the highest which human nature could attain. The best men had most of it; the rest in their degrees aimed at it, imitated it, affected it, counterfeited it; all acknowledging it. The Elizabethan age lies at the close of the era; the world was passing through a transformation, no one could tell into what; and, as is invariably the case at such times, the forms, the language, the affectations of the expiring period, are forced into an artificial prominence. The beauty of the old is felt more and more as it is passing away: and men cling to it, and hold fast by it, and labour to persuade the spirit to remain with them by fond imitation of the shell. There were more tournaments under Elizabeth than under Cœur de Lion; and Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia remains a perpetual instance how much that is noble, even heroic and sublime, may be imprisoned in the most unreal of forms. In many respects this book is a type of its time. There perhaps never was a period in the history of this country in which there was so noble a generation of men, so much self-sacrifice and devotedness. And there never was any queen or woman, with such high qualifications as those of Elizabeth, placed in circumstances to call out in so high a degree that real chivalry of the heart which we will hope never utterly dies at any time or place. A young woman-for she was young when it all began; beautiful, too-for she was beautiful; standing alone against Europe, the perpetual mark of the assassin, yet never quailing; greatest ever in greatest danger; she, the one champion of what in England, at least, every best and greatest man believed to be the cause of God; what young, generous-hearted man could help devoting himself to her? Even in these dispassionate days there are hearts enough which would leap at such a call, and forget for a while their private lovemakings and money-makings. And now let the affectations of the age have furnished all this feeling with a language, and we see the young English chivalry crowding round Elizabeth's throne, throwing at her VOL. XLVIII. NO. CCLXXXVII. 503 feet themselves, their fortunes, and their lives; imploring with all manner of passionate extravagancefrom the most singleminded devotedness to the most conceited euphuistic coxcombry-to be allowed to live for her and to die for her. In a few it was hollow, but with the many it was sound. They did what they said. These were the men who fought her battles, who did give their lives for her, and-what was perhaps less easy-gave their money; equipping armies, paying campaign expenses, furnishing fleets, fighting, cruising, intriguing; at her work, whatever her service required, and three times blessed when she paid them with a smile or a kind word. This, as we understand it, was the Court of Elizabeth, and here, if anywhere, is the clue to the mysterious letters. Let us try whether it will lead us through them. We will suppose the poor Mouton to have been one of these young enthusiasts, and one of the simplest and truest of them. 'calls God to witness that he has everlastingly vowed his life, liberty, and fortune to his mistress's service;' and till we see better reason to distrust him, we must believe that he said what he meant. He was proud to serve her-proud as the Knight of La Mancha to serve his Dulcinea, and proud of the especial notice with which she distinguished his devo tion. He Let us suppose further-for Elizabeth was no ideal Queen of Fairyland, but a very flesh and blood woman, with as many great gifts and as many little weaknesses as were ever united in a single mortal body-let us suppose that she liked to have all those handsome young men about her: that a personal enjoyment of their devotion to herself mixed itself with her admiration of their loyalty (she was forty at the time when the letters were written, and it is an age when ladies set especial value on such attention); that she liked to see them round her, to receive their homage, and to chain them to her, one after the other, by particular favours. Nothing is more likely; but Mouton could not see it so, or could not bear it if he saw it. He had given her all he had: he had given her his heart and soul; and, after a little, it appeared to be but a child's toy to his unfaithful mistress, L L to be trifled with for an hour, and thrown by for a newer amusement. And then he is heartbroken, dreams passionately of expostulating and reproaching, fashions fluent speeches of indignant despair, believes that the sun is gone out in heaven, and at last consults his friend, who tells him that after all it is no such great matter; let him be himself again, 'put on another mind,' and do his duty like a man and a faithful servant, and all would be well. That was what the Queen really valued, and that was the way to recover her truant affection. And Mouton takes the wise advice and does his duty: does it so well that in trying times he draws on himself the especial hatred of the disaffected and the traitors, narrowly escaping a plot laid to murder him, and he finds that this answers better than