and to prohibit the showing or publication of such as are apperently deformed, which is reasonable.' Decree issued in the year 1563. The original is in the handwriting of Lord Burleigh, then Cecil, and is now in the State-paper Office. We thus discover how it has happened that all the portraits of Queen Elizabeth are corresponsive. You know her in a moment! "Forbear" therefore, ye multitude of "wicked and impertinent artists” -the decree commands "all manner" of ye to forbear until the production of the Patron Portrait; and even then the honour is to be confined to such among your ardent tribe as "shall be known men of understanding." Venture not temeritously to infringe this command, which "straightway chargeth all her Majesty's officers to see due ob servation thereof;" in other words, applicable to modern times, you will in such case be taken in charge by the police, and dealt with according to the degree of the deformity produced. 66 66 In a work recently published, entitled, "Queen Elizabeth and her Times," there is an original letter from the Queen to Sir Edward Stafford, ostensibly on the subject of his embassy during the nego. tiations for her marriage with the Duke of Anjou; but secretly pointing," as far-seeing diplomatists say, to this exasperating affair of her portraits. Her letter contains the following doubles entendres. "I speak not this, that I fear the like; but when I make collection of sundry kinds of discontentments, all tied in a bundle, I suppose the faggot will be harder altogether to be broken." This of course alludes to her vexation at the abominable portraits of her which the Duke of Anjou had obtained, and fiercely laments the difficulty of getting them all together for destruction. Again: "O Stafford! I think not myself well used, and so tell Monsieur that I am made a stranger to myself," &c. She moreover throws in a gentle hint of consequences to the delinquents, which makes us tremble from its very quietude; it is white hot. "Hitherto they have thought me no fool; let me not live, the longer the worse." Ahem!-we venture not to quote more. But really it must have been a most serious and galling grievance to a woman of Elizabeth's beauty, delicacy, and refinement, to have been thus misrepresented. She had her personal vanities, like all other women and men, and was not well pleased to seem ill-favoured, though but in a picture, before the eyes of her courtly admirers either abroad or at home. She would rather have been even flattered, in order to enhance herself with such faithful servants and reverential admirers as Leicester, Essex, and Sir Christopher Hatton, the Lord Keeper, behind the latter of whom she rode on a pillion home to her palace on the day of her coronation, and danced a saraband with him in the royal gardens then at Clifton. Well might the poet write, "The good Lord Keeper led the brawls! The Seals and Maces danced before him!" Is it any wonder then that a queen who possessed so much life and spirit, in addition to her beauty, should have felt herself most deeply aggrieved by the shameful misrepresentations of herself throughout her dominions? But if such feelings are natural and justifiable in her case, what must they be with respect to her present Majesty, who-without meaning any gross adulation-has certainly mounted the throne something younger, something more refined, and something more beautiful than Queen Elizabeth. With regard to the evident importance of her present Majesty's true portraiture, a very few words will suffice. The people" down in the country" are uncommonly loyal; and the further you go, the more loyal you find them. They have however for some time past been wavering in their feelings; indeed it is only a few weeks since we heard a Cornish farmer exclaim, as he flung down his spade, "What's the use o' seven queens? I never grudged taxes for one-I was proud on 't-but who can fork out for seven!" The poor man had seen seven portraits of her Majesty. Now what else can any honest countrymen think when he sees a quantity of portraits, some fat, some slim, some short of stature, some full ten heads high, some very pale, some very rosy, many brunnette, and with features and expressions of all sorts of different and opposite characters ;-what can the honest folks think but that there are as many queens as portraits? This is most dangerous : it breeds doubt, discontent, and disaffection, as it will breed general rebellion, revolution, and civil wars, if not speedly stopped by the operation of the foregoing decree. The recent rebellion in Canada is clearly attributable to this very source of doubt. Forty-three por traits of her Majesty were shipped for St. John's New Brunswich; and nine of them found their way into Upper Canada. The people of Toronto took up arms directly. Nine queens at one blow-and ascending their thrones at the very moment when these Canadians were petitioning Sir Francis Head to return to Nassau and write another book! Nine queens was such an impulse to the imagi. nation and the memory, that it filled the blood of all the French settlers