rich fancy of Spenser, to the almost inspired insight of Shakspeare,
towering above all the poets of ancient and of modern times, as fresh
to-day as he was three hundred years ago, the greatest miracle of
intellect that perhaps has ever adorned the world. By all these
illustrious men Queen Elizabeth was honored and beloved. All received no
small share of their renown from her glorious appreciation; all were
proud to revolve around her as a central sun, giving life and growth to
every great enterprise in her day, and shedding a light which shall
gladden unborn generations.

It is something that a woman has earned such a fame, and in a sphere
which has been supposed to belong to man alone. And if men shall here
and there be found to decry her greatness, let no woman be found who
shall seek to dethrone her from her lofty pedestal; for in so doing she
unwittingly becomes a detractor from that womanly greatness in which we
should all rejoice, and which thus far has so seldom been seen in
exalted stations. For my part, the more I study history the more I
reverence this great sovereign; and I am proud that such a woman has
lived and reigned and died in honor.

AUTHORITIES.

Fronde's History of England; Hume's History of England; Agnes
Strickland's Queens of England; Mrs. Jameson's Memoirs of Queen
Elizabeth; E. Lodge's Sketch of Elizabeth; G.P.R. James's Memoir of
Elizabeth; Encyclopaedia Britannica, article on England: Hallam's
Constitutional History of England; "Age of Elizabeth," in Dublin Review,
lxxxi.; British Quarterly Review, v. 412; Aikin's Court of Elizabeth;
Bentley's Elizabeth and her Times; "Court of Elizabeth," in Westminster
Review, xxix. 281; "Character of Elizabeth," in Dublin University