f the king, an
honorable appointment in this university.

"The lady Elizabeth has accomplished her sixteenth year; and so much
solidity of understanding, such courtesy united with dignity, have never
been observed at so early an age. She has the most ardent love of true
religion and of the best kind of literature. The constitution of her
mind is exempt from female weakness, and she is endued with a masculine
power of application. No apprehension can be quicker than her's, no
memory more retentive. French and Italian she speaks like English;
Latin, with fluency, propriety, and judgement; she also spoke Greek with
me, frequently, willingly, and moderately well. Nothing can be more
elegant than her handwriting, whether in the Greek or Roman character.
In music she is very skilful, but does not greatly delight. With respect
to personal decoration, she greatly prefers a simple elegance to show
and splendor, so despising 'the outward adorning of plaiting the hair
and of wearing of gold,' that in the whole manner of her life she rather
resembles Hippolyta than Phaedra.

"She read with me almost the whole of Cicero, and a great part of Livy:
from these two authors, indeed, her knowledge of the Latin language has
been almost exclusively derived. The beginning of the day was always
devoted by her to the New Testament in Greek, after which she read
select orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles, which I
judged best adapted to supply her tongue with the purest diction, her
mind with the most excellent precepts, and her exalted station with a
defence against the utmost power of fortune. For her religious
instruction, she drew first from the fountains of Scripture, and
afterwards from St. Cyprian, the 'Common places' of Melancthon, and
similar works which convey pure doctrine in elegant language. In every
kind of writing she easily detected any ill-adapted or far-fetched
expression. She could not bear those feeble imitators of Erasmus who
bind the Latin language in the fetters of miserable proverbs; on the
other hand, she approved a style chaste in its propriety, and beautiful
by perspicuity, and she greatly admired metaphors, when not too violent,
and antitheses when just, and happily opposed. By a diligent attention
to these particulars, her ears became so practised and so nice, that
there was nothing in Greek, Latin, or English, prose or verse, which,
according to its merits or defects, she did not either reject with