RALEIGH'S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH. '441 The coffin, covered with a pall, and supported upon handspikes by the nearest relatives, now only waited the father, to support the head as is customary. Two or three of these privileged persons spoke to him, but he answered only by shaking his hand and his head in token of refusal. The mourners, in regular gradation, according to their rank or their relationship to the deceased, had filed from the cottage, while the younger male children were led along to totter after the bier of their brother, and to view with wonder a ceremonial which they could hardly comprehend. The female gossips next rose to depart; and, with consideration for the situation of the parents, carried along with them the girls of the family, to give the unhappy pair time and opportunity to open their hearts to each other, and soften their grief by communicating it. But their kind intention was without effect. The last of them had darkened the entrance of the cottage as she went out, and drawn the door softly behind her, when the father, first ascertaining by a hasty glance that no stranger remained, started up, clasped his hands wildly above his head, uttered a cry of despair, which he had hitherto repressed, and, in all the impotent impatience of grief, half rushed, half staggered forward to the bed on which the coffin had been deposited, threw himself down upon it, and smothering, as it were, his head among the bed-clothes, gave vent to the full passion of his sorrow. It was in vain that the wretched mother, terrified by the vehemence of her husband's affliction-affliction still more fearful as agitating a man of hardened manners and a robust frame-suppressed her own sobs and tears, and, pulling him by the skirts of his coat, implored him to rise and remember that, though one was removed, he had still a wife and children to comfort and support. The appeal came at too early a period of his anguish, and was totally unattended to; he continued to remain prostrate, indicating, by sobs so bitter and violent, that they shook the bed and partition against which it rested, by clenched hands which grasped the bed-clothes, and by the vehement and convulsive motion of his legs, how deep and how terrible was the agony of a father's sorrow. 3. RALEIGH'S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH. The gates of the palace opened, and ushers began to issue forth in array, preceded and flanked by the band of gentlemen pensioners. After this, amid a crowd of lords and ladies, yet so disposed around her that she could see and be seen on all sides, came Elizabeth herself, then in the prime of womanhood, and in the full glow of what in a sovereign was called beauty, and who would in the lowest rank of life have been truly judged a noble figure, joined to a striking and commanding physiognomy. She leant on the arm of Lord Hunsdon, whose relation to her by her mother's side often procured him such distinguished marks of Elizabeth's intimacy. The young cavalier' we have so often mentioned had probably never yet approached so near the person of his sovereign; and he pressed forward as far as the line of warders permitted, in order to avail himself of the present opportunity. His companion,2 on the contrary, kept pulling him backwards, till Walter shook him off impatiently, and letting his rich cloak drop carelessly from one shoulder; a natural action, which served, however, to display to the best advantage his well-proportioned person. Unbonneting at the same time, he fixed his eager gaze on the queen's approach, with a mixture of respectful curiosity and modest yet ardent admiration, which suited so well with his fine features, that the warders, struck with his rich attire and noble countenance, suffered him to approach the ground over which the queen was to pass somewhat closer than was permitted to ordinary spectators. Thus the adventurous youth stood full in Elizabeth's eye,-an eye never indifferent to the admiration which she deservedly excited among her subjects, or to the fair proportions of external form which chanced to distinguish any of her courtiers. Accordingly she fixed her keen glance on the youth as she approached the place where he stood, with a look in which surprise at his boldness seemed to be unmingled with resentment, while a trifling accident happened which attracted her attention towards him yet more strongly. The night had been rainy, and just where the young gentleman stood, a small quantity of mud interrupted the queen's passage. As she hesitated to pass on, the gallant, throwing his cloak from his shoulders, laid it on the miry spot, so as to ensure her stepping over it dry-shod. Elizabeth looked at the young man, who accompanied this act of devoted courtesy with a profound reverence, and a blush that overspread his whole countenance. The queen was confused, and blushed in her turn, nodded her head, hastily passed on, and embarked in her barge without saying a word. "Come along, Sir Coxcomb," said Blount; "your gay cloak will need the brush to-day, I wot. Nay, if you had meant to make a foot-cloth of your mantle, better have kept Tracy's old drap-de-bure, which despises all colours." "This cloak,” said the youth, taking it up and folding it, never be brushed while in my possession." 