did not give evidence of any exultation, but first falling upon her knees, she exclaimed,"It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." This was the inscription she placed during her reign upon her gold. After the long and varied agitations of the preceding reign, those surely must have been triumphant moments, which, if they did not promise her entire repose, did yet place her beyond the reach of sisterly caprice and persecution.

Elizabeth instantly, upon the news of her sister's death, appointed a Council of State at Hatfield. The principal person she called to her aid was Sir William Cecil, of whom byand-bye we shall give a more full and lengthy history. Her charge to him has been faithfully preserved to us, and whether she intended it should be faithfully adhered to or not, it was so; this man called first to support her by his prudence and sagacity, through all his life adhered to her. Never had monarch a more faithful and judicious adviser.

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"I give you," said the queen to him, on the occasion of investing him with the power of secretary of state,-"I give you this charge, that you shall be of my privy council, and content yourself to take pains for me and my realm. The judgment I have of you, that you will not

be corrupted by any gift, and that you will be faithful to the State; and that, without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel that you think best; and that, if you shall know any thing necessary to be declared to me of secrecy, you shall show it to myself only; and assure yourself I will not fail to keep taciturnity therein. And, therefore, herewith I charge you."

The queen remained at Hatfield about a week after her accession to the throne. She then set forth on her progress to London. Everywhere as she passed along, she beheld the indications that upon her the hopes of the nation were fixed. At Highgate she was met by a procession, headed by all the bishops who knelt to receive her on the highway. She gave them all her hand to kiss, excepting Bonner, the Bishop of London.

She was then

met by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the city of London, who conducted her to the Charter House, where she took up her abode for five days. She then went in procession to take possession of the Tower, at that time the State prison and the State palace; at once a regal, a warlike, and a legal fortress. Her last visit there had been as a prisoner; nor were there wanting in the nation those who would

gladly have beheld her carried, like Lady Jane Grey, to the block upon the green: but she was spared to head a triumph as she passed along.

We notice it as indicative of the state of the streets, that they were carefully spread over with fine gravel. There were no well flagged and well paved highways at that time. As she passed along on horseback, the acclamations rending the air would be prompted by sympathy with her old sufferings; for the prince or princess who has sorrowed and known adversity, has a mighty hold upon the sympathies of the suffering thousands who flock around his chariot or his steed. So she passed along to that proud old Julian fortress, once her dungeon, now her seat of empire and of power, before, when on the Palm Sunday, while all the people were at the churches, her barge shot along in silence and in secrecy; she looked around and beheld not a friendly face to greet her or give her comfort. On a dark, wild, rainy morning, in the cheerless, winterly March, she, then a pale, terrified, and weeping girl, in the custody of hard-featured, hard-hearted men, landed at the Tower, and passed through the Traitor's Gate, to her gloomy and cheerless confinement, but now caparisoned with pomp

and majesty, while the surge and swell of the waves of popular applause rolled upon her ear, she entered by the great gates surrounded by her Lords; and there was one riding next to her, with whom her name came to be curiously linked through many long years, Lord Robert Dudley, her Master of Horse, and like herself newly restored to importance and power from imprisonment and adversity. That dark face and covert eye; that suspicious and sneering lip, how they seem to look out upon us through that long procession, which now our imagination so vividly calls up, although rider and steed have so long since passed into dust.

Mary all this time lay dead in her palace at Westminster. The members of the Romish Church were called upon loudly to wail forth their masses, for almost at the instant of Mary's death, Cardinal Pole, her kinsman, and the head of the Papal Hierarchy in England, followed her through the long dark avenue; and two Romish Bishops of Rochester and Chichester were also lying dead; thus the Cathedrals rung with the masses for the souls of the illustrious departed; and no doubt there mingled with the solemn tones of the sobbing chaunt, real anxiety for the future destiny of that Faith which seemed in England expiring

with its defenders. Elizabeth attended her sister's funeral, on which occasion Dr. White, the Bishop of Winchester, preached what Sir John Harrington called "A black sermon !" The text from which the bishop illustrated the virtues of his departed mistress, was a curious one "Melior est canis vivus leone mortuo," -"A living dog is better than a dead lion." The sermon was in Latin, but Elizabeth was Latin scholar enough to understand not only the curish text but the curish allusions. Amongst other things he roundly asserted that the dead deserved more praise than the living, for that Mary had chosen the better part. To a lady of Elizabeth's temperament all this was not especially pleasant, and as soon as the bishop descended from the pulpit he was placed under arrest; he defied her Majesty, and threatened her with excommunication.

At

this she simply laughed. He appears to have been emulous of a martyr's crown, and she very wisely determined he should not have it. Henceforth the bishop passes out of our sight, and we see him no more.

But enough of funeral thoughts and ceremonies. All people were looking forward to the coronation; and although it was winter, the citizens of London made grand gala de