TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GERMAN OF | At length a footstep mounted to my attic: HEINE. BY KATE BROWNLEE SHERWOOD. LORE-LEI. I KNOW not what it betideth, In my soul and will not depart. And peacefully flows the Rhine; And singeth the while a song, The boatman yon frail bark steering, I fear me the waves are bringing The boatman and boat to naught; And this with her fateful singing The Lore-Lei hath wrought. SECRET LOVE. No fire, no hot ember so ardently glows No rose, no carnation can seem half so sweet Let thine heart be a mirror, reflected therein How true mine hath been. TOLEDO, Nov. 12, 1878. One entered in and reached to me his hands, The saucy robin trills his carol near us, While speckled thrush and blackbird often And he With mellow notes and sweet. my guide— has promised me that yonder Are built the nests of doves and nightingales, In secret woods where we alone shall wander, In more sequestered vales. O LOVE the rose, O love the thorn, O love the thorn, O love the rose, Oh, love's a rose without the thorn; Good Words. Oh, love's a rose ! A CYNIC. BY ETHEL TANE. AND so your life has been a dreary story Is yet revealed to you. SPRING. WINTER has risen to bid his gruff good-bye. You think that you are wise and I am dream-O how the soul leaps up exultingly, ing The dream of youth My friend, not long ago my dull existence I watched the endless roofs, the smoky dis- The sparrows, prating near. From The Edinburgh Review. MEMOIRS AND CHARTERS OF THE LENNOX.* They were feudal princes holding under of those well-known Scottish races down to the present day. The annals of the Earls of Lennox are more historical than WE are already indebted to the perseverdomestic. Those great nobles filled, from ing and ingenious researches of Mr. Wil- the dawn of Scottish history, a prominent liam Fraser in the muniment chests of place in the State. They were nearly the great Scottish houses, and to the allied to royalty, and their titles ultimately munificence of some members of the Scot-merged in the person of the sovereign. tish nobility, for several of the most interesting and important contributions to the family histories of this country which have ever issued from the press. The "Stirlings of Keir" and the "Colquhouns of Luss" have caused their records to be printed in the same magnificent manner an example which might well be followed by the Russells, the Cecils, and the How ards of south Britain. The "Book of Caerlaveroc" and the "Cromartie Papers have been reviewed on previous occasions in the pages of this journal, and thus made known to the world. For these splendid and costly works, being family property, are reserved for private distribution. The number of copies printed is extremely small, and the fortunate possessors of them may congratulate themselves on so rare and valuable an addition to their libraries. In fact they complete the work which was so well begun for Scotland fifty years ago by the Maitland and Bannatyne Clubs. England has produced nothing to compare with these publications, except Lord Clermont's reprint of the Fortescue papers. The volumes now before us form part of this remarkable series, and they are not inferior to any of their companions in typographical beauty or in historical interest. We propose, therefore, to lay before our readers an abridged account of them, the more so as they are inaccessible to the public, except in two or three of the principal libraries of the kingdom, where they are deposited for the purposes of reference. The "Lennox differs, however, from its predecessors in one important particular. The memorials of the Maxwells and the Mackenzies are essentially family histories; they abound in personal and domestic details; and they carry the records The Lennox. By WILLIAM FRASER. Memoirs and Charters. 2 vols. 4to. Edinburgh: 1874. In the history of the Lennox family, their rise and progress to royal rank will be traced. But throughout the entire history there appear many instances of the vicissitudes which For many sometimes befall great families. generations the earls of the old race prospered, and not only retained, but increased, their vast possessions. But all at once, when it seemed as if they would become more prosperous and powerful than ever, calamity fell upon Duncan, the eighth earl, who, to slake the vengeance of King James the First, was, when far advanced in years, beheaded with two of his grandsons and Murdoch Duke of Albany, his son-in-law. His daughter, the Duchess Isabella, after the melancholy fate of her father, her husband, and two sons, passed the remainder of her days in solitary widowhood in a lonely island, during which she possessed the Lennox estates only by sufferance, the governbeen done to crush the illustrious house of ment apparently thinking that enough had Lennox. After her death the descendants of her sisters, the ladies Elizabeth and