queen of England, daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, was born at Greenwich, September 7, 1533. According to the humour of the times, she was early instructed in the learned languages, first by Grindal, who died when she was about 17, and afterwards by the celebrated Roger Ascham. She acquired likewise considerable knowledge of the Italian, Spanish, and French languages. Dr Grindal was also her preceptor in divinity, which she is said to have studied with uncommon application and industry. That Elizabeth became a Protestant, and her sister Mary a Papist, was the effect of that cause which determines the religion of all mankind; namely, the opinion of those by whom they were educated: and this difference of opinion, in their tutors, is not at all surprising, when we recollect, that their father Harry was of both religions, or of neither.

But the studies of Elizabeth were not confined merely to languages and theology: she was also instructed in the political history of the ancients; and was so well skilled in music, as to sing and play "artfully and sweetly."

After the short reign of her brother Edward, our heroine being then about 20 years of age, her firebrand sister ascending to the crown, Elizabeth experienced a considerable degree of persecution, so as to be not a little apprehensive of a violent death. She was accused of nobody knows what; imprisoned; and, we are told, inhumanly treated. At last, by the intercession of King Philip of Spain, she was set at liberty; Elizabeth, which she continued to enjoy, till, on the death of her pious father, she, on the 17th of November 1558, ascended the throne of England. Her political history as a queen, is universally known and admired: but see (Hier attention to the government of her kingdom did glory of) not totally suspend her pursuit of learning. Ascham, in his Schoolmaster, tells us, that, about the year 1563, five years after her accession, she being then at Windsor, besides her perfect readiness in Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish, she read more Greek in one day than some prebendaries of that church did read Latin in a whole week, (p. 21.)—She employed Sir John Fortescue to read to her Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Euripides, Aeschines, and Sophocles. (Ballard, p. 219.) That the Latin language was familiar to her, is evident from her speech to the university of Oxford, when she was near sixty; also from her spirited answer to the Polish ambassador in the year 1568. And that she was also skilled in the art of poetry, appears not only from the several scraps which have been preserved, but likewise from the testimony of a contemporary writer, Puttenham, in his Art of Engl. Poetry (a very scarce book). These are his words: "But, last in recital, "and first in degree, is the queen, whose learned, de- "licate, noble muse, easily furnishteth all the rest, "for satire, sweetness, or subtlety, be it in ode, elegy, "epigram, or any other kind of poem," &c. In this author are to be found only a specimen of 16 verses of her English poetry. "But," says Mr Walpole, "a "greater instance of her genius, and that too in La- "tin, was her extempore reply to an insolent prohibi- "tion delivered to her from Philip II. by his ambassa- "dor, in this tetralectic.

Te vete ne pergas bello defendere Belgas: Quae Dracus erupit, nunc refittantur oportet: Quas pater everit, jubeo te condere collas: Religio papae fac refittatur ad unguaem.

"She instantly answered him, with as much spirit as she used to return his invasions;

Ad Graecas, bone rex, fient mandata kalendas."

Being earnestly pressed by a Roman priest, during his persecution, to declare her opinion concerning the real presence of Christ's body in the wafer, she answered,

Christ was the word that spake it; He took the bread, and brake it: And what that word did make it, That I believe, and take it. Fuller's Holy State.

She gave the characters of four knights of Nottinghamshire in the following distich:

Gervase the Gentle, Stanhope the stout, Markham the lion, and Sutton the loud. Walp. Cat.

Coming into a grammar-school, she characterized three classic authors in this hexameter:

Persius a crab-staff; bawdy Martial; Ovid a fine wag. Full. Worth. of Warw. 126.

Sir. Sir Walter Raleigh having wrote on a window, Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall; She immediately wrote under it, If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all.

Worth. of Devon/b. 261.

Doubtless, she was a woman of singular capacity and extraordinary acquirements; and, if we could forget the story of the Scottish Mary, and of her favourite Essex, together with the burning of a few Anabaptists; in short, could we forbear to contemplate her character through the medium of religion and morality, we might pronounce her the most illustrious of illustrious women. See further the articles ENGLAND, MARY, and SCOTLAND. She died in her palace at Richmond, the 24th of March 1602, aged 73, having reigned 44 years; and was interred in the chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey. Her successor James erected a magnificent monument to her memory.—She wrote, 1. The Mirror, or Glass of the Sinful Soul. This was translated out of French verse into English prose, when she was eleven years old. It was dedicated to Queen Catharine Parr. Probably it was never printed; but the dedication and preface are prefixed in the Spilge epistolae, in Hearne's edition of Livii Floridensis, p. 161. 2. Prayers and Meditations, &c. Dedicated to her father, dated at Hatfield, 1545. Manuscript, in the royal library. 3. A Dialogue out of Xenophon, in Greek, between Hiero a King, yet some time a private person, and Simonides a Poet, as touching the life of the Prince and Private Man. First printed, from a manuscript in her majesty's own handwriting, in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1743. 4. Two Orations of Isocrates, translated into Latin. 5. Latin Oration at Cambridge. Preserved in the king's library: also in Hollinshed's Chron. p. 1206; and in Fuller's Hist. of Camb. p. 138. 6. Latin Oration at Oxford. See Wood's Hist. and Antiq. of Oxf. lib. i. p. 289, also in Dr Jebb's Appendix to his Life of Mary Queen of Scots. 7. A Comment on Plato. 8. Boethius de consolatione philosophica, translated into English anno 1593. 9. Sallust de bello Jugurthino, translated into English anno 1595. 10. A play of Euripides, translated into Latin, (Cat. of Royal Auth.). 11. A prayer for the use of her fleet in the great expedition in 1596. 12. Part of Horace's Art of Poetry, translated into English anno 1593. 13. Plutarch de curiositate, translated into English. 14. Letters on various occasions to different persons: several speeches to her parliament; and a number of other pieces.

Elizabeth Petrowna, (daughter of Peter the Elizabeth Great), the last empress of Russia, distinguished herself by her signal clemency. She made a vow, that no person should be put to death in her reign, and she strictly observed it. The example was followed, and confirmed by law, under the august sovereign of Russia, Catherine II. Elizabeth died in 1762, in the 21st year of her reign and 52d of her age.