A GREAT QUEEN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 261, 4 November 1933, Page 12

A GREAT QUEEN.

Oxford's share in commemorating the four'hundiedth anniversary of the birth of Queen Elizabeth is an exhibition at the Bodleian Library of manuscripts and books of the period, throwing light on all its most important spheres of activity, including literature, politics, music, religion, and adventures in distant lands. Among the many relics of Queen Elizabeth is a bound manuscript translation from the French of "The Miroir or Glasse of the Synnefull Soule," which Elizabeth, at the age of 11, wrote, perhaps bound, and presented to her step-mother, Katharine Parr, on New Year's Day. It was the custom in those days for everyone at court, from the great lords and councillors to the humble dustman, to give the reigning queen a gift at the beginning of a new year. Two other manuscripts in Elizabeth's hand bear evidence of her scholarly tastes. One is a translation of a sermon by Bernardinus, the other a translation into English of the "Pro Marcello" of j Cicero. The Elizabethan poets and dramatists are represented by a group of first editions, each worth a fortune. Shakespeare's "Rape of Lucrcce" and "King Henry VL, Part II.," both dated 1594, are on view, as are also the first editions of Bacon's Essays (1597), of Sir Philip Sidney's "Apologie for Poetry" (1595), of Marlowe's first play, "Tamburlaino" (1590), and of Spenser's "Faerie Queene" (1590). The questions of Elizabeth's marriage and the succession to the crown are recalled by a manuscript petition of Parliament on these "two great metiers." The "true declaration" of the execution at Fotheringay of Mary, Queen of Scots, is an interesting exhibit. Near it is the declaration issued by Pope Sixtus V., renewing the excommunication of Elizabeth which his predecessor Pius V. had pronounced in 1570. There if also a manuscript list of the ships that sailed under Drake against Spain on September 12, 1585, and copies of the original editions of Hakluyt's "Voyages Touching the Discovery ,of America," printed in 1582, and his "Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation," which appeared seven years later.