ROMANCE OF SCOTTISH HISTORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3035, 15 May 1912, Page 75

ROMANCE OF SCOTTISH HISTORY.

STORY OF THE FOUR MARIES. Last niobt there were four Maries, This nicht there’ll bo but three; There was Mary Beaton, an' Mary Seaton, An’ Mary Carmichael an’ Me. Everybody knows these lines. But most people have a very hazy notion about the four Maries. ITiey know the old ballad, but of the Maries” themselves they know nothing. They do not know whether the Maries had a real live existence, or whether they were merely the creation of the ballad writer’s imagination. Supposing then, we look at the matter in a little detail.

it may be assumed, to begin with, that everybody knows the four Maries were the companions and attendants of Mary Stuart, the unfortunate Queen of £<•<■' They were chosen for her by the Qui <■ Mother, when Mary was quite a child, in order, says one historian, to ensure emulation in Mary's studies. That same historian suggests that this quartet of Maries was selected probably because four Maries are mentioned in the Gospels as frequently in company with the mother of our Lord. From verv early times, disputes about the individuality of thee saintly women have existed alnong Christians; but, following the historian, we take (1) Mary the mother of James and John, (2) Mary of Cleophas, (3) Mary the mother of Mark, and (4) Mary Magdalene. However, this notion of a Biblical pron pting for the Queen-Mother is only a notion after all. She may have merely conceived the pretty idea of having playmate.: for her daughter all bearing the name of that daughter herself. Anyway, the.'-j they were—four companions of Mary's name and age, to share her and recreations in those comparatively happy early days before the dark shadows had begun to stretch themselves by her side. They went with her to France, and they returned -with her to Scotland in 1561: and one of them, as we shal see, remrined with her till near the end. —A Tragedy.— It is, of course, from the old ballad writer that we get the popular idea of the fojr Maries. But the old bi&ad writer, like his class, was not at all particular in

