of the people fell a facrifice to the fatal delufion of those miftaken principles which led them to engage in this revolt, which

For the following curious anecdote we are indebted to the Rev. Mr. Macaulay's ingenious topographical hiftory of the parish of Claybroke in Leicestershire: One Paul, a clergyman, and vicar of Orton upon the

which might, in all human probability, have been easily prevented by the adoption of a more equitable and generous policy." Certain it is," fays lord Bolingbroke, «if milder measures had been pursued, that the tories would never have univerfally embraced jacobitifm: the violence of the whigs forced them into the arms of the pretender, and dyed the royal ermines in blood." The king was, notwithstanding of a difpofition by no means harsh or implacable. On the contrary, it was with extreme hesitation and reluctance that he concurred in the meafures which he was affured were neceffary to his fafety. And we are told, that when lord Somers, who in a state of great corporeal infirmity still retained his wonted powers of mind, was informed by lord Townshend, with much exultation, that the king had at length confented to all that was required of him, this aged and venerable patriot afked him with great emotion, and shedding many tears, whether they meant to revive the profcriptions of Marius and Sylla. The ministry, perceiving and probably refenting

C 2

hill in that county, was tried and convicted, A. D. 1715, of high treason, he having joined the rebels at Preston in Lancashire, and fuffered, with the most undaunted refolution, the utmost rigor of the law. On the Sunday previous to his departure he preached a fermon at his own parish church, from Ezek. xxi. 26, 27. "Thus faith the Lord God, remove the diadem, and take off the crown. Exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn, and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is, and I will give it unto him."

"All the traditional accounts of this nobleman," fays Mr. Walpole, now lord Orford, who has delineated his character with great felicity, "the hiftorians of the last age, and its best authors, represent him as the moft incorrupt lawyer and the honestest statesman ; as a master-orator, a genius of the finest taste, and as a patriot of the noblest and most extensive views; as a man who difpenfed bleffings by his life, and planned them for posterity. Mr. Addison, who has drawn a labored but diffuse and feeble character of him in the Freeholder, tells us that he gained great esteem. with queen Anne, who had conceived many unreasonable prejudices against him. Mr. Addison might as well have faid that the queen had at first disbelieved, and was afterwards converted to fir Ifaac Newton's fyftem of

comets.

fenting the general discontent and difaffection of the people to a government which willingly concealed even from itself" the defire of vengeance by which it was actuated, under the veil of loyalty and patriotism, now found or imagined the neceffity of adopting a measure for the preservation of the public fafety, which has been ever confidered as the

highest

comets. Her majefty was full as good a judge of aftronomy as of lord Somers's merits. The monientous times in which he lived gave lord Somers opportunities of difplaying the extent of his capacity, and the patriotism of his heart.---The excellent balance of our constitution never appeared in a clearer light than with relation to this lord, who, though impeached by a misguided house of commons, with all the intemperate folly that at times difgraced the free ftates of Greece, yet had full liberty to vindicate his innocence, and manifest an integrity which could never have fhone fo bright unless it had been juridically aspersed. In this country happily the factious and the envious have not a power of condemning by a shell which many of them cannot fign." To thefe excellent obfervations it may be permitted to add, that when we reflect on the firm and undaunted stand made by the house of lords on this and other interefting occafions against the democratic fury of the commons, we fhall not be forward to applaud the wisdom of those by whom that house was once voted, or of those who are now ready to pronounce it, useless. That there should exist one fovereign will only in a state, is certain; but the legislative body in which this will refides may, by a just and wife organization, contain within itself a principle of vigorous collifion and control. But we have lately heard much from certain presumptuous fpeculatifts on the fcience of government, of the ridiculous folly and abfurdity of permitting, under a free confiitution, any portion of hereditary authority-or, to adopt their own phrafeology" hereditary nonfenfe," to exift, however limited or modified ; though it is remarkable, that previous to thefe recent discoveries in politics, wisdom was ever accounted the grand characteristic feature of aristocracy, as power of monarchy, and public spirit of democracy. And of the justnessof this political axiom, not to appeal to ancient times, the celebrated republics of Venice and Berne exhibit at this day ftriking and obvious examples. Nor are the reafons,-the permanent causes of this permanent effect, difficult to develop; but at prefent, in politics, as at no very diftant period in philofophy, a pretended common fenfe, made up of audacity of affertion, and infolence of abuse, is to fuperfede all inductions of reafon, knowledge, and experience. The harshness of this cenfure must however be qualified with the acknowledgment that in the writings now alluded to are to be found many important and interesting truths, expreffed in language peculiarly ftriking and energetic.