abridge his own stay in that island; his threatening that he would make the earth tremble under him; his boasting of one hundred and twenty lords devoted to him; his popularity; his importunity for his friends; and his paying court to her successor, probably exaggerated to her by sir Robert Cecil, who was ten times more guilty in that respect; all this had alienated her tenderness, and imprinted an asperity, which it seems even his death could not soften.

On a review of his character, it appears that if the queen's partiality had not inflated him, he would have made one of the bravest generals, one of the most active statesmen, and the brightest Mæcenas of that accomplished age. With the zeal, though without the discretion of Burleigh, he had nothing of the dark soul of Lei

TOTHE

Harmelesse in thought, when he a peace had made,
He back returns to his beloved queene,

Thinking to rest secure under her shade,

To whome she had a gratious mistris beene:

But wanting warrant for his back returne,
Displeased anger softly gan to burne;

And some, that did a flame desire,

Threw flax and oyle in the fire.]

• As an instance of his affection for learning, he gave to the university of Oxford his share of the library of the celebrated bishop Osorius, which his lordship got at the plunder of Faro. Bacon Papers, vol. ii. p. 58. [Dr. Lort added, that he was elected chancellor of the university of Cambridge. MS. note.]

cester. Raleigh 5 excelled him in abilities, but came not near him in generosity. It was no small merit to have insisted in giving Bacon to that orb, from which one of Bacon's first employments was to contribute to expel his benefactor. The earl had a solemn tincture of religion, of which his enemies availed themselves to work him to the greatest blemish of his life, the discovery of the abettors of his last rash design. He had scarce a fault besides, which did not flow from the nobleness of his nature. Sir Harry Wotton says, he was delicate in his

["This astonishing man," says Mr. Ellis, "in whom almost every variety of talent, and all the acquirements of science were united with heroic courage, and the most ardent spirit of enterprise, is classed by Puttenham among those poets, who have wrote excellently well, if their doings could be found out and made public." Spec. of E. P. vol. ii. 215. From Spenser's introduction to book iii. of the Faery Queen, and from his sonnet to Raleigh, which accompanied that work, it appears that sir Walter had written a poem entitled "Cynthia," in praise of queen Elizabeth ; but this perhaps is the only memorial we have of such a production. In a letter to sir Robert Cecil, dated July 1592, Raleigh thus laments his exile from the queen's presence: "I that was wont to behold her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure cheeks, like a nymph; sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus. Behold the sorrow of this world! once amiss, hath bereaved me of all!" Seward's Anecd. vol. v. p. 32.]

baths: it was a slight luxury, and proceeded so little from any effeminacy in his person, that he read letters and attended to suitors the whole time he was dressing. Brutality of manners is not essentially necessary to courage: Leonatus, one of Alexander's generals (no unmanly school), in all the marches of the army, was followed by camels loaded with sand which he got from Egypt, to rub his body for his gymnastic exercises. Essex was gallant, romantic, and ostentatious; his shooting-matches in the eye of the city gained him great popularity; the ladies and the people never ceased to adore him. His genius for shows and those pleasures that carry an image of war, was as remarkable as his spirit in the profession itself. His impresses and inventions of entertainment were much admired. One of his masks is described by a cotemporary; I shall give a little extract of it, to present an idea of the amusements of that age, and as it coincides with what I have already remarked of the queen's passion.

6

Sir H. Wotton, p. 174. His device was a diamond, with this motto, dum formas minuis. Camden's Remains.

7 Rowland White, in the Sidney Papers, vol. i. p. 362. [See the speeches delivered upon the occasion of the earl of Essex's device, as published by Dr. Birch in Letters, &c. of Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, 1767; and republished by Mr. Nichols in Queen Elizabeth's Progresses, vol. ii. 1788.]

My lord of Essex's devise, says Rowland White, is much commended in these late tri umphs. Some pretty while before he came in himself to the tilt, he sent his page with some speech to the queen, who returned with her majestie's glove. And when he came himself, he was met by an old hermit, a secretary of state, a brave soldier, and an esquire. The first presented him with a booke of meditations; the second, with political discourses; the third, with oracions of brave fought battles; the fourth was but his own follower, to whom the other three imparted much of their purpose before the earl's entry. In short, each of them endeavoured to win him over to their profession, and to persuade him to leave his vain following of love, and to betake him to heavenly meditation. But the esquire answered them all, and told them plainly, "That this knight would never forsake his Mistresses love, whose vertue made all his thoughts devine, whose wisdom taught him all true pollicy, whose beauty and worth were at all times able to make him fit to command armies." He pointed out all the defects of their several pursuits, and therefore thought his own course of life to be best in serving his mistress.

7 The queen was then sixty-three.

-The queen said, "that if she had thought there would have bene so much said of her, she would not have bene there that night." The part of the esquire was played by sir Toby Matthews, who lived to be an admired wit in the court of Charles the first, and wrote an affected panegyric on that affected beauty the countess of Carlisle.

The works of this lord were

"A Memorial drawn up on the Apprehension of an Invasion from Spain 8."

"A Narrative of the Expedition to Cadiz." "To Mr. Anthony Bacon, an Apology of the Earl of Essex, against those which falsely and maliciously take him to be the only Hindrance of the Peace and Quiet of his Country 9." Reprinted in 1729, under the title of

"The Earl of Essex's Vindication of the War with Spain."

Bacon Papers, vol. i. p. 292.

9 [That tractate, says Bolton, which goeth under the name of the earl of Essex's "Apology," was thought by some to be Mr. Anthony Bacon's; but as it bears that earl's name, so do I also think that it was the earl's own, as also his "Advices for Travel to Roger Earl of Rutland;" than which nothing almost can be more honourably uttered, nor more to the writer's praise, so far as belongs to a noble English oratour. Hypercritica, sect. ii. The Apologie, in its title-page, professes to have been penned by the earl himself in anno 1598.]