with the extract of fleur de lis; and reverting to ancestral associations, they bethought them of the Salique law, and having acquired in Canada a wholesome antipathy to poetry and the muses, vowed they would have nothing to do with any one of the Nine. In vain it was represented to them that these portraits were the production of wicked and impertinent artists; that the one by Au, thority, and deduced from the working of a Precedented measure,— the Patron Portrait, was not yet painted, and that all hitherto issued were spurious, fallacions, and treasonable-in fact, that there were not nine Gracious Majesties but one Gracious Majesty, and it was hoped they would listen to reason. But the firing thought of nine queens had burst upon them, and all remonstrance was in vain. It' was a very sad thing that Lord Durham's departure should have been so much delayed. Of course it was best that he should wait as long as possible for the chance of the Patron Portrait appearance, that he might take out a copy with him, to convince and pacify the Canadians at once. He was obliged however to go without the proof, and it will be sent after him as soon as obtained, Dreadful disturbances of a far more extensive character than have hitherto agitated that unfortunate country are brewing in Ireland, entirely through this confusion of ideas. The peasantry, and indeed many of the small landholders are decidedly of opinion that these extraordinary portraits of supposititions queens are mere blinds, or ignis fatui, to the fact of her Majesty baving been secretly dethroned, and that she has now retired into private life. This natelymanaged proceeding is also associated in their minds with the recollections of Colonel F- and the Orange associatious; and the majority of the Irish believe it to be some ramification of that mysterious plot, the purpose of which was to make the Duke of Cumber land sovereign in her place. The portrait of his Majesty of Hanover would certainly occasion no such difficulty. Touching the personal happiness of her Majesty, what can be more" imminent," as Shakspeare justly remarks, than her peril at the chance of a "deadly breach ?" Approaching the problem with becoming awe, we venture in the most shadowy manner to hint at the great probability, at some future day, of her Majesty deigning to receive at the altar those vows of some adoring prince, which are the soft breathing prelude to a solution in Elysium. The royal suitors come to England in consequence of falling in love with English princesses through the medium of their portraits. Passionate and profound affection and reverence propel them into this country. They hasten on the wings of hope and fear; they are actuated by the purest motives. Whatever may have been thought by the selfish canaille, the Royal Suitors to English princesses have always been influenced by motives the most pure, capacious, and unmixed. True, that the youthfulness of the sovereign renders the prospect not so likely to be very near at hand; true, that the saga. city and early mental culture she has derived from her royal mother have insured the wisdom of her choice whenever the solemn day of regal love shall dawn ;-but meantime what becomes of the hearts of all foreign princes? Burning to waste, forsooth!-absolutely burning themselves away in fallacious flames, as sincerely as if they were actually here, and with these treasonable portraits,each foreign prince dying over a different queen, and no foreign prince falling in love with the real one, because there is no Patron Portrait ! Thus then her Majesty, it is in the compass of divine and human probability, might fall in love with the true portrait of some foreign prince, while he, having most disastrously got hold of some audacious painted libel upon her majesty's "person, favour, and grace," perpetrated by the wickedest of all wicked and impertinent artist, he, we say, could not feel any corresponding sentiment towards It. If he could do so indeed, he would show himself incaple of appreciating the original. For what is this world even to a prince without affection? If he love not a great queen, he cannot help his own feelings !--he would rather wed a peasant girl, though she had not a penny, provided she reigned the empress of his heart. Well-these things cannot be helped at present. There must be a Patron Portrait ! Imagine it done!