John Knox and John Knox's House. By Charles John Guthrie
(Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, Edinburgh.)—This is not a formal biography of John Knox, and its author is careful to say that " those who are familiar with the story of that life, as told by Dr. McCrie in 1811, and by Dr. Hume Brown in 1895, and with Dr. Laing's edition of Knox's works, in six volumes, will find nothing new in this book, except possibly some of the illustrations." All the same, this volume will serve for very many ordinary readers, and for, perhaps, the majority of tourists in Scotland at this season, all the purposes of a biography, although whoever wishes to look at it in this light should take along with it Carlyle's different estimates of Knox, and not omit a perusal of Stevenson's essay on the relations of the Reformer with women. Edinburgh was the centre of Knox's political and ecclesiastical activity during his later years, and, of course, is associated in its turn with the now historic house which he occupied in the Canongate. All roads in his life may be said to have led from Rome to Edinburgh, and so by means of dates, illustrations, and admirably condensed narrative, Mr. Guthrie is enabled to tell the story, not only of Knox's career in the Scottish capital, but of those years of storm and stress which preceded the triumph of the Reformation when he was a galley-slave and an exile. The value of this work, which is in, every way both valuable and delightful, is enhanced by portraits., not only of Knox, but of his leading contemporaries.
Previous page
