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a letter to be written to her ambassador concerning a message which was to be given separately to the Queen Mother of the Valois, and finding that her secretary had inserted a clause directing the ambassador to say to the Queen Mother by way of compliment, that they were two Queens from whom though women no less was expected in administration of affairs and in the virtue and arts of government than from the greatest men, she would not endure the comparison, but ordered it to be struck out; saying that the arts and principles which she employed in governing were of a far other sort than those of the Queen Mother. Nor was she spoiled by power and long reigning: but the praises which pleased her most were when one so managed the conversation as aptly to insinuate that even if she had passed her life in a private and mean fortune she could not have lived without some note of excellency among men; so little was she disposed to borrow anything of her fortune to the credit of her virtue. But if I should enter into her praises, whether moral or political, I should either fall into certain common-place observations and commemorations of virtues, which would be unworthy of so rare a princess; or in order to give them a lustre and beauty peculiar and appropriate, I should have to run into the history of her life, a task requiring both more leisure and a richer vein. Thus much I have said in few words, according to my ability. But the truth is that the only true commender of this lady is time, which, so long at course as it has run, has produced nothing in this sex like her, for the administration of civil affairs.

LITERARY AND RELIGIOUS WORKS.

PART II.

IN HENRICUM PRINCIPEM WALLIE ELOGIUM ; IMAGO CIVILIS JULII CÆSARIS; IMAGO AUGUSTI CÆSARIS; ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS FOR CAMDEN'S ANNALES,

AND

ESSAYS OR COUNSELS CIVIL AND MORAL.

IN

HENRICUM PRINCIPEM WALLIE

ELOGIUM FRANCISCI BACONI.

20*

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