own poison and hiccupping out your own malice? Go get ye to a cave, and there hide, hopeless and outlawed, bereft of sense, devoid of wits, buried for ever in the shades of horrid night!" Compared with such eloquence as this, the language of the Land League and the prefaces of German editors a century ago appear tame. And this between co-religionists too! No wonder both Dempster's book and the reply were prohibited by the Church. As to Thomas, he seems to have published no rejoinder: he was in his cave eating dust prepared for him by the persistent Englishman. The definite accusation brought against him was that of heresy, and for this Dempster had given handle enough. Violent language about Queen Elizabeth did not counterbalance the facts of his conduct at Nismes and in England, when the hope of prebends and preferment had dazzled him. Nay, he held, or at least afterwards expressed, opinions more honest than politic about the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day. The Englishman and his furious Hibernian helpers had little difficulty in drawing up a charge of heresy, and Dempster, ever ready for a paper war, made their task easier by writing the Englishman a letter which needed only to be translated into choice Italian and sent to Rome to substantiate the the accusation. Thither Dempster had to go in person, and found his case already half decided against him. He succeeded, however, in pacifying the Pope, and a kind of hollow peace was patched up between him and his accuser. However, says Thomas, if that Englishman ever so far forgets himself again, he has a pamphlet ready written which shall be published and draw down the curses of posterity on the wretch's head. For five years longer he abode and taught at Bologna, working and writing incessantly, though many of his works, like the 'Etruria,' seem to have remained unpublished. We have, however, his inaugural address on his admission to his professorship-a pretty performance, full of gracefully turned compliments to "Cisalpine Gaul," and much higher praise of his beloved Scotland. But the end, when it came, was sad enough. Again his worthless wife abandoned him and fled with a paramour towards Vicenza, whither he was foolish enough to pursue her, instead of thanking Heaven that he was rid of her. Like a mad Northerner as he was, moreover, he must travel posthaste in the dog-days, and on his return from his fruitless journey took the fever at Butrio: in place of leaving him there in peace, his friends carried him off to Bologna, where, on September 6, 1625, he died, and was buried in Saint Dominic's, his friends of the Academy of Night making themselves and him ridiculous by an epitaph in which they assured the world that it had been better for History, Poetry, Laws, and Letters to lie buried rather than Thomas Dempster. For years before his death off the Roman Yoke.' As his authority he refers to one "Tiraquellus.” was books on affairs military, in- of the original Doomster or cluding one 'On Shaking Deemster-he is right enough so far whose court formed by twelve assessors called the Keys; the whole arrangement being afterwards transferred to Mona's isle. He cannot quite appropriate King Arthur, but he claims Merlin, and lays hands on "Saint" Guinevere, who was captured in battle by the Picts and Scots when they defeated Arthur, and whose tomb did such very questionable miracles that it had to be fenced in to prevent their repetition. His account of Queen Mary and her relations with the "she-wolf of England" is, as might be expected, fantastio. Now Dempster has been often accused of downright forgery-invention of authorities who never existed. It is difficult to prove that. In one case he has been triumphantly vindicated: James Kyd or Cadanus, whom he mentions as having taught at Toulouse about 1500, was long supposed to be a mythical person; he was real enough. But that Thomas did wickedly misquote and distort his authorities is true; as when he gave phrase from a hymn to Saint Boniface not, as in the original, "pious martyr" but "Scottish martyr"; and "Tiraquellus" is a case in point. Tiraquellus lived and wrote-wrote a good leal; the only fault in the reference is that the passage quoted deals not with Boadicea at all, but with lady doctors from the beginning of the world, headed by the nymph Hygieia! and from one learn all. а In spite of these vagaries, there is an immense amount of research embodied in the Ecclesiastical History. On his continual wanderings Dempster had had access to sources of Scottish history then and long after unpublished, and some since lost: Fordun's manuscript he had seen, and Mill's Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld, and Newton's lost history of those of Dunblane. And again, he had known or had gathered information as to scores of those Scottish scholars who in the sixteenth century and later taught in half the universities of Europe, and whose memorial had wellnigh perished with them. one of such scholars, poor and proud, he gives a graphic and touching account. Halkerstone or Hackerston was his name, of kin belike to Hackston of Rathillet, and Dempster 3 E Of THE LIGHTER SIDE OF MY OFFICIAL LIFE. BY SIR ROBERT ANDERSON, K.C.B. III. SECRET SERVICE. As I review the earlier years of my life in London, I wish to keep silence about all matters of a specially confidential nature, and at the same time to avoid loading these pages with mere gossip and trivial details. I am the only survivor of those who had knowledge of the graver matters to which I allude; and while the disclosure of them now would lend sensational interest to my story, it would serve no useful public purpose. Apart from these, indeed, incidents abounded which might, with a little dressing up, afford material for a novel. I was in a position, moreover, to know all that was worth knowing in the sphere of ordinary Police work at Scotland Yard. For Sir Richard Mayne had placed the detective department at my disposal; and as I soon gained the confidence and good - will of the officers, they not only helped me loyally in my inquiries respecting political crime, but spoke to me without reserve about their "cases and all ordinary Police business. All this, however, is ancient history, and the years in question shall be dismissed with no more notice than is necessary to preserve the sequence of my narrative. At that time I had no intention of abandoning the profession of my choice, and it was not till ten years later that I entered the Civil Service. My immediate objective was admission to the English Bar. For though a sceptic both by temperament and training, I have long held a firm belief in the capacity of Irish agitators to impose upon English statesmen — a belief that is shared by all Irishmen, not excepting the agitators themselves, and, as I anticipated the evils which agitation has in fact brought upon Ireland, I wished to be free of the Law Courts at Westminster as well as in Dublin. I may here say once for all that, though called to the English Bar, I never engaged in Court practice in England. For every time I tried to break free from Government work something occurred to make me postpone the crisis. Mr Liddell's friendship had much to do with it. He had a magnetic influence over me; and he always urged me to remain at Whitehall, assuring me again and again |