'Never perhaps was the accession of any prince the subject of such keen and lively interest to a whole people as that of Elizabeth.The sex, the youth, the accomplishments, the graces, the past misfortunes of the princess, all served to heighten the interest with which she was beheld; the age of chivalry had not yet expired; and, in spite of the late unfortunate experience of a female reign, the romantic image of a maiden queen dazzled all eyes, subdued all hearts, inflamed the imaginations of the brave and courtly youth with visions of love and glory, exalted into a passionate homage the principle of loyalty, and urged adulation to the very brink of idolatry.'

Elizabeth's love of admiration, which continued to the latest period of her life, has been adverted to by all the writers, whom admiration and pity of the fair queen of Scots have rendered hostile to her memory; and they have taken a malicious pleasure in exaggerating this weakness by denying her, even in her freshest years, all pretension to those personal charms by which her rival was so eminently distinguished. Others however have been more favourable, and probably more just to her on this point; and it would be an injury to her memory to withhold from the reader the following portraiture, which authorizes us to form a pleasing as well as majestic image of this illustrious female at the period of her accession, and at the age of five-and-twenty.

'She was a lady of great beauty, of decent stature, and of an excellent shape. In her youth she was adorned with a more than usual maiden modesty; her skin was of pure white, and her hair of a yellow

colour; her eyes were beautiful and lively. In short, her whole body was well made, and her face was adorned with a wonderful and sweet beauty and majesty. This beauty lasted till her middle age, though it declined,* &c. The other character, by Naunton, differs not materially from Bohun's. She was of person tall, of hair and complexion fair, and therewith well favoured, but high-nosed; of limbs and features neat, and, which added to the lustre of those exterior graces of stately and majestic deportment,' &c.

'While Elizabeth was held a prisoner on various pretexts, and treated with great rigour in consequence of the extreme jealousy of Mary, and in hourly dread of some attempt on her life, she was surprised by an offer, from the highest authority, of immediate liberty, on condition of her accepting the hand of the duke of Savoy in marriage.

'Oppressed, persecuted, and a prisoner, sequestered from every friend and counsellor, guarded day and night by soldiers, it must have confidently been expected that the young princess would embrace joyfully this unhoped-for proposal. But the firm mind of Elizabeth was not thus to be shaken, nor her penetration deceived. She knew that it was her reversion of an independent English crown which she was required to barter for the matrimonial coronet of a foreign dukedom; and she felt the proposal, as what in truth it was, an injury in disguise. Fortunately for herself and her country, she had the magnanimity to disdain

*Bohun's Character of Queen Elizabeth.

† Miss Aikin, vol. i. p. 204.

the purchase of present ease and safety at a price so disproportionate; and, returning to the overture a modest but decided negative, she prepared herself to endure with patience and resolution the worst that her enraged and baffled enemies might dare against her.'

The trials and sufferings, to which Elizabeth was for a long time exposed, need not to be here related; but it is well known that she constantly rejected every proposal of marriage, although she received the most splendid which Europe could afford, and in England nobles the most accomplished and of the highest order aspired to the hand of their queen without success. The respectful and even importunate address of the house to fix her choice of a husband, which they supposed could not be very disagreeable to one of her sex and age, met with a refusal from the queen. She told the speaker, that, as the application from the house was conceived in general terms, only recommending marriage, without pretending to direct her choice of a husband, she could not take offence at the address, or regard it otherwise than as a new instance of their affectionate attachment to her; that any farther interposition on their part would have ill become. either them to make as subjects, or her to bear as an independent princess; that, even while she was a private person and exposed to much danger, she had always declined that engagement which she regarded as an incumbrance; much more, at present, would she persevere in this sentiment, when the charge of a great kingdom was committed to her, and her life ought to be entirely devoted to promoting the interests of religion and the happiness of her subjects; that, as England was

her husband, wedded to her by this pledge (and here she showed her finger with the same gold ring upon it with which she had solemnly betrothed herself to the kingdom at her inauguration,) so all Englishmen were her children; and while she was employed in rearing and governing such a family, she could not deem herself barren, or her life useless and unprofitable ;' &c.

On the accession of Elizabeth, the finances were extremely low, and much confusion and embarrassment were felt on account of the great debts contracted by her father, brother, and sister. Great disorders were introduced into every part of the administration; the people were much agitated by divisions; and Elizabeth was convinced nothing but tranquillity, during some years, could bring the kingdom again into a flourishing condition. With a view to remedy these evils the queen practised the greatest economy, which in some instances seemed to border on avarice. She was attentive to every thing which could augment the revenue. She raised the customs, by reforming abuses, from fourteen thousand pounds a year, to fifty thousand; and obliged Sir Thomas Smith, who had farmed them, to refund some of his former profits.

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This improvement of the revenue was opposed by some of the queen's principal ministers; but her perseverance overcame all their opposition. • The great undertakings, which she executed with so narrow a revenue and with such small supplies from her people, prove the mighty effects of wisdom and economy.'

'That there was little or no avarice in the queen's temper appears from this circumstance, that she never amassed any treasure, and even refused subsidies from

the parliament when she had no present occasion for them, saying the money was as secure in the hands of her people, as in her own coffers.'

The splendour of a court was, during this age, a great part of the public charge; and as Elizabeth was a single woman, and expensive in no kind of magnificence except in clothes, this circumstance enabled her to perform great things by her narrow revenue. She is said to have paid four millions of debt, left on the crown by her father, brother, and sister-an incredible sum for that age. The states of Holland, at the time of her death, owed her about eight hundred thousand pounds; and the king of France four hundred and fifty thousand; yet the queen could never, by the most pressing importunities, prevail on him to make payment of those sums she had so generously advanced him during his greatest distresses. One payment, of about seventy thousand crowns, was all she could obtain by the strongest representations she could make of the difficulties to which the rebellion in Ireland had reduced her.

'The Irish war, though successful, was extremely burdensome on the queen's revenue; and, besides the supplies granted by parliament, she had been obliged, notwithstanding her great frugality, to employ other expedients, such as selling the royal demesnes and the crown jewels, and exacting loans from the people, in order to support this cause, so essential to the honour and interests of England. The necessity of her affairs obliged her again to summon a parliament; and it here appeared, that, though old age was advancing fast upon her, and though she had lost much