stern
suppressed tumult of hostile faces, sometimes stealthily under cover of
night which alone could protect her. Everything in Edinburgh is
associated more or less with Mary's name. There is scarcely an old house
existing, with any authentic traces of antiquity, in which she is not
reported to have taken refuge in her trouble or visited in her pleasure.
The more vulgar enthusiasts of the causeways are content to abolish all
the other associations of old Edinburgh for Mary's name.

But I will not attempt to revive those pageants either of joy or sorrow.
There are other recollections which may be evoked with less historical
responsibility and at least a little more freshness and novelty. No
figure can be introduced out of that age who has not some connection one
way or other with the Queen; and the great scholar, whose reputation has
remained unique in Scotland, had some share in her earlier and happier
life, as well as a link, supposed of treachery, with her later career.
George Buchanan was the Queen's reader and master in her studies when
all was well with her. He is considered by some of her defenders to be
the forger of the wonderful letters which, if true, are the most
undeniable proof of her guilt. But these things were but incidents in
his career, and he is in himself one of the most illustrious and
memorable figures among the throngs that surrounded her in that brief
period of sovereignty which has taken more hold of the imagination of
Scotland, and indeed of the world, than many a longer and, in point of
fact, more important reign.

It is difficult to understand how it is that in later days, and when
established peace and tranquillity of living might have been supposed to
give greater encouragement to study, accurate and fine scholarship
should have ceased to be prized or cultivated in Scotland. Perhaps,
however, the very advantages upon which we have plumed ourselves so
long, the general diffusion of education and higher standard of
knowledge, is one of the causes of this failure--not only the poverty of
Scotch universities and want of endowments, but the broader and simpler
scale on which our educational systems were founded, and which have made
it more important to train men for the practical uses of teaching than
permit to them the waywardness and independence of a scholar. These
results show the "_defauts de nos qualites_," though we are not very
willing to admit the fact. But in the earlier centuries n