Year: 1873

The 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 a masculine will, a mascG-
line character, and masculine ambition,
she had all the feminine weaknesses, with
out any of the feminine graces or charms
Her vanity was in excess OF her pride.
and, in spite of her unquestionable great
ness, rendered her ridiculous through life.
She was ever anxious to be loved, and
had the exceeding 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 the
selt-sutficlent nature no OinaDpeasable crav-
ing for what the romanticists would call
anintercourse of the soul. She wanted loy-
ers more than love, because lovers flatter-
ed her inordinate vanity, and told her. as
lovers usually 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 ar
rogated honor. Coquetry she would have
carried to perilous degree, if there had
been anything perilous in so homelv an
amazon. Not one OF the men she had
desperate and protracted firtations with
not even Raleigh, nor Leicester, nor
Essex-cared a marvedi for her in the
way she wished them to but from reasons
of state, and from motives of policy. they
pretended to adore her. The secret loves
Of Elizabeth and Seymour, and Raleigh,
and Leicester, and Essex, and others,
have often been written, and not, it is to
be presumed. without basis of truth.
But love is fine baptism for relations
sprlnging from vanity on one side and
from considerations of diplomacy on the
other. The Princess in her earlier years
appeared to be fond of Seymour, and it is
charitable to think she was Pretty sto-
ries have been told of the Countess of
Nottingham'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 chiet defect being that they are en-
tirely untrue. The woman whose reputa-
ton had been almost irreparably injured
by her connection with man Cf whom
she could calmly say after his execution,
"His loss is not much for though he had
large W.T., he had little Judgment"
would not be likely to be troubled by re-
morse tor deliberately sending her near
est friend to the scaffold. Elizabeth could
not forgive in any of her sisters the pos
session of gifts which she must have been
privately conscious were lacking in her.
self Mary Stuart's objectionable offepse
was her beauty and seductive charm, and
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 afterward welded where
inclination led. There is species of dis
NAL compensation in all conditions OF
life. If Elizabeth failed to awaken in any
masculine breast the flame with which
she had hoped to kindle the torch of her
vanity, and if her vestal assumptions were
not always credited, she had the good
fortune so surrounded was she by distin-
guished soldiers, statesmen and scholars,
to shine with the light reflected from them,
and bear in history glory not her own.
Galaxy.