Balcarreses, but I know it is not so civil as pleasant to me, and the rather when I remember it's to your Lordship, whose they both were, almost as mine.-Were it not too tedious, I think I could have written, though not so learnedly, yet more fully, and that which your Lordship and physicians-(that I think will be astonished with the bigness of the stone, how his little heart could contain it) would have made use of.-My Lord, pray let me know what physicians say of it, and if there could have been help for it, and whether they think he has had it from his conception, or but lately grown. I am, my dear Lord, "Your most affectionate cousin, “and humble servant, "ANNE BALCARRES."* "I knew," says Baxter, in his beautiful address prefixed within two months after her affliction to his treatise on the 'Divine Life,-"I knew of many and great afflictions which you had undergone in the removal of your dearest friends, which made this subject seem so suitable and seasonable to you at that time; but I knew not that God was about to make so great addition to your trials in the same kind by taking to himself the prin cipal branch of your noble family. . . . I hope this loss also shall promote your gain, by keeping you nearer to your heavenly Lord, who is so jealous of your affections, and resolved to have them entirely to Himself; and then you will still find that you are not alone nor deprived of your dearest or most necessary friend, while the Father, the Son, the sanctifying and comforting Spirit, is with you. And it should not be hard to reconcile us to the disposals of so sure a guide. Nothing but good can come from God, however the blind may miscall it, who know no good or evil but what is measured by the private standard of their selfish interest, and that as judged of by sense. Eternal love, engaged by covenant to make us happy, will do nothing but what we shall find at last will terminate in that blessed end. He envied you not your son, as too good for you, or too great a mercy, who hath given you His own Son, and with Him the mercy of eternal life. Corporal sufferings with spiritual blessings are the ordinary * Printed among the 'Letters of Lady Margaret Burnet to the Duke of Lauderdale,' p. 92. lot of believers here on earth, as corporal prosperity with spiritual calamity is the lot of the ungodly. And, I beseech you, consider that God knoweth better than you or I what an ocean your son was ready to launch out into, and how tempestuous and terrible it might have proved, and whether the world, that he is saved from, would have afforded him more of safety or seduction, of comfort or calamity? Whether the protraction of the life of your truly noble husband, to have seen our sins and their effects and consequents, would have afforded him greater joy or sorrow? Undoubtedly, as God had a better title to your husband, and children, and friends than you had, so it is much better to be with Him than to be with you or with the best or greatest upon earth. The heavenly inhabitants fear not our fears, and feel not our anxieties. They are past our dangers, and out of the reach of all our enemies, and delivered from our pains and cares, and have the full possession of all those mercies which we pray and labour for. Can you think your children and friends that are with Christ are not safer and better than those that remain with you? Do you think that earth is better than heaven for yourself? I take it for granted you cannot think so, and will not say so; and if it be worse for you, it is worse for them. The Providence which, by hastening their glorification, doth promote your sanctification, which helpeth them to the end and helpeth you in the way, must needs be good to them and you, however it appear to flesh and unbelief. O Madam! when our Lord hath shewed us (as he will shortly do) what a state it is to which He bringeth the spirits of the just, and how He doth there entertain and use them, we shall then be more competent judges of all those acts of Providence to which we are now so hardly reconciled! Then we shall censure our rash censurings of those works of God, and be offended with our offences at them, and call ourselves blind, unthankful sinners for calling them so bad as we did in our misjudging misbelief and passion. We shall not wish ourselves or friends again on earth among temptations and pains, and among uncharitable men, malicious enemies, deceitful flatterers, and untrusty friends!" * *Dated Dec. 24, 1662.