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"In a sovereign's need," answered the youth, "it is each liege-man's duty to be bold."

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"In truth, that was well said, my lord," said the Queen, turning to a grave person who sat by her, and answered with a grave inclination of the head and something of a mumbled assent. "Well, young man, your gallantry shall not go unrewarded. Go to the wardrobe-keeper, and he shall have orders to supply the suit which you have cast away in our service. Thou shalt have a suit, and that of the newest cut, I promise thee, on the word of a princess."

"May it please your Grace," said Walter, hesitating, "it is not for so humble a servant of your Majesty to measure out your bounties; but if it became me to choose--"

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"Thou wouldst have gold, I warrant me," said the Queen, interrupting him: "fie, young man! I take shame to say that in our capital, such and so various are the means of thriftless folly, that to give gold to youth is giving fuel to fire and furnishing them with the means of self-destruction. If I live and reign, these means of unchristian excess shall be abridged. Yet thou may'st be poor," she added, "or thy parents may be. It shall be gold, if thou wilt; but thou shalt answer to me for the use on't."

Walter waited patiently until the Queen had done, and then modestly assured her that gold was still less in his wish than the raiment her Majesty had before offered.

"How, boy!" said the Queen, "neither gold nor garment? What is it thou wouldst have of me, then?"

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Only permission, madam—if it is not asking too high an honour-permission to wear the cloak which did you this trifling service."

"Permission to wear thine own cloak, thou silly boy!" said the Queen.

"It is no longer mine," said Walter: "when your Majesty's foot touched it, it became a fit mantle for a prince; but far too rich a one for its former owner."

The Queen again blushed, and endeavoured to cover, by

laughing, a slight degree of not unpleasing surprise and confusion.

"Heard you ever the like, my lords? The youth's head is turned with reading romances. I must know something of him, that I may send him safe to his friends. What is thy name and birth ? ”

"Raleigh is my name, most gracious Queen,-the youngest son of a large, but honourable family of Devonshire.”

“Raleigh?” said Elizabeth, after a moment's recollection : "have we not heard of your service in Ireland ?”

"I have been so fortunate as to do some service there, madam," replied Raleigh; "scarce, however, of consequence sufficient to reach your Grace's ears."

"They hear farther than you think of," said the Queen graciously, "and have heard of a youth who defended a ford in Shannon against a whole band of wild Irish rebels, until the stream ran purple with their blood and his own."

"Some blood I may have lost," said the youth, looking down; "but it was where my best is due, and that is in your Majesty's service."

The Queen paused, and then said hastily, "You are very young to have fought so well, and to speak so well. And now, to take thee at thy word, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy cloak till our pleasure be further known. And here," she added, giving him a jewel of gold in the form of a chessman, "I give thee this to wear at the collar."

Raleigh, to whom nature had taught intuitively, as it were, those courtly arts which many scarce acquire from long experience, knelt, and, as he took from her hand the jewel, kissed the fingers which gave it. He knew, perhaps, better than almost any of the courtiers who surrounded her, how to mingle the devotion claimed by the Queen with the gallantry due to her personal beauty; and in this, his first attempt to unite them, he succeeded so well as at once to gratify Elizabeth's personal vanity and her love of power.

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THE tyrannous and bloody act is done;
The most arch deed of piteous massacre
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton and Forrest, whom I did suborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery,

Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,
Melting with tenderness and mild compassion,
Wept like two children, in their death's sad story.
"O thus," quoth Dighton, "lay the gentle babes :"
"Thus, thus," quoth Forrest, "girdling one another
Within their alabaster innocent arms;

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk

Which, in their summer beauty, kiss'd each other.

A book of prayers on their pillow lay;

Which once," quoth Forrest, "almost changed my mind;
But, O, the devil," there the villain stopp'd;
When Dighton thus told on,-" we smothered
The most replenished sweet work of Nature,
That, from the prime creation, e'er she fram'd."
Hence both are gone, with conscience and remorse ;
They could not speak ; so I left them both,
To bear this tidings to the bloody king.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE SOLAR SYSTEM.

Is our earth the fixed centre of the universe, around which sun, moon, and stars revolve? Or is it the earth that really moves? This is the first great question in Astronomy, as that science is called which treats of the heavenly bodies and the laws which regulate their motions. Almost every child in our day knows that it is the earth that really moves round the sun, not the sun round the earth. This truth, however, has not been long established. "Seeing," we commonly say, “is believing;" but it is certain that the eye is often deceived, and that if we judge only by appearances we shall often arrive at false conclusions. Thus both learned and simple, relying on the evidence of their eyesight, were led, for long ages, to believe that the earth was by far the most important part of Creation, and that all the rest of the visible universe existed only for its sake—that the sun shone only to give it light and heat, and that the stars were as lamps suspended in the sky to dispel the gloom of night.

Two truths, however, respecting the heavenly bodies have been known from the earliest time: first, that the moon travels round the earth, and shines with the reflected rays of the sun for our sole benefit; secondly, that of all the stars visible to the naked eye, there are five unlike all the rest in their behaviour. These five stars seemed to the ancients to wander about the heavens, instead of keeping fixed positions like all the other stars. To these "wandering" stars, accordingly, they gave the name of planets, and called them after the names of their gods-Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

It was not until the sixteenth century that the truth began to dawn upon the minds of the best astronomers—that our earth was like one of these planets, and that both the earth and the other planets revolved round the sun. Copernicus,

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