It is true that some, not prejudiced against Elizabeth, have doubted whether "Cupid's fiery dart" was as effectually "quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon," as her poet intimates. This I must leave to the reader's judgment. She certainly went strange lengths of indelicacy. But, if she might sacrifice herself to the queen of Cnidus and Paphos, she was unmercifully severe to those about her, of both sexes, who showed any inclination to that worship, though under the escort of Hymen. Miss Aikin, in her well written and interesting _Memoirs of the Court of Elizabeth_, has collected several instances from Harrington and Birch. It is by no means true, as Dr. Lingard asserts, on the authority of one Faunt, an austere puritan, that her court was dissolute, comparatively at least with the general character of courts; though neither was it so virtuous as the enthusiasts of the Elizabethan period suppose. [239] _Somers Tracts_, i 189; Strype, iii. 205, 265, 480. Strype says that he had seen the manuscript of this tract in Lord Burleigh's handwriting. It was answered by Cardinal Allen, to whom a reply was made by poor Stubbe, after he had lost his right hand. An Italian translation of the _Execution of Justice_ was published at London in 1584. This shows how anxious the queen was to repel the charges of cruelty, which she must have felt to be not wholly unfounded. [240] _Somers Tracts_, p. 209. [241] _State Trials_, i. 1160. [242] _Somers Tracts_, 164. [243] Strype, iii. 298. Shelley, though notoriously loyal and frequently employed by Burleigh, was taken up and examined before the council for preparing this petition. [244] P. 591. Proofs of the text are too numerous for quotation, and occur continually to a reader of Strype's 2nd and 3rd volumes. In vol. iii. Append. 158, we have a letter to the queen from one Antony Tyrrel, a priest, who seems to have acted as an informer, wherein he declares all his accusations of catholics to be false. This man had formerly professed himself a protestant, and returned afterwards to the same religion; so that his veracity may be dubious. So, a little further on, we find in the same collection (p. 250) a letter from one Bennet, a priest, to Lord Arundel, lamenting the false accusations he had given against him, and craving pardon. It is always possible, as I have just hinted, that these retractations may be more false than the charges. But ministers who employ spies, without the utmost distrust of their information, are sure to become their dupes, and end by the most violent injustice and tyranny.