the matter of historical accuracy. Ho is right, or nearly right,. about the Maries; eut lie seems to have found the germ of his ballad in the deplorable incident, well known to Scottish historians, connected with two French servants of Mary Stuart, the young Queen.' One was an apothecary, the other a waiting-maid. Both were executed in Edinburgh m 1563 for the crime of infanticide. Knox, as a writer on the subject reminds me, instances the fact as an evidence of the looseness of the Court in juxtaposition to sons* disparaging reflections on the conduct of the four Maries. . Whether misled By this circumstance, or simply seizing on exalted actors to intensify the dramatic interest of the tragedy, the balladist has converted the hapless French maid into one of the Maries, and the apothecary into Lord Darnley himself! Several of his verses fit the circumstances of the Frenchwoman rather than those of the Scottish maid, particularly the lines running:— Oh, little did my mither think, When first she cradled me, That I -would drae see far frae hain®, Or hang an a gallows tree. They'll tie a napkin round my e'en, An'-they'll no' let mo see to dee, An' they'll ne'er let on to my faither and mather ; But I'm awa- ower the sea. As a matter of fact, the four Maries of the old Ballad—or, rather, I should say, the four Maries so intimately connected with the chequered life of the Stuart Queen—cam all be identified jso we may at once dismiss the French girl as being outside the pale of historical consideration. Who Were They?— But who, then, were the four Maries? Let me repeat the lines. There were (the balladist, ignoring grammar, says "w«u> : '}:— \+ Mary Beaton, an' Mary Soaton, ' An' Mary Oarmichael an' Mo. That is plain enough, except for the "me." Obviously, tnere was no real " me" in the ca&e, because the balladist chose to represent the unfortunate French maid, as the spokeswoman of tho story, and she was not one of tho four Maries. The four Maries, to put it in a sentence, were (1) Mary Beaton (Lady Boyne) j (2) Mary Fleming (Lady Lethington)j (3) Mary Livingstone (wife of John Scmple); and (4) Mary Seaton, or Seton, as the spelling more usually is. There was no Mary Carmichacl in real life; and the Mary Hamilton, often identified with the "ane" of the ballad, it also apocryphal. We know for certain that the four authenticated Maries were daughters of the ScottiSh aristocracy, and that their names were Livingstone, Fleming, Beaton, and Seton. Let us take them in that order. Mary Livingstone • was the voungest daughter of Alexander, Lord Livingstone, one of Ihe two noblemen to whom the personal safety of the baby Mary Stuart was entrusted in 1543. In this capacity he accompanied her to France, where he died. His second son, who succeeded to the title-, was a life-long friend of the hapless Queen, being frequently in attendance ,on her during her weary imprisonment in England. Mary Livingstone married John Scrapie of Beltrecs in 1565. Semple,. like bis bride, had been attached to Mary's household for many years, and Mary gave a banquet, in honour of the nuptials. 'Xihe, pair, as already indicted, kept up their household connection with Mary. Indeed, it was Mary Liviiigstone who arranged the midnight flight" to Seton after the murder of Rizzio at Holyrood. And "in one of her darkest hours, when, after the fiasco at Carberry Hill, the captive Queen was led through tho streets of' 'Edinburgh amid the imr precatory yells of an angry mob, Mary Livingstone, along with "Mary Seton, cheer fullyv sliarei the obloquy." The Queen's Favourite. — Mary Fleming is said to have been the Queen's favourite of the quartet. She was a daughter of that Lord Fleming who perished on the field of her mother being anet StJuart, an illegitimate sister of James V. In the gossiping letters of Randolph, the English Minister at tho Scottish Court, Mary Fleming makes a considerable figure. We have her pictured in the New Year's festivities of 1j& 4at Holyrood, decked out- in her mistress's robes, including the Grown jewels, that she might, for one night, reign as mimic Queen. Randolph hints that she flirted a good deal with the English envoys; but Randolph was probably jealous of' Lethington, the Scottish Secretary of State, who had already secured the hand of the beautiful Maid bf Honour. They were married at Stirling in 1567, and settled down at the poetically-named Lennoxlove not far from Haddington. Shut up in the Castle of Edinburgh, Lethington held out till 1573, when he was forced to surrender. He died in prison in Leith a few days later; "some supposing ho took a drink, and died as the auld Romans were wont to do," says James Melville. His wife, Mary Livingstone, made a touching appeal to Morton, the great English statesman, for the body of her hu.sband, and it was only by Morton's intervention tliat Lethington received Christian burial. Niece of Cardinal Beaton. — Mary Beaton came of an old and honourable Fifeshir-e family, best known" perhaps through the famous murdered Cardinal, who was her uncle. Randolph had his eye on her, too, but she married Alexander Ogilvie of Boyne. The marriaga contract (witnessed by Mary and Darnley) was regarded by the Maitland Club as sufficiently interesting for publication. Mary Beaton seems to have been of almost phenomenal beauty, judging by ©srfiwfc stanzas of George Buchanan, the wellknown tutor of James VI.

Mary Seton -was a daughter of Seton of Seton, in East Lothian —that family which gave their name to the harbour of ?ort Setonv lying to the cast of Cockenzie Seton SJouse was a favourite re£ort

Jof Mary Stuart. She was there just after the murder of Rizzio; and she was I there with Bothwell only two days after ! the murder of Darnley, amusing herself I (very un-widowlike) at archery. Lord I Seton,. for his loyalty to the Stuart Queen, I suffered poverty and exile, being at one I time compelled to drive a waggon for his | living. - His daughter, Mary Seton, was I the most devoted of all the* four Maries. ! —The Last of a Devoted Band. — Says a well-informed writer: "When ' all the others had formed new centres of interest and distraction, she remained true to her fallen mistress. She shared the damp dungeon of Lochleven, lent her robes to disguise the fugitive, and bravely bore the brunt of tlie keeper's fury when the deception waa discovered. She followed Mary to her English prisons, winning the admiration of even emotionless gaolers by her deftness and devotion. Long was she importuned by An'lrew Beaton, a brother of the Archbishop, to break the religious Vow of celibacy by which she had bound herself to a life of single-minded service. The Queen, vseconding the lover's appeal, at last over- ' came her scruples, but the dispensation of the Church had to be obtained. "To procure this, and also to further Mary's interest at the French Court, Beaton crossed the Channel—and never returned. His'sudden death was no doubt va cruel blow to the stricken heart; but afflictions had become so. familiar to the friends of Mary Stuart that they bowed their heads to the bitterest bereavements in silence. Mary Seton continued her ministrations in the cold, comfortless prison? that eventually broke her Sover- ' eign's health, till compelled by her own illness to abandon the loving labour. Retiring to the Convent of Rheims in 1584, after 37 years of continuous attendance upon the Queen, she ended her days m the quiet of the cloister, the last of that devoted band-" , ■ _ ~ Such were the four Maries. They all lived in real life. Now they live rather as a composite institution than as separate individuals. Such is the halo that an old ballad can throw round the figures of the lom'-departed.—J. Cttthbert Hadben.

