In order to form a just idea of her character, we must set aside one part of her conduct, while she abandoned herself to the guidance of a profligate man, and must consider these faults, whether we admit them to be imprudences or crimes, as the result of an inexplicable though not uncommon inconstancy in the human mind, of the frailty of our nature, of the violence of passion, and of the influence which situations, and sometimes momentary incidents, have on persons whose principles are not thoroughly confirmed by experience and reflection. Enraged by the ungrateful conduct of her husband, seduced by the treacherous counsels of one in whom she reposed confidence, transported by the violence of her own temper, which never lay sufficiently under the guidance of discretion, she was betrayed into actions which may with some difficulty be accounted for, but which admit of no apology, nor even of alleviation. An enumeration of her qualities might carry the appearance of a panegyric; an account of her conduct must in some parts wear the aspect of severe satire and invective. Her numerous misfortunes, the solitude of her long and tedious captivity, and the persecutions to which she had been exposed on account of her religion, had wrought her up to a degree of bigotry during her later years; and such were the prevalent spirit and principles of the age, that it is the less wonder if her zeal, her resentment, and her interest uniting, induced her to give consent to a design which conspirators, actuated only by the first of these motives, had formed against the life of Elizabeth. JOHN PYM. BY JOHN RICHARD GREEN. [Born 1584, died in 1643. Leader of the House of Commons in its contest with Charles I, he was the most able and indefatigable opponent of royal usurpation, and the most active agent in the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford. From a pamphlet written just before his death, when war in the field had begun between king and people, it seems doubtful whether he would not in the end have resisted the usurpation of power by Cromwell and the Independents, and supported the king as the least of two evils.]