IN the literature of our country, however copious, the student will admit that although we possess many and excellent histories, embracing every period of our domestic annals;-biographies, general and particular, of every private individual entitled to such commemoration; and numerous and extensive collections of original letters, state-papers, and other historical and antiquarian documents;—that our comparative penury is remarkable in royal lives, in court-histories, and especially in that class which forms the glory of French literature, -memoir.
To supply this want, as it affects the person and reign of one of the most illustrious of female and of European Sovereigns, is the intention of the work now offered to the public.
Its plan comprehends a detailed view of the private life of Elizabeth from the period of her birth; a view of the domestic history of her reign; memoirs of the principal families of the nobility; biographical anecdotes of the celebrated characters who composed her court; and notices of the manners, opinions, and literature of the reign.
Such persons as may have made it their business or their entertainment to study with considerable minuteness the history of the age of Elizabeth, will be aware that in the chronicles of the times,—so valuable for those vivid pictures of manners which the pen of a contemporary unconsciously traces,—and other large works, a vast repertory existed of curious and interesting facts seldom recurred to for the composition of books of lighter literature, and possessing with respect to a great majority of readers the grace of novelty.
Respecting the selection of topice, it has been the constant endeavour of the writer to preserve to her work the genuine character of