There is many a man now living who would rather lose an arm or a leg than think that the old avenue will be cut down when he is gone to a land where the trees of life and knowledge flourish in perennial verdure, and all the while young Graceless, his heir, is scanning their girth and substance with a wistful consciousness that the Jews _must_ be paid at last. Horace has told us something about those ‘dreaded cypresses,’ which we would fain ignore. They will wave over our dwelling when the oaks in the park have been disposed of at so much per foot, and the family tree itself is withered and forgotten. Do you think it matters much to Smith deceased, the tenth of his illustrious line, that Brown should have succeeded to his place and property, or that B. should cede in turn to Jones and Robinson? ‘A plague o’ both your houses!’ All this, however, has nothing to do with the house of Tudor. Independent of the natural aversion entertained by every right-minded woman for another of her own sex who is sought after by a multitude of suitors, Elizabeth had a variety of excellent reasons for disliking the Queen of Scots. The latter was considerably her junior, unquestionably more beautiful and accomplished, gifted with that mysterious fascination which makes women angry and men foolish, and in addition, to these offences was indubitably the next heir to the English crown. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that the maiden Queen should have delighted in heaping difficulties across the path of her widowed cousin, and this was done the more effectually by keeping well with her to all outward appearance, and interchanging a constant succession of rings, precious stones, letters of courtesy, and the like insidious compliments. Nor was Mary deceived by these artifices. It is probable that she clearly perceived the hollow nature of her kinswoman’s friendship, and returned it in kind, so far as her open generous character would permit. But it was not in this Queen’s nature to cherish lasting feelings of ill-will, and she had also doubtless the good sense to see that in her precarious position Elizabeth’s favour was essential to her security and support. So she corresponded with her regularly in a vein of cordial affection, amounting even to familiarity, and it is no wonder that Mary rose from the composition of one of these letters with an air of unusual exhaustion on her lovely face.