 gave him only an eye-beam, and hastened on to decide his fate.—Form was annihilated by circumstances, and he rushed into the presence of Elizabeth the moment his arrival was announced—accustomed to behold him with complacency, to receive him with kindness, she yielded through surprize to the habits of so many years, and granted the private audience he requested.—She listened to a vague and weak vindication of his conduct in Ireland, and the dotage of her soul was transiently gratified with the idea that he had preferred the recovery of her affection to that of his reputation in arms. After a long conference, the Earl rejoined his friends; pride and pleasure

had flushed his cheek, and the idea of reassuming his accustomed influence, diffused through his mien that benignity and graciousness which are at once its nature and its charm. Resentment and rage never constituted any part of his characters but at the moment he suffered by those passions: such galling sensations were already forgotten.—Overwhelmed with the congratulations of his friends; encircled even by his overawed enemies, the heroic Essex rose above the triumph he could not but desire—every face was instantaneously changed, and those who knew not an hour before whether they should recollect him, now with servile adulation hallowed his very footsteps.—This fatal interval of short-lived power was, however, the last heaven allowed him.—The crasty Cecils and their faction seized the moment he injudiciously quitted the Queen, to persuade her this indulged favourite had not only acted contrary to his commission, in venturing himself to return, but that he had brought home with him all his chosen

adherents, as well as every aspiring spirt likely to strengthen his sway, and circumscribe hers.—They touched the soul of Elizabeth where it was most vulnerable, and having thus opposed to each other the two leading weaknesses of her nature, by throwing the weight of party into the one scale, it soon preponderated. She was unhappily in that declining age which renders every human being in some degree capricious and timid, —Already tinctured with fear, she soon yielded to the various informations officiously brought her by factious consederates.—She was told on all hands that Lord Essex was holding a Court even in her Palace, and insolent and daring as this conduct could not but appear, it was of less consequence than the unbounded influence he ever maintained over the people—an influence he would more than recover the moment he was seen in London. "For themselves they heeded not—willing martyrs to their integrity and fealty; but for their Queen, they all trembled at the prospect."—It was

too hazardous to be risqued by Elizabeth; fear and resentment
