appears to have been the first person who introduced the religious novel, lately so fashionable in England; and the history of her writings is interesting. Although in her later years, her love, or fear, of her brother, Francis I., caused a greater conformity to the established religion of France, it is almost certain that from her Anne Boleyn imbibed a love for Protestantism, and she afterwards imitated, among the English Reformers, the example that the admired Marguerite had shewn her in the case of those of France and Switzerland. Thus says an old writer*" Not yet weary of France, she (Anne Boleyn) went to live with Marguerite, Duchess of Alençon, a lady much commended for her favour towards good letters, and never enough for the Protestant religion, then in infancy; from her, if I am not deceived, she first learned * Sir Roger Twysden. the grounds of the Protestant religion, so that England may seem to owe some of her happiness to that lady," (that is, to the Duchess.) CHAPTER III. Sweet Surrey swept Parnassus springs, T the age of twenty, after a residence in the most brilliant Courts of Europe, where the arts, literature, and science, as well as gaiety and pleasure, were patronised, Anne was brought to England by her father, appointed Maid of Honour to Queen Katharine, the wife of Henry VIII. and took her D post in the English court, of which, it is said, she soon became the "star." Anne Boleyn was in every respect unlike Queen Katharine, who was highly respected as a most exemplary lady. She was remarkable for self-denial; a virtue her fair rival seldom thought of practising. She was strict and even severe in her religious duties. She rose in the night to prayer, as is the practice in convents; she wore beneath her royal robes the habit of that order of St. Francis, of which the members may be married persons, living in the world, and only bound to perform charitable and pious works. She rose at five o'clock in the morning, and dressed for the day; in no respect did she differ more from the vain Anne Boleyn, than in her disregard to personal adornment; the time which she was obliged to spend in that way she used to lament as utterly wasted. Katharine was celebrated for her needlework; she did not love the boisterous sports and cruel sights in which ladies of her time mingled; she took no delight in seeing animals tear each other to pieces; and though Anne, even before her marriage, could attend King Henry to the chase, attired in a hunting garb, armed with a bow and arrows, the royal matron always pleaded that it was not so done in her country, and, not being English, she must be allowed to dispense with these English customs. Henry, who delighted in violent excitements, was not pleased with the quiet tastes of his Queen; but in other respects she endeavoured to meet his tastes; and, being fond of piety and intellectual conversation, she might have afforded her husband more rational enjoyment at the private suppers, where the famous Sir Thomas More was a favourite guest, than at the games of tric-trac, gleek, cards, and dice, for which the court of that monarch was |