Attempt > Volume 1 and Select writings

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THE ATTEMPT
Therefore the Papal authority must be abolished, at least in England; and as, in the
reign of her bloody sister, the flame of the funeral pyre of martyred Protestants had
ascended to heaven, so, in Elizabeth’s reign, must the blood of Eoman Catholics also
cry aloud for vengeance. It was a great work, but Elizabeth performed it. The
woman sovereign, not being troubled with a tender conscience or a merciful heart, did
her work well.
Having put down the Eoman Catholics within the kingdom, Elizabeth re¬
quired to turn her attention to the Eoman Catholics without the kingdom. Spain
was preparing to attack England, and the great Armada was nearing her coasts. Then
arose that fearful storm, which destroyed the fleet that Spain, in her pride, had termed
the “ Invincible.” “ He blew with His winds, and they were scattered.”
Add to these great national struggles and triumphs, that Elizabeth did all in her
power to promote and encourage literature, and you will have no reason to be astonished
at the number of great names which adorn the annals of her reign. The chivalry,
which can never be wholly wanting in the court of a maiden queen, prompted Spenser
to the "writing of his great chivalrous poem. It is, as we all know, dedicated to Queen
Elizabeth. This is, perhaps, the purest poem which the earlier ages have bequeathed
to us. Its free, luxuriant grace contrasts curiously with the neatly-trimmed and primed
poems of the reign of Queen Anne, reminding us of a wild Swiss glen, whose sward is
covered with beautiful flowers of every hue and form, compared with a prim, precise
Dutch garden. Yet do we owe much to the reign of Queen Anne. Our literature
had not been complete without the names of Pope, Swift, Addison, and Steele.
In writing of the authors who adorned the reigns of two of our female sovereigns,
let us not withhold a tribute to the literature which has been produced during the reign
of our own beloved Queen. It is true, England has now no Shakespeare, no Spenser;
but has she not a Tennyson, a Browning, a Macaulay, a Kingsley, a Euskin? and last,
not least, the great master of fiction, the most genial and tender-hearted of satirists,
who has our tears and smiles alike at his command—who, although dead, yet speaketh,
and long will speak, to the hearts and sympathies of all—William Makepeace
Thackeray ?
Enid.