[CHAPTER XXVI.]
Whilst these scenes were taking place in Spain, Elvira was beginning to discover, in England, that it was not quite so delightful to be a Queen as she had previously imagined. The contending parties in the state had been roused into action by the late struggle, and party spirit is of all others the most difficult to conquer. Besides this, the choice of Elvira having been rather a matter of feeling than of judgment, men felt dissatisfied at having suffered themselves to be hurried away by their passions, and, as is usual in such cases, they were disposed to vent the ill-humour they felt at their own conduct upon every thing which chanced to fall in their way. Thus, even the best measures of Elvira's government were warmly criticised; and as she unfortunately altered some of her laws in consequence of these objections, the critics were encouraged to proceed; and fancying her plans to be the result of weakness, when they were in fact only produced by her natural candour and love of justice, the people became more outrageous and troublesome with every concession that was made to them.
Elvira's intentions were excellent, but by unfortunately wishing to please every one, she destroyed their effect. This made her councils vacillating, and her measures uncertain: nothing indeed but the strength of mind and commanding genius of Edmund, joined to his complete devotion to her cause, could have prevented the ruin of her government almost in the moment of its formation. From a mistaken motive of generosity, she had retained in her council those lords who had most vehemently opposed her, though, in compliance with the wishes of Edmund, they were shorn of their beams. This was a fatal error; half measures are always dangerous: the lords in question should have been discarded altogether, or retained in their former seats; as it was, Elvira had made them enemies, and yet left them the power to sting her.
The emissaries of Rosabella were also very active, and the ferment of the public mind excessive. The taste the people had just enjoyed of power, had only been enough to make them long for more. They had only just began to relish its sweets, when the dish was snatched away from them, with which, if it had been left them to devour, they would have soon been cloyed. Discontents became general, disturbances arose, which were no sooner quelled in one quarter than they broke out in another, and these petty insurrections, though almost too trivial to mention, were excessively annoying. For trifling inconveniences, like a host of flies buzzing round a nervous man on a sultry day, are often more irritating to the temper, than serious grievances; and the noble mind of Edmund was wearied by subduing such paltry enemies.
"They want employment," said he one day to the Queen, after reading a dispatch containing an account of one of the most vexatious of these tumults; "you must build bridges and cut canals to amuse them."
The active mind of Elvira caught eagerly at the idea, and she vainly fancied her name would be handed down to posterity as one of the greatest of Queens, who, though in the bloom of youth and pride of beauty, did not hesitate to sacrifice herself for the good of her people, and to devote that time to their welfare and the improvement of her kingdom, which others of her age and rank wasted in mere amusements.
Delighted with the thought, Elvira did not delay a moment before she prepared to put it in practice; and she was found for several days together constantly surrounded by her counsellors, and seated at a table absolutely loaded with papers, which she was busily employed in inspecting and arranging.
Plans for the erection of public buildings, for hospitals, bridges, museums, and churches, schemes for new manufactories, hints for new establishments conducive to the public good, and sketches of new discoveries, lay in heaps before her; mixed with addresses of compliments, votes of thanks, complaints of grievances, petitions, secret informations; and in short all that multifarious collection of paper, with which a monarch is sure to be surrounded who is said to be anxious to ameliorate the condition of his people, or who is unhappily reported to possess a genius for improvement.
Unfortunate is the man possessed of power, of whom such reports are current. He is directly surrounded by projectors, each presenting a scheme more futile than that of his predecessor; and discontented dependants, each bringing a long list of grievances, half of which are imaginary, but which have been conjured up by the complainants that they may not lose the precious right they enjoy of complaining.