AS THE CHINESE SEE US. (By Rev. E. J. Hardy, M.A., sometime I chaplain to the forces ..at Hongkong. f Author of " How to be Happy Though I Married," etc.) 1 We have been reading a great deal lately about the Chinese and what Europeans think of them, so perhaps it may interest our readers to tell them what the Chinese think of Europeans. *■ A missionary travelling in. a boat was amused at overhearing a conversation of two simple countrymen. " How much whiter his skin is than ours!" said one of them, looking at the missionary. " Yes," replied the other, "foreign devils are verv singular. They are born entirely white or entirely black." The man's impression was that colour was as uncertain as in a litter of puppies,, and that Sikh, negro, and Englishman all came from the same stock.

The Chinese call themselves the blackhaired race, and all foreigners red-haired devils. A Chinaman, who had not the smallest idea of being deficient in politeness, confided to the writer that when he first saw foreigners he thought it extraordinary that they should have beards all round their faces, just like monkeys ; but, he added reassuringly, "lam quite used to, it now." This reminds us of what the people jn another place said of a missionary : "He speaks our language; if his whiskers were shaven off he would be nearly as good-looking as we are." Chinese children often scream with fright when they see a European for the first time, especially if he has a red beard like the bogey-man depicted in their picture-books. The children thought that these were mythical personages —but, no! there is one of them in the flesh. In the "new territory" opposite Hongkong I heard a boy, when asked whose was a certain house, reply, "That's the devil's house." He meant nothing more than that the only European in the neighbourhood lived there.

In the interior of China a foreigner is always suspected. He is supposed to be able "to see into the earth and discover precious metals. If he is a missionary he is a political agent come to get himself killed, so that his death may be an excuse for land-grabbing on the part of some European Power. Should he offer any food or drink to visitors they think that it is poisoned. Many Chinese women are afraid to enter a foreigner's house lest they should be bewitched. Chinese ladies dress, and do not undress, for evening parties, so they are shocked when they hear that Western women do the reverse—that when they go to Court they regard " a bare skin as a mark of respect." Chinese ladies are also concerned because their European sisters do not wear visible trousers, and have tight-fitting clothes that show their shape. Even upon a man tight clothes can only be explained if the poor fellow has not enough cloth to cover himself properly. A Chinaman will feel the board-like shirt-front of a European with wonder, and ask if his collar does not cut his throat. " "What," he askn, "can be worse for the health than to have the waistcoat of evening dress open in front, thus exposing the chest, a most vulnerable part?" A friend told the writer that the first tinv he gave a swallow-tail coat to a new Chinese servant to brush, he saw the "boy" round the corner holding the garmelt up to the light and shaking with mirth. "Why was it cut so in front and at the tails? What were the buttons behind for? How did the thing go on?" The Chinese think it strange that we should wear hats out of doors in summer when it is warm, and take them off indoois however cold. What Celestials call our European odour is quite as nauseous to. them as their ame!' is to us. Think of that, ye well-

fubbed Britishers! A missionary " friend, whj i 3 a very clean man, told me that he has often been pained by seeing Chinese hold their noses when talking to him They say we smell because we eat beef. The Chinese think that Europeans have neither'.religion nor morals nor manners, and only worship force as represented by big armies and navies. They say that, while we profess Christianity, its spirit influences our actions far less than do economic considerations ; % that Christianity is even less tc us than is Confucianism to them; and that it is Jike our impertinence to send missionaries to China.

