Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 5, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume II

MEN AND BOOKS
generous belief in the capacity of women, that
raised up for them this clerical champion. His
courtly spirit contrasts singularly with the rude,
bracing republicanism of Knox. *Thy knee shall
bow,' he says, ' thy cap shall off, thy tongue shall
speak reverently of thy sovereign.' For himself, his
tongue is even more than reverent. Nothing can
stay the issue of his eloquent adulation. Again and
again, ' the remembrance of Elizabeth's virtues '
carries him away ; and he has to hark back again
to find the scent of his argument. He is repressing
his vehement adoration throughout, until when the
end comes, and he feels his business at an end, he
can indulge himself to his heart's content in indis-
criminate laudation of his royal mistress. It is
humorous to think that this illustrious lady, whom he
here praises, among many other excellencies, for the
simplicity of her attire and the ' marvellous meek-
ness of her stomach,' threatened him, years after,
in no very meek terms, for a sermon against female
vanity in dress, which she held as a reflection on
herself^
Whatever was wanting here in respect for women
generally, there was no want of respect for the
Queen ; and one cannot very greatly wonder if
these devoted servants looked askance, not upon
Knox only, but on his little flock, as they came
back to England tainted with disloyal doctrine.
For them, as for him, the occidental star rose some-
what red and angry. As for poor Knox, his position
^ Hallam's Const. Hist, of England, i. 225^ note "'.
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