and the party prepared to retrace their steps to the palace.

"In the return from church, the gifts of the sponsors, consisting of bowls and cups, some gilded, and others of massy gold, were carried by four persons of quality, viz: Thomas Somerset, second earl of Worcester; Thomas Ratcliff, lord Fitzwalter, afterwards earl of Sussex; and Sir John Dudley, son of the detested associate of Empson, and afterwards the notorious duke of Northumberland; whose crimes received, at length, their due recompence in that ignominious death, to which his guilty and extravagant projects had conducted so many comparatively innocent victims."

When Mr. Wilmot had finished his narration, Mrs. Spencer remarked, that, by the untimely death of Ann Boleyn, the infant princess became a partaker of some of the trouble that involved so many of the distinguished individuals who attended this august ceremony.

"Yes," said Mr. Wilmot; "and there are some curious extracts extant, respecting the petty mortifications she was destined to endure in childhood, whilst the subject of her legitimacy was left unsettled. Passing over these, however, I shall give the girls a short account

of the pursuits that engrossed her youth, and which is taken from some writings of the celebrated Roger Ascham.

"This gentleman says: 'The lady Elizabeth has completed her sixteenth year; and so much solidity and understanding, such courtesy united with dignity, have never been observed at so early an age. She has the most ardent love of true religion, and of the best kind of literature. The constitution of her mind is exempt from female weakness; and she is endued with a masculine power of application. No apprehension can be quicker than hers, no memory more retentive. French and Italian she speaks like English; Latin with fluency, propriety, and judgment: she also spoke Greek with me frequently, willingly, and moderately well. Nothing can be more elegant than her handwriting, whether in the Greek or Roman characters. In music she is very skilful, but does not greatly delight.

"With respect to personal decorations, she greatly prefers a simple elegance to show and splendour; so despising the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing gold, that, in her whole manner of life, she greatly prefers Hippolyta than Phædra.

"She read with me almost the whole of

Cicero, and a great part of Livy: from these two writers, her knowledge of the Latin language has been exclusively derived. The beginning of the day was almost always devoted by her to the New Testament, in Greek; after which, she read select orations of Isocrates, and the tragedies of Sophocles. For her religious instruction, she drew first from the fountains of Scripture, and afterwards from St. Cyprian, the common-places of Melancthon, and similar works, which contain pure doctrine in simple language."

Mrs. Spencer remarked, that Ascham's account of Elizabeth's simplicity in dress was singular, when contrasted with the love of magnificence and show, which she displayed in after life.

"And yet," replied Mr. Wilmot, "his testimony is corroborated by that of Dr. Elmer, or Aylmer, who was tutor to lady Jane Grey and her sisters, and' became, subsequently, during Elizabeth's reign, bishop of London. He thus draws her character, when young, in a work entitled, 'A Harbour for faithful Subjects.'

"The king left her rich clothes and jewels; and I know it to be trne, that, in seven years after her father's death, she never, in all that time, looked upon that rich attire and precious

jewels, but once, and that against her will. And that there never came gold or stone on her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her former soberness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. And then she so wore it, as every man might see that her body carried that which her heart disliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel, in king Edward's time, made the noblemen's wives and daughters to be ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks; being more moved with her most virtuous example, than with all that Peter or Paul wrote on the subject. Yea, this I know, that a great man's daughter, lady Jane Grey, receiving from lady Mary, before she was queen, good apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold, and velvet, laid on with parchment lace of gold, when she saw it, said: "What shall I do with it?' 'Marry!' said a gentlewoman, wear it. 'Nay,' quoth she, 'that were a shame to follow my lady Mary, against God's word.' when all the ladies, at the coming of the Scots queen dowager, Mary of Guise, (she who visited England in Edward's time,) went with their hair frownsed, curled, and double curled, she altered nothing, but kept her old-maidenly shamefacedness.'

And

"Whatever Elizabeth's subsequent taste in

dress might have been, it is evident, that at this period she strictly conformed to the rigid turn of sentiment which prevailed in young Edward's reign. Miss Aikin tells us, that there is a print, from the portrait of her when young, in which the hair is without a single ornament, and the whole dress remarkably plain.

"But I must leave this interesting part of Elizabeth's character, and proceed to the time when the insurrection by Wyatt, of which I have formerly spoken, was made a pretext for confining her person within the Tower.

"Three of the queen's council were dispatched to Ashbridge, to summon her to London; and with such rigour did they execute their commission, that, although on their arrival late at night, they found her confined to her bed with illness, they not only insisted upon seeing her at this time, but, ere the lady to whom they had given their message could deliver it, they rudely burst into the room of the princess, and informed her, that, dead,' they must carry her with them.

alive or

"That Elizabeth had conducted herself with great amiability, may be inferred from the grief with which her servants saw her depart. They naturally anticipated, from the severity of the proceedings, the worst that could befall their