1606. } 
wall is now brought up fix feet in thick+ 
nefs to within three feet of the coping. 
The piles for the foundation of the wall 
on the icurh fide are driven, and the bear- 
ers and planking for receiving the brick 
work will be ready in a week; But the un- 
precedented treacherousnels of the foil, a 
quick iand, together with its depth below 
Jow water, has rendered this part of the 
completion of the work extremely hagard- 
ous and tedious, 
Tnefe woiks, the completion of which 
is defirable and necefflary, do not interfere 
with the navigation of the canal ; and it is 
probable tnat the whole that has been he- 
fore mentioned, together with the d:iving 
fender piles to protect the external wings, 
and hanging fenders fer the proteétion of 
the locks, gates, and wing walls, will be 
completed by Midfummer next. 
The arrangensent made for the ma- 
nagement of this great and ufeful public . 
undertaking, have been dictated by a de- 
fir: to afford every pofisble convenience 
and facility to fuipping, at the fame time 
ftudying a rigid economy, fo as to leave 
hittle it any doubt, that the fum of 3,3461. 
8c. per annum, granted by parliament 
for the management, will be amply fufh- 
cient for the purpole. | 
a 
Jo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
REQUEST the infertion of the fol- 
lowing oblervations in your Monthly 
Magazine, as the moft effectual mode of 
appeal to the public, upon a fubject not 
uninterefting to men of letters, who may 
have fuffered fram the SHAMEFUL PRO- 
STITUTION of our literary journals to 
the purpofes of PRIVATE aNIMOSITY 
and PERSONAL ABUSE. | 
In confequence of my frequent abfence 
from Edinburgh laft fummer, I had not 
occafion, till very lately, to examine the 
Review of the fecond edition of my 
Hiftory of Scotland in the Britifh Critic 
for March, April, May, and June, 1805. 
Ta this appeal, I can have no inclination 
to enter into a literary difpute with the 
anonymous author of that article, whole 
knowledge of the controverfy ref{pecting 
Mary Queen of Scots, is confined to the 
writings of Lytler and Whitaker, who 
guotes Goodall through the medium of 
Whitaker, and who afierts as a fa& that 
®Cthe Queen's letters and fonnets to 
Bothwell have long been abandoned as 
palpable forgeries* by her enemies, as 
a eC ere ae a 
* | have fince obtained a document that 
brings the controverfy to a fhort and decifive 
Mr. Laing’s Defence of his Hifory of Scotland, 
dinary affertion. 
57 
well as by her friends.” But the follow- 
ing paliages, among many others, in 
which I am directly charged with the 
fabrication of faéts, with mifquotation 
and falfhood, are toy ferious in their con- 
fequences to that journal, as well as to 
myfelf, to be overlooked or treated with 
filent contempt. | 
“© We are there told that, on the fame 
day on which her hufband was buried, 
Mary conferred on Durham, the fervant 
who had deferted or betrayed him, 2 
place about the perfon of her fon; and 
on the Earl of Bothwell the reverfion of 
the feudal fuperiority of Leith, But Ro- 
bertfon, the osly author referred to for 
thefe facts, fays not one word of Dur- 
ham’s treachery and reward; from which 
circumftance fome judgment may be 
formed of Mr. Laing’s accuracy in 
making quotations. Vhe ftory of Dour- 
ham we believe to be a fal/hood, without 
even the /badow of foundation; for were 
ita faci, the author would furely have 
known where he found it. This is really 
pufhing the advocate too far.’ —=BritifS 
Critic, vol. 295 Pp. 4.9.8 
Again, ‘* That Lethington’s wife was 
fo ready a writer, that in one night fhe 
could copy all the letters, isin the highed 
degree incredible; and Mr. L’s confufed 
appeal to Murdin and the State Trials, 
for the truth ot this extraordinary fa&, 
will not have much weight with thofe 
who have carefully attended to bis mode of 
quotation. —-Id. 632. 
And again, “This is a very extraore 
We have carefully con- 
fulted Lefly, and find in him nothing that 
even the molt perverfe ingenuity can con- 
ftrue into a tacit acknowledgment of the 
authenticity of the letters.” ——Ioid. 
Thefe charges are the more ferious, as 
ifue. The argument again the authenti- 
city of the letters is, that the French edi« 
tion being a tranflation, the letters were ori- 
ginally forged in Scotch, and both editions 
were publifhed in London under Ceci}’s in- 
fpection, The argument for the authentie 
city of the letters is, that the French edition 
is profeffedly a tranflation printed by the 
Huguenots at Rochelle, but that the Scotch 
is evidently a traniflation froma French ori- 
ginal now lof, and of which a few initial 
lines prefixed to each letter are alone pre« 
ferved. In. confequence of the late change 
in adminiftzsation, I have obtained a tran - 
fcript from the State-paper office, of a cupy | 
of one of Mary’s letters to Bothwell in the 
original French, effentially different from 
the French tranflation printed at Rochelle, 
and evidently the original from which the 
Scotch is tranflated, 
an> 
