er sentiment. 'The Queen's mass and her priests will we maintain:
this hand and this rapier shall fight in their defence.'" One can well
imagine the chivalrous youth or even the grave baron, with generous
blood in his veins, who, with hand upon the hilt of the too ready sword,
would dare even Knox's frown with this outcry; and in these days it is
the champion of the Queen and of her conscience who secures our
sympathy. But the Reformer had at least the cruel force of logic on his
side, the severe logic which decreed the St. Bartholomew. To stamp out
the previous faith was the only policy on either side.

Then, as now, we think, there are few even of those who are forced to
believe that the after-accusations against Queen Mary were but too
clearly proved, who will not look back with a compunctious tenderness
upon that early and bright beginning of her career. So strong a sense of
remorseful pity, and the intolerableness of such a fate, overcomes the
spectator, that he who stands by and looks on, knowing all that is
coming, can scarcely help feeling that even he, unborn, might send a
shout from out the dim futurity to warn her. She came with so much hope,
so eagerly, to her new kingdom, so full of pleasure and interest and
readiness to hear and see, and to be pleased with everything--even John
Knox, that pestilent preacher, of whom she must have heard so much; he
who had written the book against women which naturally made every woman
indignant yet curious, keenly desirous to see him, to question him, to
put him on his defence. I think great injustice has been done to both in
the repeated interviews in which the sentimentalist perceives nothing
but a harsh priest upbraiding a lovely woman and making her weep; and
the sage of sterner mettle sees an almost sublime sight, a prophet
unmoved by the meretricious charms of a queen of hearts. Neither of
these exaggerated views will survive, we believe, a simple reading of
the interviews themselves, especially in Knox's account of them. He is
not merciless nor Mary silly. One would almost fancy that she liked the
encounter which matched her own quick wit against the tremendous old man
with his "blast against women," his deep-set fiery eyes, his sovereign
power to move and influence the people. He was absolutely a novel
personage to Mary: their conversations are like a quick glancing of
polished weapons--his, too heavy for her young brilliancy of speech and
nature, crushing with pond