ent, and I am tyed so as I cannot styrr, but shall be _at
the wourse_ for yt, these two dayes!"[76]

Puttenham, p. 249, has also recorded an honourable anecdote of
Elizabeth, and characteristic of that high majesty which was in her
thoughts, as well as in her actions. When she came to the crown, a
knight of the realm, who had insolently behaved to her when Lady
Elizabeth, fell upon his knees and besought her pardon, expecting to be
sent to the Tower: she replied mildly, "Do you not know that we are
descended of the _lion_, whose nature is not to harme or prey upon the
mouse, or any other such small vermin?"

Queen Elizabeth was taught to write by the celebrated _Roger Ascham_.
Her writing is extremely beautiful and correct, as may be seen by
examining a little manuscript book of prayers, preserved in the British
Museum. I have seen her first writing book, preserved at Oxford in the
Bodleian Library: the gradual improvement in her majesty's handwriting
is very honourable to her diligence; but the most curious thing is the
paper on which she tried her pens; this she usually did by writing the
name of her beloved brother Edward; a proof of the early and ardent
attachment she formed to that amiable prince.

The education of Elizabeth had been severely classical; she thought and
she wrote in all the spirit of the characters of antiquity; and her
speeches and her letters are studded with apophthegms, and a terseness
of ideas and language, that give an exalted idea of her mind. In her
evasive answers to the Commons, in reply to their petitions to her
majesty to marry, she has employed an energetic word: "Were I to tell
you that I do not mean to marry, I might say less than I did intend; and
were I to tell you that I do mean to marry, I might say more than it is
proper for you to know; therefore I give you an _answer_, ANSWERLESS!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 76: Sir Robert Cecil, in a letter to Sir John Harrington,
happily characterized her Majesty as occasionally "being more than a
man, and, in truth, sometimes less than a woman."]

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE.

The Chinese language is like no other on the globe; it is said to
contain not more than about three hundred and thirty words, but it is by
no means monotonous, for it has four accents; the even, the raised, the
lessened, and the returning, which multiply every word into four; as
difficult, says Mr. Astle, for an European to understand, as it is for a
Chinese to