Mounsieur Moth appears in the company of the fairy queen in Midsummer 
Night's Dream, where the lion is a very fox for his valour (see Mother 
Hubberds Tale).  Strickland's book (in Everyman's Library) is a wonder. 
  Jim N.

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:20:39 -0500
  Brad Irish <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Fenelon is indeed the source, according to an ancient volume of his 
>letters:
> 
> "qu'lle ne soit lyonne, elle ne layssoit d'estre yssue et tenir
> beaucoup de la complexion du lyon, et que, sellon que le Roy la
> traictera doulcement, il la trouvera doucle et traictable, aultant
> qu'il le scauroit desirer; et s'il luy est rude, elle mettra peyne de
> luy ester le plus rude et nuysible qu'elle pourra."
> 
> See Correspondance diplomatique de Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe
>Fénélon (1838-1840): Vol. 6, p. 190.
> 
> An PDF of this volume is available for download at
> http://www.archive.org/details/correspondancedi06feneuoft
> 
> Best,
> Brad
> 
> On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 6:33 PM, anne prescott <[log in to unmask]> 
>wrote:
>> Hi, Sean. I Googled (if you Google lions and Eiizabeth you get scads of
>> stuff on an African game park named Elizabeth) and something like this is 
>>in
>> Agnes Strickland's biography from long ago, p. 368 in the Google-book, and
>> with a note citing a dispatch from the French diplomat back La Mothe 
>>Fenelon
>> home to his king (vol 6, p. 190 of his dispatches, which sure seems like a
>> whole lot of dispatches. There was a book from long ago that collected the
>> sayings of Queen Elizabeth, but one shouldn't trust them. Try the Calendar
>> of State Papers? In July 1574 Elizabeth is talking to Fenelon and says she
>> isn't quite a lioness but derives from a lion. Good luck tracking your 
>>lion.
>> Anne.
>>
>> On Sep 16, 2008, at 5:54 PM, Sean Gordon Henry wrote:
>>
>>> I've had a very frustrating afternoon trying to pin down a quotation
>>> attributed to Elizabeth I in a couple of different forms, but I've had
>>> little luck and thought I would turn your collective learning and 
>>>generosity
>>> to see whether anyone could help me with it. The quotation runs,
>>>
>>> "Although I may not be a lion [or "lioness"], I am a lion's cub, and
>>> inherit many of his qualities [or "and I have a lion's heart"] [sometimes
>>> continuing, "and as long as the King of France treats me gently he will 
>>>find
>>> me as gentle and tractable as he can desire; but if he be rough, I shall
>>> take the trouble to be just as troublesome and offensive to him as I 
>>>can"].
>>>
>>> Puttenham records an anecdote involving the queen crushing a crawling
>>> timeserver by comparing herself to a lion, but I can't find a source for 
>>>the
>>> other quotation (apart from a very clear memory of Glenda Jackson 
>>>delivering
>>> a similar line). I've been scouring EEBO and ransacking my copy of Neale's
>>> biography, which I had to hand, with no success. The internet has been
>>> singularly unhelpful as well, though as early modern scholars you may all 
>>>be
>>> gratified to know how many websites devoted to self-motivation employ the
>>> Elizabeth quotation.
>>>
>>> Obviously not self-motivated enough,
>>> Sean.
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> Sean Henry
>>> Doctoral Candidate, Department of English
>>> The University of Western Ontario
>>> London, Ont., Canada
>>>
>>> "I've half a mind to shake myself
>>> Free just for once from London,
>>> To set my work upon the shelf
>>> And leave it done or undone."
>>>
>>> ("A Farm Walk," Christina Rossetti)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>

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James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121