SCOTTISH CORONATIONS.
Scottish Coronations. By John, Third Marquess of Bute. (Alex- ander Gardner, Paisley. 105. 6d.)—The late Marquess of Bute left, many literary legacies in the shape of partially revised volumes of out-of-the-way learning behind him. This work deals with a subject which recently has been of special interest. It consists of four chapters — apart from appendices — tho titles of which, "The Earliest Scottish Coronations," "1'" Coronation of Charles I. at Holyrood," "The Coronation of Charles II. at Scone," and "Three Illustrative Coronation Rituals; speak for themselves. Lord ButAs's researches into the early Coronation Services of Scotland have enabled him to identify them to some extent with those performed at the en- thronisation of Egbert. He also holds that the Northumbrian Coronation Service—Northumbria, it should never be forgotten, included a considerable portion of modern Scotland—embodles the seven prayers or blessings uttered by the seven Priests at the inauguration of the Kings of the fundamentally Scottish Dalriada. In dealing with the coronation of Charles I. at Holy- rood Load Bute is very successful in showing this Monarch as "fey." As a rule Monarchs spend the night before a coronation in the absolute retirement of prayer. But "with a perverse ingenuity by which he succeeded in thrusting upon his subjects every needless mediaevalism that could irritate them and omitted any mediaevalism that was beautiful and good, he selected this evening to be passed at a huge banquet." Lord Bute no less shrewdly notes of the coronation of Charles II. at Scone:—" The ceremony at Scone was marked by one very striking addition. This is the fact that, after the King was set down again in his throne, and had handed the sceptre to the Earl of Craufurd, and before the Barons came forward to perform their homage, the Lyon King of Arms rehearsed the Royal line of the Kings up- wards to Fergus the First. Perhaps, in the desperate state of danger in which the Scottish people were placed through the invasion of the forces of the English Republic, they felt a special inclination to call to mind the enormous antiquity of the Monarchy which they were defending. Anyhow, this seems to be the only instance of an attempt to repeat the venerable and striking scene which closed the coronation ceremony of Alexander III." It is singular that it marked the last coronation of the male line of his race, and with Charles the last coronation which ever took place in Scotland. This is a book which will certainly reward close study, but not superficial reading, for it is full of dry, though not dryasdust, erudition.
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