ry, and the expression of the feelings of a
devoted yet free people.

An age of tyranny is always an age of frivolity, of heartless levity,
of dwarfish objects and pursuits, of dreadful contrasts--laughter amid
mourning, rioting and wantonness amid judgments and executions; dancing
and music at the hour of death. Such was the frivolity of the days of
Nero; such was the mirth of the "death-dance" in the days of Robespierre.
Nothing like this sickly and appalling joy could be seen in the times of
Elizabeth. There were masques and balls and tournaments at the court,
and gay revels as the stately Queen went from castle to castle, and
palace to palace, in her visits to her princely subjects. But such
amusements did not form the chief object or occupation of the court of
Elizabeth. The Queen, and those who had grown up with her, had
passed through too many dangers and witnessed too much suffering to
allow them to become frivolous or very light-hearted. They had lived
among scenes of cruelty, persecution, and death. Their childhood had
witnessed the successive horrors of the reign of Henry VIII, and their
youth had suffered from the bloody fanaticism of Mary. Sorrow and
tribulation had overspread the morning of their life like a cloud.

Miss Aikin, in the beginning of her charming work upon the court of
Queen Elizabeth, has described the gorgeous procession which filed along
the streets of London at the baptism of the infant princess. The same
picture also forms the closing scene of Shakespeare's _Henry VIII_.
As we look upon the gay and splendid train, marching in their robes of
state, beneath silken canopies, and then glance our eye along the map of
history till we trace almost every actor in the pageant to a bloody
grave, we can scarcely believe that it is a scene of joy and festivity
that we are witnessing. The angel of death seems to hover over them;
there is something dreadful in their rejoicing; their gaudy robes, their
mantles, their vases, their fringes of gold, assume the sable hue of the
grave; and, instead of a baptismal train, it seems like a funeral
procession descending to the tomb.

The mournful scenes which the generation which grew up with Elizabeth
had been compelled to witness, and the terror in which most of the
leading characters in her reign had passed their youth, had undoubtedly
tended to sober their minds and induce them to reflect much upon the
great and solemn duties of life. The character of the