many salutary and popular laws, in civil matters, were made under her administration; perhaps the

In lyfe a Dyane chaste,

In truth Penelopeye,

In worde and deede steedfaste,
What neede I'more to seye?

At Baccus' feast none may her meete,
Or yeat at anye wanton playe,
Nor gasinge in the open streete,
Or wandringe, as a straye.

The mirth that shee doth use

Is mixt with shamfastnesse;

All vyces shee eschues,

And hateth idelnes.

Yt is a worlde to see

How vertue can repaire
And decke such honestee,
In her that is so faire.

Great sute to vyce maye some allure,
That thinks to make no fawlte;
Wee see a forte hadde neede bee sure
Which manye doth assaulte.

They seeke an endlesse waye

That thinks to wynne her love,

As well they maye assaye

The stoney rocke to move.

For shee is none of those

That setts not bye evill fame,

Shee will not lightly lose

Her truth and honest name.

better to reconcile the people to the bloody measures which she was induced to pursue for the establishment of religious slavery; the well-concerted schemes for effecting which, were, through the providence of God, defeated by the seasonable accession of Elizabeth 5.

How might wee doo to have a graffe

Of this unspotted tree?

For all the rest, they are but chaffe
In prayse of her to bee.

Shee doth as farre exceade

These women now a dayes,
As doth the floure the weede
And more, a thousande wayes.

This prayse I shall her geeve

When Death doth what hee can,

Her honest name shall live

With in the mouth of man.

This worthye ladye too beewraye-
A kings doughter was shee,

Of whom John Heywoode lyste to saye

In such worthye degree.

And MARYE was her name, weete yee,

With these graces indude;

At eightene yeares so flourisht shee :

So doth his meane conclude.]

› Commentaries on the Laws of England, book iv. p. 425.

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 Camden2 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 languages3. 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.

"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.”

• 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.]

• She excelled even in things of a much more trifling nature. There cannot be a sillier species of poetry than rebuses; yet of