a predilection for the puritans; but finding that they would not make the least advance to uniformity, even in the most harmless ceremonies, he left them to their narrow principles and obstinate prejudices. Intelligence having been received that the young king of Scotland, afterwards James the First of England, on whom the queen always kept a watchful eye, was placing his confidence in favourites whom she disliked, Walsingham was dispatched to break through his delusion, or to create an opposition party in his court. The latter point he effected, but he seems to have formed a wrong estimate of the character and abilities of the youthful monarch. This prince testified an uncommon fondness for literature, and talked sensibly on his favourite topics. Walsingham, being well versed in ancient and modern authors, pleased him by his quotations from Xenophon, Thucydides, Plutarch, and Tacitus; and on subjects of general knowledge they interchanged sentiments with mutual freedom and satisfaction. This politician thought he foresaw that so much theory as James possessed would,. at a maturer age, be turned to useful practice, and he gave a report accordingly; but in this he proved to have been deceived. James might have made an useful academical tutor, or even a professor; but his mind was rather contracted than enlarged for public business by his attachment to the classics, and by his taste for polemics, in which latter he was a proficient. A mind not originally great, is only rendered more conspicuously feeble by an undigested mass of learning; just as a clown appears more ridiculous in a court dress than in his own. When Elizabeth had determined on the trial and condemnation of her unfortunate rival Mary queen of Scots, Walsingham was appointed one of the commis sioners in this tragical business. He had previously exerted himself with great industry and effect to develope the plot of Babington's conspiracy, in which Mary was implicated; and appears to have been guided in this whole transaction by the purest sentiments of loyalty and moral obligation, for he rejected as infamous a scheme pressed by Leicester of taking off the captive queen by poison. In the course of the trial, when Mary charged him with counterfeiting her cypher, and practising against her life and that of her son, Walsingham rose with a dignified emotion, and protested that his heart was free from all malice towards the prisoner; calling God to witness, that in his private capacity he had done nothing unbecoming an honest man, nor in his public capacity any thing unworthy of his station. He declared that he had done what his duty and allegiance prompted, and by those principles alone had regulated his conduct. Mary, with noble frankness and generosity, gave credit to his protestation; and even apologized for having believed what she had heard against him. When all Europe was kept in fearful expectation by the vast armaments which the king of Spain was preparing, and no one could penetrate into his real design, Walsingham employed every manoeuvre that a long habitude with politics could suggest, to discover this important secret; and learning from an emissary at Madrid that the king had avowed to his council the sending off a letter to the pope, begging his benediction on the design which he had avowed in it, (a design however which he did not choose to divulge till he had obtained an answer,) the artful secretary, by means of a priest who was his spy at Rome, procured a copy of the original letter, which was stolen out of the pope's cabinet by a gentleman of his bed chamber while he slept. Having by this dexterous management developed the mystery which had puzzled the deepest politicians, he prevented the Spaniards, by obstacles which he raised, from receiving those pecuniary supplies which would have enabled them to put to sea; and thus the sailing of the armada was delayed for a whole year. He died By his intense application to public business, Walsingham seems to have hastened that moment which no human power or address can at last escape. in the fifty-fourth year of his age; and, though he had held some of the highest and most lucrative stations, did not leave enough to defray the last offices due to mortality. To save his body from an arrest, his friends were obliged to bury him by night in St. Paul's church; without the respect and honour due to such a rare instance of political sagacity, disinterested zeal, and pure patriotism. He left only one daughter, who was married successively to three very distinguished characters; sir Philip Sidney, Devereux earl of Essex, and Bourke earl of Clanrickard and St. Albans. In Walsingham his too penurious mistress lost one of her most faithful servants, and the public one of its best friends. He seems to have been one of those statesmen in whom the noblest virtues love to dwell. He pursued the good of his country by all practicable means, regardless of all other objects. He was eminently instrumental in promoting voyages of discovery, and every useful scheme of trade and navigation. The protestant religion found in him a warm and a judicious supporter, and all the machinations of Rome to overthrow it fell beneath his superior address. His negociations, or state-papers, display at once his literary and his political talents. A manual of prudential maxims, entitled Arcana Aulica, is likewise ascribed to him, though with no sufficient authority. It is very probable, however, that some of the most valu able sentiments, found in his work were borrowed from him one of these, which his whole public life illustrated, is as follows: "Knowledge is never bought too dear." : That this great and good statesman was a patron of literature, is evident from his founding a divinity-lecture at Oxford, as also a library at King's college Cambridge. He assisted Hackluyt; and his purse as well as his influence were always at the service of those who were qualified to do honour to their country by their arms or arts, by their enterprise or their talents. It was impossible indeed to escape a man of Walsingham's penetration, that the patronage of merit and talents in general is the glory and the best support of government; or, in other words, that knowledge and virtue are the gales by which states are wafted into the port of the surest prosperity. From 36th Henry VIII., to 38th Elizabeth. THE illustrious names which throw a splendour on the age of Elizabeth are so numerous, that selection becomes difficult. It produced men eminent in all the arts that give a security to nations, or embellish the walks of private life: heroes, adventurers, statesmen, poets, and scholars, rose in quick succession, or rather were contemporary; and except the present and part of the last, in no preceding or subsequent reign have such brilliant naval achievements been performed. Among those who by their courage and nautical skill contributed to ennoble their country, and the great princess whom they served, the first English circumna vigator Drake, stands conspicuous. He was the eldest son of twelve children, and born at a village near Tavistock, in Devonshire. His father was a mariner, but his circumstances are not known. He had the good fortune, however, to be connected by marriage with sir John Hawkins; who took young Drake under his patronage, and gave him that kind of education which was best adapted to a marine life, for which he was destined from his infancy. A cloud frequently hangs over the early years of celebrated characters, which late biography in vain attempts to pierce. Of the juvenile period of Drake's life, not a single incident has descended to posterity. The first record of his active life is, that by the interest of his patron, co-operating with his own abilities, he was appointed purser of a ship trading to Biscay, about the eighteenth year of his age. At twenty he made a voyage to Guinea, which then began to be visited; and two years afterwards was appointed to the command of a vessel. In this capa city he particularly distinguished himself in the glorious action which took place under his patron sir John Hawkins, at St. John de Ulloa in the harbour of Mexico; and returned to England with a rising repu tation, but without the least advancement in his fortune. The event of this voyage seems to have given him a rooted enmity to the Spaniards, which terminated only with his life. In those times the law of nations seems to have been interpreted with great laxity; and predatory voyages against the rich Spanish settlements were frequently undertaken by private adventurers, rather with the connivance than the sanction of their sovereign. In such expeditions, where the love of enterprise or thirst of gain was the ruling motive, Drake took a very active part; yet his success, and the aversion to the Spanish name which had then be |