The Chinese think that we ignore and neglect the five great relationships which they learn in their classics; the relationship of sovereign to subjects, of father to son, of husband to wife, of younger brother to elder, and of friend to friend. Celestials observe that in Western countries when a son comes of age he goes where he likes, does what he chooses, and has no necessary connection with his parents nor they with him, and they think this the behaviour of a grown calf or colt to a coav or mare—proper for brutes, but not for human beings. The Platonic intermingling of sexes in Western society the Chinese do not understand ; they think that our treatment of womei" is a mixture of imbecility, illbreeding, and buffoonery. A Chinese opponent of railways lately wrote that they would be useless in China as far as women are concerned. "The wives and daughters of Europeans take no pleasure in staying at home; but in the case of our womankind, gadding about is held in great disrepute."

The author of a native work called "The Sights of Shanghai" complains that foreigners and their wives stroll about in the public gardens arm-in-arm and shoulder to shoulder without any bashfulness whatever. Fori men land women to talk together in public is, in the opinion of the Chinese, bad; but for them to shake hands or take each other's arm is barefaced immorality. Etiquette in the Flowery Land requires that men and women passing things to one another should lay them upon a table instead of handing them directly. , .

When the Chinese hear of the Christian precept that a man should leave his father and cleave to his wife, they are, if good Conf ucianists, horror-stricken; for Confucianism requires a man to cleave to his father and mother, and to compel his wife to serve and honour his parents also. We say that the Chinese' worship their ancestors, and they retort that Western nations worship their wives. They hear of men amongst us adoring and being devoted to their wives.

The Chinese think that our manners are those of barbarians, and that we are always acting contrary to their saying, "Politeness is better than force." Certainly, the foreigner who does not take the trouble to learn even the alphabet of GLiii<*»tf politeness cannot avoid giving frequent offence unconsciously. For instance, if he wears spectacles, and does not remove them when a visitor comes into his room; he will be thought very rude The Chinese strongly object to be looked at through glasees. When we show manners the Chinese 'are surprised. A lady told me that, on a recent occasion, when she went into a shop,at Canton the door was soon blocked by a crowd of idle gazers. My friend, who speaks Cantonese well, said to the crowd in that dialect, "I beg your pardon, would you allow me to go out?" They at on'ce made room for her, and she heard them remarking, "She sneaks our language, and she has manners, too!"

Our idea of progress is to have many railways and other modes of motion, and to be 'always "on 'the go." To the Chinese this seems to be morbid unrest. They say that we do not live, so intent are we in increasing the means of living, and that in consequence we are always discontented. The Chinese approve of the tramway cars, lavatories, and fire engines of the West, but many of our contrivances are, in the opinion of the educated, curious rather thin useful, and in that of the ignorant connected with magic. Whatever he may pretend for the sake of advantage, the most unprogressive yellow man desniees the most inventive white man The inventiveness of the latter is, in the eyes of the former, no more worthy of respect than is the cunning of a fox or the strength of an elephant. When we object to the swells in Chinese cities the inhabitants say, "They are surface smells ; they will evaporate" : and think that their system of drainage, or rathir of no drainage, is far less dangerous than is our underground drainage. Few Chinese visitors to England think as much of us as we think of ourselves. Rather they are shocked at the foulness of our city slums, at the drunkenness and licentiousness upon our streets, at our murder and divorce reports, at the figures of the national drink bill. In their opinion our prisons are absurdly comfortable, and put a premium upon crime. They admire, however, the school system by which we try to keep children from coming to prison. The Chinese say that Europeans do not know how to make tea. To put milk and suga- into tea is as horrible, in their opinion, as it would be in ours to put them into champagne or into port wine. In China all the common acts of life are done not merely differently from our European way, but in exactly opposite way. A man shakes his own hands and not those of his friend, and this he considers more sanitary than our method. Should he dine with his friend he will be placed on the left, for that is ihe place of honour, and not on the Tight, as with us. The dinner will begin, contrary to ours, with dessert, and end with soup and rice. A European, takes off his hat to show respect to a friend; should you go into the office of a Chinaman, if his cap is off his head he will put_ it on. The mourning colour in China is white, and not black. A Chinaman wears a waistcoat over his coat, and not under, as we do He mounts a horse from the off-side

