ed--Shakspere, Bacon, Sidney,
Hooker, and Raleigh, whose works contributed so much to give vigor,
strength, and elegance, to the English tongue. Literature owes,
however, little to her; she was much more fond of displaying her own
acquirements than encouraging the learned. Whatever countenance
Shakspere received from royalty, he owed to his friends Essex and
Southampton; and Spenser, who has sung the praises of the queen in
"strains divine," died in neglect and poverty.

Elizabeth was fond of multiplying pictures of herself, and so far
encouraged painting. One of her most characteristic ordinances is a
proclamation forbidding all manner of persons from drawing, painting,
graving, &c., her majesty's person and visage, till some perfect
pattern should be prepared by a skilful limner, "for the consolation
of her majesty's loving subjects, who were grieved, and took great
offence, at the errors and deformities committed by sundry persons in
this respect." She was so little capable of judging of works of art,
that she would not allow a painter to put any shadows upon the face,
"because," as she said, "shade is an accident, and not in nature."

During her whole reign, Elizabeth was subjected to the influence of
favorites. The most celebrated of these are the Earls of Leicester and
of Essex. The first was a most weak and worthless man, contemned and
feared by the nobles, and odious to the people; yet, in spite of all
his vices and incapacity, he maintained his influence for nearly
thirty years. Her partiality for Essex seems to have been the dotage
of a vain old woman. She could not appreciate his fine qualities; she
would not make allowance for his faults; and he was too frank and
spirited to cringe at her footstool. "I owe her majesty," said he upon
an occasion when she had repaid some want of obsequiousness by a blow,
"the duty of an earl, but I will never serve her as a villain and a
slave!" Essex was too rash and unsuspecting to be a match for the cool
and wily ministers, whose interest it was to have him out of their
way, not only as the favorite of the present sovereign, but as likely
to be all powerful with her successor; and partly by their arts, and
partly by his own fiery temper, he was brought to the block in the
thirty-fourth year of his age. In the exasperation of offended power
and jealous self-will, the queen signed the warrant for his execution,
and pined away the remainder of her life in unavailing remorse.