ROBERTSON. 283 



only, by way of example, and for explanation, survey 

 the highly-wrought and indeed admirably composed 

 character of Queen Elizabeth. It opens with enrolling 

 Henry V. and Edward III. among " the monarchs 

 who merit the people's gratitude ;" nay, it singles them 

 out from among the list on which William III., Ed- 

 ward I., and Alfred himself stand enrolled, and holds 

 them up as the most gratefully admired of all for the 

 " blessings and splendour of their reigns." Yet the 

 wars of Henry V. are the only, and of Edward III. 

 almost the only deeds by which we can know them ; 

 or if any benefit accrued to our constitution by these 

 princes, it was in consequence of the pecuniary diffi- 

 culties into which those wars plunged them, but 

 plunged their kingdoms too, so that our liberties made 

 some gain from the dreadful expense of blood and of 

 treasure by which those conquerors exhausted their 

 dominions. Then Elizabeth is described as " still 

 adored in England ;" and though her " dissimulation 

 without necessity, and her severity beyond example," 

 are recorded as making her treatment of Mary an 

 exception to the rest of her reign, it is not stated that 

 her whole life was one tissue of the same gross false- 

 hood whenever she deemed it for her interest, or felt it 

 suited her caprices, to practise artifices as pitiful as they 

 were clumsy. But a graver charge than dissimulation 

 and severity as regards her connexion with the history of 

 Mary is entirely suppressed, and yet the foul crime is 

 described in the same work. It is undeniable that 

 Elizabeth did not cause her to be executed until she had 

 repeatedly endeavoured to make Sir Amyas Paulett and 

 Sir Drue Drury, who had the custody of her person, 



