 every moment to acknowledge the truth, and to indulge my passion by reposing it in your faithful bosom, I found you over∣whelmed with tears, apprehension, and anguish; for it was at this very period the cruel and extravagant jealousy of Lord Leicester became apparent. Wanting courage to mention an incident remote

from the cause of your sorrow, I buried the dear impression in my heart, and devoted myself to soothing a mind so deeply wounded. By a strange transition in my own sentiments, I had learnt fairly to judge of yours, and the increasing si∣milarity interwove our souls every day more and more strongly, though not one word escaped me. Dreams of pride and grandeur, which had sometimes embit∣tered a spirit I will venture to call noble, vanished at once before a stronger passi∣on; which strangely filled up that void in my mind nothing yet had ever been able to fill. I no longer complained of the Queen—I no longer thought the Court a prison—conforming from that moment quietly to my fate, I centered every wish in one sole object.
I even employed myself diligently in developing Lord Leicester's sentiments; and conciliating a difference both of you suffered alike by, though neither would allow it. Lord Essex, during these con∣versations, was ever near us—with watch∣ful eye endeavouring to dive into the na∣ture

of our connection, and the mystery of our birth; so industriously buried by Leicester and Elizabeth. The dis∣gust your Lord already shewed towards Essex, became on these occasions more marked, and as its cause, I sought by every little distinction to reward that dear lover's patience: a dislike so unjust, heightened, however, that I already felt towards Lord Leicester, though at the same moment it supplied a still more urgent reason for con∣cealing it, than those which had hitherto influenced me.
The sufferings of your mind sunk into mine; and profiting by the sad example of a passion imprudently indulged, I call∣ed myself to account for cherishing so dangerous a weakness, and resolved by a courageous effort to govern, if I could not extinguish it. But, ah, how vain is that attempt, when once we are truly touched! Love, my sister, like the en∣writhed serpent, only compresses the heart more closely, for every effort we make to shake it off. In vain I turned my con∣templations towards the obscurity which

had hitherto attended our lives, the dark and mysterious cloud which yet hung over them; love drew a vivid rainbow across it, and every tear due to misfortune fell tinctured with Essex. Ah, wherefore should calamity heighten that passion? without being able to define the cause,
