Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-11-21
THE LOVES OF ELIZABETH.

lhe sex OF Elizabeth OF England was
physiological blunder. Many of her
most serious defects arose from her not
having been man, as nature must
originally have designed. With mas
culine will, masculine ambition, she
had all the feminine weaknesses without
any of the feminine graces or charms
Her vanity was in excess of her pride,
and, in spite of her unquestionable
greatness, rendered her ridiculous
through life. She was ever anxious to
be loved and had the misfortune to be
least lovable when she loved most.
There was no great need Of affection in
her stubborn spirit, no yearning for
sympathy in her self-suficent nature,
no inappeasable craving for what the
romsnticists would call an intercourse
of soul. She wanted lovers more than
love, because lovers hattered her inordi-
nate vanity, and told her, as lovers usu-
ally do, that which she secretly thought
of herself. She never tired of hearing
that she was the Virgin Queen, and
never acted as if she relished the arro-
gated honor. Coquetry she would have
carried to perilous degree, il there
had been anything perilous in such a
homely Amazon. Not one Of all the
men she had desperate and protracted
flirtations with-not even Raleigh, nor
Leicester, nor Essex-cared maravedi
for her in the way she wished them to;
but from reasons of state, and from
motives of policy, they pretended to
adore her.
Crafty courtiers as they were, it must
have been difficult for them to refrain
from laughing in Elizabeth's face when
they called her beautiful, or when they
compared her voice to the tones of the
lutte. They had passed through many
hardships, but nothing harder than to
address Euryale in the language becom-
ing to Aglaia. Raleigh showed his
keenness of insight when he spread his
rich mantle beneath her ungainly feet,
and Leicester his understanding Of
character when he wrote to her that her
lovely image banished sleep from his
pillow. OF her numerous suitors none
would have given FLIP for her heart,
but much for her orown-the sole aim
OF their gallant masquerading.
The secret loves OF Elizabeth and Sey-
mour, and Raleigh, and Leicester, and
Essex, and others, have often been writ
ten, and not it is to be presumed, with
out basis Of truth. Bot love is fine
baptism for relations springing from
vanity on one side and from considera-
tions of diplomacy on the other. The
Princess in her earlier years appeared
to be fond of Seymour, and it is charit-
able TO think she was. Pretty stories
have been told of the Countess of Not
tingham's Withholding the ring sent to
the Queen by Essex before his execu-
ton, and of the consuming sorrow from
which Elizabeth suffered after his death.
The stories are dramatic and interesting;
their chief defect being that they are
entirely untrue. The woman whose rep
utation had been almost irreparably in
jured by her connection with man Of
whom she could calmly say after his ex-
eeution, His loss is not muohi for
though he had large wit, he had little
Judgment" would not be likely to be |
troubled by remorse for deliberately |
sspdiug her nearest friend to the scat
fold.
Elizabeth could not forgive in any Of
her sisters the possession Of gifts and
grsces which she must have been pri-
vately conscious we're lacking in herself |
Mary Stnart's objectionable offence was
her beauty and seductive charm, aud
her rival was never able TO regard with |
kindness the men who, willing to forget |
the woman in the sovereign, had sought
her hand, and aherward welded where
inclination led. There is a species of
dismal compensation in all conditions |
Of life. II Elizabeth failed to awaken in |
any masculine breast the fame with |
which she hoped to kindle the torch OF
her vanity, and if her vestal assumptions
were not always credited, she had the |
good fortuRe, so surrounded was she by
soldiers, statesmen and
scholars, to shine with the light reflected |
from them, and bear in history q glory |
not her own" Historic LoUers," by
yHlfus Henri Broione, IN December
GALAXY.