"It was not thus that Mary Stuart had hoped to meet her brother. His head sent home from the border, or himself brought back a living prisoner, with the dungeon, the scaffold, and the bloody axe—these were the images which a few weeks or days before she had associated with the next appearance of her father's son. Her feelings had undergone no change; she hated him with the hate of hell; but the more deep-set passion paled for the moment before a thirst for revenge." (Vol. viii. p. 267.)
Here are depicted the tumultuous workings of a wicked heart; its hopes, fears, passions—nay, even the very images that float before the mind's eye. And this Mr. Froude asks us to accept for history—ascertained fact.
Our historian takes unprecedented liberties with texts and citations. Now he totally ignores what a given person says on an important occasion. Now he puts a speech of his own into the mouth of the same character. Passages cited from certain documents cannot be found there, and other documents referred to have no existence. In a word, Mr. Froude trifles with his readers and plays with his authorities, as some people play with cards.
There are not many passages of Mr. Froude's work free from some one of these serious objections. To specify them would require at least as much matter as he uses; for he offends as often in suppression as in assertion. Nevertheless, to the extent of our limited space we will point out a few, and as Mr. Froude's early volumes have been so amply commented upon, we will confine our examination to the latter half of the work, with special reference to his treatment of
MARY STUART.
Most historians begin at the beginning. But our latest historical school has resources heretofore unknown, and quietly anticipates that ordinary point of departure. Mary Stuart is formally brought on to Mr. Froude's historical stage in the middle of the seventh volume, and the reader might be supposed to take up her story without a single preconceived opinion. Doubtless, the average reader does so take it up, unsuspicious of the fact that his judgment is already fettered and led captive. In volume iv. p. 208, Mary of Guise is described as lifting her baby out of the cradle, in order that Sir Ralph Sadlier "might admire its health and loveliness."
"Alas! for the child," says Mr. Froude; "born in sorrow and nurtured in treachery! It grew to be Mary Stuart; and Sir Ralph Sadlier lived to sit on the commission which investigated the murder of Darnley."
There is nothing very startling in this. The reader's mind absorbs the statement, and goes on. In the next volume, (vol. v. p. 57,) while deeply interested in the military operations of the Duke of Somerset, we are told en passant:
"Thursday he again advanced over the ground where, fourteen years later, Mary Stuart, the object of his enterprise, practiced archery with Bothwell ten days after her husband's murder."
Consummately artistic!