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CATHERINE SEYTON.
169

the Scottish queen said "Adieu, plaissant pays de la France," she knew not that she bade adieu to her youth, and all youth's careless gladness: she knew not that she went to dwell among a people for whose habits her education had entirely unfitted her. We can imagine how unpopular the manner of her French attendants would be, with all their gaiety and light gallantry, among the stern and staid people of Scotland; how much of that unpopularity would reflect upon their mistress. Moreover, there is no difference so bitter as religious difference. Mary's catholic faith was then an object of positive horror; much, therefore, that has been alleged against her may well be set down to the violent exaggeration of party spirit; but, even were it otherwise, pity, even to pain, is the only feeling with which we can think of the melancholy prisoner, the best of whose years passed under watch and ward in the gloomy castles of Lochlevin and Fotheringham.




No. 20. — CATHERINE SEYTON.

It is not in the calm and measured paths of today that we see the more bold and pronounced characters, whose outlines have been rough-hewn by the strong hand of necessity; yet to such troubled times often belong the development of our

VOL. II.I