difficulties. It is seldom advisable in cases of this description, when the union of two hearts is about to be effected through a third person, that the agent should have it in his power to create invidious comparisons between himself and his principal; and the more especially where the fair one about to be wooed by proxy is keenly susceptible to all the charms of a splendid manhood. Simier was one of the handsomest men of his day, the most fascinating and polished of courtiers, and one whose bonnes fortunes were the envy of every gallant in Paris. He had no sooner presented his credentials at the English court than the inflammatory Elizabeth became completely subjugated by the manners and appearance of the captivating envoy. Leicester at once recognised in the charming Simier a formidable rival, and hated him accordingly. The Queen took no pains to hide the pleasure she derived from the society of the new ambassador; not a day passed without her sending for him; sometimes she would call for him in her barge, and they would take the air together on the Thames; she asked his advice on all matters, and it was often not until late in the evening that she dismissed him from her apartment. Such intimacy naturally did not pass without comment. "M. de Simier

is no stranger to me," said Elizabeth when reproached with the levity of her conduct, "but a faithful servant of my future husband, knowing all his secrets, and therefore best fitted to advise me and to train me for the position I am to occupy." Under the guidance of the envoy the conditions of the marriage proceeded swiftly and smoothly. The Queen declared that she would marry the Duke; and acting upon the advice of Simier, Alençon hurried to Boulogne, crossed the Channel, and was met at Greenwich by the Queen. The interview between the two passed off better than had been expected; Elizabeth was not disgusted, and the young man played the lover to perfection. He was constantly in her society, and when absent from her wrote letters "burning enough," said one of the envoys at the court, "to set water on fire." He was lavish of the promises and pledges which courtship generally engenders, and the Queen permitted herself to be fascinated. He was lodged in the next apartment to hers in the palace, and Elizabeth, with her usual disregard of the world's opinion, behaved to him very much as she had behaved to Simier, who, his mission now accomplished, had returned to Paris laden with gifts. Mary Stuart, well aware of the remarks her sweet cousin had passed upon the intimacy between herself and Rizzio, was not slow to retaliate. Those who wish to learn what was the opinion Mary of Scotland entertained of Elizabeth of England, have only to read the letters of the unhappy woman published by Prince Labanoff.

They are couched in terms somewhat too plain for this more decorous age.1

And now it seemed as if what had so often been discussed was actually to take place, and the Queen of England, the most susceptible but at the same time the most variable of spinsters, was about to marry. All the objections that had been raised as to money matters and as to the religious difficulty had been satisfactorily met, and there was nothing to interfere with the completion of the union. The Duke took his departure as the accepted suitor of the Queen of England, and the only question that had now to be settled was the assent of the Queen to the articles of the marriage treaty drawn up by Simier. But these, Elizabeth, when it came to the point, could not make up her mind to ratify. Her advisers were opposed to several of them, and she took advantage of their objections. She would not marry, and yet she would not let Alençon go; she wanted both to eat and to have her cake. She wrote affectionately to the Duke, she was devoted to him, but still she thought that it was perhaps better for them to be friends than that a closer tie should exist between them. This Platonic prospect failed to content Alençon; he was an adventurer, he was unpopular in France, it was necessary for him to carve out his own future. He wished to marry Elizabeth, and to sit on the throne as king-consort of England; but if he could not obtain a crown in England he would do his best to win one in the Low Countries. The Queen was informed by the advisers of Alençon that she would be allowed two months to consider her determination, and if at the expiration of that time she had not arrived at any conclusion, the negotiation would be at an end, and the Duke at liberty to look elsewhere. The two months passed, and Elizabeth, though pressed by Cecil to agree to the match, gave no answer, and the matter was considered to have dropped.

Early in the following year this most hesitating and undecided of women expressed a hint that, if Alençon was still desirous of becoming her husband, she would not say him nay. Marriage seemed to be the only solution of the difficulties which surrounded her.

Here are two extracts from Labanoff, given by M. de la Ferrière. The first relates to Simier. "Je prends Dieu à témoin," writes Mary to Elizabeth, "que la comtesse de Shrewsbury m'a dit que vous aviez engagé votre honneur avec un étranger, allant le trouver dans la chambre d'une dame, là où vous le baisiez et usiez avec lui de privautés déshonnêtes, mais aussi lui révéliez les secrets du royaume, trahissant vos propres conseillers avec lui.”

The second relates to the Duke of Alençon: "Vous vous êtes déportée avec lui de la même dissolution qu'avec Simier; une nuit vous l'avez rencontré à la porte de votre chambre, n'ayant que votre seule chemise et votre manteau de nuit, et l'avez laissé entrer, et il est demeuré avec vous près de trois heures."

