bourhood, to encourage him to complete a publication so well begun. The village of Gainford, on the north bank of the river Tees, was given to the see of Durham in the ninth century, by Egred, bishop of Lindisfarne, and according to a passage in Simeon of Durham, it was the site of a monastery founded by Eda or Edwine, a Northumbrian chief, "who had exchanged his helmet for a cowl," and was buried in its church in 801. It did not remain long an appanage of the bishops of Durham; having been mortgaged in the time of bishop Aldune (998—1018) to the earl of Northumberland, whose successors, according to Simeon, would never restore it to the Church. We have no other account of it until it was granted by William Rufus about 1093 to Guy Baliol, and it remained with his descendents until the reign of Edward the First. The possession of Gainford by the Baliols naturally induced Mr. Walbran to investigate the history of that powerful family, and among other results of his labour is an eloquent defence of that historically ill-used individual, John Baliol, king of Scotland, which has especially attracted our notice. As we propose to defer any general examination of the work until its completion, which may be looked for at no distant time, we have great pleasure on the present occasion in extracting the author's estimate of the character of the so called fainéant king, of unfortunate memory; it is a favourable specimen of Mr. Walbran's earnest style of composition.
"The character of John Baliol, like that of most other unfortunate and unsuccessful princes, has been open to much unjust and ungenerous animadversion. He has been accused of betraying the liberties of his subjects, and personally of exhibiting a cowardly and unmagnanimous demeanour. Yet,—since with the majority, whether judging of the present or the past, success is hailed as virtue, while misfortune is branded as crime—it may be well to consider, if even here ineffectually and thus obscurely, how far interested were his accusers; and what justice in that chivalrous day would be meted by uncongenial minds, to one, who it seems was more meek and beneficent than impetuous and warlike; more inclined to the society of clerks than of knights; more conversant with the powers of reason, than of the sword. The accumulated obscurity of six centuries is but a dense medium wherein to view the stronger shades of character, moulded by circumstances and causes on which no actual light is thrown; and which can only be faintly illumined by records and documents, framed cautiously and systematically for legal or diplomatic purposes. Something of this character may, however, be inferred from those few but important recorded actions, which must have been dictated by something more than casual circumstances, or inconsiderate inclination. If anything of hereditary qualities was transmitted from his parents, and fostered and directed by them to the formation of his disposition, he had a father who was liberal-minded and brave, and a mother whose piety and benevolence were the admiration of her own, and the benefit of succeeding ages. Of the pursuits of his early days we have no particular record; but, since he was not then apparently destined to enjoy the great military inheritance to which he at
