 vain had she from that moment indulged hopes of his cooling and conciliating—his temper till this fatal period, no less yielding than fiery, now assumed a cold and philosophic sternness; in fine, that the grief and disappointment to which Lady Essex resigned herself would severely punish her

unjust suspicions, and ere long release her Lord from the ill-judged bondage he had hitherto groaned so impatiently under."
The fair Elizabeth thus ended her recital, which was so clear, concise, and affecting, that I could not avoid taxing her with being the emissary of her cousin; her blushes acquitted her, and bespoke a secret, time soon explained. She was secretly beloved by the gallant Southampton, that heroic friend who was only less attached to Essex than myself, and from him had learnt the various particulars public report could not apprise her of.—I held myself infinitely indebted to her friendship, and through her means sent that farewell to Lady Pembroke I was not allowed to pronounce.
It had been but too obvious through her whole recital, that I was totally the victim of calumny, nor could any human power now justify me.—I had been found in the arms of Essex—the fact was indubitable, the true cause of that fatal impulse not likely to be credited, even when repeated.

My youth, my wound, and my past conduct, blended the rash judgment of the many with compassion, but the most liberal-minded ventured not to acquit me. Those impassioned vindications the conscious soul of Essex offered, were always considered as a mere point of honor in him, and no less necessary to his own justification than mine, and thus only served to stamp guilt on both.—Oh, misjudging world, how severely on the most superficial observation dost thou venture to decide!—let the barbed arrow of misfortune rest in the bosom it has wounded, nor by inhumanly tearing it out to discover whence it came, rack the heart already broken.
Defamed, dejected, and forgotten by all but the generous sisters of the Sydney family, I followed, once more, my fate in Lord Arlington; and reached again that Abbey destined alike to entomb me in playful childhood, and in blasted youth—the same imperious will which had destroyed me, had deprived that venerable mansion of its sweet, its solitary charms—the

hallowed spot where once the ivied trophies of time bound up the defaced ones of religion, presented nothing now but a bare and barren level; and the lofty woods which so long protected alike the living and the dead, had wholly given place to infant plantations, through the thinness of which the weary eye every where pierced:
