she was doing God
service, which would only be a perfect service when she should have burned
out the bay-tree growth of heresy and restored the ancient faith.

Such were her character and condition as displayed to the English world;
but we know, in addition, that she bore her sufferings with great
fortitude; that, an unloved wife, she was a pattern of conjugal affection
and fidelity; that she was a dupe in the hands of designing men and a
fierce propaganda; and we may infer that, under different circumstances
and with better guidance, the real elements of her character would have
made her a good monarch and presented a far more pleasing historical
portrait.

Justice demands that we should say thus much, for even with these
qualifications, the picture of her reign is very dark and painful. After a
sad and bloody rule of five years--a reign of worse than Roman
proscription, or later French terrors--she died without leaving a child.
There was but one voice as to her successor. Delirious shouts of joy were
heard throughout the land: "God save Queen Elizabeth!" "No more burnings
at Smithfield, nor beheadings on Tower green! No more of Spanish Philip
and his pernicious bigots! Toleration, freedom, light!" The people of
England were ready for a golden age, and the golden age had come.

ELIZABETH.--And who was Elizabeth? The daughter of the dishonored Anne
Boleyn, who had been declared illegitimate, and set out of the succession;
who had been kept in ward; often and long in peril of her life; destined,
in all human foresight, to a life of sorrow, humiliation, and obscurity;
her head had been long lying "'twixt axe and crown," with more probability
of the former than the latter.

Wonderful was the change. With her began a reign the like of which the
world had never seen; a great and brilliant crisis in English history, in
which the old order passed away and the new was inaugurated. It was like a
new historic fulfilment of the prophecy of Virgil:

Magnus ... saeclorum nascitur ordo;
Jam redit et _Virgo_, redeunt Saturnia regna.

Her accession and its consequences were like the scenes in some fairy
tale. She was indeed a Faerie Queene, as she was designated in Spenser's
magnificent allegory. Around her clustered a new chivalry, whose gentle
deeds were wrought not only with the sword, but with the pen. Stout heart,
stalwart arm, and soaring imagination, all wore her colors and were amply
rewarded by her smiles; and