with her majesty, she pulled off her gloves more than a hundred times to display her hands, which indeed were very beautiful and very white."

Houssaie, in his Memoires Historiques, &c. vol. I. p. 74, has given the following anecdote of Elizabeth, which I give in his own words, but do not venture to translate so scandalous, though so gallant an interview.

"Un jour, Nicolas de Harlay, étant à l'audience de la reine d'Angleterre Elizabeth, lui coula quelque mot de mariage avec le roi son maitre. Il ne faut pas songer a cela, repondit-elle; mon Gendarme (c'est le nom de guerre qu'elle donnoit à Henri IV.) n'est pas mon fait, ni moi le sien : non pas que je ne sois encore en état de donner du plaisir à un mari qui me conviendroit, mais pour d'autres raisons. Là-dessus levant ses jupes et le bas de sa chemise, elle lui montra sa cuisse. Harlay mit un genou à terre, et la lui baisa. Elizabeth s'en facha, ou fit semblant de s'en facher, comme d'un manquement de respect. Madame dit-il, pardonnez-moi ce que je viens de faire: c'est ce qu'auroit fait mon Maitre, s'il en avoit vu autant. Cette excuse plut à la reine qui se connoissoit fort en galanterie, et Henri IV. en loua Harlay,"

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Another anecdote, not less curious, relates to the affair of the Duke of Anjou and our Elizabeth, and one more proof of her partiality for

handsome men.

The writer was Lewis Guyon,

a contemporary of the times he notices.

"Francis Duke of Anjou being desirous of marrying a crowned head, caused proposals of marriage to be made to Elizabeth Queen of England. Letters passed betwixt them, and their portraits were exchanged. At length her majesty informed him, that she would never contract a marriage with any one who sought her, if she did not first see his person. If he would not come, nothing more should be said on the subject. This prince, over-pressed by his young friends, (who were as little able of judging as himself,) paid no attention to the counsels of men of maturer judgment. He passed over to England without a splendid train. The said lady contemplated his person: she found him ugly, disfigured by deep scars of the small-pox, and that he also had an ill-shaped nose, with swellings in the neck! All these were so many reasons with her, that he could never be admitted into her good graces."

Puttenham, in his very rare book of the " Art of Poesie," p. 248, notices the grace and majesty of Elizabeth's demeanour, "her stately manner of walk, with a certaine granditie rather than gravitie, marching with leysure, which our sovereign ladye and mistresse is accustomed to doe generally, unless it be when she walketh for apace

her pleasure, or to catch her a heate in the cold mornings."

By the following extract from a letter from one of her gentlemen, one may discover that her usual habits, though studious, were not of the gentlest kind, and that the service she exacted from her attendants was not borne without concealed murmurs. The writer groans in secrecy to his friend. It is thus Sir John Stanhope writes to Sir Robert Cecil in 1598. "I was all the afternowne with her majestie, at my booke, and then thinking to rest me, went in agayne with your letter. She was pleased with the Filosofer's stone, and hath ben all this daye reasonably quyett. Mr. Grevell is absent, and I am tyed so as I cannot styrr, but shall be at the wourse for yt, these two dayes !"...

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Puttenham, p. 249, has also recorded an honourable anecdote of Elizabeth, and characteristic of that high majesty which was in her thoughts, as well as in her actions. When she came to the crown, a knight of the realm who had insolently behaved to her when Lady Elizabeth, fell upon his knees to her, and besought her pardon, suspecting to be sent to the tower, she replied mildly, "Do you not know that we are descended of the Lion, whose nature is not to harme or prey upon the mouse, or any other such small vermin?"

Queen Elizabeth was taught to write by the

celebrated Roger Ascham. Her writing is extremely beautiful and correct, as may be seen by examining a little manuscript book of prayers, preserved in the British Museum. I have seen her first writing book preserved at Oxford in the Bodleian Library; the gradual improvement of her majesty's hand writing, is very honourable to her diligence; but the most curious thing is the paper on which she tried her pens; this she usually did by writing the name of her beloved brother Edward; a proof of the early and ardent attachment she formed of that amiable Prince.

The education of Elizabeth had been severely classical; she thought, and she wrote in all the spirit of the great characters of antiquity; and her speeches and her letters are studded with apothegms, and a terseness of ideas and language, that give an exalted idea of her mind. In her evasive answers to the Commons, in reply to their petition to her majesty to marry, she has employed an energetic word. Were I (said she) to tell you that I. do not mean to marry, I might say less than I intend; and were I to tell you that I do mean to marry, I might say more than it is proper for you to know; therefore I give you an answer, AnSWERLESS!

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE.

THE Chinese language is like no other on the

globe; it is said to contain not more than about 330 words, but it is by no means monotonous, for it has four accents, the even, the raised, the lessened, and the returning, which multiply every word into four; as difficult (says Mr. Astle) for an European to understand, as it is for a Chinese to comprehend the six pronunciations of the French E. In fact they can so diversify their monosyllabic words by the different tones which they give them, that the same character differently accented, signifies sometimes ten or more different things.

From the Twenty-ninth volume of the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses I take the present critically humorous account of this language.

P. Bourgeois, one of the missionaries, attempted after ten months residence at Pekin, to preach in the Chinese language. These are the words of the good father. "God knows how much this first Chinese sermon cost me! I can assure you, this language resembles no other. The same word has never but one termination; and then adieu to all that in our declensions distinguishes the gender, and the number of things we would speak; adieu, in the verbs, to all which might explain the active person, how and in what time it acts, if it acts alone or with others: in a word with the Chinese, the same word is substantive, adjective, verb, singular, plural, masculine, feНн

VOL. I.