without any curiosety of human lerning, which, without the feare of God, I se doth great hurt to all youth in this tyme and age.

66

My lord, I pray you bear with my scriblyng, which I thynk your lordship shall hardly reade, and yet I wolde not use my man's hand in such a matter as this is. From Hampton Court, 24 Dec. 1575. "Your lordships most assured at com.

"W.BURGHLEY."

Much more of lord Burleigh's correspondence may be met with in Forbes's, and Haynes's, State Papers, &c. &c. The latter publication is specifically taken from the original letters and other authentic memorials left by lord Burleigh, and now remaining at Hatfield-house; which collection has been considerably augmented by the liberality of Mr. Lodge. In the original papers of Mr. Anthony Bacon are several letters of lord Burleigh, from which sundry extracts have been given by Dr. Birch, in his Memoirs of the Reign of Elizabeth. In the Nugæ Antiquæ is a letter of sensible advice from his lordship to Mr. Harington (afterwards sir John', then a student at Cambridge. In the earl of Hardwicke's Miscellaneous State Papers, besides a number of letters addressed to Cecil, there are seven of his own writing, relating to public concerns. One of them shows, in a striking view, the friendly behaviour of lord Burleigh to the earl of Leicester, when that nobleman laboured

6 See Pref. to his Illustrations of Brit. Hist.

7 Vol. i. p. 131, last edit.

under the queen's displeasure, and reflects great honour on the old treasurer's memory 9. In the royal library at the Museum is a folio 2 containing maps of England, with memoranda in the hand-writing of lord Burleigh; and I have been favoured 3 with the sight of a small volume printed in 1651, which contains

"The Lord Treasurer Burleigh his Advice to Queen Elizabeth, in Matters of Religion and State."

This displays the same rigid integrity and political wisdom which uniformly marked the character of this able and upright statesman.

Dr. Kippis has reprinted from Peck 4, the ten precepts which lord Burleigh left to his second son Ro-' bert Cecil. An edition of the same estimable treatise, published in 1636, comprises "an addition of some short sentences," which cannot be perused by any thoughtful mind without advantage.

"Goe as thou wouldst be met; sit as thou wouldest be found; weare thy apparell in a carelesse, yet a decent seeming; for affectednesse in any thing is commendable in nothing and endeavour to be so farre from vaine-glory, that thou strive rather to be in substance without shew, than in shew without sub

stance.

"Strive not to enrich thyself by oppression, usury, or other unlawfull gaine: for, if a little, evill gotten, shall not onely melt away itself, like dew against the

• Biog. Brit. 2d edit. vol. iii. p. 403.

sunne; how then shall it haste without stay, when all the whole lumpe is corrupted?

"Be industrious and studious in thy youth; knowing, that if by thy labour thou accomplish any thing that is good, the labour passeth, but the good remaineth to thy comfort; if, by the contrary, for thy pleasure thou shalt doe any thing that is evill, the pleasure passeth, but the evill remaineth to thy torment 5.

"Corrupt company is more infectious than corrupt air; therefore, be advised in thy choice for that text of thy selfe which could never so be expounded, thy companion shall, as thy commentarie, lay open to the world. Withall, because we see by experience, that if those that are neither good nor evill, accompany with those that are good, they are transformed into their vertues: if those that are neither good nor evill, consort with those that are evill, they are incorporated to their vice: if the good company with the good, both are made better; if the evill with the evill, both the worse.

"Whatsoever good purpose thou intendest at thy death, that doe in thy life; for so doing, it shall be more acceptable to God, and commendable to man. He that gives when he cannot hold, is worthy of thankes when one cannot chuse.

* Queen Mary penned a very similar passage before her copy of the Psalms: "If you take labour and payne to doo a vertuous thyng, the labour goeth way and the vertue remaynethe. If through pleasure you do any vicious thyng, the pleasure goeth away and the vice remaynethe." See Ballard, p. 133.

"Live vertuously, that thou mayest dye patiently; for who lives most honestly, will dye most willingly.

"Be ever diligent in some vocation: for continuall ease as it is most dangerous, is more wearisome than labour; and it is no freedome to live licentiously, nor pleasure to live without some paine.

"Indifferent superiority is the safest equality; as the soberest speed is the wisest leisure.

"He is worthy to fall that tempts himself; and therefore shun occasion of evill, and thou hast halfe overcome thine enemy.

"In all thy attempts, let honesty be thy aym; for he that climbs by privy deceit, shall fall with open reproach and forget not in thy youth to be mindefull of thy end-for though the old man cannot live long, yet the young man may dye quickly.

"The waste of time is a dear expence; and he that seeks for means to pass it unprofitably, spurrs a forward horse without reason, to the overthrow of his rider: for whosoever wasteth many years, and purchaseth little knowledge, may be said to have had a long time, but a short life2.]

This precept accords with Hooker's estimate of Edward the sixth, that "though he died young he lived long, for life is in action."

ROBERT DEVEREUX,

EARL OF ESSEX.

To enter into all the particulars of this remarkable person's life, would be writing a history of the sixteen or eighteen last years of the reign. of queen Elizabeth: yet I shall touch many passages of his story, and enter into a larger discussion of some circumstances relating to him, than may be agreeable to persons who are not curious about such minute facts as do not compose the history of illustrious men, though they in a great measure compose their character. It is essential to the plan of this work, to examine many particulars of this lord's story, because it was not choice or private amusement, but the cast of his public life, that converted him into an author. Having consulted a great variety of writers, who describe or mention him, I may perhaps be able to unfold some of the darker parts of his history: at least some anecdotes, though of a trifling sort, will appear in a stronger light than I think they have hitherto done. These sheets are calculated for the closets of the idle and inquisitive: they do not look up to the shelves of what Voltaire so happily calls, La Bibliotheque du Monde.