(from the 'by-ways of History,') and LUCY AIKIN'S Court of Queen Elizabeth.

The author takes leave to remind the reader, that the Puritans, in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, while the Act of Uniformity only existed in formwhile they enjoyed a respite from their sufferings, and were in some quarters rather a dominant than a down-trodden party-though significantly styled Precisians, were not generally distinguished by the austerity and harshness which afterwards characterized them. They freely studied all liberal arts, and particularly followed the pursuit of alchemy.

TO ALL LOVERS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

October, 1859.

UEEN ELIZABETH had announced her intention of visiting her ancient town of Cambridge, warranted in doing so by various counts. Its venerable age, which claimed Henry Beauclerc as a student, and David of Scotland as an Earl; where learning flourished in spite of mischievous Montgomery' and the 'merciless fire;' where Hugolina, the devout wife of the Baron of Bourne, on her recovery from desperate sickness, dedicated a church to God and St. Giles, and caused her husband to endow it with half of the tithes of no less than twenty manors; and Pagan Peverel, standard-bearer to Robert of Normandy, founded Barnwell Priory, and raised its canons to the number of thirty, be人

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cause he was then thirty years of age-an early period of life, truly, at which to make his benefaction; where the Abbot of Crowland worthily revived letters by the simple means of four monks-Monk Odo, betimes in the morning reading grammar to the boys at one of the clock; Terricus, 'a most witty and subtle sophister,' teaching the young men Aristotle's logic at three of the clock; Monk William reading a lecture in Tully's Rhetoric ;' but the great Master Gislebert upon every Sunday and holy-day preaching God's Word unto the people. And this fountain' never ran dry, though more than once 'Mars frighted away the Muses-when Mount Parnassus was turned into a fort, and Helicon driven into a trench;' and even when Walter Bunk and his Brabanters did no more than destroy the town of Ely, the scholars had need of steady heads and strong brains, if able to study in these distempers, when loud drums and trumpets silenced the sweet but low harp of Apollo.'

A particular claim on Queen Elizabeth, besides the state and attainments of the University, lay in the fact that, as the climax to innumerable gifts from wealthy and pious spinster, dame, and widow, five out of the thirteen colleges and halls had been founded by illustrious women-Clare Hall, by Elizabeth, Countess of Ulster; Pembroke Hall, by sad Mary of Valentia, maid, wife, and widow in one day;' Queen's College, begun by Margaret of Anjou, with the strangely significant inscription on