safety return to the state of things that obtained before the three and twentieth year of her reign.

To this may be added the industry of some to increase the revenues of the exchequer; and the earnestness of the ministers of justice, who usually regard no other safety of their country but what consists in the law; both which called loudly for the laws to be put in execution. However, the queen, as a specimen of her good nature, so far took off the edge of the law, that but a few priests, in proportion, were put to death. And this, we say, not by the way of defence, for the case needs none; as the safety of the kingdom turned upon it; and as the measure of all this severity came far short of those bloody massacres, that are scarce fit to be named among Christians, and have proceeded rather from arrogance and malice than from necessity, in the catholic countries, and thus, we think, we have made it appear that the queen was moderate in the point of religion; and that the change which ensued was not owing to her nature, but to the necessity of the times.

The greatest proof of her constancy in religion and religious worship is, that notwithstanding popery, which in her sister's reign had been strenuously established by public authority, and the utmost diligence, began now to take deep root, and was confirmed by the consent and zeal of all those in office and places of trust; yet because it was not agreeable to the word of God, nor to the primitive purity, nor to her own conscience, she, with much courage, and with very few helps, extirpated and abolished it. Nor did

she do this precipitantly, or in a heat; but prudently and seasonably, as may appear from many particulars; and among the rest, from a certain answer she occasionally made. For upon her first accession to the throne, when the prisoners, according to custom, were released; as she went to chapel, a courtier, who took a more than ordinary freedom, whether of his own motion, or set on by a wiser head, delivered a petition into her hand; and in a great concourse of people said aloud, that there were still four or five prisoners unjustly detained; that he came to petition for their liberty as well as the rest; and these were the four evangelists and the apostle St. Paul, who had been long imprisoned in an unknown tongue, and not suffered to converse with the people. The queen answered, with great prudence, "That it was best to consult them first, whether they were willing to be released or no." And by thus striking a surprising question, with a wary, doubtful answer, she reserved the whole matter entirely in her own breast.

Nor yet did she introduce this alteration timorously, and by fits and starts, but orderly, gravely, and maturely; after a conference betwixt the parties, and calling a parliament: and thus at length, within the compass of one year, she so ordered and established all things belonging to the church, as not to suffer the least alteration afterwards during her reign. Nay, almost every session of parliament her public admonition was, that no innovation might be made in the discipline or rites of the church. And thus much for her religion.

Some of the graver sort may, perhaps, aggravate her levities; in loving to be admired and courted, nay, and to have love poems made on her; and continuing this humour longer than was decent for her years: yet to take even these matters in a milder sense, they claim a due admiration, being often found in fabulous narrations, as that of "A certain queen in the fortunate islands, in whose court love was allowed, but lust banished." Or if a harsher construction can be put upon them, they are still to be highly admired; as these gaieties did not much eclipse her fame, nor in the least obscure her grandeur, nor injure her government, nor hinder the administration of her affairs: for things of this sort are rarely so well tempered and regulated in princes.

This queen was certainly good and moral; and as such she desired to appear. She hated vice, and studied to grow famous by honourable sources. Thus, for example, having once ordered an express to be written to her ambassador, containing certain instructions, which he was privately to impart to the queen-mother of France, her secretary inserted a clause for the ambassador to use, importing, "That they were two queens, from whose experience and arts of government, no less was expected than from the greatest kings." She could not bear the comparison, but ordered it to be struck out, saying, "She used quite different arts and methods of government from the queen-mother."

She was also not a little pleased if any one by chance had dropped such an expression as this,

"That though she had lived in a private station, her excellencies could not have passed unobserved by the eye of the world." So unwilling was she that any of her virtue or praise should be owing to the height of her fortune.

But if I should enter upon her praises, whether moral or political, I must either fall into a common-place of virtues, which will be unworthy of so extraordinary a princess; or if I would give them their proper grace and lustre, I must enter into a history of her life; which requires more leisure, and a richer vein than mine. To speak the truth, the only proper encomiast of this lady is time; which, for so many ages as it has run, never produced any thing like her of the same sex, for the government of a kingdom.

BACON.

JAMES I.

He was deeply learned, without possessing useful knowledge; sagacious in many individual cases, without having real wisdom; fond of his power, and desirous to maintain and augment it, yet willing to resign the direction of that, and of himself, to the most unworthy favourites; a big and bold asserter of his rights in words, yet one who tamely saw them trampled on in deeds; a lover of negotiations, in which he was always outwitted; and a fearer of war, where conquest might have been easy. He was fond of his dignity, while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant;

and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated. Even his timidity of temper was not uniform; and there were moments of his life, and those critical, in which he showed the spirit of his ancestors. He was laborious in trifles, and a trifler where serious labour was required; devout in his sentiments, and yet too often profane in his language; just and beneficent by nature, he yet gave way to the iniquities and oppression of others. He was penurious respecting money which he had to give from his own hand, yet inconsiderately and unboundedly profuse of that which he did not

see.

In a word, those good qualities which displayed themselves in particular cases and occasions, were not of a nature sufficiently firm and comprehensive to regulate his general conduct; and, showing themselves as they occasionally did, only entitled James to the character bestowed on him by Sully-that he was the wisest fool in Christendom.

That the fortunes of this monarch might be as little of a piece as his character, he, certainly the least able of the Stuarts, succeeded peaceably to that kingdom, against the power of which his predecessors had, with so much difficulty, defended his native throne. And, lastly, although his reign appeared calculated to ensure to Great Britain that lasting tranquillity and internal peace which so much suited the king's disposition, yet, during that very reign, were sown those seeds of dissension, which, like the teeth of the fabulous dragon, had their harvest in a bloody and universal civil war.

SIR W. SCOTT.