It is true, in spite of all these foibles and defects of character, she made a great sovereign; but it is easy to mark throughout the whole course of her administration, even in the graver matters of legislation, the constantly modifying influence of feminine weakness. It was Elizabeth who granted, more extensively than any other sovereign, privileges and monopolies to her favorites, which is one of the worst forms which the restrictive system can assume. In doing this, she seems to have been anxious to solve the problem of doing every thing for her friends and pretended admirers, without disturbing her conscience by the infliction of too much injury on the body politic. But experience has shown that she most wofully failed by her plan in the solution of the problem, and took by these monopolies and privileges even a great deal more out of the pockets of the people, than could ever come into those of her favorites and flatterers. Even the celebrated laws of this reign in regard to the paupers of England, in my opinion, mark the overweening humanity of the woman, combined with a deficiency of that power of generalization, which can alone enable us to arrive at just conclusions on so delicate and complicated a subject. When she ordered the overseers of the poor to see that every individual in the kingdom should be well fed, clothed and employed, the order, although a humane one, was certainly impracticable. Mr. Malthus asserts, that when king Canute seated himself on the sea shore, and ordered the rising tide not to approach his royal feet, he was not guilty of more vanity than this celebrated order of Elizabeth displayed; but there was certainly humanity in the intention.
In addition to the preceding remarks upon the incapacity of woman in general for the able discharge of political duties, we may observe that she is more disposed to despotism while in power than man. This may be ascribed to greater physical weakness, and consequent dependence in general. When, therefore, she wields the sceptre, she is constantly disposed to manifest her power—to let the world see she is really a ruler. She makes a show of her authority, precisely for the same reason that a newly created nobleman is more tenacious of his title than an old one, or a legitimate monarch less suspicious on the throne than a usurper. Thomas says that great men are more carried to that species of despotism which arises from lofty ideas; and women above the ordinary class, to the despotism which proceeds from passion. The last is rather a sally of the heart than the effect of system. The despotism of woman however, very rarely, except when stimulated by violent love and jealousy, leads on to cruelty; they have too much feeling, sympathy and kindness to be cruel. Their despotism arises rather from caprice, and a desire to promote the interest of friends and flatterers, than from any regular system of ambition and vice. Give them unlimited sway, and you rarely find them exercising that merciless tyranny which delights in blood. Their sensibility rarely forsakes them, even on the throne. Deny them power, and they make monarchs as jealous and suspicious as rival beauties in a ball room. There never was on the throne of England a more determined stickler for prerogative than Queen Elizabeth. She was exceedingly jealous of the powers of her parliament; and up to the very last hour of her long life, a shuddering came over her whenever she thought of a successor to the throne. Yet Elizabeth was far from beings as cruel as many of the male sovereigns who have sat on the English throne.
The passion of love, however, is the most dangerous one in the breast of the female sovereign. As I have already observed, it is the strongest of our nature whilst it lasts, even in the breast of man; but with woman, it is not only the strongest, but like Aaron's rod, it swallows up all the rest. Elizabeth's lovers were her dependents, and she was withal a woman of strong masculine mind, cultivated by an education of the most classical and severe character, yet we have seen the mighty influence which even her lovers exerted over her, in spite of all her caution.
Mary, the sister of Elizabeth, the bigoted Catholic, is a melancholy instance of the influence of even unrequited love, upon the politics of a female sovereign. While married to Philip of Spain, England was very little more than a Spanish province. Perhaps it was the example of Mary which in a great measure deterred Elizabeth from ever marrying, although repeatedly pressed to it by the Parliament. The caricature gotten up during the reign of Queen Mary is an admirable burlesque of the errors and weaknesses of female rule. It represented her Majesty "naked, meager, withered and wrinkled, with every aggravated circumstance of deformity which could disgrace a female figure, seated in a regal chair; a crown on her head, surrounded with the letters M. R. A. accompanied with Maria Regina Angliæ in smaller letters! A number of Spaniards were sucking her to the skin and bone, and a specification was added of the money, rings, jewels, and other presents with which she had secretly gratified her husband Philip."