66 shall "And that will not be long, if you learn not a little more economy-we shall have you in cuerpo soon, as the Spaniard says." Their discourse was here interrupted by one of the band of pensioners. "I was sent," said he, after looking at them attentively, "to a gentleman who hath no cloak, or a muddy one. You, sir, I think," addressing the young cavalier, are the man; you will please to follow me.' 66 "He is in attendance on me," said Blount; " Earl of Sussex's master of horse." on me, the noble 1 Sir Walter Raleigh. 2 Blount, afterwards Lord Mountjoy. RALEIGH'S FIRST INTERVIEW WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH. 443 "I have nothing to say to that," answered the messenger; "my orders are directly from her majesty, and concern this gentleman only." So saying, he walked away, followed by Walter, leaving the others behind, Blount's eyes almost starting from his head with the excess of his astonishment. At length he gave vent to it in an exclamation. "Who would have thought this!" And shaking his head with a mysterious air, he walked to his own boat, embarked, and returned to Deptford. The young cavalier was in the meanwhile guided to the waterside by the pensioner, who showed him considerable respect; a circumstance which, to persons in his situation, may be considered as an augury of no small consequence. He ushered him into one of the wherries which lay ready to attend the queen's barge, which was already proceeding up the river with the advantage of the floodtide. The two rowers used their oars with such expedition at the signal of the gentleman pensioner, that they very soon brought their little skiff under the stern of the queen's boat, where she sate beneath an awning, attended by two or three ladies and the nobles of her household. She looked more than once at the wherry in which the young adventurer was seated, spoke to those around her, and seemed to laugh. At length one of the attendants, by the queen's order apparently, made a sign for the wherry to come alongside, and the young man was desired to step from his own skiff into the queen's barge, which he performed with graceful agility at the fore-part of the boat, and was brought aft to the queen's presence, the wherry at the same time dropping into the rear. The youth underwent the gaze of majesty, not the less gracefully that his selfpossession was mingled with embarrassment. The muddied cloak still hung upon his arm, and formed the natural topic with which the queen introduced the conversation. "You have this day spoiled a gay mantle in our service, young man. We thank you for your service, though the manner of offering it was unusual, and something bold.” "In a sovereign's need," answered the youth, "it is each liegeman's duty to be bold." "That was well said, my lord," said the queen, turning to a grave person who sate by her, and answered with a grave inclination of the head, and something of a mumbled assent. "Well, young man, your gallantry shall not go unrewarded. Go to the wardrobe-keeper, and he shall have orders to supply the suit which you have cast away in our service. Thou shalt have a suit, and that of the newest cut, I promise thee, and that on the word of a princess." May it please your Grace," said Walter, hesitating, "it is not for so humble a servant of your Majesty to measure out your bounties, but if it became me to choose- "Thou would'st have gold I warrant me," said the queen, interrupting him; "fie, young man, I take shame to say, that in our capital such and so various are the means of thriftless folly, that to give gold to youth is giving fuel to fire, and furnishing them with the means of self-destruction. If I live and reign, these means of unchristian excess shall be abridged. Yet thou mayest be poor," she added, "or thy parents may be. It shall be gold if thou wilt, but thou shalt answer to me for the use on't." 66 Walter waited patiently until the queen had done, and then modestly assured her that gold was still less his wish than the raiment her majesty had before offered. How, boy," said the queen, "neither gold nor garment? What is it thou would'st have of me, then?" "Only permission, madam, if it is not asking too high an honour -permission to wear the cloak which did you this trifling service." "Permission to wear thine own cloak, thou silly boy!” said the queen. "It is no longer mine," said Walter; "when your Majesty's foot touched it, it became a fit mantle for a prince, but far too rich a one for its former owner." The queen again blushed, and endeavoured to cover, by laughing, a slight degree of not unpleasing surprise and confusion. VII. