ADMIRERS of the industry exhibited by Mr. Lang in the

two previous volumes of his history of Scotland will be somewhat disappointed with their successor. Not that it also does not exhibit, in innumerable notes and references, marks of that industry. But it is less frequently relieved by what Stevenson termed its author's "incommunicable humour." There is, further, in this volume a good deal more than we have noticed before of Mr. Lang's "perversity "—which reminds one of Mr. Froude's " mis- chievousness "—and of his habit of setting himself, as it would seem, deliberately to run counter to the views of very many, if not the majority, of his countrymen on such subjects as the Confession of Faith, or the Solemn League and Covenant. A certain amount of bitterness, for example,

is exhibited even in his treatment of the story of Montrose, although he is the true hero of the volume :— " Not for Montrose, felix opportunitate mortis, was to be the spectacle of chicanery, hypocrisy, and perjury; of defeat and ruin of return to a loveless life with harlots and jesters, that awaited the King for whom he died. What place was there for Montrose in the satyr rant or among the dull misgovernors of the Restoration? He was not born, like Lauderdale, to be the butt of the filthy practical jokes of Charles IL, or to hunt brave ignorant peasants like the later 'glory of the Grahams! He had carried fidelity and honour to the grave. He had as deliberately chosen the path of honour, with certain death before his eyes, as did Jeanne D'Arc when her Voices foretold her fate in the fosse at Melun."

The portions of this volume which deal with Montrose are the brightest in the book, and would have been quite the best if Mr. Lang had analysed Montrose's political ideas as carefully as he has exposed those of his rival, Argyll. A biography of Montrose, or, better still, a monograph on the

true meaning of the romance of Scottish Royalism, from the pen of Mr. Lang, would be very welcome. His strength lies in the writing of volumes on special subjects—in which his capacity for minute investigation is of the highest value, and his habit of losing himself in notes does not seem altogether out of place—rather than of lengthy and coherent historical works. Besides, if Mr. Lang is not without prejudices, he is not under the tyranny of many illusions. While he delights in the romantic spirit which suffuses Cavalierism, and heartily dislikes the "sulphurous fumes of the preachers' fatuous superstition" which in his eyes constitute the essence of Covenanterism, he is no sympathiser with the Stuarts ; on the contrary, he is as ready to trounce their " rascalities " and heartlessness as Macaulay or a modern defender of the Cameronians.

Mr. Lang covers the period in Scottish history between 1625 and 1689,—the period which includes the struggles between Liturgy and Covenant, Charles I. and the bulk of the Scottish people, Cromwell and Presbyterianism, Claver- house and the Covenanters, the battles of Philiphaugh, Dunbar, Worcester, and Bothwell Bridge, the " passion " of Montrose, the " treachery " of Sharp, and the rising of Argyll. The weakness of the volume, regarded as a consecutive historical narrative, lies on the surface. Mr. Lang has an

• Raton of Scotland. By Andrew Lang. Vol. ILL London : W. Black- wo ,t1 and Sono. [15s. I which must have sustained and inspired the "preachers," in spite of their fanaticism and cruelty. What he considers "a waste of time" in explaining the transformation of Church

government in Scotland, writers of a different temperament would consider time well spent in tracing the processes of political evolution. One can understand Mr. Lang's dislike of "weary dealings," where these concern Presbyteries and Assemblies, and at the same time fail to appreciate the manner in which he hurries over the Cromwellian "settle- ment." This sort of writing is not illuminating :—

" He [Monk] began in May by proclaiming Oliver, the Union, the admission of thirty Scottish members for an English Parlia- ment ment (and such a Parliament !), free trade with England, abolition of servile tenures, and hereditable jurisdictions—in brief the modernising and defeuclalising of Scotland. The great houses were forfeited, in the case of the Duchesses of Hamilton, Lorne, Lauderdale (a prisoner in England), Loudoun, Glencairn, Napier, Sinclair, Atholl, Seaforth, Kenmnre ; while the heirs of Buccleuch were fined £15,000, and eighty others of the best names in Scotland in proportion. A fine of £3,000 was heavy on Scott of Harden. These were not the measures to win. Scottish hearts ; but free trade was a real blessing, lost at the Reformation!'

Mr. Lang, as a rule, likes to describe "bonnie fighting " ;

but when he is telling of Monk's doings in Scotland he seems to get tired even of that. Otherwise, he would scarcely have penned such a sentence as this :—

"On July 20 Monk learned that Morgan had met, fought, and routed Middleton at Loch Garry : the little loch that lies east of the long Loch Ericht and just south of Dalnaspidal. Middleton's force was a weary troop of horse—Lowland probably; while the remnant of the dead Wogan's English fought a gallant rear- guard action to protect the retreat."

The "little loch that lies east of the long Loch , Ericht and just south of Dainaspidal " is rather slovenly guide-book

English. If Mr. Lang had devoted to "the weightier matters of the law" the time and space he has devoted to emphasising, and not too accurately, the details of the murder of Sharp, and to following Napier in minimising the persecutions of the Covenanters, this volume would have been more valuable, and more distinctly a permanent record of the events with which it deals than it can fairly be said to be.

