1853.] Her Reputation and her Life both attacked. descant upon, and breedeth contempt. I would I had but an hour's talk with you. Chaloner in this letter only expresses what, in all state papers of the time, we find to have been the general feeling. Both the reputation and the life of the Queen were incessantly exposed and attacked, and she disdained what appeared the obvious precautions for the defence of either. Her marriage, and the birth of some natural issue of her body,' as the phrase went, was what all her subjects' hearts were set upon. With the birth of a child the attempts upon her life would cease, for there would be no longer an object for them, and, with a husband at her side, slander would lose its point and die away. Unfortunately, Elizabeth herself was the only person to whom the desirableness of this marrying had not become obvious. The anxiety of her subjects at last assumed the form of a petition from the two Houses of Parliament, and she replied to them in that famous speech, with which we are all familiar, where she gave the first public notice of her intention of a maiden life. We extract a portion of it here chiefly for the sake of the comments which were made upon it by a Catholic Cardinal, and which we shall afterwards subjoin; the most notable instance that has fallen in our way of what, in those days, a man of ability could write, and a whole Catholic world believe. Here first is Elizabeth: Concerning marriage, which ye so earnestly move me to, I have been long since persuaded that I was sent into this world by God, to think and do those things chiefly which may tend to His glory. Hereupon I have chosen that kind of life which is most free from the troublesome cares of this world, that I might attend the service of God alone. From which if either the tendered mar riage of mighty princes, or the danger of death intended against me could have removed me, I had long ago enjoyed the honour of a husband, And these things have I thought upon when I was a private person, but now that the public care of governing the kingdom is laid upon me, to draw upon me also the cares of marriage may seem a point of inconsiderate folly. Yea, to satisfy you, I have already joined myself in marriage to an husband, namely, the kingdom of Eng VOL. XLVIII. NO. CCLXXXVI. 385 land. Behold-which I marvel that ye have forgotten-this pledge of my wedlock (and she showed the coronation ring); and do not upbraid me with miserable lack of children. Every one of you, as many as are Englishmen, are children and kinsmen to me. I doubt not, if I continue in that kind of life which I have begun, but God will so direct mine own and your counsels that ye shall not need to doubt of a successor, which may be more beneficial to the commonwealth than he which may be born of me. And to me it shall be a full satisfaction, both for the memorial of my name and of my glory also, if, when I shall set my last breath, it be engraven upon my marble tomb, 'Here lieth Elizabeth, which reigned a virgin and died a virgin.' If no other authentic syllable in Elizabeth's favour had come down to us except this one speech, with its own single weight, it would over. balance a Vatican library of pamphlet scandal; and yet, strangely, Cardinal Allen finds an evidence in it making for the very opposite conclusion. We extract from the famous Admonition, which the English priests, those poor innocent martyrs, of whom we hear so much, were to carry round to the Catholic families, charging them to break into rebellion on the appearance of the Armada, under penalty of the curse of Meroz. After describing Elizabeth's 'incredible variety of lust, which modesty suffereth not to be remembered, whereby she is become notorious to the world, and a common talk for this her turpitude,' he proceeds: She could never be restrained from this incontinence, though the principal Peers of the realm, and others of high authority, as deputies from the whole Parliament and estates, made humble suit and supplication to her, that, for pity and compassion of their desolate case, and of the danger that the whole realm, and especially the nobility, should be in if she deceased without lawful issue, in such a number of competitors for the crown, she would therefore marry and produce (if it were God's pleasure) lawful heirs of her body to inherit her dominions after her, -to whom sometimes she merely and mockingly answered that she would die a Maiden Queen. But afterwards, in contempt and rebuke of all the states of the realm, and the condemnation of chaste and lawful marriage (whereunto, as to a bridle of her licen CC tiousness, she is an enemy), she forced the very Parliament itself to give consent, and to provide by a pretended law not tolerable, nor even, I trow, heard of before in a Christian free people, that none should be so much as named for her successor during her life, saring the natural, that is to say bastard-born, child of her own body. We must beg all persons under whose eyes these pages may fall, seriously to weigh this last sentence, and ask themselves whether the judgment of the man who could deliberately write it is to be taken upon any subject whatever. He was not believed to be a fool, yet that is his only escape from being a scoundrel beyond admeasurement by any known English epithet. He is mistaken, in the first place, in