Then according to his promise he presented her Majesty with an English Bible, of a very fair print and richly bound; and upon that they had this discourse:-- _Whitelocke._ If your Majesty would be pleased to spend some time in reading this Bible, and comparing it with those in other languages, it would be a great help to your understanding of the English, if your Majesty have any further thoughts thereof. _Queen._ My desire still is to gain the English tongue, and I think this which you mention will be a good way to learn it. I ask your pardon that you staid so long before you came in to me; nobody told me of your being without, and I am ashamed of this incivility. _Wh._ The incivility, Madam, is on my side, by interrupting your greater affairs; but I come not now as an ambassador, but as a particular servant to bring this Bible to your Majesty. _Qu._ It is a noble present, and there was the less reason to make you stay for admittance with it. [SN: and exhorts her Majesty to read it.] _Wh._ This book was presented to me by an English doctor, with a letter mentioning the text that the Beraeans were accounted the more noble because they received the word with gladness, as I hope your Majesty will. _Qu._ I receive it from you with much thankfulness, and shall gladly make use of it as the best of books. _Wh._ Your Majesty, by often reading it, and comparing it with other Bibles, will not only thereby gain advantage as to the language, but the highest comfort to your soul. _Qu._ I have used to read much in the Bible, and take great contentment in it. _Wh._ Your Majesty will find more contentment and comfort in the study of this book than of all other books whatsoever, and therefore I do humbly recommend the often reading of it to your Majesty. _Qu._ I doubt you have an ill opinion of me that you so earnestly persuade me to this, as if you thought me too backward in it. _Wh._ I only give my humble advice to your Majesty, out of my own experience, of the great comfort, wisdom, and true pleasure which is to be met with in this book, and nowhere else, and that all things out of it are of no value. _Qu._ I am full of the same opinion; but there are too many who have not so venerable an opinion of it as they ought to have. _Wh._ There are indeed, Madam, too many who mock at this book, and at God himself, whose book it is; but these poor worms will one day know that God will not be mocked, and that they and their reproaches will sadly perish together; and I am glad to hear your Majesty's distaste of such wicked ones. _Qu._ Surely every good Christian ought to distaste such men and such opinions. They had much more discourse upon the same subject, wherein Whitelocke spake the more, because he found the Queen more inclined to it now than he had perceived her to be at other times.