Page:The Queens of England.djvu/455

 ELIZABETH. 4"! her faded charms, sometimes daring to lay on the royal ^ nose the carmine which ought to have embellished the cheeks."* Scarcely can it be believed that the individual who has just been exhibited in forms at once so ridiculous and repulsive, can, under another phase, have extorted from even a Jesuit the following exalted praise : "Elizabeth is one of those extraordinary persons whose very name imprints in one's mind so great an idea that the noblest descriptions that are given of her are much below it. Never crowned head understood better how to govern, nor made fewer false steps, during so long a reign. Charles the Fifth's friends could easily reckon his mistakes; but Elizabeth's foes were reduced to invent them for her. Thus, in her is verified this of the Gospel, "That often the children of this world are more prudent in their views and aims than the children of light.' Elizabeth's design was to reign, govern, and be mis- tress; to keep her people in obedience, and her neighbors in awe; affecting neither to weaken her subjects nor to encroach on foreigners, yet never suffering any to lessen that supreme power which she equally knew how to maintain by policy or force ; for none at that time had more wit, management, and penetration than she. She understood not the art of war, yet knew so well how to breed excellent soldiers, that England had never seen a greater number, or more experienced, than those which existed during her reign. "f Yet of this great and penetrating sovereign was Lord Robert seems to have been a favorite comic theme with this great author and good man. In one of his letters, he mentions the rapturous and almost perennial fits of laughter into which he and his family were thrown by a friend's transmission to him of a drawing of Queen Elizabeth, repre- senting her dancing, according to. Melville's statement, 'high and dis- posedly.' He writes, in reply, 'The inimitable virago came safe, and was 'welcomed by the inextinguishable laughter of all who looked upon the capricoles.'" Mr. Lockhart adds. "That this production of Mr. Sharpe's pencil, and the delight with which Scott used to expatiate on its merits, must be well remembered by every one who used to visit the poet at Abbotsford."— Lockhart's Life of Scott. What may be the senti- ments of the many, the writer of this note certainly cannot pretend to determine : but, speaking for himself, he can declare that there are few things could occasion him more amusement than the sight of a drawing cleverly executed, representing Elizabeth in her private chamber, danc- ing "high and disposedly." f'Histoire des Revolutions d Angleterre," torn. ii. Paris, 1693.
 * Sir Walter Scott's "History of Scotland," vol. ii. "Queen Elizabeth