her portraits, was utterly without shade. Of womanly reserve
or self-restraint she knew nothing. No instinct of delicacy veiled the
voluptuous temper which broke out in the romps of her girlhood and
showed itself almost ostentatiously through her later life. Personal
beauty in a man was a sure passport to her liking. She patted handsome
young squires on the neck when they knelt to kiss her hand, and fondled
her "sweet Robin," Lord Leicester, in the face of the Court.

It was no wonder that the statesmen whom she outwitted held Elizabeth to
be little more than a frivolous woman, or that Philip of Spain wondered
how "a wanton" could hold in check the policy of the Escurial. But the
Elizabeth whom they saw was far from being all of Elizabeth. Wilfulness
and triviality played over the surface of a nature hard as steel, a
temper purely intellectual, the very type of reason untouched by
imagination or passion. Luxurious and pleasure-loving as she seemed, the
young Queen lived simply and frugally, and she worked hard. Her vanity
and caprice had no weight whatever with her in state affairs. The
coquette of the presence-chamber became the coolest and hardest of
politicians at the council-board. Fresh from the flattery of her
courtiers, she would tolerate no flattery in the closet; she was herself
plain and downright of speech with her counsellors, and she looked for a
corresponding plainness of speech in return. The very choice of her
advisers indeed showed Elizabeth's ability. She had a quick eye for
merit of any sort, and a wonderful power of enlisting its whole energy
in her service. The sagacity which chose Cecil and Walsingham was just
as unerring in its choice of the meanest of her agents. Her success
indeed in securing from the beginning of her reign to its end, with the
single exception of Leicester, precisely the right men for the work she
set them to do sprang in great measure from the noblest characteristic
of her intellect. If in loftiness of aim the Queen's temper fell below
many of the tempers of her time, in the breadth of its range, in the
universality of its sympathy it stood far above them all. Elizabeth
could talk poetry with Spenser and philosophy with Bruno; she could
discuss Euphuism with Lilly, and enjoy the chivalry of Essex; she could
turn from talk of the last fashions to pore with Cecil over despatches
and treasury books; she could pass from tracking traitors with
Walsingham to settle points of doctrin