by deputy, as related in 2 Kings ix. 1—3. During the reigns of J ehu and Jehoahaz the Scripture narrative con- tains no notice of Elisha, but from the circumstances of his death Kings xiii. 14—91) it is clear that he had continued to hold the office and receive the honours of a prophet. J oash the king waited on him on his deathbed, and addressed him in the same words of profound reverence and regret which he himself had used to Elijah : “ Oh my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof.” By the result of a symbolic discharge of arrows he informed the king of his coming success against Syria, and immediately thereafter he died. It seems fitly to com- plete the contrast between him and his greater predecessor to be told expressly that “ he was buried.” The miracle
wrought at his tomb has been already noticed.Elisha is canonized in the Greek Church, his festival being on the 14th June, under which date his life is entered in the Add Sanctorum.
ELIZABETH, queen of England, one of the most fortu- nate and illustrious of modern sovereigns, was born in the palace of Greenwich on the 7th of September 1533. She was the only surviving issue of the ill-starred union between Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, which extended over a space of less than three years. Anne was crowned at Westminster June 15, 1533, and was beheaded within the Tower of London May 19, 1536. The girlish beauty and vivacity of Anne Boleyn, with her brief career of royal splendour and her violent death, invest her story with a portion of romantic interest; but she does not seem to have possessed any solid virtues or intellectual superiority. The name of Elizabeth cannot be added to the list of eminent persons who are said to have inherited their peculiar talents and dispositions from the side of the mother. On the contrary, she closely resembled her father in many respects,—in his stout heart and haughty temper, his strong self-will and energy, and his love of courtly pomp and magnificence. Combined with these, however, there was in Elizabeth a degree of politic caution and wisdom, with no small dis- simulation and artifice, which certainly does not appear in the character of “ bluff King Harry.” Early hardships and dangers had taught Elizabeth prudence and suspicion, as well as afforded opportunity in her forced retirement for the pursuit of learning and for private accomplishments. The period of her youth was an interesting and memorable one in English history. The doctrines of the Reformation had spread from Germany to this country ; and the passions and interests of Henry led him to adopt in part the new faith, or at least to abjure the grand tenet of the Papal supremacy. Anne Boleyn, by her charms and influence, facilitated this great change ; and there is historical truth as well as poetical beauty in the couplet of Gray,
“ That Love could teach a monarch to be wise, And gospel light first dawn’d from Boleyn’s eyes."
The Protestantism of England was henceforth linked to Elizabeth’s title to the crown. She was in her fourteenth year when her father King Henry died. Her education had been carefully attended to, latterly under the superintend- ence of good Catherine Parr, the last of Henry’s queens. The young princess was instructed in Greek and Latin, first by \Villiarn Grindal, and afterwards by Roger Ascham, who has described his pupil in glowing terms as “ exempt from female weakness,” and endued with a masculine power of application, quick apprehension, and retentive memory. She spoke French and Italian with fluency, was elegant in her penmanship, whether in the Greek or Roman character, and was skilful in music, though she did not delight in it. “ W'ith respect to personal decoration,” adds Ascham, “ she greatly prefers a simple elegance to show and splendour.” This last characteristic, if it ever existed, (lid not abide with Elizabeth. Her love of rich dresses, jewels, and other ornaments was excessive ; and at her death she is said to have had about 2000 costly suits of all countries in her wardrobe. Nor can it be said that even at the tender age of sixteen, when Roger Ascham drew her flattering portrait, Elizabeth was exempt from female weakness. After the death of Henry, the queen-dowager married the Lord Admiral Seymour, whose gallantries and ambition em- bittered her latter days. Seymour paid court to the Princess Elizabeth, and with the connivance of her governess, Mrs Ashley, obtained frequent interviews, in which much boisterous and indelicate familiarity passed. The graver court ladies found fault with “ my lady Elizabeth’s going in a night in a barge upon Thames, and for other light parts ;” and the scandal proceeded so far as to become matter of examination by the council. Mrs Ashley and Thomas Parry, cofl'erer of the princess’s household (after- wards patronized by Elizabeth), were committed for a time to the Tower, and Elizabeth underwent an examination by Sir Thomas Tyrwhit, but would confess nothing. “She hath a very good wit,” said Tyrwhit, “ and nothing is gotten of her but by great policy.” The subsequent dis- grace and death of Seymour closed this first of Elizabeth’s love passages; she applied herself diligently to her studies under Ascham, and maintained that “ policy ” and caution which events rendered more than ever necessary.
The premature death of Edward VI. called forth a dis play of Elizabeth’s sagacity and courage. Edward had been prevailed upon by the duke of N orthumberland to dispose of the crown by will to his cousin Lady Jane Grey. The two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, on whom the succession had been settled by the testamentary provisions of Henry VIII., as well as by statute, were thus excluded. Mary’s friends immediately took up arms; Elizabeth was asked to resign her title in consideration of a sum of money, and certain lands which should be assigned to her; but she rejected the proposal, adding that her elder sister should be treated with first, as during Mary’s lifetime she herself had no right to the throne. Elizabeth then rallied her friends and followers, and when Mary approached London, successful and triumphant, she was met by Elizabeth at the head of 1000 horse knights, squires, and ladies, with their attendants. Such a congratulation merited a different acknowledgment from that which Elizabeth was fated to experience. But the temper of Mary, never frank or amiable, had been soured by neglect, persecution, and ill- health; and her fanatical devotion to the ancient religion had become the absorbing and ruling passion of her mind. She was not devoid of private virtues,—-certainly excelling Elizabeth in sincerity and depth of feeling; but her virtues “walked a narrow round;” and whenever the Remish Church was in question, all feelings of private tenderness, and all considerations of public expediency or justice, were with Mary as flax in the fire. The five years of her reign are perhaps the most un-English epoch in our annals.[1]
- ↑ Miss Lucy Aikin, in her Jllemoirs 0f the Court of Elizabeth, praises the magnanimity of Elizabeth in allowing Shakespeare’s drama of Henry VIII., in which the wrongs and sufferings of Catherine of Aragon are embalmed, to be publicly offered to the compassion of her people. We wish that this instance of magnanimity could be justly ascribed to the queen ; but it seems certain that Shakespeare's Henry VIII. was not produced till after Elizabeth’s death. No poet would have dared to hint at the death of the queen while she lived ; and Cranmer's prophecy in the fifth act speaks of the death of Eliza- beth and of her successor James. We have Ben J onsw’s testimony as to Shakespeare’s favour with Elizabeth,— “ Those flights upon the banks of Thames, That 50 did take Eliza and our James.” And the tradition that the poet wrote his filerry lt’ives of Windsor by request of the queen, who wished to see Falstafi' in love, is at least highly probable. One of the latest Shakespearean discovenes is that the poet, along with his “ fellows ” Kempe and Burbage, acted in two plays before the queen at Greenwich in December 1594, for which they received, upon the Conncil's warrant, £13, 63. 8d. and, “ by way of her Majesty's favour," £6, 188. 4d.—in all £20 (Halliwell's Illus- trations, 1874).
