see that it is a strange fantastic structure, built in total defiance of all those rules of uniformity, to which the modern architects of Scotland are so much attached. It consists of one large tower, with several smaller ones clustering around it, all built of fine grey granite, their roofs diversified abundantly with all manner of antique chimney-tops, battlements, and turrets, the windows placed, here and there, with appropriate irregularity, both of dimension and position, and the spaces between or above them not unfrequently occupied with saintly niches, and chivalrous coats of arms. Altogether it bears a close resemblance to some of our true old English manor-houses, in which the forms of religious and warlike architecture are blended together, with no ungraceful mixture."

66

QUEEN ELIZABETH, AND JOSEPH RITSON.

FEW of our readers can be ignorant that good Queen Bess," as she has been whimsically nick-named, was a woman of great learning, and wrote Poetry; most of them must, also, have heard of Joseph Ritson, the Poetical Antiquarian, whose unhappy temper and unsocial peculiarities kept him involved in constant

hostility with all who happened to cross his path. The following extract from his "Bibliographia Poetica," (a work of consummate research, containing the most ample catalogue extant of the Poets of Great Britain, and their productions, down to the close of the sixteenth century,) will illustrate his remarkable style of writing, and oddities of spelling, as well as the rancorous spirit with which he was imbued.

"Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England, wrote, in 1555, while prisoner at Woodstock, with a charcoal on a shuter, some certain verseës, printed in Hentzner's Travels;' and a couplet, with her diamond, in a glass window, printed in Foxes Actes and Monumentes;' also, a Poem, touching the practiceës of the Queen of Scots and her adherents, preserve'd in Puttenham's 'Arte of English Poesie,' 1589; and, apparently, other things; since, according to that flattering courtier, her 'learned, delicate, noble Muse,' easeyly surmounted all the rest that had writen before her time, or since, 'for sence, sweatnesse, and subtillitie,' were it in ode, elegie, epigram, or any other kinde of Poeme, heroicke or lyricke,' wherein it should please her Majesty to employ her pen, even by

as much oddes as her owne gallant estate and degree' exceeded all the rest of her most humble vassalls.' The following Epitaph, made by the Queene's Majestie, at the death of the Princesse of Espinoye," inserted among the Poems of one Soothern, printed in her time, is here given merely as a curiosity; since there cannot wel be a more abominable composition, the Musees haveing favour'd her just as much as Venus or Diana.*

'When the warrier Phoebus goth to make his round,
With a painefull course, to toother hemisphere :
A darke shadowe, a great horror, and a feare,
In I knoe not what cloudes inveron the ground.
And even so for Pinoy, that fayre vertues lady,
(Although Jupiter have in this orizôn,

Made a starre of her, by the Ariadnan crowne)
Morns, dolour, and griefe, accompany our body.
O Atropos, thou hast doone a worke perverst.
And as a byrde that hath lost both young and nest,
About the place where it was makes many a tourne,
Even so dooth Cupid, that infaunt, god of amore,

* "Bolton, however, is of a different opinion. 'Q.

Elizabeth's verses,' says he, those which I have seen and read, are princely, as her prose.''

Flie about the tombe, where she lies all in dolore, Weeping for her eyes, wherein he made soiourne."

"Bolton after citeing a fulsome and parasitical dedication to this Queen, (or, rather, quean, as one who would not onely scold, and swear By God! at her nobles, and maids of honour, but, occasionally, box their ears,) by Sir Henry Savil, before his abominable perversion of ‹Tacitus,' (principally, he says, to incite her, as by a foil, to communicate to the world, if not those admirable compositions of her own, yet, at the least, those most rare and excellent translations of histories,' if he may call them translations, which have so infinitely exceeded the originals,'!!!) proceeds as follows:- Somewhat it may detract from the credit of this seeming hyperbolical praise, both because it was written in her life-time, and, also, to herself [a censure which may apply, with no less justice

* "Two little authemes, or thinges in meeter of her Majestie,' were license'd to Mr. Barker, her Majesties printer, the 15th of November, 1578. She is generally represented as beautiful, chaste, and an accomplish'd poetess; and was all, no doubt, with equal truth."