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2. The unusual length of her administration, and the strong features of her character, were able to overcome all prejudices; and obliging her detractors to abate much of their invectives, and her admirers somewhat of their panegyrics, have at last, in spite of political factions, and, what is more, of religious animosities, produced a uniform judgment with regard to her conduct. Her vigour, her constancy, her magnanimity, her penetration, vigilance, address, are allowed to merit the highest praises, and appear not to have been surpassed by any person that ever filled a throne.

3. A conduct less rigorous, less imperious, more sincere, more indulgent to her people, would have been requisite to form a perfect character. By the force of her mind, she controlled all her stronger and more active qualities, and prevented them from running into excess.

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4. Her heroism was exempt from temerity, her frugality from avarice, her friendship from partiality, her active temper from turbulency and a vain ambition. She guarded not herself with equal care or equal success from lesser infirmities-the rivalship of beauty, the desire of admiration, the jealousy of love, and the sallies of anger.

5. Her singular talents for government were founded equally on her temper and on her capacity. Endowed with a great command over herself, she soon obtained an uncontrolled ascendant over her people; and while she merited all their esteem by her real virtues, she also engaged their affection by her pretended ones.

6. Few sovereigns of England succeeded to the throne under more difficult circumstances; and none ever conducted the government with such uniform success and felicity. Though unacquainted with the practice of toleration," the true secret for managing religious factions, she preserved her people, by her superior prudence, from those confusions in which theological controversy had involved all the neighbouring nations.

7. And though her enemies were the most powerful princes of Europe-the most active, the most enterprising, the least scrupulous—she was able by her vigour to make deep impressions on their state; her own greatness, meanwhile, remained untouched and unimpaired.

8. The wise ministers and brave warriors who flourished under her reign share the praise of her success; but instead of lessening the applause due to her, they make great addition to it. They owed, all of them, their advancement to her choice; they were supported by her constancy; and, with all their ability, they were never able to acquire any undue ascendant over her.

9. In her family, in her court, in her kingdom, she remained equally mistress. The force of the tender passions was great over her, but the force of her mind was still superior; and the combat, which her victory visibly cost her, serves only to display the firmness of her resolution, and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments.

10. The fame of this princess, though it has surmounted the prejudices both of faction and

bigotry, yet lies still exposed to another prejudice, which is more durable because more natural, and which, according to the different views in which we survey her, is capable either of exalting beyond measure, or diminishing the lustre of her character.

11. This prejudice is founded on the consideration of her sex. When we contemplate her as a woman, we are apt to be struck with the highest admiration of her great qualities and extensive capacity; but we are also apt to require some more softness of disposition, some greater lenity of temper, some of those amiable weaknesses by which her sex is distinguished.

12. But the true method of estimating her merit is to lay aside all these considerations, and consider her merely as a rational being placed in authority, and intrusted with the government of mankind. In this aspect we must admit that her qualities as a sovereign, though with some considerable exceptions, are the object of undisputed applause and approbation.

LESSON LXI.

PROCRASTINATION.

Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer;
Next day the fatal precedent will plead,
Thus on, till wisdom is pushed out of life!
Procrastination is the thief of time;
Year after year it steals, till all are fled,
And to the mercies of a moment leaves
The vast concerns of an eternal scene.
If not so frequent, would not this be strange?
That 'tis so frequent, this is stranger still,
Of man's miraculous mistakes this bears.
The palm, "That all men are about to live,”
For ever on the brink of being born:
All pay themselves the compliment to think
They one day shall not drivel, and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;

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At least their own; their future selves applaud,
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodged in their own hands is Folly's vails;1
That lodged in Fate's, to wisdom they consign;
The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone.
'Tis not in folly not to scorn a fool;

And scarce in human wisdom to do more.

All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that through every stage. When young, indeed, In full content we sometimes nobly rest,

Unanxious for ourselves, and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise,

At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought

Resolves and re-resolves; then dies the same.

And why? Because he thinks himself immortal. All men think all men mortal but themselves; Themselves, when some alarming shock of fate Strikes through their wounded hearts the sudden dread. But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, Soon close; where, past the shaft, no trace is found, As from the wing no scar the sky retains, The parted wave no furrow from the keelSo dies in human hearts the thought of death: E'en with the tender tear which nature sheds O'er those we love, we drop it in their grave. Young (1681-1765).

1. Vails, profits, helps.

LESSON LXII.

THE MIDDLE AGES-PROGRESS OF FREEDOM. 1. Those who cast their eye on the general revolutions of society, will find that, as almost all improvements of the human mind had reached nearly to their state of perfection about the age of Augustus,1 there was a sensible decline from that point or period; and men thenceforth gradually relapsed into ignorance and barbarism. The unlimited extent of the Roman Empire, and the consequent despotism of its monarchs, extinguished all emulation, debased the generous spirits of men, and depressed the noble flame by which all the refined arts must be cherished and enlivened.

2. The military government which soon succeeded, rendered even the lives and properties of men insecure and precarious; and proved destructive to those vulgar and more necessary arts of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; and in