XXXIV PREFACE. 



&quot; ment for our late sovereign Queen Elizabeth :* 

 &quot; wherein I may note much, but only this at this 

 &quot; time, that as her majesty did always right to his 

 &quot; majesty s hopes, so his highness doth in all things 

 &quot; right to her memory ; a very just and princely re- 

 &quot; tribution. But from this occasion, by a very easy 

 &quot; ascent, I passed farther, being put in mind, by this 

 &quot; representative of her person, of the more true and 

 &quot; more vive representation, which is of her life and 

 &quot; government : for as statues and pictures are dumb 

 &quot;histories, so histories are speaking pictures ; where- 

 &quot; in if my affection be not too great, or my reading 

 &quot; too small, I am of this opinion, that if Plutarch 

 &quot; were alive to write lives by parallels, it would 

 &quot; trouble him both for virtue and fortune, to find 

 &quot; for her a parallel amongst women. And though 

 &quot; she was of the passive sex, yet her government 

 &quot; was so active, as, in my simple opinion, it made 

 &quot; more impression upon the several states of Europe, 

 &quot; than it received from thence. But I confess unto 

 &quot; your lordship I could not stay here, but went a 

 &quot; little farther into the consideration of the times 

 &quot; which have passed since King Henry VIII ; 

 &quot; wherein I find the strangest variety, that in so 

 &quot; little number of successions of any hereditary mo- 

 &quot; narchy hath ever been known. The reign of a 

 &quot; child ; the offer of an usurpation, though it was 



&quot; * The monument here spoken of was erected in King 

 &quot; Henry VIl s chapel at Westminster, in the year 1606. 



