imprint in the same touching these matters and all other, what his inestimable vertue, high wisdom, and excellent learning, shall think convenient, and limit unto me, to whose presence I pray God I may once come ere I die, for every day is a till I year may have the fruition of it. Beseeching you, good Mr. Secretary, to continue mine humble suit for the same, and for all other things whatsoever they be, to repute my heart so firmly knit to his pleasure, that I can by no means vary from the direction and appointment of the same; and thus most heartily fare you well." The melancholy complexion of this princess, says Granger3, her narrow capacity, obstinate and unrelenting temper, and blind attachment to her religion, contributed to carry her to the extremes of bigotry and persecution*: and the horrid cruelties of this reign fa Biog. Hist. vol. i. p. 152. 4 The coarse humour, or the courtly adulation of Heywood the epigrammatist, could however sometimes enliven the gloomy mind of Mary; and her sullen solemnity, says Warton, was not proof against his songs, his rhymes, and his jests. The following instance of his poetic policy at least is curious: a A DISCRIPTION OF A MOST NOBLE LADYE, advewed by John Heywoode, presently; who advertisinge her yeares, as face, saith of her thus, in much eloquent phrase: Geve place, ye ladyes all, bee gone, Shewe not your selves att all; For why? behoulde, there cometh one Whose face yours all blanke shall. Hist. of E. P. vol. iii. p. 87. b From Harl. MS. 1703. cilitated the progress of the reformation in the next Yet to do justice to queen Mary, observes Blackstone, The vertue of her looks Excells the precious ston, In each of her twoe eyes Ther smiles a naked boye, It woulde you all suffice Too see those lampes of joye. If all the worlde were sought full farre, Her couler comes and goes Amongs her youthfull yeares, I thinke nature hath lost her moulde QUEEN ELIZABETH. In the earlier part of her life, when her situation was precarious, and adversity her lot or her prospect; in the days when, as Camden 2 says, king Edward was wont to call her his sweet sister Temperance, this great princess applied much to literature, and, under the celebrated Roger Ascham, made great progress in several languages. Her ready responses in Latin to the compliments of the university of Cambridge, many years after she had ceased to have learned leisure, are well known: and her ingenious evasion of a captious theologic question is still more and deservedly applauded. 3 "Christ was the Word that spake it; He took the bread and brake it; And what that Word did make it, That I believe and take it." 4 2 In the Preface to his History. [It can scarce be credited, says Ascham, to what degree of skill in the Latin and Greek she might arrive, if she shall proceed in that course of study wherein she hath begun by the guidance of Grindal. Epist. to sir J. Cheeke, p. 79.] 4 She excelled even in things of a much more trifling nature. There cannot be a sillier species of poetry than rebuses; yet of |