the character of the act to which he refers. It did not declare absolutely that no one was to be named as heir to the crown, but that no private person, without consent of Parliament, was to be allowed to maintain any one of the many pretended titles-a very different thing. We cannot in this place enter upon the reasons which induced the Parliament to pass such an act. Briefly, they thought that in the excited temper of men's minds (the Duke of Norfolk had just been executed) it was undesirable to indulge them in material for faction, or to permit the contingency of the Queen dying without children to be openly canvassed-without children of her own, not adopted children, but natural issue of her own body.' But now let us really consider Allen's words. They were not thrown off in the heat of the moment: some wretched excuse might be found for them if they had been let fall in a satirical conversation. The pamphlet in which they appear was written deliberately sixteen years after, a formal ecclesiastical circular, with the whole Papal authority at its back, addressed to the Catholic clergy. What is to be said or thought of it? What is to be said or thought of Sir Harris Nicolas, who quotes this very pamphlet as an important and formidable authority? It is a fair specimen, however, of the accusations-both of the manner of them and the value of them; and we have not the least objection to acknowledge that there was nothing in Elizabeth's own mode of conducting herself which made it difficult to fasten such attacks upon her. The times were too rough to admit of much etiquette; and she all her life carried her dislike of conventionality to a fault. She was satisfied to be what she was, and to do what she believed to be right, and never turned aside one way or the other, out of regard for the tongues of the lookers on. But the assailants, as is well known, did not confine themselves to general dirt throwing, and special persons were repeatedly and passionately pointed out as the companions of her guilt. Sir Thomas Chaloner alluded probably either to Sir William Pickering or to Lord Robert Dudley; but the most compendious summary of the particular charges is to be found in a letter said to have been written by Mary Queen of Scots to Elizabeth herself. The authenticity of this letter is challenged by Miss Strickland, who is unable to believe that the Queen of Scots could have been so indelicate and unladylike. Dr. Lingard, on the other hand, accepts it without hesitation as a valuable historical document, every statement in which he has found confirmed by other contemporary evidence. There is no suspicion attached to its history. The original was found by Dr. Murdin among the Earl of Salisbury's papers; and, being well acquainted with the Queen of Scots' hand, he printed it without expressing any doubt of its genuineness. There are grave difficulties in the way of admitting it to be a forgery; those who are best acquainted with the character of Mary and of Lord Burleigh will find it more easy to believe that it was written by her than that it was forged by him,-or forged with his connivance; while it is impossible to believe that, if it was forged at all, it could have imposed on so experienced an eye. And, again, if it was a forgery, and Lord Burleigh knew it, how came he to leave so strange a witness against himself preserved among the State Papers? At any rate, here is the letter; and the old French in which it is written will serve, we hope, as a partial veil over the uncleanness of it: 1853.] Letter from Mary, Queen of Scots, to Elizabeth. Suivant ce que je vous ay promis, et auvez despuis desire, je vous declare, ons qu'aveques regret que telles choses soyent ammenees en question, mais três sincerement et sans aucune passion, dont j'appelle mon Dieu a tesmoing, que la Comptesse de Shrewsbury m'a dit de Vous ce qui suit au plus pres de ces termes. A la plus part de quoy je proteste avoir respondu reprenant la dite Dame de croire ou parler si licentieusement de vous; comme chose que je ne croyois point ni croy a present, cognoissant le naturel de la Comptesse et de quel esprit elle etoit alors poulssée con tre vous. Premierement, qu'un auquel elle disoit que vous aviez faict promesse de marriage devant une dame de votre chambre, avoit couchée infinies foys auvecques vous, avec toute la license et privauté qui se peut user entre mari et femme. Mais qu'indubitablement vous n'estiez pas comme les autres femmes; et pour ce respect c'estoit follie a tous ceulx qui affectoient vostre marriage avec Monsieur le Duc d'Anjou, d'autant qu'il ne ce pourroit accomplir. Et que vous ne vouldriez perdre la liberté de vous faire faire l'amour et avoir vostre plaisir tousjours avec nouveaulx amoureulx regretant ce, disoit elle, que vous ne vous contentiez pas de Maistre Hatton [Lord Campbell italicises this and some other sentences] et un autre de ce Royaulme, mais que pour l'honneur du pays, il luy faschoit le plus, que vous aviez engasge vostre honneur auvecques un estrangier nommé Limier, l'alant trouver de nuit en la chambre d'une dame, que la dicte Comptesse blasmoit forte a ceste occasion la; ou vous le baisiez et usiez auvec luy de diverses privautes deshonestes; mais aussi luy revelriez les segretz du Royaulme, trahisant vos propres conseillers auvecque luy. Que vous vous estiez desportés