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to the figure really the appearance of one risen from the dead. The outline is majestic; turn which way we would, we involuntarily returned to look again. At length we mentioned our admiration to the superintendent, and the reply of the enthusiastic foreigner precluded all further remark-for nothing further could be said:

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Madam, I should have been astonished if you had not admired that figure: it is itself; it is precisely the finest thing in the world."

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CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DAYS OF "GOOD QUEEN BESS."

"A worthie woman judge, a woman sent for staie.'

"When Fame resounds with thundring trump, which rends the ratling skies,

And pierceth to the hautie Heavens, and thence descending

flies

Through flickering ayre: and so conjoines the sea and shore

togither,

In admiration of thy grace, good Queene, thou'rt welcome hither."-The Receyving of the Queene's Maiestie into hir Citie of Norwich.

"We may justly wonder what has become of the industry of the English ladies; we hear no more of their rich embroiderings, and curious needlework. Is all the domestic simplicity of the former ages entirely vanished ?”—AIkin.

THE age of Elizabeth presents a never-failing field of variety through which people of all tastes may delightedly rove, gathering flowers at will. The learned statesman, the acute politician, the subtle lawyer, will find in the measures of her Burleigh, her Walsingham, her Cecil, abundant food for approbation or for censure; the heroic sailor will glory

over the achievements of her time; the adventurous traveller will explore the Eldoradic regions with Raleigh, or plough the waves with Drake and Frobisher; the soldier will recal glorious visions of Essex and Sidney, while poesy wreathes a bay round the memory of the last, which shines freshly and bright even in the age which produced a Ben Jonson, and him who was born with a star on his forehead to last through all time"-Shakspeare.

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The age of Elizabeth was especially a learned age. The study of the dead languages had hitherto been confined almost exclusively to ecclesiastics and scholars by profession, but from the time of Henry the Seventh it had been gradually spreading amongst the higher classes. The great and good Sir Thomas More gave his daughters a learned education, and they did honour to it; Henry the Eighth followed his example; Lady Jane Grey made learning lovely; and Elizabeth's pedantry brought the habit into full fashion.

If a queen were to talk Sanscrit, her court would endeavour to do so likewise. The example of learned studies was given by the queen herself, who translated from the Greek a play of Euripides, and parts of Isocrates, Xenophon, and Plutarch; from the Latin considerable portions of Cicero, Seneca, Sallust, Horace, &c. She wrote many Latin letters, and is said to have spoken five languages with facility. As a natural consequence the nobility and gentry, their wives and daughters, became enthusiasts in the cause of letters. "The novelty which attended these studies, the eager desire to possess what had been so long studiously and jealously con

cealed, and the curiosity to explore and rifle the treasures of the Greek and Roman world, which mystery and imagination had swelled into the marvellous, contributed to excite an absolute passion for study and for books. The court, the ducal castle, and the baronial hall were suddenly converted into academies, and could boast of splendid tapestries. In the first of these, according to Ascham, might be seen the queen reading "more Greeke every day than some prebendarie of this thurch doth read Latin in a whole week;" and while the was translating Isocrates or Seneca, it may be easily conceived that her maids of honour found it Fonvenient to praise and to adopt the disposition of her time. In the second, observes Warton," the daughter of a duchess was taught not only to distil strong waters, but to construe Greek; and in the third, every young lady who aspired to be fashionable was compelled, in imitation of the greater world, to exhibit similar marks of erudition."

A contemporary writer says, that some of the ladies of the court employ themselves "in continuall reading either of the holie Scriptures, or histories of our owne or forren nations about us, and diverse in writing volumes of their owne, or translating of other mens into our English and Latine toongs. I might here (he adds) make a large discourse of such honorable and grave councellors, and noble personages, as give their dailie attendance upon the queene's majestie. I could in like sort set foorth a singular commendation of the vertuous beautie, or beautiful vertues of such ladies and gentlewomen as wait upon his person, betweene whose amiable

countenances and costlinesse of attire there seemeth to be such a dailie conflict and contention, as that it is verie difficult for me to gesse whether of the twaine shall beare awaie the preheminence. This further is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation of both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in England, that there are verie few of them which have not the use and skill of sundrie speaches, beside an excellent veine of writing before-time not regarded. Would to God the rest of their lives and conversations were correspondent to these gifts! for as our common courtiers (for the most part) are the best lerned and endued with excellent gifts, so are manie of them the worst men when they come abroad, that anie man shall either heare or read of. Trulie it is a rare thing with us now to heare of a courtier which hath but his owne language. And to saie how many gentlewomen and ladies there are, that beside sound knowledge of the Greeke and Latine toongs, are thereto no lesse skilful in the Spanish, Italian, and French, or in some one of them, it resteth not in me. Sith I am persuaded, that as the noblemen and gentlemen doo surmount in this behalfe, SO these come verie little or nothing at all behind them for their parts, which industrie God continue, and accomplish that which otherwise is wanting !"*

At this time the practice (derived from the chivalrous ages, when every baronial castle was the resort of young persons of gentle birth, of both sexes) was by no means discontinued of placing young women, of gentle birth, in the establishment

* Harrison.

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