reproach, and that after all the Queen had never ceased to love what was truly to be loved in him. He falls ill; she goes to inquire for him every day, and though modern writers may sneer, her subjects loved her for it then. She sends him abroad, and sends her own chamberlain to take care of him; she writes to him kindly and affectionately, telling him among other things that she prayed for his recovery. Why should he not love such a woman? How could he help loving her? Why should he not write, as he did, of that prayer of hers Full sweet will such a life be, that by so noble and sweet a creature is, with so great and kind devotion, asked at the Almighty's hands. God grant it you; not for myself I ask it; but that your everlasting bondman may, with pure heart and diligent faith, everlastingly serve you. Not for himself. There was little thought for himself in poor Hatton, as common reflection ought to have convinced any one. What is the first use which he makes of his returning favour-but, at the risk of her displeasure, to urge on her the never-ceasing prayer of her Ministers, that she would marry. for ever,' he says, 'excellent creature, and love some man to show yourself thankful for God's high labour in you.' It is the echo of Shakspeare's entreaty to his friend: Live Dear my love, you know You had a father; let your son say so. Elizabeth wrote many beautiful things in her life, but scarcely, perhaps, anything more beautiful than this. There is no particular reason to think it was written to Hatton, but it shows what in all such relations her real feelings were: A question once was asked me thus: Must aught be denied a friend's request? Answer me, yea or nay. It was said, Nothing. And first it is best to scan what a friend is, which I think nothing else but friendship's harbour. Now it followeth what friendship is, which I deem to be one uniform consent between two minds, such as virtue links and naught but death can break. Therefore I think that the house that shrinketh from his foundation shall down for me; for friend leaves he to be that doth demand more than the giver's grant may with reason yield, and if so, then my friend no more my foe. God send thee mend; and if needly thou must will, yet at the least no power be thine to achieve thy desire; for when minds differ and opinions swerve, there is scarce a friend in that company. But if my hap have fallen in so happy a soil as one such be found that wills but that beseems, and I be pleased with that he so allows, I bid myself farewell and then I am but his. Sir Harris Nicolas allows that this letter does something towards doing away the injurious impressions which he had gathered from the rest. But even here he finds traces that the Queen sometimes repressed improper wishes'-Truly to the unclean all things are unclean;but we will leave him now, noticing but one more of his comments, in which he outrivals even Cardinal Allen. Alluding to the last of Hatton's letters, 'It is remarkable,' he says, with little-minded significance, that though this letter is full of humility and contrition, and though he admits his too high presumptions towards her Majesty, yet he prays her to remember the causes, which were,' as he says, 'as unfit for him as unworthy of her.' He supposes that Hatton is reminding the Queen that she once had done a discreditable thing. It is very like the 'natural issue.' In one of the most ordinary of the Elizabethan antitheses, he tells us that her kindness to him had been as much above his merit as she had stooped below her dignity in showing it. And now need we say any more? Let us lay the two interpretations side by side, and choose fairly whichever offers the fewest difficulties. Shall we suppose Queen Elizabeth to have been an infamous woman, who, with a circle continually round her of those who alternately shared her favour, turned as she pleased from courtier to courtier, changing them as her appetite tired, as she might change the dishes at her table; that, in a manner too shocking to be conceived, all this went on without disguise or concealment, winked at by the statesmen, passed by with indifference by the clergy-a thing so notorious as never to be even mentioned in the enormous mass of correspondence, private and public, which remains to us; or, if the rumour of such a thing is mentioned, mentioned with a hypocritical affectation of horror, which is still more detestable? Shall we take this? It is what Cardinal Allen tells us was the real truth; and if we take it at all we must take the picture complete, for there is no feature of it which can be softened. Shall we take this? or shall we take the other, in which there is no shame at all-no shame, but rather beauty? Surely if we hesitate at all it will be because it is so hard, when we fancied that we had detected a disgrace, to find that it is but a new virtue. We can bear to retire upon a smaller fault, where before we had supposed a great one. But it is humiliating to our discernment to acknowledge so vast an error. Well, then, we must make the fall a soft one. It is cruel to be obliged