But Elizabeth, instead of contracting debts, paid off the old ones, restored the coin to its purity, and was content with an annual revenue of five hundred thousand pounds, even at a time when the rebellion in Ireland cost her four hundred thousand pounds. Her frugality equalled the rapacity of her father, and she was extravagant only in dress, and on great occasions of public rejoicings. But her economy was a small matter compared with the wise laws which were passed respecting the trade of the country, by which commercial industry began to characterize the people. Improvements in navigation followed, and also maritime discoveries and colonial settlements. Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, and the East India Company was formed. Under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia was discovered and colonized. Unfortunately, also, the African slave trade commenced--a traffic which has been productive of more human misery, and led to more disastrous political evils, than can be traced to any other event in the history of modern times. During this reign, the houses of the people became more comfortable; chimneys began to be used; pewter dishes took the place of wooden trenchers, and wheat was substituted for rye and barley; linen and woollen cloth was manufactured; salads, cabbages, gooseberries, apricots, pippins, currants, cherries, plums, carnations, and the damask rose were cultivated, for the first time. But the great glory of this reign was the revival of literature and science. Raleigh, "the soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the philosopher, the poet, the orator, the historian, the courtier," then, adorned the court, and the prince of poets, the immortal Shakspeare, then wrote those plays, which, for moral wisdom and knowledge of the human soul, appear to us almost to be dictated by the voice of inspiration. The prince of philosophers too, the great miner and sapper of the false systems of the middle ages, Francis Bacon, then commenced his career, and Spenser dedicated to Elizabeth his "Fairy Queen," one of the most truly poetical compositions that genius ever produced. The age produced also great divines; but these did not occupy so prominent a place in the nation's eye as during the succeeding reigns. [Sidenote: Reflections.]