What with the Low Countries, the state of Scotland, the state of Ireland, the Catholic intrigues in her own kingdom, and the animosity of Spain towards her, a political alliance with France was now an absolute necessity; but France would enter into no treaty of amity without Alençon being seated as king-consort on the throne of England. Again diplomacy busied itself with its negotiations and State papers; the war in the Low Countries was to be carried on chiefly at the expense of France; if Spain attacked England, France was to interfere; England, however, was to send certain troops and supplies into Flanders. These preliminaries arranged, Alençon again came to London. He was lodged at Whitehall, but afterwards had apartments assigned to him at Greenwich, where the Queen then was. The closest intimacy again ensued between the two; the warmest of love-letters passed between them, though the couple saw each other daily, and every morning Elizabeth came into the young man's room to give him with her own fair hands a bason of soup. On the day of the anniversary of her coronation she was walking with the Duke arm-in-arm along the corridors of the palace. The French ambassador was announced, and craved an audience. As soon as he appeared Elizabeth stepped forward and said with a smile to him, "You can write to your master that the duke will be my husband." Then taking a ring from her finger, she placed it on the hand of the Duke, and turning to her maids of honour said, "I have a husband; you all of you can follow my example if you like." After this declaration it seemed impossible that the marriage ceremony could be long deferred. Elizabeth had given excuse after excuse for not fixing the day when the Duke was to be made the happiest of men; now it was her health, then it was the state of Europe, and then it was the opposition of her subjects; until there seemed good ground for the fears entertained by Simier. "Je ne croirai au mariage," he said, "que lorsque les draps seront levés, les flambeaux éteints et mon maître dans le lit." But after this open acknowledgment of the man who was to be her husband, further excuse and hesitation seemed impossible. Yet the very morning after this announcement this hysterical spinster came into the Duke's room and declared that it could not be; she had passed the night in tears; three more nights of such misery, she said, and she would be a dead woman-indeed, she could not marry. The Duke threw the ring on the floor, cursing the fickleness of the whole sex, and vowed that he would at once take his departure. But Elizabeth, who would not marry him, did not think it beneath herself to put her arms around his neck, to kiss him and caress him, and to implore him not to go. The Duke, thus petitioned,

consented to remain for a time. And for a time Alençon passed his days now in the hope and then in the despair common to the lover who is not accepted and yet not dismissed. The Queen flirted with him, smiled upon him, and presents still continued to be exchanged between the two. One morning whilst sitting with the Duke hand in hand, Elizabeth in her softest tones said she could never marry a Papist. Hereupon Alençon with the most charming impartiality offered to turn Protestant. Alas! sighed the Queen, she did not feel towards him as she had once felt. The Duke now lost his temper, and reminded her of all he had gone through, what anguish of mind he had suffered, how he had lost the good opinion of the Catholic world; how deeply he loved her, and how he would rather die with her than quit England—indeed, he swore he would not quit England. "It is very ill of you," said the Queen," to threaten an old woman in her own kingdom; you are mad, and talk like a madman." The Duke wept, and Elizabeth sat by his side alternately wiping his tears away with her handkerchief and caressing him as of old.

The state of affairs on the Continent now called upon Alençon to quit London hastily for Flanders. Spain had been victorious in the Low Countries, and the Flemings, who looked upon Alençon, now idling his time in England, as their protector, implored the aid of the Duke, offering him the ducal crown he had so long coveted. Alençon was tempted by the bait; between two stools he might fall; better the Low Countries as a certainty than England as an uncertainty. Elizabeth, now only too anxious to get him out of the kingdom, offered to help him with her fleet and forces, and accompanied him on his road to Canterbury. There she took leave of him, promising in spite of the past that on his return she would still marry him. She was, however, not to be accorded another opportunity for trifling with her victim. At Château Thierry the Duke fell ill of a fever, and rapidly succumbed to its influence. He died June 11, 1584. Shortly before his death he drew up his will; no mention is made of the name of the Queen of England. Upon hearing of the loss of the man to whom she had promised herself only to repudiate her promise, and then to promise herself again, Elizabeth thus wrote to Catherine de Medici :

'Madam, your sorrow cannot exceed mine, even though you are his mother; for you there still remains another son, but for me there is no consolation save that which death can offer. Madam, if you could but look into my heart, there you would see the picture of a body without a soul. But I will not trouble you more with my griefs, since you yourself have enough of your own."

The mourning which Elizabeth wore on the day of the funeral of the Duke of Alençon had been sent over from Paris by Catherine de Medici.

ALEX. CHARLES EWALD.

THE

HERBERT SPENCER'S

PHILOSOPHY.

`HERE are many who find a difficulty in understanding how the philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer is related to the Darwinian theories of biological evolution. Many, indeed, seem to find difficulty in recognising at all the nature of the teachings of Mr. Spencer, and especially in determining the position which they hold in modern thought. Some appear to imagine that his views are entirely sociological, others suppose that they involve simply an extension of the Darwinian doctrine to the universe at large, while yet others (as I have repeatedly noticed in converse with those whom I have met during my lecturing tours in this country, America, and Australasia) appear to regard Mr. Spencer as chief among the opponents of religion.

It should hardly be necessary to say that all these views are erroneous; yet, knowing as I do how few there are who have formed any just conception of Mr. Spencer's philosophy-especially in this country (for he is much better understood and appreciated on the other side of the Atlantic)--I have seen, somewhat gladly, that certain very unfair treatment in "Reminiscences chiefly of Oriel College," by the Rev. Thomas Mozley, has led to the publication by Mr. Spencer of a succinct statement of the cardinal principles involved in the successive works which Mr. Spencer has published. The statement is a mere summary, technically, and in some places rather obscurely, worded, but it is of great value as showing not only what Mr. Spencer has actually taught, but what it has been his special purpose to teach. I propose now to translate the successive items of this statement into more familiar language (in each case giving Mr. Spencer's actual words in the first instance). As, however, the significance of a statement of this kind must always in part depend on the circumstances which elicited it, I deem it well briefly to sketch the matter at issue between Mr. Spencer and the Rev. Mr. Mozley. I do this the more willingly, that, as the former remarks, "serious injustice is apt to be done by the publication of reminis