Note 144 — Chapter I

Elizabeth's command of foreign languages was constantly a subject of remark. Dr. William Turner in the dedication of his Herbal (1568) to the queen, addresses her thus: "As to your knowledge of Latin and Greek, French, Italian, and others also, not only your own faythful subiectes, beynge far from all suspicion of flattery, bear witness, but also strangers, men of great learninge, in their books set out in Latin tonge, give honourable testimonye." Best known of these learned observers was Scaliger (Scaligeriana, Cologne, 1695, p. 134). Similar eulogies in verse were left by French poets: Ronsard, Elegies, Mascarades et Bergeries (1561), reproduced in Le Bocage royal (1567); Jacques Grévin, Chant du cygne; Du Bartas, Second Week; and Agrippa d'Aubigné; also by John Florio, First Frutes, 1578, ch. xiii.