instead of "the near, and holds the reins in his right hand and not in his left. The beginning of a Chinese book is where a Western one ends, and it is read from top to bottom in a series of horizontal lines arranged from Tight to left. The-notes, if any, are placed on the top of the page. If a British boy is puzzled, say, in doing a sum, he scratches his head; but a Chinaman kicks off a shoe and scratches a foot. The fact that these and almost all other things are done in China in an opposite way from that in which we do them causes Chinese visitors to Europe to think that everything is upside down. We seem to their eyes to be very absurd and httle to be imitated. A good cure for self-complacency is to go to China and rind out what the people really think of U 3 Journal. «

A CEMTURY OF PUBLISH NG. The firm of Harper and Brothers, of .New York, has Jong been known as one of the great publishing firms of the world It was founded by four brothers, whose grandfather was a native of. Ipswich and enugrated to the United States in 1740. These brothers, sons of a country carpenter, were men of high principle and sound business acumen, and. starting from the humblest beginnings, the firm soo n reached a position 6i considerable wealth and influence. The. author ,of the present volume is one cf the grandsons of the founders of the house, and he has produced a most painstaking and interesting record of its history and, of the part it has played in the literary life of America. The work will appeal more to residents in the United States, than in England, but the Harpers have had dealings with so many English authors of note during the past century that it will doubtless find many readers in Britain also. It was in March, 1817, that the firm of Harper was founded.* The first book which bore the ; imprint of the brothers was "Seneca's Morals," but they soon turned their attention to other works, and we read that "when the Waverley Novels made their appearance the Harpers were •amongst the earliest to bring them out in the United States. A messenger would board the incoming packet before she was made fast to the wharf to secure, as soon as possible, the early Sheets. Every compositor was then put on the work, and every press stood ready for the printing. In this way ' Poveril of the Peak' was published in tihe incredibly short space of 21 hours." That surely was a record for * nearly 100 years ago, and we question if to-dav. with all the modern improvements that have it could be far surpassed. - Later wo find the firm bringing out one of G. -R. P. James's stories, and in the early forties they issued Bulwer's novels at 25 cents each, so that the origin of cheap editions is not quite so recent as many suppose. . In 1844 they published " Martin Chuzlewit " in 17 numbers, and the sales were chiefly made through newsboys, then a new institution. This was the beginning of a long connection with Dickens. In 1860 Harper's Magazine was started, and before very long it could boast a circulation of 150,000 copies per month. Serial novels by such writers as Lever, Bulwer, Dickens, and Thackeray appealed in its pages. The prices paid to some of these writers are interesting. Dickens received £1250 for "Great Expectations"; .Thackeray £4BO for "The Virginians "; and Trollope £7OO. for " Sir Harry Hotspur." . George Eliot was paid as high as £I7OO for one novel. Wilkie Collins got £750 each for "The Woman in White," " Man and Wife," and " The Moonstone," and for Charles f. Rcade's "A Woman-hater" £IOOO was paid. Thackeray first visited the United States in November, 1852, to deliver six lectures on " The English Humorists," and it is stated that he returned to England " with a comfortable pot of gold holding 12,000d01. " There was no disappointment with his lectures (said a writer in Harper's). Those wiho knew his books found the author in the lecturer. Those who did not know his books were charmed in the lecturer by what is charming in the author —the unaffected humanity, the tenderness, the sweetness, the genial play of fancy, and the sad touch of truth with the glancing stroke of satire which light-ning-like illumines while it withers." The first number of Harper's Weekly was issued in January, 1857, and it, too was a success from the start, steadily climbing up to 120,000 circulation. Soon after the Weekly was launched "A Good Fight," by Charles Reade, was begun in it, and Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" was running in it at the same time. Reade thought he was not fairly treated, and we find him Writing to Messrs Harpers' London agent in this characteristic fashion : "Up to the present moment I have had every means to be satisfied with Messrs Harper. But this time I don't feel quite satisfied. 'A Good Fight' is a masterpiece ; ' A Tale of Two Cities' is not a masterpiece. Yet Messrs Harper gave 5000dol (£1000) for it, and to me oneiwentieth of that sum. Now, this might be just in Englai d, but hardly just in America where you know very well I rank at least three times higher than I do in this country. There is, however, a very simple way of smoothing my feathers if you think worth while." It is satisfactory to learn that the ruffled feathers were.soon smoothed to the satisfaction of Reade and the Messrs Harper. A great man}- of the principal works by English and American authors during the latter half of the last century — novels by George Eliot, Blackmore, Thomas Hardy, William Black, and a host £ of others —were published by the Harpers, and many of the details supplied will be read with keen interest. The relations of the publishers Avith these authors were, on the whole, of the most pleasant character. Concerning Black there are many anecdotes, of which this is one: "At a dinner given to Black which I attended, John Brougham, the veteran actor, presided, and made a delightful address of welcome, and then proposed the health of ' our guest who comes to us with a Vo«?d----wide reputation, the author of " Lorna

