and the countess.]

* * * * *

The queen expired on March 24th 1603.

* * * * *

After the minute and extended survey of the life and actions of
Elizabeth which has made the principal business of these pages, it would
be a trespass alike on the patience and the judgement of the reader to
detain him with a formal review of her character;--let it suffice to
complete the portrait by a few additional touches.

The ceremonial of her court rivalled the servility of the East: no
person of whatever rank ventured to address her otherwise than kneeling;
and this attitude was preserved by all her ministers during their
audiences of business, with the exception of Burleigh, in whose favor,
when aged and infirm, she dispensed with its observance. Hentzner, a
German traveller who visited England near the conclusion of her reign,
relates, that as she passed through several apartments from the chapel
to dinner, wherever she turned her eyes he observed the spectators throw
themselves on their knees. The same traveller further relates, that the
officers and ladies whose business it was to arrange the dishes and give
tastes of them to the yeomen of the guard by whom they were brought in,
did not presume to approach the royal table, without repeated
prostrations and genuflexions and every mark of reverence due to her
majesty in person.

The appropriation of her time and the arrangements of her domestic life
present more favorable traits.

"First in the morning she spent some time at her devotions; then she
betook herself to the dispatch of her civil affairs, reading letters,
ordering answers, considering what should be brought before the council,
and consulting with her ministers. When she had thus wearied herself,
she would walk in a shady garden or pleasant gallery, without any other
attendance than that of a few learned men. Then she took her coach and
passed in the sight of her people to the neighbouring groves and fields,
and sometimes would hunt or hawk. There was scarce a day but she
employed some part of it in reading and study; sometimes before she
entered upon her state affairs, sometimes after them[146]."

[Note 146: Bohun's Character of Queen Elizabeth.]

She slept little, seldom drank wine, was sparing in her diet, and a
religious observer of the fasts. She sometimes dined alone, but more
commonly had with her some of her friends. "At supper she would div