Margaret, who were co-heiresses of the earldom, were kept out of their rightful possessions by the grasping injustice of Andrew Lord Avandale, who, being chancellor of King James the Third, obtained a grant in life-rent of the en tire earldom. John Stewart Lord Darnley, | their Lennox title entirely separated from every who was entitled to the half of the earldom acre of the Lennox territory. and to the title of Earl of Lennox, did not obtain his rightful inheritance till after the death of Lord Avandale in 1488. Darnley was thus deprived of his Lennox rights for nearly twenty years. The Stewart Earls of Lennox were even more unfortunate than the earls of the original Lennox family, and seemed like the Stewart kings, the race from which they sprang, as if marked out for the shafts of calamity. Matthew, the son and successor of John the first earl of Lennox of the Stewart line, fell at Flodden in 1513. John, his son and successor, was treacherously slain by Sir James Hamilton of Fynnart, at the battle fought near Linlithgow in 1526. Matthew, the son and successor of that John, had his honors and estates forfeited, and was banished from Scotland for twenty years. After his restoration, and after having enjoyed the high office of regent of Scotland for little more than a year, he was assassinated in 1571, in an attempt to suppress an insurrection against his authority as regent. The cruel murder of his eldest surviving son, King Henry Darnley, who had been raised to the highest dignity in the State by his marriage with Queen Mary, is one of the most tragic events in Scottish history of the sixteenth century. The only brother of Darnley, after becoming Earl of Lennox, died within four years, at the early age of twenty-one, leaving an only child, the Lady Arabella Stewart, whose brief life was very miserable, being a constant succession of disappointments, imprisonments, and sufferings, to which she at last succumbed. Robert, the fourteenth earl, enjoyed the earldom less than two years, and was afterwards involved in an unseemly contention with his wife, Lady Elizabeth Stew art, daughter of John Earl of Athole, from whom he was divorced. Esmé the first Duke of Lennox, after enjoying his high dignity of duke for the brief space of two years, and after having been a special favorite of King James the Sixth, was driven from Scotland by the popular feeling against him, and soon after died in France. The subsequent dukes seldom possessed their estates and honors long or happily. On the death of Charles, the sixth duke, in 1672, the direct male descendants became extinct; and after King Charles the Second had revived the dukedom in the new line of Lennox and Richmond, the Lennox estates were sold, and his descendants, the later Dukes of Lennox, deservedly very popular noblemen, and none of them more so than the present representative, have possessed It appears, therefore, that the present English ducal family which bears the illustrious name of Lennox has no connection with the ancient earls and dukes of Lennox, except that which it derives by an irregular descent from Charles II. and Louise de Quérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, and from the revival of the title by that sovereign in the person of one of his illegitimate offspring. The landed possessions which accompanied the Scottish title passed, early in the last century, by sales into other hands. To find the nearest personal representative of the ancient earls of Lennox, Mr. Fraser teaches us to look in a totally different direction; and, curiously enough, it is in the family of Oswald of Auchencruive that this heir is to be found. A member of that family, who was, we believe, originally a merchant of Glasgow, has left some mark in the history of the the last century, as the friend of Lord with Benjamin Franklin which led to the Shelburne, who opened the negotiations peace of 1783 and the close of the American war. His grandson, the late Mr. Oswald of Auchencruive, succeeded about twenty years ago in establishing, with the assistance of Mr. Fraser, his descent from the Haldanes of that ilk, the Haldanes being an ancient border race which long held a barony of that name in the county of Roxburgh. After the death of Isabella Countess of Lennox in 1460, the earldom of Lennox was, as we shall presently see, divided. John Lord Darnley claimed and ultimately obtained one-half of the earldom. The second heir-portioner was Agnes Menteith, a great-granddaughter of Duncan Earl of Lennox. This lady was married to John Haldane, then of Gleneagles, and at that period whatever devolved on the wife belonged to the husband. This John Haldane had the good fortune to be a favorite of King James III., and very nearly succeeded in obtaining from the king the principal part of the earldom. The contention between the Haldanes and Lord Darnley lasted for several years, and although it was