The weekly Shasta courier., 1873-02-15
The Loves of Elizabeth.

The sex OF Elizabeth OF England was
physiological blunder. Many of her most
serious defects arose from her not having
been a man, as Nature must have originally
designed. With a masculine will, mascu-
line character, and masculine ambition, she
had all the feminine weaknesses without any
of the feminine graces or charms. Her van
ity 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 exceeding
misfortune to be least lovable when she low
ed most. There was no great need of affec-
ton in her stubborn spirit, no yearning for
sympathy in her self-sufficient nature, no in
appeasabie craving for what the romanticists
would call an intercourse of soul. She want
ed lovers more that love, because lovers fiat
tered her inordinate vanity, and told her, as
lovers usually do, that which she secretly
thought of herself She never tired of hear
ing she was the Virgin Queen, and never
acted as if she reished the arrogated honor.
| Coquetry she would have carried to a peril
GUS degree, if there had been anything per-
ilous in such homely Amazon. Not one
of all the men she had desperate and pro-
tracted fllrtations with--not even Raleigh.
nor Leicester, nor Essex-cared q 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 to refrain from laughing in Eli
zabeth'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 ad-
dress Euryale in the language becoming to
Aglaia. Raleigh showed his keenness of in
sight when he spread his rich mantle beneath
her ungainly feet, and Leicester his under.
standing 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 crown-the sole aim of their
gallant masquerading.
The secret loves of Elizabeth and Seymour,
and Raleigh, ana Leicester, and Essex, and
others, have often been written, and not, it
is to be presumed, without basis Of truth.
But love is a fine baptism for relations spring
ing from vanity on one side and from con-
siderations of diplomacy on the other. The
Princess in her earlier years appeared to be
1 lOuu vi pc1iuUuf, anu III Is CIldTlIdUl6 10
think she was. Pretty stories have been
told of the Countess of Nottingham's with
holding the ring sent to the Queen by Essex
before his execution, and of the consuming
sorrow from which Elizabeth suffered after
his DEATH The stories are dramatic and in
terestiDg their chief defect being that they
are entirely untrue. The woman whose rep
utation had been almost irreparably injured
| by her connection with man of whom she
could calmly say after his execution, His
loss is not much for though he had large
wit, he had little Judgment" would not be
likely to be troubled by remorse for deliber-
ately sending her nearest friend to the scaf-
| fold.
Elizabeth could not forgive in any of her
| sisters the possession of gifts and graces
which she must have been privately conscious
were lacking in herself. Mary Stuart's un-
pardonable offense was her beauty and Sc
ductive charm, and her rival was never able
to regard with kindness the men who. will
| ing to forget the woman in the sovereign,
had sought her hand, and afterward welded
where inclination led. There is species OF
dismal compensation in all conditions oflife.
If Elizabeth faIled to awaken in any mascu-
line breast the fame with which she hoped
! to kindle the torch Of her vanity, and If her
vestal assumptions were not always credit
ed, she had the good fortune, so surrounded
was she by distinguished soldiers. statesmen
and scholars, to shine with the light reflect
ed from them, and bear in history glory
not her own" Historic L0rers, in The
GALAXY.
i ~