with Crawford’s matter the passage “he (Darnley) showed me almost all that is in name of the Bishop and Sutherland, and yet I have never touched a word of what you (Bothwell) showed me . . . and by complaining of the Bishop, I have drawn it all out of him.”
Who but Mary herself could have written about this unknown affair of the Bishop, and what had the supposed forger to gain by inventing and adding these references to affairs unconnected with the case?
There remains what looks like absolute proof that, in essence, Crawford’s Declaration and Letter II. are independent documents. We are not aware that this crucial point has been noticed by the earlier critics of the Letters. In Letter II. (paragraph 7, p. 398, in Lang’s Mystery of Mary Stuart, 1901) Mary writes, “I asked why he (Darnley) would pass away in the English ship. He denies it, and swears thereunto; but he grants that he spoke unto the men.” Here Crawford’s declaration has, “She asked him why he would pass away in the English ship. He answered that he had spoken with the Englishman, but not of mind to go away with him. And, if he had, it had not been without cause, considering how he was used. For he had neither [means] to sustain himself nor his servants, and need not make further rehearsal thereof, seeing she knew it as well as he.” (Mystery of Mary Stuart, p. 429.)
It may seem to the reader doubtful whether these complaints are words of Darnley’s, or an indignant addition by his friend Crawford. But Mary, in Letter II., shows that the complaints and the self-defence are Darnley’s own. It was in paragraph 7 that she wrote about the English ship; she did not then give Darnley’s remonstrances, as Crawford does. But in paragraph 18 (Mystery, p. 406) Mary returns to the subject, and writes, “He (Darnley) spoke very bravely at the beginning, as the bearer will show you, upon the subject of the Englishmen, and of his departing; but in the end he returned to his humility.”
Thus it is certain that Darnley had reported to Crawford his brave words and reproaches of Mary, which Crawford gives in the proper place. But Letter II. omits them in that place (paragraph 7); and only on her second day of writing, in paragraph 18, does Mary’s mind recur to Darnley’s first brave words—“he spoke very bravely at the beginning,” about his wrongs, “but in the end he returned again to his humility.”
Here is proof positive that Crawford does not copy Letter II., but gives Darnley’s words as reported to him by Darnley—words that Darnley was proud of,—while Mary, returning on the second day of writing to the topic, does not quote Darnley’s brave words, but merely contrasts his speaking “very bravely at the beginning” with his pitiful and craven later submission; “he has ever the tear in his eye,” with what follows. (Mystery, paragraph 12, p. 402.)
When we add to these and other proofs the strange lists of memoranda in the middle of the pages of the letter, and the breach in internal chronology which was apparently caused by Mary’s writing, on her second day, on the clean verso of a page on the other side of which she had written some lines during her first night in Glasgow; when we add the dramatic changes of her mood, and the heart-breaking evidence of a remorse not stifled by lawless love, we seem compelled to believe that she wrote the whole of Letter II.; that none of it is forged.
In The Mystery of Mary Stuart the evidence for an early forged letter was presented with confidence; the interpolation of forgeries based on Crawford’s declaration was more dubiously suggested. That position the writer now abandons. It may be asked why, after being with Wood on the 11th of June, did Lennox still rely on Moray’s version of Mary’s letter? The reply may be that the Scots versions were regarded as a great secret; that Lennox was a married man; and that though Lennox in June knew about Mary’s letters, doubtless from Wood, or from common report (Bishop Jewell in a letter of August 1567 mentions that he had heard of them), yet Wood did not show to him the Scots copies. Lennox quotes Letter II. later, in an indictment to be read to the commission sitting at York (October 1568). But, on the other hand, as Lennox after meeting Wood wrote to Crawford for his reminiscences of his own interview with Mary (January 21, 1567), and as these reminiscences were only useful as corroborative of Mary’s account in Letter II., it seems that Wood had either shown Lennox the letters or had spoken of their contents. In that case, when Lennox later quotes Moray’s version, not Letter II. itself, he is only acting with the self-contradictory stupidity which pervades his whole indictment (Oo. 7. 47. fol. 17 b.).