to think so very well of our fellowcreatures, and we must contrive to leave some loophole for a depreciating word. There is Bacon's alternative; we may consider such love toy 505 ing beneath the dignity of serious times and persons. We may comfort ourselves, too, with recollecting that we have discovered genuine traces of weakness, vanity, and perhaps littleness. All this is something, and may serve in a measure to reconcile us. From our foreign ambassadors, too, we will not part without a word of palliation. It is true that they were all engaged in conspiracies to assassinate the Queen and revolutionize the kingdom; but we must remember that Elizabeth was excommunicated, and therefore the first was permitted, and the second had the promise of a blessing. And we must say seriously for them that they were strange to English manners, and may perhaps have been only mistaken, when at first we thought them wicked. Sir Philip Sidney describes the court as the marriage-place of love and virtue,' and the Queen as a Diana apparelled in the garments of Venus.' It is quite possible that they mistook the costume for the reality, and interpreted what they saw by their experience of Paris and Madrid. So, therefore, let us leave them: with the stories which remain, stories in which the names appear of the Duke of Anjou, Simier, Raleigh, Essex, Oxford-we have no intention of proceeding. We have seen what the evidence has been for those which we have examined-for the rest there is really none. Their feeble title to be believed is presumptive probability from the truth of the first; and when these fare so badly at the trial, why should we tempt the patience or disgust the good feeling of our readers with any more of it? Rather let us drive it all out of our memory and forget that it has ever been. EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF A VISIT TO NEW SOUTH WALES IN 1853. WE sighted the low line of coast about Sydney Heads, at ten A.M., took a pilot at three, and came to an anchor in Sydney Cove at six. We were agreeably surprised by the beauty of the harbour, of which, though we had heard a good deal, we had not heard enough. It is a winding inlet, about seven miles long from the Heads to the Cove, and varying from half a mile to two miles broad. It is diversified by islands and headlands innumerable, all covered with wood, though now unfortunately the wood is low scrub only, the tall forest trees having been almost all cut down. The shores rise into low hills, without any great boldness or beauty of outline, but still very pretty and picturesque, from being covered with villas and gardens, peeping in every direction through the bush.' The life and animation which is almost essential to beauty of landscape, are supplied by the numerous shipping with which every part of the harbour is studded. The town of Sydney does not appear to great advantage from the sea, the only remarkable building being the Government House, a rather fine baronial-looking edifice, though of a style (the Tudor Gothic, not very well carried out) which is not suited either to the age or to the country. It is beautifully situated in a large, wellwooded park, called the Domain ;' the rooms are capital. The harbour is, I should think, unrivalled for commerce. Its peculiar excellence consists in the numberless coves and bays, the uniform depth of water, which enables the largest merchant ships to lie alongside the shore, the goodness of the anchorage, and the absence of all hidden dangers, except one reef, where a light-ship is moored. The number and movement of the shipping are wonderful; the day before we came in, eleven ships, with 700 people on board, arrived from Melbourne alone; and the departures are of course proportionate. We landed as soon as the vessel came to an anchor, bent on buying peaches, and taking a walk in the Domain,' all but a small part of which is open as a place of public recreation. As it was Sunday evening, too, we went to service in the first church we came to, a most queer looking building, which we were told was the first permanent Anglican church erected in the southern hemisphere, and which was comically enough, as we were told, called St. Phillip's, because Governor Phillip was in office at the time. We observed nothing very remarkable in our walk, except that there were two tame emus at the gate of the Domain,' which the soldiers at the guard-house were feeding with bread, and that all the people, especially the women, whom we met, seemed to be very smartly dressed. During the night we had our first taste of the Sydney mosquitoes, which we found to constitute a plague to new comers hardly to be described. Next morning we landed again after breakfast, and went to the Botanical Gardens, with which we were delighted; they are justly the pride of Sydney. Almost every country and climate in the world has its vegetable representative there. There is the oak, the lime, and the pine, beside the banana, the mango, and the bamboo, all flourishing in nearly equal luxuriance. I never regretted so much before not being a botanist, and