whom the distraction of civil feud disqualified to appreciate, if they could detect, the finer sensibilities which riveted attachment by first subduing enmity. With them her peculiar position exaggerated trivial errors into grave matter for future trouble and reproach; but in the records left by numerous private friends, and in the valuable testimony of the cause of all her woes-her husband-to the merit of one who was the unvarying comforter of his own, we find, when urged by stern necessity to take a queen's part in the melancholy convulsions of a reign unparalleled in misfortune, that the energy and power of mental resource sufficed for the stormy hours of strife and anarchy, and yet did not obliterate the feminine tenderness and self-denying graces of a wife's devotion-bright blossoms which a wintry sky so soon scatters from the stem. It is remarkable, that of her own connections and immediate attendants, she ever continued to be the idol; so that while themselves were hardly pressed by adverse events, none thought of forsaking her; and as with her own sex this might be attributed to her freedom from jealousy-which emotion, for instance, never interrupted the fondest affection between herself and her sister-in-law, on account of the latter's consanguinity with the object of Charles's former devoted attachment (as was generally supposed)-so with men her conduct was guided by such strict delicacy as to secure her from disrespect when most unprotected, to afford not a vestige by which the most slanderous could track out a fault, and yet did not impede the free exercise of those universal powers of attraction which none more eminently possessed. "This great queen was indeed universally regretted, for she had established a real empire over all hearts; her cheerful temper-her gay and witty conversation, which enlivened all around her to her last hours-her graceful familiarity, and all these winning qualities joined to a sincere piety, rendered her delightful to every one." It is true that her faith in the erroneous doctrines of

her church caused her zeal sometimes to become violent, but her temper was so little akin to cruelty, that this tyranny was more the offspring of mistaken devotion than natural insensibility. To her husband she was the object deservedly of undeviating affection. "I think few are so malicious as to hate her for herself; the fault is that she is my wife," was his repeated observation; and to "the Lady Elizabeth," previous to his last parting from his children, he gave an injunction that she should tell her mother that "his thoughts had never strayed from her," and "that his love should be the same to the last;" "withal he commanded the princess and her brother to be obedient to her." Her sense of justice was so great, and her interest in the welfare of those around her so unfailing, as to secure inviolate fidelity when reduced to such penury as to possess in gold "only one little cup out of which she drank;" a predicament in which not only her calamities, but her munificence "in doing good to those she loved," frequently involved her. Her faults were, an incapacity to restrain her confidence within the bounds of prudence, an impatience of contradiction, and a tendency to fretfulness; this latter evil, as also "her want of that knowledge which comes by reading," were corrected by the fatal experiences of her later life. Her taste for the fine arts rendered her a suitable companion to Charles, whose judgment, aided by her knowledge, obtained for his country the finest works of Rubens, Titian, and Correggio; but we learn from Evelyn and others, that flowers, and "especially orange trees," were also a favourite source of lighter recreation; while her masques, if we may judge from the celebrated one given by the "Inns of court" to their majesties, at Whitehall, in 1633, were of a design which justified the delicacy and taste of her they were meant to celebrate.

In a word, the rare combination of elegance, of accomplishment, and refined sensibility, with masculine intrepidity and

decision, eliciting both esteem and respect, invested her character with the varied beauties of that richest gem, the durability of which almost defies impression, while the brilliancy of its radiated light, thrown off in infinite coruscations, penetrates the darkest gloom. In her, magnanimity was softened by tenderness-resolution chastened by refinement— and the rigid lines of heroic virtue tempered by the exquisite witchery of feminine grace, which, like the cadence of her own unrivalled song, could rouse the fainting ardour of the warrior, or soothe with its thrilling pathos the vexed and troubled spirit of the king. In minds like these, so lustrous and so pure, it is, that deep Thought enhances Beauty :

"Where Wisdom flings not joy away,

As Pallas in the stream, they say,
Once flung her flute,-but smiling owns
That woman's lip can send forth tones
Worth all the music of those spheres
So many dream of-but none hears;
Where Virtue's self puts on so well

Her sister Pleasure's smile, that, loth
From either nymph apart to dwell,
We finish by embracing both."

MOORE'S Alciphron,

ELEANOR OF CASTILE.

AMONG the monuments to departed kings and queens which surround the ruined, but still magnificent, mausoleum of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, there are two altar-tombs in particular, which recall a host of romantic associations, at which the stranger dwells the longest, and which are the last to fade from his memory. The first, which is of considerable size, is of grey unpolished marble—massive, unornamented, and simple almost to rudeness; looking like, what in reality it is, the sarcophagus of a warrior-king. But how can we find language to describe the surpassing beauty of the other! On a cenotaph of Petworth marble, and under a rich Gothic canopy, reclines a female figure of copper-gilt, habited in the graceful costume of the thirteenth century. "There it lies, not a feature of the face injured—not a finger broken off-perfect in its essentials as on the day it left the studio; whilst, all around, marks of injury and dilapidation meet you on every side: it is as though its own serene beauty had rendered violence impossible-had even touched the heart of the great destroyer Time himself." How easy and how dignified is the attitude of the recumbent figure! how elegant the hands! how gracefully, from under the regal diadem, the long tresses fall on the rounded shoulders! The countenance, too, which is represented as serenely smiling, is one of angelic loveliness, breathing eloquently of that feminine softness of character and purity of heart which were the characteristics of its living original. The former tomb is that of the great

1 Knight's London.