The letters are not known to have been seen by any man—they or the silver casket—after the death of the earl of Gowrie (who possessed them). In May 1584 Bowes, the English ambassador to Holyrood, had endeavoured to procure them for Elizabeth, “for the secrecy and benefit of the cause.” Conceivably the letters fell into the hands of James VI. and were destroyed by his orders. (A. L.)
CASLON, the name of a famous family of English typefounders. William Caslon (1692–1766), the first of the name, was born at Cradley, Worcestershire, and in 1716 started business in London as an engraver of gun locks and barrels, and as a bookbinder’s tool-cutter. Being thus brought into contact with printers, he was induced to fit up a type foundry, largely through the encouragement of William Bowyer. The distinction and legibility of his type secured him the patronage of the leading printers of the day in England and on the continent. The use of Caslon types, discontinued about the beginning of the 19th century, was revived about 1845 at the suggestion of Sir Henry Cole, and used for printing the Diary of Lady Willoughby (a pseudo-17th-century story) by the Chiswick Press. The headline on this page is “Caslon Old Face.” He died on the 23rd of January 1766. His son, William Caslon (1720–1778), who had been partner with his father for some years, continued the business.
CASPARI, KARL PAUL (1814–1892), German Lutheran theologian and orientalist, was born of Jewish parents at Dessau, Anhalt, on the 8th of February 1814. He studied at Leipzig and Berlin, became a Christian in 1838, and in 1857 was appointed professor of theology at Christiania, having declined invitations to Rostock and Erlangen. He died at Christiania on the 11th of April 1892. Caspari is best known as the author of an Arabic grammar (Grammatica Arabica, 2 vols., 1844–1848; new edition, Arabische Grammatik, edited by A. Müller; 5th ed. 1887). He also wrote commentaries on the prophetical books of the Old Testament, dogmatic and historical works on baptism, and from 1857 helped to edit the Theologisk Tidskrift for den evangelisk-lutherske Kirke i Norge. His writings include: Beiträge zur Einleitung in Jesaja (1848), and Alte und neue Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols und der Glaubensregel (1879).
CASPIAN SEA (anc. Mare Caspium or Mare Hyrcanium; Russian, Kaspiyskoe More, formerly Hvalynskoe More; Persian, Darya-i-Khyzyr or Gurzem; Tatar, Ak-denghiz; the Sikim and Jurjan of the ancient Eastern geographers), an inland sea between Europe and Asia, extending from 36° 40′ to 47° 20′ N. lat., and from 46° 50′ to 55° 10′ E. long. Its length is 760 m. from N. to S., and its breadth 100 to 280 m., and its area reaches 169,330 sq. m., of which 865 sq. m. belong to its islands. It fills the deepest part of a vast depression, sometimes known as the Aralo-Caspian depression, once an inland sea, the Eurasian Mediterranean or Sarmatian Ocean. At the present time its surface lies 86 ft. below the level of the ocean, or 96.7 ft. according to the Aral-Caspian levelling[1] and 242.7 ft. below the level of the Aral.
Hydrography and Shores.—The hydrography of the Caspian Sea has been studied by von Baer, by N. Ivashintsev (1819–1871) in 1862–1870, by O. Grimm, N. I. Andrusov (1895), and by J. B. Spindler (1897), N. von Seidlitz and N. Knipovich (1904) since the last quoted date. Its basin is divided naturally into three sections—(1) A northern, forming in the east the Gulf of Mortvyi Kultuk or Tsarevich Bay. This is the shallowest part, barely reaching a depth of 20 fathoms. It is being gradually
- ↑ By the triangulation of 1840 its level was found to be 84 ft. below the level of the Black Sea. The Caucasus triangulation of 1860–1870 gave 89 ft.
