usiness of the piece
was somewhat painfully retarded.

The curiosity of the public respecting a drama which had been performed
with general applause both at court and before the society of the Middle
Temple, encouraged its surreptitious appearance in print in 1565, and a
second stolen edition was followed, some years after, by a corrected one
published under the inspection of the authors themselves. The taste for
the legitimate drama thus awakened, may be supposed to have led to the
naturalization amongst us of several of its best ancient models. The
Phoenissae of Euripides appeared under the title of Jocasta, having
received an English dress from Gascoigne and Kinwelmershe, two students
of Gray's Inn. The ten tragedies of Seneca, englished by different
hands, succeeded. It is worthy of note, however, that none of these
translators had the good taste to imitate the authors of Ferrex and
Porrex in the adoption of blank verse, and that one only amongst them
made use of the heroic rhymed couplet; the others employing the old
alexandrine measure, excepting in the choruses, which were given in
various kinds of stanza. Her majesty alone seems to have perceived the
superior advantages, or to have been tempted by the greater facility of
Sackville's verse; and amongst the MSS. of the Bodleian library there is
found a translation by her own hand of part of Seneca's Hercules Oetaeus,
which is in this measure. Warton however adds, that this specimen "has
no other recommendation than its royalty."

The propensity of Elizabeth, amid all the serious cares of government
and all the pettinesses of that political intrigue to which she was
addicted, to occupy herself with attempts in polite literature, for
which she possessed no manner of talent, is not the least remarkable
among the features of her extraordinary and complicated character.

At the period of her reign however which we are now considering, public
affairs must have required from her an almost undivided attention. By
the death of Francis II. about the end of the year 1560, the queen of
Scots had become a widow, and the relations of England with France and
Scotland had immediately assumed an entirely novel aspect.

The change was in one respect highly to the advantage of Elizabeth. By
the loss of her royal husband, Mary was deprived of that command over
the resources of the French monarchy by which she had hoped to render
effective her claim to the English crown, and she fo