But, apart from a scarcity of touches of humour like "an ex. change of prisoners with the Devil," this volume contains many excellent pieces of description and many judgments of men and events which are well worthy of consideration, even if they

cannot be regarded as quite definitive. Mr. Lang's account of the battle of Dunbar may not be the finest yet written—as a battle-piece Carlyle's famous passage will probably never be rivalled, much less surpassed—but it is the fullest because

it incorporates the discoveries recently made by Mr. Firth and others. When Mr. Lang chooses, he can be as attentive to details as the sentences already given from his narrative of the fighting during Monk's residence in Scotland show he can be the reverse :—

" Cromwell, whom Leslie appears to have expected to surprise by a great cavalry charge from his own right across the levels of the burn, was really moving his own troops across the burn before dawn to surprise Leslie. Had that General and his officers not been `lazy,' they might have caught Cromwell in the midst of this audacious and perilous manceuvre. He executed it safely, at three points, on the low levels, at the present road above them, and at Brunt's Mill, two or three hundred yards further up the burn. In a picture chart of the battle we see three parties crossing at these intervals. It seems, though not from Crom- well's account, that three English regiments of horse went over the corry by the upper crossing as early as four o'clock in the morning, drove in the outposts of the Scots horse,and attacked the Scots left among their tents—if any tents they had ; we hear of shelter under corn-stooks. The English foot and cavalry followed, and fell on the Scots foot, whose matches were not lighted—wet fumbling fingers had little chance then to renew the seeds of fire."

Mr. Lang would have pleased political students of Scottish history better by elucidlting the various schemes for the commercial and political union of Scotland and England which were brought forward before the Revolution than by dwelling at length on the point whether, when the Gibbites, according to Patrick Walker, " confest sins that the world has not heard of," this "argued extreme originality in vice," and not, as Mr. Hay Fleming reasonably maintains, merely "sins which had neither been committed publicly nor raised

public scandal." Yet, at the same time, the particular view which he takes of the ecclesiastical controversies in Scotland, of the extraordinary career of Sharp, even cf the " selling "

of Charles L by Presbyterians, will have to be taken into account by the future historian of Scotland. Mr. Lang may be too given to running off at a tangent from his narrative into criticisms of Mr. G-ardiner ; but he also, we are glad to see, does justice to the important work of Mr. Mathieson, in which Scottish Episcopacy had its merits made known. In the summation of historical periods Mr. Lang's style is seen at its best. Thus :— "On February 6, 1685, died Charles IL and the usual foolish talk about poison was rife. The King, by temperament, was the reverse of saintly ; his unchecked boyhood in the great war, his Bohemian life of wandering adventure in exile, and the utter ruin of his character under the pressure of the Covenanters and Argyll had left him a man with few virtues except good nature, personal courage, and scientific interests. Yet Lord Ailesbury's

good King' was sincerely loved and lamented by many, and despite his Scottish experiences of the Covenanters, he was of

milder mood towards them than most of his advisers His brother had no charm—even the loyal Ailesbury could not love him—and had a fatal remnant of honesty where the religion that conquered him by satisfying his intellect was concerned. James II. was no mere dullard; the Duke of Wellington and a certain Field-Marshal of our own day have pronounced him a most lucid writer on military subjects. But the obstinacy, the want of good faith, the fanatical belief in his own prerogative of James II., with what must be called his cruelty in success and his strange loss of the courage which he once possessed, brought shame and ruin on himself, and misery on his unfortu- nate descendants, the Kings 'over the water."

Here again, surely, is the common-sense of Jacobitism :— "When we study the character and conduct of James II. it seems impossible that any man should have been a Jacobite. But his domestic misfortunes bore such an ill look for his son-in- law and his daughter ; his son was so natural an object of pity and affection; a Dutch or German ruler was so distasteful ; the new Government with its wars so loaded the country with the National Debt that the ancient sentiment of loyalty rose to a love passing the love of women, and the canniest of nations entered into a period of romantic struggles for an impossible cause, cupitor impossibiltium. That set of men, the bishops, who had been so slavish and so self-seeking, suddenly appeared ready to sacrifice all for a sentiment, a song, a flower ; living in poverty and hope

Till our White Roses do appear To welcome Jamie the rover."

And the closing sentences of this book are perhaps the "sanest," and certainly not the least eloquent in it

"On May 11 William was King of Scotland, a country which neither he nor any later King of England ever saw till George IV. made his visit about one hundred and thirty years later. The long war of one hundred and thirty years' duration between Kirk and State closed with the restored prominence of the Kirk without the Covenants, and with a saner conception of the powers and duties of the preachers. The two divine rights— that of sacred hereditary monarchy and that of the apostolic 'privileges of preachers—had clashed so long and fiercely that they destroyed each other. The friends of the fallen dynasty were to be intermittently troublesome for two generations, but never really dangerous. The religion of the House of Stuart was the sword in the hand of the Angel who closed against them the gates of their ancient Paradise."