466 THE FELICITIES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 



favours as they still strived in emulation and desire 

 to please her best, and she herself remained in all 

 things an absolute princess. Childless she was, and 

 left no issue behind her ; which was the case of many 

 of the most fortunate princes, Alexander the Great, 

 Julius Cgesar, Trajan and others. And this is a case 

 that hath been often controverted and argued on 

 both sides, whilst some hold the want of children to 

 be a diminution of our happiness, as if it should be 

 an estate more than human to be happy both in 

 our own persons, and in our descendants, but others 

 do account the want of children as an addition to 

 earthly happiness, inasmuch as that happiness may 

 be said to be complete, over which fortune hath no 

 power, when we are gone : which if we leave children 

 cannot be. 



She had also many outward gifts of nature. A 

 tall stature ; a comely and straight making ; an ex 

 traordinary majesty of aspect, joined with a sweet 

 ness ; a most happy and constant healthfulness of 

 body. Unto which I may add, that in the full 

 possession both of her limbs and spirits until her last 

 sickness, having received no blow from fortune, nor 

 decay from old age ; she obtained that which 

 Augustus Caesar so importunately prayed for; an 

 easy and undistempered passage out of this world. 

 Which also is reported of Antoninus Pius, that 

 excellent emperor; whose death had the resem 

 blance of some soft and pleasing slumber. So in 

 Queen Elizabeth s disease, there was no ghastly or 

 fearful accident ; no idleness of brain ; nothing unac- 



