vouchsafe yet to touch
the obdurate heart of this proud, incorrigible sinner; this wicked,
perjured, traitorous, and profane person, who refuses to hearken to the
voice of thy church." Such were the petitions which he expected they
would, according to custom, offer up for him. He told them, that they
were a miserably deluded and deluding people; and would shortly bring
their country under the most insupportable servitude to which any nation
had ever been reduced. "For my part," added he, "I am much prouder to
have my head affixed to the place where it is sentenced to stand, than
to have my picture hang in the king's bed-chamber. So far from being
sorry that my quarters are to be sent to four cities of the kingdom,
I wish I had limbs enow to be dispersed into all the cities of
Christendom, there to remain as testimonies in favor of the cause for
which I suffer." This sentiment, that very evening, while in prison,
he threw into verse. The poem remains; a single monument of his heroic
spirit, and no despicable proof of his poetical genius.

Now was led forth, amidst the insults of his enemies, and the tears of
the people, this man of illustrious birth, and of the greatest renown in
the nation, to suffer, for his adhering to the laws of his country,
and the rights of his sovereign, the ignominious death destined to the
meanest malefactor. Every attempt which the insolence of the governing
party had made to subdue his spirit, had hitherto proved fruitless; they
made yet one effort more, in this last and melancholy scene, when all
enmity, arising from motives merely human, is commonly softened and
disarmed. The executioner brought that book which had been published in
elegant Latin, of his great military actions, and tied it with a cord
about his neck. Montrose smiled at this new instance of their malice. He
thanked them, however, for their officious zeal; and said, that he bore
this testimony of his bravery and loyalty with more pride than he had
ever worn the garter. Having asked whether they had any more indignities
to put upon him, and renewing some devout ejaculations, he patiently
endured the last act of the executioner.

Thus perished, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, the gallant marquis
of Montrose; the man whose military genius both by valor and conduct had
shone forth beyond any which, during these civil disorders, had
appeared in the three kingdoms. The finer arts, too, he had in his youth
successfully cultiv