THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 291 life, even in Seotland, can offer to its right joyous- minded and ethereal young Queen. With irresistible sympathy one is tempted to pity this poor Sister- soul, involved in such a chaos of contradictions ; and hurried down to tragical destruction by them. No Clytemnestra or Medea, when one thinks of that last scene in Fotheringay, is more essentially a theme of tragedy. The tendency of all is to ask, ' What pecu- liar harm did she ever mean to Scotland, or to any Scottish man not already her enemy ? ' The answer to which is, ' Alas, she meant no harm to Scotland ; was perhaps loyally wishing the reverse ; but was she not with her whole industry doing, or endeavouring to do, the sum-total of all harm whatsoever that was possible for Scotland, namely the covering it up in Papist darkness, as in an accursed winding-sheet of spiritual death eternal?' — That, alas, is the dismally true account of what she tended to, during her whole life in Scotland or in England ; and there, with as deep a tragic feeling as belongs to Clytemnestra, Medea, or any other, we must leave her condemned. The story of this great epoch is nowhere to be u 2
