 me had hitherto suspended; but finding at length that both in treaties and commands were lost upon him, she grew cold and

disgusted. His friends in England had given him but too much reason to believe that his enemies were gradually acquiring the ascendancy in her heart, he as gradually lost; since all her favours were now lavished on Sir Walter Raleigh, the house of Cecil, and the Earl of Nottingham, a party who had long meditated the downfall of Essex and Southampton, of which they now spoke as a certainty; and that even the common people beheld with discontent the slow progress of the war in Ireland, nor could Essex any longer depend upon popularity.
The unguarded friend who made me this recital, engrossed by her own share in it, forgot how it interested me. I called to mind the information sent by Tiroen to Elizabeth, which but too well accounted for the Queen's anger and disgust, and conceived at once all its probable consequences. Essex, unlike all other favorites, could never be brought to know any claim to superiority but merit—incapable of those little arts

by which meaner minds attach the insidious train of sycophants a Court always abounds with; he had ever scorned a partial monopoly, and politic distribution, of posts and places.—The mercenary wretches who had bowed to him in vain, paid their court to his enemies with more success, and instructed by them in every weakness of the favorite, were ever ready to strengthen any prejudice the Queen might conceive against him. A thousand fears incident to age and decaying power, were thus cherished in her, which magnified by passions time itself could never allay, might perhaps stamp the base intelligence of Tiroen with the fatal authority of unbiassed truth, and give to the inactivity of Essex, the appearance of treason.—Such a train of circumstances could hardly sail to stagger a mind in full possession of the noblest and most impartial judgment; what then might we not fear from a Sovereign always influenced by prejudices each passing day strengthened, as it insensibly impaired her reason? Fortunately, by an extrava

gance of dotage which almost punished the errors of her youth, those prejudices had hitherto united in his favour:—yet while I perceived but a single chance against him, my soul shrunk from the idea of entrusting his life with her.
To give Lord Essex the opportunity of vindicating himself to Elizabeth, I resolved to account for her conduct; and divulged to him the inadvertent acknowledgment made by Tiroen, during our last memorable interview, of his own perfidy and dissimulation. A generous scarlet burnt on the cheek of Essex while he execrated the traitor;