ultimately decided in favor of the latter, it may be inferred that if the true Darnley line is extinct, that of the Haldanes is next in succession. The late Mr. Alexander Oswald succeeded in establishing by an interlocutor of the Lord Lyon of March 15, 1861, that he was the heir-general of the Haldanes, and he was authorized by letters patent to add the name of Haldane to his own, and to bear the arms of that family, including those of Lennox and Menteith. The book now before us was commenced by his liberality. Unhappily he did not live to witness the completion of it, for he died in 1868. His estates passed in 1871 to Mr. Richard Alexander Oswald, now of Auchencruive, by whom the work has been brought to a termination. It is a noble monument ære perennius - raised by a remote descendant to an illustrious ancestry. For, as may be inferred from the passage we have quoted from Mr. Fraser's introduction, the history of the Lennoxes, which begins in the eleventh or twelfth century, ends with Henry Darnley in the sixteenth. In writing the lives of the Lennoxes, Mr. Fraser finds himself, more than once, rewriting a page or a chapter of the history of Scotland; and, indeed, his researches have enabled him to add to his work some unpublished letters of Queen Mary and of James VI., and some important acts of their reigns, to which we shall refer before we conclude. But, first, what is the Lennox? Where is the territory which gave birth to these worthies? Mr. Fraser, with genuine archæological enthusiasm, takes us back to the Roman conquest, the wall of Antonine, and the legendary kingdom of Strathclyde; but we shall spare our readers these details. Suffice it to say that he who embarks in a Glasgow steamer to descend the magnificent valley of the Clyde finds himself at Dumbarton in the heart of the Lennox. That celebrated fortress, whose present appearance belies its past history, was considered for ages to be the stronghold of a race of princes, and even to determine the fate of Scotland. It stands in the centre of the Lennox territory, bordered on the south by the Clyde, on the west by Argyll's country and Loch Long; on the north by the Grampian hills that overhang Loch Lomond; and on the east by the earldom of Menteith, in the county of Stirling. Thus the Lennox territory lay on the confines of the Highlands and the Lowlands. It commanded the great western estuary of the kingdom, and it included one of the most picturesque and well-known portions of the northern kingdom. Of the millions who pass over it to-day how few give a thought to its former owners or its past history! The extreme length of the Lennox was fortyseven miles, and its breadth from eight to two miles -an area of two hundred and twenty-eight square miles. The hills have ever been well wooded, and were celebrated in ancient times for the beasts of chase; the shores are indented by beauti. ful lochs, or arms of the sea, and in Loch Lomond the Lennox possesses the finest freshwater loch in Scotland. Mr. Fraser has described every island which studs its surface in picturesque language, and he gives us an equally full account of the castles of the Lennox, which has, however, been in some measure anticipated by Mr. Joseph Irving's excellent history of Dumbartonshire. He describes the well-known exploit of the capture of Dumbarton Castle by Captain Crawford with great animation, and makes us better acquainted with that heroic individual, whose descendants in the tenth generation may still be traced amongst us. On the western shore of Loch Lomond lay the famous sanctuary of Lennox, where the privilege of "girth," as it was termed, was granted in 1315 by King Robert the Bruce to a territory extending three miles around the church of Luss. The charter (which is now at Buchanan Castle)" confirmed to God and the blessed Kessog forever that liberty which is called Gyrth, namely, around the church of Lusse, for the space of three miles on every side by land or by water, as freely and quietly as any liberty which is called Gyrth through the whole kingdom of Scotland, and to the earls of Lennox forever the punishment with the correction of delinquents, within the said liberty." There is still a rude image of Saint Mac Kessog (whoever he may be) in the chapel at Rossdhu. Although the Lennox was thus placed on the borders of the western Highlands, its chiefs and its people had nothing of the | 1314, Bruce was engaged in besieging the Celtic or Highland character. They be- Castle of Dumbarton, which, under Sir John longed entirely to the Lowland kingdom of Menteith, held out against him after the most Scotland. Indeed, the forbears of the important strongholds in the kingdom had first Earl of Lennox were supposed to be ceased to remain in the hands of the English. Saxons, who resisted William the Con- Menteith would surrender it to him only on condition of his obtaining from Bruce the queror after