Lady Jane Grey. We think our readers can hardly fail to be interested in the story of this amiable, but unfortunate lady. We shall therefore tell it at some length. Melancholy as was the fate of this illustrious personage, she was fortunate, in one respect. Though placed in a situation to excite envy and prejudice, and though calumny and misrepresentation might be deemed a road to royal favor, no one of her cotemporaries has dared to say ought that was ill of her; and the more attentive is the examination of her history and character, the more deserving will she be found of those praises, which some, in later times, have hinted to have had their origin in a desire to glorify a political and religious martyr. She was the daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and Frances Brandon, a granddaughter of Henry VII., and was born at “a very faire, large, and beautiful house,” called Bradgate, in 1537. The intercourse between parents and children was not of that pleasing character, now so universal; good discipline was maintained by fear, rather than love; children, especially daughters, were never admitted to any familiarity with their parents; they were obliged, even in womanhood, to stand at the cupboard side during visits, except when permitted to have a cushion to kneel on; and it was not unusual for ladies of the highest rank, to correct their grown-up daughters, even before company, with the large fans which it was the fashion to carry. The parents of Lady Jane were even more than usually severe; which with one, who from her birth was distinguished for the gentleness of her disposition, was wholly unnecessary; “for what need,” says the quaint Fuller, “of iron instruments to bow wax?” The first care of her parents would doubtless be to instruct her in those matters which were deemed indispensable to a young lady’s education. She was taught music, and not only played on several musical instruments, but accompanied them with a voice exquisitely sweet; her execution in needle-work was beautiful; she was skilled in the art of making confectionary, then an important part of lady-like duty; nor was she deficient in a knowledge of surgery and medicine, for the practice of which arts those boisterous times furnished frequent occasion. At a period a little earlier than this, with a knowledge of these things, a young lady’s education would have been deemed complete; for reading and writing were thought to be dangerous accomplishments, any further than to be able to spell out the Missal. But the reformation in religion had excited a desire for general knowledge, as well as a spirit of inquiry into religious matters; learning, as well with women as with men, became the fashion; “a grete number of noble women,” we are told by a contemporary writer, “were given to the studie of human sciences, and of strange tongues, and it was a common thinge to see young virgins so nouzled and