I thought how would give the best year of his life for an evening's walk here. However, even an ignoramus like myself could admire and enjoy the picturesque situation of the gardens, on the shores of one of the lovely inlets of the harbour, the taste with which they are laid out, and the extreme beauty and variety of the plants, trees, and flowers. I left on some benches close to the water, while I started to look for lodgings. It would be endless to recount the adventures and disappointments of that search, which lasted two whole days; I visited, I should think, fifty houses, including the chief hotels, and was rejected everywhere. At one place where I thought I should be successful, the negotiation was peremptorily closed when the landlady heard I had children; at another, the landlord, a cross little man, who asked me six guineas a week for two small rooms and the use (along with the other lodgers) of a parlour, finally repulsed me by announcing that his servants could not cook for us, although we might have the use of his kitchen to cook in for ourselves. At most places, however, the answer was prompt and decisive We have no room,' till I really began to think I should have to beg or borrow a couple of tents, and get leave to pitch them in the 'Domain.' In the end, however, I fared better than I could possibly have expected; for, having gone into a shop to buy a hat, and mentioning by chance my forlorn situation to the hatter, he said perhaps he could manage to accommodate us; so I took him at his word, and carried him off to get his wife's consent, and see the house. To make a long story short, we got a good large sitting-room and two bedrooms for the comparatively small sum of 4l. a week. This was on the third day of our travels in search of a lodging, and during the whole time I had done hardly anything but search. My belief at the time was, that I had got precisely the last decent lodgings which were to be had in Sydney, and that the next comers must sleep in the streets. As soon as we got into them I proceeded to deliver the letters of introduction I was armed with, and we soon found ourselves embarked in a 'vortex of dissipation,' receiving and returning visits, dining out, and driving. I was made, too, an honorary member of the Australian Club, a very comfortable and gentlemanlike establishment, with some seventy or eighty members. Nothing could exceed the kindness and cordiality with which we were received every where. Our first drive was to the 'South Head,' where the lighthouse stands, about nine miles from Sydney, along the shore of the harbour. It is a beautiful drive, on a pretty good road, up and down hills, and presenting various most lovely views of the sea, the shipping, the town, and the wooded hills skirting the harbour. The road is lined with the grounds of villas, which are generally built close to the water; every now and then you pass through a bit 507 of the original forest, which is as unlike as possible both to that of New Zealand and that of Europe. It has neither the dense foliage, luxuriant creepers, and impenetrable underwood of the former, nor the green glades, alternating with cover, of the latter. The Australian woods, composed chiefly of different species of the eucalyptus, or gum-tree, are sparse, scanty, and altogether destitute of shrubs and parasites. The gum-tree's leaves are hung perpendicularly, not horizontally, so as to present the sharp edge to the sun, and the consequence is, that the shadow even of the thickest of the trees is hardly perceptible. They stand, too, so far apart, that it is easy to ride, and even to drive, amongst them in every direction. Another peculiarity is, that every summer they cast their bark, which falls off in strips, leaving the wood bare and white, till the young bark forms and covers it again. I understand that on the alluvial flats, trees arrive at a great size; but they never equal those of New Zealand or Van Diemen's Land; indeed, if the stories I have heard, from apparently good authority, be true, no country in the world can in this respect be compared to Tasmania. One tree was described, in a paper read before a literary society in Hobart Town, as forty-two feet in diameter three feet from the ground! and one hundred and eighty feet to the lowest branch. No wood anywhere, I believe, equals in hardness some of the Australian timber, especially what is called the iron bark,' upon which, when seasoned, the sharpest axe makes no more impression than on marble. Some of it has lately been exported to England, with the idea that it may be used in ship-building. It is too heavy for the beams, ribs, or planks, but it would probably be suitable for keels, the main pieces of rudders, &c., where great strength and hardness are required. The best native wood used at Sydney is what they callcedar.' It is very handsome, resembling mahogany. The only pine I saw (except a few Norfolk Island pines) was the Moreton Bay,' the wood of which is brittle, so that New Zealand timber, being softer, less liable to shrink, and easier to work than the gums, is in |