Kirkaldy of Grange. By Louis A. Barbs. (Oliphant, Anderson, and
Ferrier.) — In this volume—one of the "Famous Scots Series "—Mr. Barbe distinctly makes a point about Kirkaldy's age. He must have been more than twelve when he was is attendance on the unhappy James V. after the battle of Solway Moss, be was a fellow student with Randolph, who was born ir 1523, and his daughter was old enough to be married in 1561 And the part which he took in the murder of Cardinal Beate= in 1546 does not look like one that could be played at sixteen, Mr. Barb6 tells the tale of his hero's stormy life, which, indeed, harmonised well with this tragic beginning, in an interesting way. It must be confessed that English ways at this time were not over civilised, but Scotland was at least a century behind. The ferocity of its civil strife surpassed anything that happened in our Wars of the Roses. And the "grim Geneva ministers" were as savage as any of their countrymen. Morton, who, as Mr. Skelton says, "might be trusted to do his duty, whenever hanging was needed," was yet greedy enough for money to have spared Kirkaldy's life after the surrender of Edinburgh Castle, but for the "preachers." As for Elizabeth, who had only some petty political advantage to ain by surrendering Kirkaldy, her prisoner, it must be remembered, she comes out of the affair as badly as any one.
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