the ladies of the court valued themselves
on knowledge: Lady Burleigh, Lady Bacon, and their two sisters, were
mistresses of the ancient as well as modern languages; and placed more
pride in their erudition than in their rank and quality.

Queen Elizabeth wrote and translated several books: and she was
familiarly acquainted with the Greek as well as Latin tongue.[**] [43]

* 27 Henry VIII. c. 24.

** See note QQ, at the end of the volume.

It is pretended that she made an extemporary reply in Greek to the
university of Cambridge, who had addressed her in that language. It is
certain that she answered in Latin without premeditation, and in a
very spirited manner, to the Polish ambassador, who had been wanting
in respect to her. When she had finished, she turned about to her
courtiers, and said, "God's death, my lords," (for she was much addicted
to swearing,) "I have been forced this day to scour up my old Latin,
that hath long lain rusting."[*]

* Speed.

Elizabeth, even after she was queen, did not entirely drop the ambition
of appearing as an author; and, next to her desire of admiration for
beauty, this seems to have been the chief object of her vanity. She
translated Boethius of the Consolation of Philosophy; in order, as she
pretended, to allay her grief for Henry IV.'s change of religion. As far
us we can judge from Elizabeth's compositions, we may pronounce that,
notwithstanding her application, and her excellent parts, her taste in
literature was but indifferent: she was much inferior to her successor
in this particular, who was himself no perfect model of eloquence.

Unhappily for literature, at least for the learned of this age,
the queen's vanity lay more in shining by her own learning, than in
encouraging men of genius by her liberality. Spenser himself, the finest
English writer of his age, was long neglected; and after the death of
Sir Philip Sidney, his patron, was allowed to die almost for want. This
poet contains great beauties, a sweet and harmonious versification, easy
elocution, a fine imagination; yet does the perusal of his work become
so tedious, that one never finishes it from the mere pleasure which it
affords; it soon becomes a kind of task-reading, and it requires some
effort and resolution to carry us on to the end of his long performance.
This effect, of which every one is conscious, is usually ascribed to the
change of manners: but manners have more changed since Homer