To see what woman may be capable of doing under the influence of the passion of love accompanied by jealousy, let us at once recur to a state of semi-barbarism, where but little restraint is imposed on the feelings and passions, and where nature consequently manifests itself in all its most horrid deformities without wearing the mask which civilized manners and an enlightened and moral public opinion, aided by the printing press have imposed even upon the most hardy and most wicked in the polished countries of Europe. Among the Memoirs of Celebrated Women by Madame Junot, we find that of Zingha, a great African princess who ruled in her dominions with absolute sway. In the contemplation of her character we are fully disposed to acquiesce in the truth of Shakspeare's assertion, that "proper deformity shows not in the fiend so horrid as in woman." This princess was a perfect tigress when for a moment her argus-eyed jealousy conceived the least interruption to her amours, from the beauty, or the affections, or the accomplishments of another. We are told that "a young girl who waited on her had the misfortune to be attached to a man upon whom the queen had herself cast an eye of affection. Having discovered that the feeling was mutual between the youthful lovers, Zingha had them brought before her; and giving her poniard to the young man, ordered him to plunge it into the bosom of his mistress, to open her bosom and eat her heart! The moment he had obeyed this cruel order she turned to the wretched man, who perhaps expected his pardon, and looked at him as if to confirm this expectation. But she ordered his head to be severed from his body, and it fell upon the mutilated corpse of his mistress." On another occasion she had spared a particular female from among those doomed to destruction, when perceiving a paramour looking with tenderness upon her, she immediately recalled her executioner, and coldly said, "take this woman also and throw her into the grave with her companion." Such is the influence of the passion of love and jealousy upon the female mind even in Negro land, and well may we join Madame Junot in the remark, that "this memoir (of Zingha) which is strictly true may lead to much reflection in those who so bitterly attack the whites for their treatment of negro slaves. The latter in our colonies have never yet undergone such degradation."6
6 "Add to this the horrible superstitions of the Giagas," says the same writer, "and our colonial slaves must have little to regret in their native country."
A woman in love, whilst she is willing to sacrifice all for the object beloved, may occasionally demand all. She is very apt to be too capricious for wise and prosperous government. A little experiment in love matters might occasionally be of more moment to her, than the regulation of trade, the modification of the corn laws, or the raising or lowering of the taxes. We all know that woman is sometimes extremely capricious and even despotic in the wars of Cupid. She does sometimes make most fearful exactions merely to manifest her power, or to confirm her faith in the fidelity and devotedness of her lover. Now all this will do well enough in private life, because it chequers the path of love with the powerfully exciting alternations of hope and disappointment, and throws around the object of our affections all those attractions, and all that more ethereal and imaginative loveliness, which the extreme difficulty of attainment ever generates in the mind. Although the lover may sometimes groan under such a despotism, and even attempt to renounce it,7 yet the public sustains no injury. But when this capricious lover is a queen upon the throne, or an ambitious aspirant for political power, then the consequences may be truly disastrous. Rousseau tells us upon the authority of Brantome, that during the reign of Francis I, a young girl had a lover who was a great babbler. So capricious was she, and so fond of the exercise of power, that she ordered him to keep an absolute and profound silence, as the condition of her love, until she might release his tongue. He actually remained silent two years, when every body believed him dumb. Then one day in the presence of a large assembly, she boasted that by one word she could restore speech to the dumb. She looked him in the face and said, "parlez!" "speak!" when the man began to speak again! Now in this case no one suffered but the poor man, and he had no doubt hours of ecstatic felicity in her occasional kindness, and sympathy, and love, for so much devotion. He gloried in the chains which he wore: he might be a little restive at times, under the caprice and whim of his mistress, but was no doubt in all his difficulties ever ready to apply to her the language of one of Martial's Epigrams on the whimsical waywardness of a friend,
| "Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te." |
but when such love or caprice as this reaches the throne, the people pay for the folly. Delirant reges plectuntur Achivi.
7 We are informed that during the age of chivalry, a lady and her lover knight, at the Court of Vienna, were looking over a palisade at a very ferocious lion, when the lady designedly let fall her glove within the enclosure, and asked the knight to pick it up for her. Without hesitation he leaped the enclosure, threw a cloak at the lion, which diverted his attention for a moment, and escaped unhurt with the glove, and then in presence of the whole court renounced the lady and her love forever, because she had imposed so cruel and dangerous a test of his affections.