Doone"!' Brougham immediately realised that he had made a mistake, and he turned to Joe Hatton, who sat on his other side, for the name of one of Black's novels, but Hatton -was so rattled that he could not for a. moment recall a single book, and finally gave poor Brougham the title of one of Black's most inconspicuous novels. Black took it all in good nature, and eulogised Blackmore in his speech." When Blackmore Avas told of the incident later he also regarded it as a joke, and would not believe it possible that it ever actually occurred. Mr Harper first met Thomas Hardy at the Athenaeum Club in June, 1883, and the novelist suggested that they should take a stroll together: "We turned out of Albemarle street and wandered along Piccadilly to Hyde Park, where we sat down o n a bench, and'Hardy took a roll of paper from his pocket and began to read off a list of titles, from which he wished to select one for his forthcoming novel, and honoured me by requesting my practical advice in regard to the most suitable and striking one. They all impressed me as admirable, but finally they were resolved down to what we agreed was the best. I think it was ' The Return of the Native.' " Mr Hardy then told Mr Harper that his first conception of "Tess" was "derived from a glimpse he had of a comelv country lass sitting in the tailend of "a cart which rumbled past him as he was strolling along the road- Her pretty face was so sad and appealing-as it slowly disappeared from view that ithaunted him many a day, and he evolved from this transient vision the story which has become a n English classic." Later Mr. Hardy offered the Harpers for their magazine a new story he had in hand. They said thev would be delighted to accept it, but must first be assured that it would be in e\ery respect suitable for a family magazine: "Hardy replied that it would be a tale that could not offend the most fastidious maiden. So we began "Jude the Obscure." It had not progressed far in Hardy's hands, before he informed us that he was distressed to say the development of the story was carrying him into unexpected fields, and he was afraid to predict its future trend. With the keenest sense of the awkwardness of the situation, he promptly and magnanimously proposed that we should either cancel our agreement with him and discontinue the story, or make any changes in the serial form which we might de-m desirable." In view of the protest of the Harpers, Hardy, " without any expression of irritation, "re-wK>te one of the chapters, and," says Mr Harper. "we made some modifications as the story ran thromrh the magazine: but it was not discontinued, as, in the opinion of the most conservative judges we consulted, it was not considered unavailable for magazine Use." On a question which has often arisen, Mr Harper makes this statement: "American publishers were not the only so-called 'pirates fly in" the black flag in the absence of international copyright, English houses repeatedly published books by American writers without even a 'by your leave In some cases ihey changed titles, and even altered and obliterated the text of books with entire > lack of courtesy to the American author."