de la mesme dissolution avec le Duc son Maistre, qui vous avoit este trouver une nuit a la porte de vostre chambre, ou vous l'aviez rancontre auvec votre seulle chemise et manteau de nuit, et qu'il demeura auvecques vous pres de troys heures. Quant au dict Hatton, que vous le couriez a force, faisant si publiquement paroitre l'amour que luy portiez, que luy mesmes estoit contreint de s'en retirer. . . . qu'elle auvait travaille de faire espouser au dict Hatton la feu Comptesse de Lenox sa fille; mays que de crainte de vous il n'osoit entendre, que mêsme le Compte d'Oxfort n'osoit se rappointer auvecque sa femme de peur 387 de perdre la faveur, qu'il esperoit recevoir par vous faire l'amour, que vous estiez prodigue envers toutes telles gens, etc. etc. Qu'a toutes autres vous estiez fort ingrate chische et qu'il ni avoit que troys ou quatres en vostre Royaulme a qui vous ayes jamais facit bien: me conseillant en riant extremement mettre mon filz sur les ranos pour vous faire l'amour, comme chose qui me serviroit grandement, et metroit Monsieur le Duc hors de quartier. . . . et luy repliquant qui cela seroit pris pour une vraye moquerie, elle me respondit que vous estiez si vayne, et en si bonne opinion de vostre beaute, comme si vous estiez quelque déesse de Ciel. She then goes on to say how the young ladies laughed at her, and had been amusing them at Lord Shrewsbury's with acting the Court and the proceedings there, and concludes: Pour la fin je vous jure encores un coup sur ma foy et honneur que ce que desulz est très veritable; et que de ce que concerne vostre honneur, il ne m'est jamais tombe en entendement de vous faire tort pour le reveller, et qu'il ne scaura jamais par moy le tenant pour très faulx. Lord Campbell has inserted this letter, or part of it, in his Life of Hatton; being compelled, as he says, to do so, by a regard for historical truth. Does he believe what Lady Shrewsbury said then? or does he suppose historical truth consists in recording all the lies which he can find flying? The Queen of Scots, at any rate, did not believe her. She knew her naturel too well, as she had too good reason to know it. It was but a short time before that the same lady had been forced by Elizabeth to make a public retractation, in the presence of the whole Court, of similar foul indecencies which she had spread concerning Mary herself. Lord Campbell should have mentioned that fact, and qualified the value of her words with it. He is hardly aware of the effect produced by such a mass of filthiness, when ushered in with prefatory solemnities and compulsion by regard for historical truth.' WHO THE NATURALIST IN DEVONSHIRE.* HO has not been a delighted spectator of the collection of living zoophytes, mollusca, fish, and other marine animals exhibited in twenty transparent tanks of plateglass' in the gardens of the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park? To him who has not beheld this most interesting spectacle, we say, 'Go and see,' and take the book which we now proceed to introduce to your notice with you; to him who has we say, 'Go again and do likewise.' The author of this highly amusing and instructive work, favourably known from his former works, of which we have before noticed one,† may be considered as the originator of this most popular exhibition, attractive to the idler, and invaluable to the zoologist who is studying the habits and physiology of the occult invertebrate classes of animals which may be there seen even to greater advantage than in their native locality, to say nothing of the fishes disporting among them, and occasionally making some luckless mollusk or crustacean their prey. There is doubt that long ago sea-anemones and other marine creatures of a similar organization were removed from their native rocks, and kept alive in glass vessels or in vases, where the localities well, and have watched the lively and lovely inhabitants of its clear pools and weed-covered rocks that nurture a host of brilliant creatures, which if they were the inhabitants of the tropics would be deemed worthy of a voyage by any zealous zoologist studying their forms and habits. -Here are coral bowers, And grots of madrepores, And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye As ere was mossy bed Whereon the wood-nymphs lie With languid limbs, in summer's sultry hours. no China's gayest art had dyed The azure flowers that blow; but there can be as little that we owe to Mr. Gosse the successful introduction of marine vivaria on a great scale, and resting on sound chemical and physiological principles. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Declining health sent Mr. Gosse to the Devonshire coast, and produced the charming book now before us. We trust that he is entirely restored by his trip, for we cannot find any traces of the languor of illness in the lively pages of his graphic and well illustrated volume. He could not have chosen a coast more fertile in the subjects which he has so well described. We know Here, too, were living flowers, And arborets of jointed stone were And plants of fibres fine as silkworm's thread; Yea, beautiful as mermaid's golden hair Upon the waves dispread. Others, that like the broad banana growing, Rais'd their long wrinkled leaves of pur- Like streamers wide outflowing. To those acquainted with the organization of the creatures forming the principal ornaments of these animated submarine parterres no apology is necessary, but to the multitude-now happily decreasing every day-by whom such pursuits are apt to be looked upon as foolishness, we recommend the following plea : These objects are, it is true, among the humblest of creatures that are endowed with organic life. They stand at the very confines, so to speak, of the vital world, at the lowest step of the animate ladder that reaches up to Man; ay, and beyond him. Creatures linked in the closest alliance with these were long reckoned among the sea weeds and mosses, even by philosophers; and to this day the collectors who make seaweeds into pretty baskets, arrange the *A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast. By Philip Henry Gosse, A.L.S., &c., author of The Ocean, A Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica, &c. London: John Van Voorst. 1853. + FRASER'S MAGAZINE, April, 1852, The Naturalist in Jamaica. hydroid polypidoms among them without a misgiving of their identity. Nay, the madrepores and corals, nearer kindred still to the actinia, were supposed, even by the immortal Ray, to be inanimate stones, with a kind of vegetation and resemblance to plants.' 6 The lamp of vitality, then, is just going out in these forms; or, if you please, here we catch the first kindling of that spark which glows into so noble a flame in the Aristotles, the Newtons, and the Miltons of our heaven-gazing race. What then? Shall we despise these glimmering rays? Shall we say they are mean creatures, beneath our regard? Surely no: God does not despise them. The forecasting of their being occupied his eternal mind 'before the mountains were brought forth.' Making Marychurch, with its bracing air and neighbouring coveindented coasts, his head-quarters, our naturalist first explored Babbicombe Sands and Petit Tor, not without abundance of food for observation in the clear rock-pools and the rocks themselves. All along the line of limestone he found in almost every well filled basin left by the tide the lovely daisy anemone.* In the sunshine of a fair day they expand beautifully, and you may see them studding the face of the rock just beneath the surface, from the size of a shilling to that of a crown piece. Nothing seems easier than to secure them, but no sooner do the fingers touch one, than its beautifully circular disk begins to curl and pucker its margin, and to incurve it in the form of a cup; if further annoyed, the rim of this cup contracts more and more until it closes, and the animal becomes globose and much diminished, receding all the time from the assault and retiring into the rock. Mr. Gosse proceeds to give directions for chiseling these animated flowers out of their rocky submarine conservatories, and a very troublesome operation it is. At last the prize is secured : : But how unlike its former self, when you were desirous of making its acquantance, it is now! A little hard globose knob of flesh, not so big as a school-boy's marble, is the creature that just now expanded to the sun's rays a lovely disk of variegated hues, with a diameter greater than that of a Spanish dollar. If, however, the excision has been 389 accomplished without injury to the subject, a few days in a suitable vessel of clear sea-water will show it in all its original beauty, when it has taken a fresh attachment for its base-not before a day or two at least, generally speaking. The surface of the rock at Oddicombe is honey-combed by thousands of that determined stoneboring and burrowing testacean, Saxicava rugosa, which seems only to be able to live where it is covered during a part of every tide. Our naturalist appears to have been so occupied in turning stones at Babbicombe that he takes no account of the creature-comforts there to be found in our day in the shape of the most delicious hot lobsters fresh from the sea, and of a flavour -oh how infinitesimally superior to that of the half suffocated wasted wretch that is consigned to the pot in this great metropolis, after its journey close packed in straw with a multitude of fellow-sufferers in the same condemned basket. If anything can excuse this omission, it is that same occupation of stone turning and stone-breaking which on this coast has often cheated us of our dinner: The rough strong surface of the rock between tide-marks is quite alive with beautiful and interesting creatures, both animal and vegetable; and as we find the profusion increase the nearer we approach to that line whence the nutrient water never recedes, we have a right to conclude that it extends to an indefinite distance below tide-limit. The tiny pools that lie in the hollows, renewed twice every day by the influx of the sea, are perfect nurseries of plants and animals of the most curious forms and of the most interesting structure. Some notion of the extent to which life swarms in such localities may be derived from Mr. Gosse's account of the variety of organic life which he detected on a small fragment scarcely bigger than a penny piece, which he detached from a little rock pool near low-water mark on the seaward side of Capstone Hill. A single polype attracted his notice by its beauty, and when he applied his chisel he did not anticipate a particularly rich harvest. But he found part of the * Actinia bellis. |