Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/339

IS73-] THE SPANISH TREATY. 319 was about her person : Burghley was her ' spirit J ; Leicester, her ' sweet Robin ' ; Oxford, her ' boar ' ; Hatton, her ( Lidds,' her ' sheep ' ; her mouton, An- glicised into ' Mutton.' The letters addressed to her by statesmen are remarkable for the absence of formality, for language often of severe and startling plainness, unseasoned with a compliment. She kept her intel- ligence for Burghley and Walsingham, and gave her folly to the favourites. The hard politician of the cabinet exacted in the palace the most profound adula- tion ; she chose to be adored for her beauty, and com- plimented as a paragon of perfection. Her portraits are usually without shadow, as if her features radiated light. Sometimes she was represented in more than mortal ch'aracter ; as an Artemis with bow and crescent ; as the Heathen Queen of love and beauty j as the Christian Eegina Coeli, whose nativity 1 fell close to her own birthday, and whose functions as the virgin of Protestantism she was supposed to supersede. When she appeared as a mere woman, she was painted in robes, which it is to be presumed that she actually wore, broidered with eyes and ears as emblematic of omni- presence or with lizards, crocodiles, serpents, and other monsters, emblematic, whatever they meant besides, of her own extraordinary taste. Hatton tells her when he is writing to her, that ' to full of virtue and great wisdom ; but I fear for some part thereof I would have hut small thanks.' Hatton to the Queen, June 17, 1573. Life of Hatton, by Sir H. Nicolas, p. 27. 1 September 8. Elizabeth born September 7.