-See Baxter's Practical Works, tom. xiii. pp. i. sqq.This excellent treatise is divided into three parts, The Knowledge of God," 'Walking with God,' and 'Converse with God in Solitude,' the latter being the Earl Charles, the subject of this beautiful expostulation, died on the 15th, and was buried in the chapel of Balcarres on the 21st of October, 1662, "in the night season.' His brother Colin succeeded him as third Earl of Balcarres, and for several years resided with his two surviving sisters, under his mother's care, at Balcarres. Her maternal duties fulfilled, she became, in 1671, the second wife of Archibald the unfortunate Earl of Argyle, who perished on the scaffold in 1685, and whom also she survived for above twenty years. During a long and active life she had but few gleams of unalloyed earthly happiness, and it was well for her that her hopes were anchored on another and a better world, "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." sermon (enlarged) which he had preached at Lady Balcarres' desire, on her approaching departure for Scotland, and which she had desired him to give her in writing, with the intention of publishing it.—“I like best of all his works," says Alexander Knox, speaking of the masterpieces of English divinity, "his Divine Life, particularly the middle treatise, on Walking with God." Remains, tom. i. p. 272. * Lamont's Diary, p. 156. CHAPTER XVI. "And where art thou, Lord Lindsay, now? The feast is set, and the guests are met, H. G. BELL. "Balcarres, who his King as life held dear." TENNANT. "There's three true good fellows, Three brave loyal fellows, Three true good fellows Down ayont yon glen; There is Graham and Gordon, And Lindsay brave is coming,- Wi' his Highlandmen ?" JACOBITE CHANT OF THE 1688. SECTION I WHEN Earl Colin had attained the age of sixteen, he went to Court, and was presented to King Charles by his cousin the Duke of Lauderdale. Colin was extremely handsome; the King was pleased with his countenance, said he had loved his father, and would be a father to him himself; and, as an earnest of his favour, gave him the command of a select troop of horse, composed of one hundred loyal gentlemen who had been reduced to poverty during the recent troubles.* A few days after he had been with the King, he fell dangerously ill at his uncle and guardian Sir Robert Moray's house, when there came hourly a messenger from Mademoiselle Mauritia de Nassau (then residing with her sister Lady Arlington, wife of the prime minister), to enquire after his health. These ladies, with their sister Isabella, wife of the gallant Earl of Ossory, were daughters of Louis de Nassau, Count of Beverwaert and Auver * They had half-a-crown a-day. Memoirs of James Earl of Balcarres. querque in Holland, by Elizabeth Countess of Horn. The young Mauritia had fallen in love with Colin at his first presentation at Court; on his recovery, Sir Robert sent him to pay his acknowledgments to her, and ere long the day was fixed for their marriage. The Prince of Orange, afterwards William III., presented his fair kinswoman on this joyful occasion with a pair of magnificent emerald ear-rings, as his wedding-gift. The day arrived, the noble party were assembled in the church, and the bride was at the altar; but, to the dismay of the company, no bridegroom appeared! The volatile Colin had forgotten the day of his marriage, and was discovered in his night-gown and slippers, quietly eating his breakfast!-Thus far the tale is told with a smile on the lip, but many a tear was shed at the conclusion. Colin hurried to the church, but in his haste left the ring in his writing-case ;—a friend in the company gave him one,—the ceremony went on, and, without looking at it, he placed it on the finger of his fair young bride :—it was a mourning ring, with the mort-head and crossed bones,-on perceiving it at the close of the ceremony, she fainted away, and the evil omen had made such an impression on her mind that, on recovering, she declared she should die within the year, and her presentiment was too truly fulfilled. In a packet of old papers, crumbling to decay, I found the following billet, addressed by Lady Balcarres to her husband's mother soon after her nuptials : "Madame, "Je ne sçais en quels termes vous rendre très humbles graces de la bonté que vous avez eu de m'écrire une lettre si obligeante; je vous assure, Madame, que j'en ai la reconnaissance que je dois, et que Milord Balcarres n'aurait pu épouser une personne qui tachera plus que je ferai à chercher les occasions de mériter votre amitié, et à vous témoigner en toute sorte de rencontre avec combien de respect et de soumission je suis, "Madame, "Votre très humble et obéissante fille et servante, "MAURISCE de BalcarreS." * Natural son of Maurice Prince of Orange. |