 to dispose of her safely.—Oh, fortune, fortune, how unfairly do we accuse thee, when folly alone has led us into error!—I am more miserable than it is possible to express.

Lady Southampton would fain persuade me this oversight may eventually prove lucky, as it will prevent my again seeing Essex ere the death of his Lady.—Ah! what alteration can her loss make in my fate? —"I tell you, my watchful friend, you cannot love my honor more than I do his safety—between him and me there is another bar not less insurmountable.—Did not my sister's marriage with a favorite of Elizabeth cost him his life? Alas, perhaps hers too was sacrificed!"—over her mysterious fate a dark veil early fell, dipt perhaps in the blood of her beloved—rather may I see my own veins opened, than survive such a calamity; nay, even at this moment it has perhaps fallen on me, and I may be dying in Essex while yet unconscious of my fate—oh, what horrors take possession of my soul, at the bare idea!—Lady Southampton has sealed her English dispatches, and I can only say adieu.


Dated, Drogheda.
BOUND to this spot, my generous friend, and dreading, all which passes beyond it, hardly can my heart feel the congratulation you bestow. Environed by enemies, and rendered rash by despair, Essex now renounces the glorious visions he possessed my imagination with, and resigns himself wholly up to his command.—Oh, that the arrow which stabs me should have been sharpened by my own hand!—All here is alarm, uncertainty, and confusion—we get and lose in the course of every day a passage to our friends, nor dare we trust to that channel aught of importance. Sir Coniers Clifford with a chosen body of troops was yesterday surrounded, himself and half his men cut off immediately—among the officers was a relation of Lady Southampton's; she has been weeping the whole day for him.—For my own part, conscious I have not a tear to bestow on common inflictions, I

gather mine into my heart, which feels ready to pour forth a deluge the moment one of my many fears shall be confirmed—you can form no conception of the wants, the woes, the horrible scenes we witness.—Born and bred in the arms of luxury and prosperity, a distant war but faintly affects our minds; but oh, how tremendous does it appear when once we are driven into its tempestuous seat!—death, ghastly death, assumes a bloody variety of forms; while rapine, famine, sickness, and poverty,
