," writes Du Maurier, in his _Memoires pour servir a
l'Histoire de la Hollande_, "who displayed so many heroic
accomplishments, had this foible, of wishing to be thought beautiful by
all the world. I heard from my father, that at every audience he had
with her majesty, she pulled off her gloves more than a hundred times to
display her hands, which indeed were very beautiful and very white."

A not less curious anecdote relates to the affair of the Duke of Anjou
and our Elizabeth; it is one more proof of her partiality for handsome
men. The writer was Lewis Guyon, a contemporary.

"Francis Duke of Anjou, being desirous of marrying a crowned head,
caused proposals of marriage to be made to Elizabeth, queen of England.
Letters passed betwixt them, and their portraits were exchanged. At
length her majesty informed him, that she would never contract a
marriage with any one who sought her, if she did not first _see his
person_. If he would not come, nothing more should be said on the
subject. This prince, over-pressed by his young friends (who were as
little able of judging as himself), paid no attention to the counsels of
men of maturer judgment. He passed over to England without a splendid
train. The said lady contemplated his _person_: she found him _ugly_,
disfigured by deep sears of the _small-pox_, and that he also had an
_ill-shaped nose_, with _swellings in the neck_! All these were so many
reasons with her, that he could never be admitted into her good graces."

Puttenham, in his very rare book of the "Art of Poesie," p. 248, notices
the grace and majesty of Elizabeth's demeanour: "Her stately manner of
walk, with a certaine granditie rather than gravietie, marching with
leysure, which our sovereign ladye and mistresse is accustomed to doe
generally, unless it be when she walketh apace for her pleasure, or to
catch her a heate in the cold mornings."

By the following extract from a letter from one of her gentlemen, we
discover that her usual habits, though studious, were not of the
gentlest kind, and that the service she exacted from her attendants was
not borne without concealed murmurs. The writer groans in secrecy to his
friend. Sir John Stanhope writes to Sir Robert Cecil in 1598: "I was all
the afternowne with her majestie, _at my booke_; and then thinking to
rest me, went in agayne with your letter. She was pleased with the
Filosofer's stone, and hath ben _all this daye reasonably quyett_. Mr.
Grevell is abs