Nay, out of this very anxiety to minister to the craving vanity of a weak and worthless woman--the devices to which it gave rise and the laborers whom it called into action--have arisen results which are not amongst the least happy or important of those by its connection with which the Christmas festival stands recommended. Under these impulses, the old dramatic entertainments--of which we shall have occasion to speak more at large hereafter--took a higher character and assumed a more consistent form. The first regular English tragedy, called "Ferrex and Porrex," and the entertainment of "Gammer Gurton's Needle," were both productions of the early period of this queen's reign; and amid the crowd of her worshippers (alas that it is so!) rose up--with the star upon his forehead which is to burn for all time--the very first of all created beings, William Shakespeare. These are amongst the strange anomalies which the world, as it is constituted, so often presents, and _must_ present at times, constitute it how we will. Shakespeare doing homage to Queen Elizabeth! The loftiest genius and the noblest heart that have yet walked this earth, in a character merely human, bowing down before this woman with the soul of a milliner and no heart at all! The "bright particular star" humbling itself before the temporal crown! The swayer of hearts, the ruler of all men's minds, in virtue of his own transcendent nature, recognizing the supremacy of this overgrown child, because she presided over the temporalities of a half emancipated nation, by rights derived to her from others and sanctioned by no qualities of her own! And yet if to the low passions of this vulgar queen, and the patronage which they led her to extend to all who could best minister to their gratification, we owe any part of that development by which this consummate genius expanded itself, then do we stand in some degree indebted to her for one of the greatest boons which has been bestowed upon the human race; and as between her and mankind in general (for the accounts between her and individuals, and still more that between her and God, stand uninfluenced by this item) there is a large amount of good to be placed to her credit. Against her follies of a day there would have to be set her promotion of a wisdom whose lessons are for all time; against the tears which she caused to flow, the human anguish which she inflicted, and the weary, pining hours of the captives whom she made, would stand the tears of thousands dried away, many and many an aching heart beguiled of its sorrow, and many a captive taught to feel that "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage;" all the chords of human feeling touched with a hand that soothes as did the harp of David, all the pages of human suffering stored with consolations!