A few days after the king's departure we find it mentioned that "the queen's grace, the lady Elizabeth, and all the court, did fast from flesh to qualify them to take the Pope's jubilee and pardon granted to all out of his abundant clemency[27];" a trait which makes it probable that Mary was now in the habit of exacting her sister's attendance at court, for the purpose of witnessing with her own eyes her punctual−196- -vol i- observance of the rites of that church to which she still believed her a reluctant conformist.
A few weeks afterwards, the death of her capital enemy, Gardiner, removed the worst of the ill instruments who had interposed to aggravate the suspicions of the queen, and there is reason to believe that the princess found in various ways the beneficial effects of this event.
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CHAPTER VIII.
1555 TO 1558.
Elizabeth applies herself to classical literature.—Its neglected state.—Progress of English poetry.—Account of Sackville and his works.—Plan of his Mirror for Magistrates.—Extracts.—Notice of the contributors to this collection.—Its popularity and literary merits.—Entertainment given to Elizabeth by sir Thomas Pope.—Dudley Ashton's attempt.—Elizabeth acknowledged innocent of his designs.—Her letter to the queen.—She returns to London—quits it in some disgrace after again refusing the duke of Savoy.—Violence of Philip respecting this match.—Mary protects her sister.—Festivities at Hatfield, Enfield, and Richmond.—King of Sweden's addresses to Elizabeth rejected.—Letter of sir T. Pope respecting her dislike of marriage.—Proceedings of the ecclesiastical commission.—Cruel treatment of sir John Cheke.—General decay of national prosperity.—Loss of Calais.—Death of Mary.
Notwithstanding the late fortunate change in her situation, Elizabeth must have entertained an anxious sense of its remaining difficulties, if not dangers; and the prudent circumspection of her character again, as in the latter years of her brother, dictated the expediency of shrouding herself in all the obscurity compatible with her rank and expectations. To literature, the never failing resource of its votaries, she turned again for solace and occupation; and claiming the assistance which Ascham was proud and happy−198- -vol i- to afford her, she resumed the diligent perusal of the Greek and Latin classics.
The concerns of the college of which sir Thomas Pope was the founder likewise engaged a portion of her thoughts; and this gentleman, in a letter to a friend, mentions that the lady Elizabeth, whom he served, and who was "not only gracious but right learned," often asked him of the course which he had devised for his scholars.
Classical literature was now daily declining from the eminence on which the two preceding sovereigns had labored to place it. The destruction of monastic institutions, and the dispersion of libraries, with the impoverishment of public schools and colleges through the rapacity of Edward's courtiers, had inflicted far deeper injury on the cause of learning than the studious example of the young monarch and his chosen companions was able to compensate. The persecuting spirit of Mary, by driving into exile or suspending from the exercise of their functions the able and enlightened professors of the protestant doctrine, had robbed the church and the universities of their brightest luminaries; and it was not under the auspices of her fierce and ignorant bigotry that the cultivators of the elegant and humanizing arts would seek encouragement or protection. Gardiner indeed, where particular prejudices did not interfere, was inclined to favor the learned; and Ascham owed to him the place of Latin secretary. Cardinal Pole also, himself a scholar, was desirous to support, as much as present circumstances would permit, his ancient character of a patron of scholars, and he earnestly−199- -vol i- pleaded with sir Thomas Pope to provide for the teaching of Greek as well as Latin in his college; but sir Thomas persisted in his opinion that a Latin professorship was sufficient, considering the general decay of erudition in the country, which had caused an almost total cessation of the study of the Greek language.
It was in the department of English poetry alone that any perceptible advance was effected or prepared during this deplorable æra; and it was to the vigorous genius of one man, whose vivid personifications of abstract beings were then quite unrivalled, and have since been rarely excelled in our language, and whose clear, copious, and forcible style of poetic narrative interested all readers, and inspired a whole school of writers who worked upon his model, that this advance is chiefly to be attributed. This benefactor to our literature was Thomas Sackville, son of sir Richard Sackville, an eminent member of queen Mary's council, and second-cousin to the lady Elizabeth by his paternal grandmother, who was a Boleyn. The time of his birth is doubtful, some placing it in 1536, others as early as 1527. He studied first at Oxford and afterwards at Cambridge, distinguishing himself at both universities by the vivacity of his parts and the excellence of his compositions both in verse and prose. According to the custom of that age, which required that an English gentleman should acquaint himself intimately with the laws of his country before he took a seat amongst her legislators, he next entered himself of the Inner Temple, and about the last year of Mary's reign he served in parliament. But at this−200- -vol i- early period of life poetry had more charms for Sackville than law or politics; and following the bent of his genius, he first produced "Gorboduc," confessedly the earliest specimen of regular tragedy in our language; but which will be noticed with more propriety when we reach the period of its representation before queen Elizabeth. He then, about the year 1557 as is supposed, laid the plan of an extensive work to be called "A Mirror for Magistrates;" of which the design is thus unfolded in a highly poetical "Induction."
The poet wandering forth on a winter's evening, and taking occasion from the various objects which "told the cruel season," to muse on the melancholy changes of human affairs, and especially on the reverses incident to greatness, suddenly encounters a "piteous wight," clad all in black, who was weeping, sighing, and wringing her hands, in such lamentable guise, that
"————never man did see
A wight but half so woe-begone as she."
Struck with grief and horror at the view, he earnestly requires her to "unwrap" her woes, and inform him who and whence she is, since her anguish, if not relieved, must soon put an end to her life. She answers,
"Sorrow am I, in endless torments pained
Among the furies in th' infernal lake:"
from these dismal regions she is come, she says, to bemoan the luckless lot of those
"Whom Fortune in this maze of misery,
Of wretched chance most woful Mirrors chose:"
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and she ends by inviting him to accompany her in her return:
"Come, come, quoth she, and see what I shall show,
Come hear the plaining and the bitter bale
Of worthy men by Fortune's overthrow:
Come thou and see them ruing all in row.
They were but shades that erst in mind thou rolled,
Come, come with me, thine eyes shall then behold."
He accepts the invitation, having first done homage to Sorrow as to a goddess, since she had been able to read his thought. The scenery and personages are now chiefly copied from the sixth book of the Æneid; but with the addition of many highly picturesque and original touches.
The