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH was born in 1765, on the banks of Loch Ness, and was educated at Aberdeen. He was intended for the medical profession, but after completing the necessary studies, he changed his purpose and commenced to study law. Like many others of his own age, he hailed with enthusiasm the outbreak of the French Revolution, and in his "Vindicia Gallica" ventured to defend against Mr Burke the proceedings of the French Assembly. His work was followed by an interview with Burke, in which genius at once asserted its natural superiority, and Mackintosh abandoned the French cause, and condemned the doctrines he had so lately upheld. He was chosen as the advocate of Peltier the French emigrant, who had libelled Napoleon in the "Ambigu," and his eloquence on the occasion, while it effectually assisted his client, acquired for him a wide-spread reputation as a legal orator. In 1803 he was made Recorder of Bombay, and he for some years resided in that town, and on his return to Great Britain he entered Parliament, where he became conspicuous as an able debater and a zealous law reformer. He held office under Lord Grey's Ministry as President of the India Board, and died in 1832. His works consist of two historical fragments, one embracing the early History of England, the other the History of the Revolution, a "Dissertation on the History of Moral Philosophy," and many contributions to the "Edinburgh Review." He is distinguished by extensive information, and great metaphysical ability, but though usually vigorous, and occasionally eloquent, his style is often clumsy and careless, and presents few attractions to the mere literary reader. RIGHT OF RESISTANCE TO GOVERNMENT. 445 RIGHT OF RESISTANCE TO GOVERNMENT. OF THE REVOLUTION.") REVIEW OF THE CAUSES The war of a people against a tyrannical government may be tried by the same tests which ascertain the morality of a war between independent nations. The employment of force in the intercourse of reasonable beings is never lawful, but for the purpose of repelling or averting wrongful force. Human life cannot lawfully be destroyed, or assailed, or endangered, for any other object than that of just defence. Such is the nature and such the boundary of legitimate selfdefence in the case of individuals. Hence the right of the lawgiver to protect unoffending citizens by the adequate punishment of crimes; hence, also, the right of an independent state to take all measures necessary to her safety, if it be attacked or threatened trom without; provided always that reparation cannot otherwise be obtained, that there is a reasonable prospect of obtaining it by arms, and that the evils of the contest are not probably greater than the mischiefs of acquiescence in the wrong, including, on both sides of the deliberation, the ordinary consequences of the example, as well as the immediate effects of the act. If reparation can otherwise be obtained, a nation has no necessary, and therefore no just cause of war; if there be no probability of obtaining it by arms, a government cannot, with justice to their own nation, embark it in war; and if the evils of resistance should appear on the whole greater than those of submission, wise rulers will consider an abstinence from a pernicious exercise of right as a sacred duty to their own subjects, and a debt which every people owes to the great commonwealth of mankind, of which they and their enemies are alike members. A war is just against the wrong-doer, when reparation for wrong cannot otherwise be obtained; but it is then only conformable to all the principles of morality, when it is not likely to expose the nation by whom it is levied to greater evils than it professes to avert, and when it does not inflict on the nation which has done the wrong sufferings altogether disproportioned to the extent of the injury. When the rulers of a nation are required to determine a question of peace or war, the bare justice of their case against the wrongdoer never can be the sole, and is not always the chief, matter on which they are morally bound to exercise a conscientious deliberation. Prudence in conducting the affairs of their subjects is, in them, a part of justice. On the same principles the justice of a war made by a people against their own government must be examined. A government is entitled to obedience from the people, because without obedience it cannot perform the duty, for which alone it exists, of protecting them from each other's injustice. But when a government is engaged in systematically oppressing a people, or in destroying their securities against future oppression, it commits the same species of wrong towards them which warrants an appeal to arms |