"She said my French was good, and asked if I could speak Italian which
she spoke reasonably well.... Then she spake to me in Dutch [_i.e._,
German], which was not good; and would know what kind of books I most
delighted in, whether theology, history, or love matters." She manages
to keep Melville two days longer than he had intended to stay "till I
might see her dance, as I was afterward informed. Which being over, she
inquired of me whether she or my Queen danced best? I answered the Queen
danced not so high and disposedly as she did."

This woman, nevertheless, with so many frailties and ultra-feminine
vanities, was a sovereign with a will and a purpose. Even in the midst
of this talk about buskins, love-books and virginals, it shone out. So
much so, that hearing she is resolved not to marry, the Scottish
ambassador immediately retorts in somewhat blunt fashion: "I know the
truth of that, madam, said I, and you need not tell it me. Your Majesty
thinks if you were married, you would be but Queen of England, and now
you are both King and Queen. I know your spirit cannot endure a
commander."[60]

The same singular combination may be observed in the literary works of
her time: flowers of speech and vanities abound, but they are not
without an aim. Rarely was any sovereign so completely emblematic of his
or her period. She may almost be said to be the key to it; and it may be
very well asserted that whatever the branch of art or literature of this
epoch you wish to understand, you must first study Elizabeth.

Her taste for finery and jewels remained to the last. Hentzner, a
German, who saw her many years after Melville, describes her coming out
of her chapel at Greenwich Palace, in 1598. She has greatly altered; she
is no longer the young princess that would publicly forget etiquette at
Westminster for the sake of Robert Dudley; but she still glitters with
jewels and ornaments. "Next came the Queen, in the sixty-fifth year of
her age, as we were told, very majestic; her face oblong, fair, but
wrinkled, her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little
hooked, her lips narrow, and her teeth black.... She had in her ears two
pearls, with very rich drops; she wore false hair and that red; upon her
head she had a small crown.... Her bosom was uncovered as all the
English ladies have till they marry, and she had on a necklace of
exceeding fine jewels; her hands were small, her fingers long, and her
stature neither ta