intolerable than that of the Black Douglas three hundred years before. But how different were the rulers! In the one case the ruler was a veteran soldier covered with honourable wounds received in fighting against fearful odds, to preserve his country's independence. In the other it was a man who bore the same relation to the warlike ruler of former days that Appius Claudius did to Marcus Furius Camillus—the relation of a maker of speeches to a winner of battles. The words in one of Lord Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome" describe well the relation to which I have referred:—
"Still Caius of Coriali, his triumphs and his wrongs,
His vengeance and his mercy, live in our camp-fire songs.
Beneath the yoke of Furius oft have Gaul and Tuscan bowed;
And Rome may bear the pride of, him of whom herself is proud.
A Cossus, like a wild cat, springs ever at the face;
A Fabius rushes like a-bear against the shouting chase.
The Claudian triumphs all were won within the city-towers;
The Claudian yoke was never pressed on any necks but ours."
If this King's days were evil in Scotland, they were not less so when he became King of England,
