is evinced in the fact that
she did spare the life of Elizabeth. Here her better impulses gained the
victory over craft and policy and religious intolerance, and rescued her
name from the infamy to which such a crime would have doomed her, and
which her Church would have sanctioned, and in which it would have
rejoiced as much as it did in the slaughter of Saint Bartholomew.

The crocodile tears which Elizabeth is said to have shed when the death
of her sister Mary was announced to her at Hatfield were soon wiped away
in the pomps and enthusiasms which hailed her accession to the throne.
This was in 1558, when she was twenty-five, in the fulness of her
attractions and powers. Great expectations were formed of her wisdom and
genius. She had passed through severe experiences; she had led a life of
study and reflection; she was gifted with talents and graces. "Her
accomplishments, her misfortunes, and her brilliant youth exalted into
passionate homage the principle of loyalty, and led to extravagant
panegyrics." She was good-looking, if she was not beautiful, since the
expression of her countenance showed benignity, culture, and vivacity.
She had piercing dark eyes, a clear complexion, and animated features.
She was in perfect health, capable of great fatigue, apt in business,
sagacious, industrious, witty, learned, and fond of being surrounded
with illustrious men. She was high-church in her sympathies, yet a
Protestant in the breadth of her views and in the fulness of her
reforms. Above all, she was patriotic and disinterested in her efforts
to develop the resources of her kingdom and to preserve it from
entangling wars.

The kingdom was far from being prosperous when Elizabeth assumed the
reins of government, and it is the enormous stride in civilization which
England made during her reign, beset with so many perils, which
constitutes her chief claim to the admiration of mankind. Let it be
borne in mind that she began her rule in perplexities, anxieties, and
embarrassments. The crown was encumbered with debts; the nobles were
ambitious and factious; the people were poor, dispirited, unimportant,
and distracted by the claims of two hostile religions. Only one bishop
in the whole realm was found willing to crown her. Scotland was
convulsed with factions, and was a standing menace, growing out of the
marriage of Mary Stuart with a French prince. Barbarous Ireland was in
a state of chronic rebellion; France, Spain, and Rom