 dated, authentic, com∣plete in every form, my shuddering na∣ture could not endure the conflict. I rashly scrawled my name, and snatching that tremendous mandate he yet held be∣fore me, tore it into a thousand atoms, and sunk upon the ground in the most

violent convulsions. They were so rapid and dreadful, that to have left me alone had been little else than murder. His do∣mestics attended me with a humanity un∣known to their Lord; and these fits at last gave place to a frenzy fever. Alas, during its raging paroxysms, I doubtless continually confuted the infamous tale I had witnessed; for every affecting remem∣brance pressed upon my confused and weakened mind.—My mother, my sister, and my love, by turns bled before my eyes; and death presented himself in every form dear to me, while I vainly invoked him to take my own.
Exhausted nature seemed to rest on the very verge of the grave.—Ah, had I then sunk into it, how many pangs had I been spared!—the care of my attendants so far recovered me, as to enable me to quit my bed, when pronouncing me well, they left me to my own meditations—a hide∣ous train, my sister—to add to their bit∣terness, fancy had now thrown a new co∣lour on my fate—how if this infamous forgery had been extorted from me, only

to stigmatize my sister and myself?—A still more aggravating idea sprung from that—What should prevent Elizabeth from presenting to the eyes of the unfor∣tunate Queen of Scots a defamatory de∣claration, which must give her a stab no less mortal than the blow it saved her from, though perhaps more slow? how indeed, if so, could I hope she would ever forget or forgive an instance of de∣pravity, apparently as unaccountable as it was shocking? finally, (oh grief yet more pungent) might not the Queen take plea∣sure in wringing the haughty soul of Es∣sex, by shewing him the unhappy object of his dearest affections for ever stigma∣tized by her own hand?—This painful assemblage of ideas and objects, was too much for my hurt brain—I groaned, I shrieked, I relapsed, and very nearly ob∣tained the relief I so much longed for.
Impelled thus by tyranny down the precipice of fate, my swift course seemed ready to bury me in the gulph it over∣hangs, when another projecting point in∣terposed, and suddenly stopped me.—I

recollected that in thus resigning myself to the stroke, I rendered the last fatal blot my own hand had fixed on my cha∣racter indelible; that while I lived I had yet a chance of justifying my intention, in an act which reflected alike on myself
