t will feel
that therefore they are most bound to be just--when they will
confess the exceeding wickedness of the desire to distort or
suppress a fact, or misrepresent a character--when they will ask as
solemnly to be delivered from the temptation to this, as to any
crime which is punished by law.

The clergy ought especially to lead the way in this reformation.
They have erred grievously in perverting history to their own
purposes. What was a sin in others was in them a blasphemy, because
they professed to acknowledge God as the Ruler of the world, and
hereby they showed that they valued their own conclusions above the
facts which reveal His order. They owe, therefore, a great amende
to their country, and they should consider seriously how they can
make it most effectually. I look upon this Play as an effort in
this direction, which I trust may be followed by many more. On this
ground alone, even if its poetical worth was less than I believe it
is, I should, as a clergyman, be thankful for its publication.

F. D. M.

INTRODUCTION

The story which I have here put into a dramatic form is one familiar
to Romanists, and perfectly and circumstantially authenticated.
Abridged versions of it, carefully softened and sentimentalised, may
be read in any Romish collection of Lives of the Saints. An
enlarged edition has been published in France, I believe by Count
Montalembert, and translated, with illustrations, by an English
gentleman, which admits certain miraculous legends, of later date,
and, like other prodigies, worthless to the student of human
character. From consulting this work I have hitherto abstained, in
order that I might draw my facts and opinions, entire and unbiassed,
from the original Biography of Elizabeth, by Dietrich of Appold, her
contemporary, as given entire by Canisius.

Dietrich was born in Thuringia, near the scene of Elizabeth's
labours, a few years before her death; had conversed with those who
had seen her, and calls to witness 'God and the elect angels,' that
he had inserted nothing but what he had either understood from
religious and veracious persons, or read in approved writings, viz.
'The Book of the Sayings of Elizabeth's Four Ladies (Guta,
Isentrudis, and two others)'; 'The Letter which Conrad of Marpurg,
her Director, wrote to Pope Gregory the Ninth' (these two documents
still exist); 'The Sermon of Otto' (de Ordine Praedic), which begins
thus: 'Mulierem fortem.'

'No