-imagine some artist, favoured of heaven, to have actually accomplished a portrait, pronounced by the Lords Melbourne, Russel, Palmerston, and Glenelg, according to the Edict, as a perfect likeness, and worthy to become the Patron of and for all future like. nesses! Imagine next an immense house or hall to be called the Hall of Correction. It is lighted by a sky-light running all along the roof, and there are seven hundred and thirty-six easels placed at equal distances down both sides of the hall. The Patron Portrait hangs up at one end. A trumpet sounds at day-break,-folding-doors are suddenly flung open, and seven hundred and thirty-six wicked and impertinent artists rush in, and placing their ever-various portraits on their respective easels, set to work to change the faces into the true favour and grace of the Patron placed on high. R. H. H. A CAMBRIDGE 'ROW' IN THE YEAR 1632 : EXTRACTED FROM AN OLD MS. FOUND IN TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. Ir was on a pleasant evening towards the end of March, in the year 1632, that two young men in the academical dress walked leisurely along the high road leading from Cambridge to Huntingdon. They appeared to be two students who had extended their evening promenade rather beyond the limits usually attained by pedestrians -a circumstance which possibly had escaped their observation from the earnestness with which they pursued their conversation. Although they wore the gowns of bachelors of arts, they appeared to be both very young, hardly exceeding the general age of under-graduates of the present day. They seemed about the same age, differing consider. ably in personal appearance-one being much taller than the other, and the hair of the taller darker than that of his companion. Of both, the limbs seemed well-proportioned, nervous, and active, like those of men who though as it seemed students by profession, had not neglected the use of all kinds of atheletic exercises. They had walked for the last few minutes in silence, when the shorter spoke. "And SO κριτης abuses my verses?" "He passes upon them the judgment I have mentioned,” replied the other. "The traitor knave! the faitour!" rejoined the first, half angrily, half contemptuously. "Straitforward honourable conduct no one would expect from such a pompous knave? but such scoundrelly duplicity I should have scarcely looked for, even from o pirns." "Did he praise them before you ?" "To the skies; and the foul churl strongly pretended to advise me to continue to write verses or poetry, as he was pleased to call it. But he is beneath my anger, or even my contempt!" "He seemed to think you had got an overweening conceit of your own powers, John; that there is a harshness, or a ruggedness about your versification which renders it utterly hopeless that you should ever write such verses as Flip or Fritter." "I should be very sorry to write such verses!" replied the somewhat irritated poet, and walked on for the next five minutes in silence, which was broken by his taller companion; who as he spoke pulled a manuscript from his pocket. "But after all, John," he said "you must confess that the verses which I am going to read you, to say the least of them, are somewhat harsh." "Why, Neville !" exclaimed his friend, "where in Heaven's name did you get that manuscript? I had no idea that my papers were going about the University in this manner. I should be glad to afford entertainment to it, and I am, as you know, far from being insensible to Fame; but I confess I had rather be excused affording this species of entertainment to the old lady, and her brood of sucklings; and the Fame I court is not precisely of this nature." "I am not at liberty to tell you where, or from whom I procured this manuscript of your opuscula, John; but in God's name, my dear fellow, hear, and now the ostium, the inspiration of production is over-judge whether this be not enough to set the teeth-the delicate, white, pearly teeth-of all the nine on edge, and make them flee far away from thee for ever." "What, the-hem! read on, then. Harry Neville may speak as he pleases to John Milton." Neville opened the MS., and turning over a leaf or two, read as fol. lows: "ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER. "Here lies old Hobson! death has broke his girt, Dodged with him betwixt Cambridge and the Bull." "Oh, jam satis! pr'ythee have done, friend Neville," exclaimed Milton. "Well, you confess this to be but indifferent, my learned friend; and thats is not quite so much in the wrong, is not quite so unjust in his sage criticism as you seemed to opine but now," observed his companion with rather a provoking grin upon his countenance. "I confess no such thing, Master Neville !" replied the poet stoutly; "opens is, though a pompous one, as thorough-bred a donkey as ever shook long ears, brayed, and looked grave. And as for my verses on poor old Hobson, they don't run quite so smoothly as some of those of your namby-pamby prize poets; they are not, to be sure, such as are composed, as Shakspeare says, "To caper nimbly in a lady's chamber, but they are what I deemed suited to the subject and occasion; in short, what I intended them to be-that is enough. And by-the-by, talking of Shakspeare, reminds me of some verses that I wrote on him the other day. I think I have them with me; and I will set them off against those you have just read." He took a paper from his pocket, and began to read. "ON SHAKSPEARE. "What needs my Shakspeare for his honour'd bones Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid Under a starry pointing pyramid ? Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a live-long monument, For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavouring art, Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart |