Having survived her son, King Henry VII., for three months, Margaret Countess of Richmond died June 29, 1509, aged 69. Her funeral sermon, preached by Bishop Fisher, is admirable for characteristic details.

She was buried in King Henry VII.'s Chapel, where her tomb and effigy may yet be seen. The inscription is said to have been written by Erasmus.

Granger mentions a portrait of her at Hatfield House, and gives an account of three engravings. There is one in Park's edition of Horace Walpole's Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors,' representing her as a gaunt and aged nun.

The revival of classical learning and the progress of the religious reformation have set their impress strongly upon the sixteenth century. In Margaret Beaufort, the great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, an example has been given of the most highly cultivated Englishwoman of her time, 1440-1509. The printing-presses of Caxton and of Wynkyn de Worde had now multiplied the number of books by an increase of copies, by the introduction of new translations, and by the production of original works. The progress of learning on the Continent became a favourite topic of English conversation; and knowledge, which had appeared extraordinary in the youthful days of Margaret Beaufort, was expected as a thing of course in the youthful days of her granddaughters.

The eldest daughter of King Henry VII., Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, occasionally employed a clerk, although the greater number of her crafty epistles, full of manifold discontents and never-ending solicitations, are written by her own hand. The beautiful and benevolent Mary Tudor, Queen of France, seems always to have written her own. Elizabeth Countess of Kildare, Margaret Countess of Salisbury, Anne Lady Rede, Anne

D

Countess of Oxford, and Elizabeth Duchess of Norfolk, wrote readily in English, A.D. 1500-25; and, after that period, female letter-writers in the upper classes of society multiplied abundantly.

People who have acquired a little valuable knowledge have usually acquired also both the means and the desire to augment it. The ability to read and write, and the power of transfusing thoughts, though shallow ones, into a second language, prepared those among the women of England who enjoyed such privileges to appreciate mental cultivation; it excited their sympathy in the intellectual activity of men of genius, and their ambition to emulate the attainments of the women of Italy. The consequence was that tutors, who a few years before would have been content to praise the progress of their female pupils in colloquial and epistolary French and English, delighted at discovering in them a thirst for deeper knowledge, gratified it with all the eagerness with which learners teach. "Greek is said to have been first publicly taught in this country, in St. Paul's school, by the famous William Lily, who had studied the language at Rhodes, and who was appointed the first master of the new school in 1512."* The works of Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Demosthenes, Isocrates, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, which laborious scholars were then enjoying in their collegiate cells for the first time, soon gained an introduction to England's palaces and mansions, and shared with Latin authors the favour of studious ladies. Thus classic literature became the fashion in the reign of King Henry VIII., and held its place of honour until the extinction of his dynasty. In the biographical sketches which follow, brief as they are, care has been taken to give the locality of birth, resi* Craik's 'Lit. and Learning,' vol. ii., p. 202.

dence, and death, whenever it could be ascertained, because such associations between eminent persons and places tend not only to enhance the historic character of a country, but also to stimulate the natural interest of individual readers for scenes severally familiar to their eyes. Where lightning has once struck, it is apt to strike again; where certain rare, indigenous plants have once sprung up, others of the same kind may be looked for; and where the traditional memory of excellence is preserved, its voice may call forth emulative forms. Every eminent name becomes a trophy of success or a pillar of warning; and more strikingly such upon the very ground once trodden by its owner, where the scene, the rivers, the sky, the air, seem all whispering incentives to be good and to be great, to be good and to be great for immortality. There are persons whom localities affect only by means of associations, and to them such memorials are means of increasing happiness, while they add an unspeakable charm to the enjoyment of those who delight in scenery merely for its own sake.

QUEEN ANNE BOLEYN.

Horace Walpole, in his Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, Scotland, and Ireland,' places Queen Anne Boleyn first in date among the women. She was one of the two daughters of Sir Thomas Boleyn, afterwards Earl of Wiltshire, and of the Lady Elizabeth Howard, his first wife. Her father held a place in the royal household; her mother was a reigning beauty, and figured advantageously in all the Court masques and pageants of her day. Anne Boleyn was born in or about the year 1499, at her father's seat, Blickling Hall, in Norfolk, where she was carefully brought up with her brother

George and her sister Mary until the death of her mother, which occurred in 1512.* Sir Thomas soon afterwards married again, and removed with all his family to Hever Castle, in Kent, where Anne's education was superintended by a French governess named Simonette. She acquired early excellence in music, dancing, and needlework, spoke and wrote her native language and that of France with graceful facility, and gave indications of unusual aptness for the arts of attraction and for every courtly accomplishment.

The society of their neighbour and contemporary, the highly-gifted Sir Thomas Wyatt, probably fostered in her and in her brother that taste for lyric poetry by which they were subsequently distinguished. In the month of September, and the year 1514, she accompanied her father to London, having been appointed one of the four Maids-ofHonour to the Princess Mary of England on Her Royal Highness's marriage with King Louis XII. of France. In this capacity she attended the ceremonial in the church of the Grey Friars at Greenwich when the Duke de Longueville acted as proxy for his Sovereign; and she was afterwards present at the celebration of the royal nuptials at Abbeville.

Anne Boleyn was tall in stature, slim in form, lithe and agile in movement; her complexion was dark, and her eyes brilliant. Her temper, though social and kindly, was haughty and impulsive, and not without that tendency to simulation and dissimulation which so strangely, yet so frequently, belongs to persons of undisciplined feelings. Her mental apprehension was quick, her spirits were gay and volatile, and she practised that indefinable attractiveness of behaviour which is felt to be fascination. Lord

* This fact rests on the authority of The Howard Papers.'

Herbert describes her as possessing "all the graces which belong to rest or motion."

Her prudent father went with her to France, and left her there, under the charge of a trusty kinsman. She was doubtless dismissed from her attendance on Queen Mary, together with the other English ladies of the bridal train, on the day after the nuptials, and she does not appear to have returned with them to England. Her musical skill, her sweet singing to her lute, her inventive talents in dress and in all sorts of ingenious pastimes, and her vivacious conversation, won high and general admiration at the French Court. She ran a brilliant course of coquetry, but, nevertheless, took good care both of her heart and her reputation.

After the death of King Louis, and the return of his young widow to England as the Duke of Suffolk's bride, Anne Boleyn reappears as a member of the household of Queen Claude, the amiable and prudent wife of the chivalric Francis I. Influenced apparently by political motives, Sir Thomas Boleyn fetched his daughter Anne back to England in the year 1522, and she was immediately appointed a Maid-of-Honour to Queen Catherine of Arragon. Her attachment and engagement to Lord Percy, her indignation against the King for breaking their contract, her jealous love and sorrow at Lord Percy's subsequent marriage with Lady Mary Talbot, rendered the next few years a period of acute and passionate suffering. She appears to have withdrawn from Court to her paternal home, and thence to France, where she spent four years in attendance upon the French Princess Margaret Duchess of Alençon, afterwards Queen of Navarre. Returning a second time to England, and re-entering Queen Catherine's service, ambition took the place of blighted