the battle of Hastings, and earldom of Lennox. Earl Malcolm was preretired to this wild region to defy his power. pared to surrender his princely earldom, should They retained something of the Saxon lan- this be necessary, for the sake of his beloved guage and character. Certain it is that sovereign, and Menteith's proposal the king Alwin, the son of Archill, was a man of agreed to, after the earl had assented to it. mark at the court of King David I., and it Bruce, however, obtained the castle without is supposed that Malcolm IV. created him being reduced to so hard a necessity. Having Earl of Lennox about the year 1153. been invited by Menteith to come to it to comSeveral charters are in existence which plete the negotiations, and to obtain possesbear his name, for he was liberal to the sion, he started for the castle, attended by a chosen band of followers; and though in-. Church, and the Cluniac monastery of formed on his way, in the woods of Colquhoun, Paisley was especially enriched by him by a carpenter of the name of Rolland, that and by his successors. He was the first Menteith intended to make him a prisoner and of the eight earls of Lennox of the origi- to send him to Edward, king of England, in nal creation, who flourished in the land the same way as he had sent Wallace, he still from 1153 to 1425. Mr. Fraser passes pursued his journey. On his arrival at the them faithfully in review. They flit before castle, the keys were delivered to him by Menus like the sons of Banquo, and are nearly teith, who conducted him through the whole. as visionary, until we come to Malcolm, he was not admitted, Bruce suspected that a Observing that there was a cellar into which the fifth earl, who is described by Mr. Fraser in the following terms: party of soldiers were secreted there; and he insisted that it should be searched. Receiving an equivocal answer, he and his attendants forced open the door, upon which they discovered an armed band of English soldiers, whose presence of mind, however, failed them on seeing Bruce with his party, and they confessed the whole conspiracy. The castle was now in the hands of Bruce, and Menteith was thrown into a dungeon, but was afterwards pardoned by Bruce on condition that he should fight in the front ranks at the battle of Bannockburn, which he did, displaying the utmost bravery. On the appearance of Robert Bruce, the grandson of that Bruce who had contested the crown of Scotland with Baliol, this Earl of Lennox was among the first of the nobility who joined his standard. He fought with him in most of his battles against the English for the deliverance of his country from their oppression and tyranny, shared in his perils and hardships, and continued till the death of Bruce his loyal subject, never wavering in his allegiance under the most trying circumstances. Bruce was crowned at Scone on March 27, 1306. But only a few weeks after that event, namely, in June, he was defeated by the English in the wood of Methven, about a mile from Perth. After this defeat he and his followers, in their wanderings, reached the hills of Arrochar, where, rather from hunger than for amusement, they had dispersed themselves for the chase. While hunting there, they were discovered by Malcolm Earl of Lennox, who, to protect himself from the English, had been compelled to seek shelter in the fastnesses of his own earldom, and who on that day was similarly occupied. The congratulations on both sides were hearty, and the earl provided for Bruce and his companions a grateful repast in a secure retreat, where they mutually told each other the dangers and hardships they had encountered since they met. This romantic and interesting episode in the lives of Bruce and the Earl of Lennox is narrated at length in the "Chiefs of Colquhoun and their Country." This earl showed the most disinterested devotion to the interests of Bruce. Previous to the battle of Bannockburn, which was fought on Monday, June 24 (John the Baptist's day), The wretched traitor who had betrayed Wallace, and who would have betrayed the Bruce, might well have deserved a harsher fate; but nothing is more striking in the annals of Scotland in those wild times than the facility with which acts of treachery, conspiracies, and crimes were condoned, unless they were signally avenged at the moment of detection. In We pass over some intermediate Lennoxes to arrive at Duncan, the eighth earl, whose daughters by their marriages ac quired a powerful influence on the whole history of the royal race of Scotland, and whose own career was closed by a horrible and sanguinary act of vengeance. 1391, shortly after the accession of Robert III., the second king of the Stewart dy. nasty, Duncan of Lennox affianced his eldest daughter, Isabella (then a child), to Murdoch Stewart, the son and heir of the king's brother, then Earl of Fife, afterwards Duke of Albany, who became regent |