iration. Pope Sixtus V. spoke
of her on all occasions as "a woman with a strong head," and gave her a
place among the three persons who only, in his opinion, deserved to
reign; the remaining two were himself and Henry IV. of France. "Your
queen," said he once to an Englishman, "is born fortunate; she governs
her kingdom with great happiness; she wants only to be married to me to
give the world a second Alexander."

Her temper and her talents equally fitted her for government. Capable of
self-command, and of controlling her own passions, she acquired an
unlimited ascendency over those of her people. She possessed courage
without temerity; spirit, resource, and activity in war, with the love
of peace and tranquillity. Her frugality was exempt from avarice, it was
the result rather of her love of independence than a passion for
accumulation. She never amassed any treasures. Her friendships were
uniform and steady, yet she was never governed by her favorites--a
criterion of a strong mind. Her choice in her ministers gave proof of
her sagacity, as her constancy in supporting them did of her firmness.
If a conduct less rigorous, less imperious, and more indulgent would
have thrown greater lustre over her character, let it be remembered that
some good qualities appear to be incompatible with others; nor let the
seductive and corrupting nature of power be left out in the account. Her
insincerity was perhaps the greatest blot in her character and the
fruitful source of all the vexatious incidents of her reign. Though
unacquainted with philosophical toleration, the only method of disarming
the turbulence of religious factions, she yet preserved her people, by
her prudence and good sense, from those theological disputes which
desolated the neighboring nations.

Beset with enemies, both at home and abroad, among the most powerful
princes in Europe, the most enterprising and the least scrupulous, the
vigor of her administration enabled her to defeat all their purposes,
to annoy and plunder them in their own dominions, and to preserve her
own dignity untouched and unimpaired. Few monarchs have succeeded to a
throne in more difficult circumstances, nor have any ever reigned with
more uniform success and prosperity.

If, as a woman, cut off by the peculiarities of her situation from the
sympathies of nature and the charm of equal affections, Elizabeth, at
times suffered under these privations, which even gave to her
sensibility addi