treatise De Fide, addressed to the Duke of
Somerset. All sorts of letters too on the most
weighty subjects, and addressed to persons of
consideration and worship, are attributed to
him; also a long poem, of a religious nature,
and not too meritorious to have been the work
of a very young prince.

"A Diary or Journal of Passing Events,"
kept by this gifted boy, is still preserved,
and is said to " give clear proof of his sense,
knowledge, and goodness;" and there is also
in existence a very curious paper in his own
handwriting, containing memoranda of matter to
be submitted to his Privy Council for consideration.
It is headed, " Ceirtein Pointes of waighty
matters to be immediately concluded on by my
counsell. 18 Januarii, 1551," the different
subjects which are to be investigated being set
down in order. Some of these serve as specimens
of the rest: " 1. The conclusion for the
payment of our dettis in February next commiug.
3. The matter for the Duke of Somersete and
his confederates to be considered as aparteineth
to our surety and quietnes of our realme, that
by their punishement and execution, according
to the lawes, example may be shewed to others.
4. The resolution for the bishops that be
nominated. 6. Dispaching our commissionare to
Guisnes, to see the state thereof."

It is impossible, in examining the private
papers left by this prince, not to be reminded
of those boyish writings of Prince Albert with
which we have lately become familiar. There
is the same love of method, the same early
religion—the same early steadiness of purpose
and high principle, and the same continual
desire for self-improvement.

For some unaccountable reason, Queen Mary
—she to whose name a terrible adjective is
commonly appended—has got to be included
among the list of royal authors. There seems,
however, to be little enough ground for such
inclusion. Certain prayers and religious
meditations, " Against the assaults of vice," " A
meditation touching adversity," and the like,
have been preserved as hers, as well as several
letters, some of them curious, as one in which
she treats of her own delicacy in never having
written but to three men in her life, and another
concerning her affection for her sister. A claim
to the title of author is, however, hardly to be
established on such slender grounds.

Of all our female sovereigns, Elizabeth seems
to have cultivated literature the most closely and
sedulously. She is, unquestionably, the royal
authoress par excellence. The age in which she
lived was one in which letters pre-eminently
flourished, and the queen was not behindhand in
catching the spirit of the time. Her pen was,
indeed, a most prolific one. Some thirty or
forty prose pieces alone are attributed to her.
Letters of the official sort she produced without
end, besides translations from the classics,
speeches, orations, and treatises on religious
subjects or on the poetic art. Some of the
titles of these miscellaneous prose writings
are curious, and deserve to be transcribed:
A Century of Sentences, dedicated to her
father; A Curious Letter to Lord Burleigh;
Another of Humour, to divert him from retiring
from business; A Very Genteel Letter, written
by her, when princess, to King Edward, on his
desiring her picture. In the same list with
these we find mention of A Comment on Plato;
Two of the Orations of Isocrates, translated
into Latin; A Play of Euripides, likewise
translated into Latin; A Translation of a Dialogue
out of Xenophon, in Greek, between Hiero, a
king, yet sometime a private person, and
Simonides, a poet, as touching the Liffe of the Prince
and Private Man. Her classical attainments,
if we are to believe all we read, were
prodigious. She seems to have thought nothing
of such small tasks as translating Sallust de
Bello Jugurthino; Horace de Arte Poeticâ;
and Plutarch de Curiositate, thinking nothing
of them. Indeed, her knowledge of Latin was
so great that she was able to give an immediate
epigrammatic answer to whatever was
addressed to her in that language. On one
occasion, when some pert Latin verses were
sent to her by Philip the Second, she retorted
"instantly," as the chronicler tells us, with a
neat hexameter. At another time, " being asked
if she preferred the learning of Buchanan or
of Walter Haddon, she replied"—again on the
spur of the moment—"Buchananum omnibus
antepono, Haddonum nemini postpono." One
other of her answers, in English this time,
when pressed hard by " a captious theologic
question"—nothing less, in fact, than a required
definition of the Eucharist—is almost too well
known to need quotation here:

          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.

Two of Queen Elizabeth's more studied
poetical effusions survive. One is a paraphrase
of the Thirteenth Psalm, and is not particularly
successful, as the subjoined extract will
show:

           Fooles, that true fayth yet never had,
           Saythe in their hartes, There is no God,
           Fylthy they are in their practyse,
           Of them not one is godly wyse.

This is not much worse, however, than other
metrical versions of the Psalms. There were
"two little anthemes, or things in meeter, of
hir majestie," licensed to her printer in 1578, of
which this is probably one. This active and
ambitious lady also translated The Speech of
the Chorus in the Second Act of the Hercules
OEtæus of Seneca. This is a poem of one
hundred and twenty-three lines in blank verse,
and nearly unintelligible throughout. Here is
a difficult passage:

Though with thy gleaves and axes thou be armed,
And root full great doe glory give thy name:
Amid the viewe of all these sundrie sorte
One faultles fayth her roome even franke may claime.
The golden ledge full wrathfull spites beset,
And where the gates their postes draw forth by breadth,
More easie way to guiles and passed safe: