Equally worthy is her reply to the insolent Dudley when he dares to offer her the crown on condition of her “renouncing her errors”:
“Mary. Sir, have you done? Simply I thus reply.
Not to drag England from this slough of treason—
Nor save this lady’s head—nor yours, archbishop—
Not even my brother’s life—would I abjure
My faith, and forfeit heaven!”
But sublimer even than this avowal of her faith is the act of charity she presently makes after her brother’s spirit has departed; and in nothing has the poet done her so much justice:
“Mary. And thou art gone! hast left me unforgiven!
O brother! was this righteous? Gloomier now
This dreary world frowns on me, and its cares