sper breathed abroad but of
joy and gratulation and happy presage of the days to come.

The sex, the youth, the accomplishments, the graces, the past
misfortunes of the princess, all served to heighten the interest with
which she was beheld: the age of chivalry had not yet expired; and in
spite of the late unfortunate experience of a female reign, the romantic
image of a maiden queen dazzled all eyes, subdued all hearts, inflamed
the imaginations of the brave and courtly youth with visions of love and
glory, exalted into a passionate homage the principle of loyalty, and
urged adulation to the very brink of idolatry.

The fulsome compliments on her beauty which Elizabeth, almost to the
latest period of her life, not only permitted but required and delighted
in, have been adverted to by all the writers who have made her reign and
character their theme: and those of the number whom admiration and pity
of the fair queen of Scots have rendered hostile to her memory, have
taken a malicious pleasure in exaggerating the extravagance of this
weakness, by denying her, even in her freshest years, all pretensions to
those personal charms by which her rival was so eminently,
distinguished. Others however have been more favorable, and probably
more just, to her on this point; and it would be an injury to her memory
to withhold from the reader the following portraitures which authorize
us to form a pleasing as well as majestic image of this illustrious
female at the period of her accession and at the age of five-and-twenty.

"She was a lady of great beauty, of decent stature, and of an excellent
shape. In her youth she was adorned with a more than usual maiden
modesty; her skin was of pure white, and her hair of a yellow colour;
her eyes were beautiful and lively. In short, her whole body was well
made, and her face was adorned with a wonderful and sweet beauty and
majesty. This beauty lasted till her middle age, though it
declined[31]." &c.

[Note 31: Bohun's "Character of Queen Elizabeth."]

"She was of personage tall, of hair and complexion fair, and therewith
well favored, but high-nosed; of limbs and feature neat, and, which
added to the lustre of those exterior graces, of stately and majestic
comportment; participating in this more of her father than her mother,
who was of an inferior allay, plausible, or, as the French hath it, more
debonaire and affable, virtues which might suit well with majesty, and
which descending as