The nobles and courtiers who had attended the Queen on her pleasure expedition were invited, with royal hospitality, to a splendid banquet in the hall of the palace. The table was not, indeed, graced by the presence of the sovereign; for, agreeable to her idea of what was at once modest and dignified, the maiden Queen, on such occasions, was wont to take in private, or with one or two favourite ladies, her light and temperate meal. After a moderate interval, the court again met in the splendid gardens of the palace; and it was while thus engaged, that the Queen suddenly asked a lady, who was near to her both in place and favour, what had become of the young Squire Lack-Cloak.

The Lady Paget answered, "She had seen Master Raleigh but two or three minutes since, standing at the window of a small pavilion or pleasure house, which looked out on the Thames, and writing on the glass with a diamond ring."

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"That ring," said the Queen, was a small token I gave to him, to make amends for his spoiled mantle. Come, Paget, let us see what use he has made of it, for I can see through him already. He is a marvellously sharpwitted spirit."

They went to the spot, within sight of which, but at some distance, the young cavalier still lingered, as the fowler watches the net which he has set. The Queen approached the window, on which Raleigh had used her gift to inscribe the following line :

:

"Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall."

The Queen smiled, read it twice over, once with deliberation to Lady Paget, and once again to herself. "It is a pretty beginning," she said, after the consideration of a moment or two; "but methinks the muse hath

deserted the young wit at the very outset of his task. It were good-natured—were it not, Lady Paget-to complete it for him? Try your rhyming faculties."

Lady Paget, prosaic from her cradle upwards, as ever any lady of the bedchamber before or after her, disclaimed all possibility of assisting the young poet.

"Nay, then, we must sacrifice to the Muses ourselves," said Elizabeth.

"The incense of no one can be more acceptable," said Lady Paget: "and your Highness will impose such obligation on the ladies of "Parnassus

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'Hush, Paget," said the Queen; "you speak sacrilege against the immortal Nine-yet, virgins themselves, they should be exorable to a Virgin Queen-and therefore let me see how runs his verse

'Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.'

Might not the answer (for fault of a better) run thus

'If thy mind fail thee, do not climb at all' ?"

The dame of honour uttered an exclamation of joy and surprise at so happy a termination; and certainly a worse has been applauded, even when coming from a less distinguished author.

The Queen, thus encouraged, took off a diamond ring, and saying, "We will give this gallant some cause of marvel, when he finds his couplet perfected without his own interference," she wrote her own line beneath that of Raleigh.

The Queen left the pavilion-but retiring slowly, and often looking back, she could see the young cavalier steal, with the flight of a lapwing, towards the place where he had seen her make a pause. "She stayed but to observe,"

as she said, "that her train had taken;" and then, laughing at the circumstance with the Lady Paget, she took the way slowly towards the palace. Elizabeth, as they returned, cautioned her companion not to mention to any one the aid which she had given to the young poet, and Lady Paget promised scrupulous secrecy. It is to be supposed that she made a mental reservation in favour of Leicester, to whom her ladyship transmitted without delay an anecdote so little calculated to give him pleasure.

Raleigh, in the meanwhile, stole back to the window, and read, with a feeling of intoxication, the encouragement thus given him by the Queen in person to follow out his ambitious career, and returned to Sussex and his retinue, then on the point of embarking to go up the river, his heart beating high with gratified pride, and with hope of future distinction.

1 Tressilian, the friend of Amy Robsart, was in trouble because he did not know what had become of her. 2 Cupid, the god of love, son of Mars and Venus. 3 vestal, a virgin, evidently the queen. In maiden meditation, etc. Queen Elizabeth never married. This passage, taken from the "Midsummer Night's Dream," evidently refers to the fact that, though surrounded by admirers and flatterers, the queen kept herself free from them. 5 Sheerness, a seaport and naval arsenal on the north-west of the Isle of Sheppey, in the mouth of the Thames. 6 spontaneous, springing from its own will; voluntary; willing. alchemist, one skilled in alchemy, an ancient science which aimed at changing the baser metals into gold. Elizabeth admired genius, and invited clever men to her court; but she loved beauty, and preferred to bestow more favour on the false but handsome Leicester than upon the worthy but less handsome soldier and servant, the Earl of Sussex. prosaic, pertaining to, or resembling prose, hence dull, incapable of composing poetry. Parnassus, the ancient name of a mountain in Greece, the abode of the Muses.

NOTE. For the following, see App.:--Leicester, Raleigh, Burleigh, Shakespeare, lapwing.

ADDRESS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH TO HER ARMY AT TILBURY FORT.

en-thu-si-as'-tic

lieu-ten'-ant de-ci'-sion

1PHILIP OF SPAIN long meditated an invasion of England, and in 1588, having completed his preparations, assembled his fleet in the Tagus. So sure was he of success, that he called his fleet the Invincible Armada.

His land

forces, to the number of fifty thousand men, under the Duke of Parma, were marched to the Netherlands, where a sufficient number of transports was prepared to convey them to England. And, indeed, this whole armament, by land and sea, was so very powerful, that it seemed more than sufficient to overwhelm our little island. Elizabeth, sure of the affection of her people,