own disgrace

ful imprisonment, anylonger touched Lord Essex; nay, that not even his recovery was able to revive those habits the world were taught to think hitherto uncontroulable. His friends, on the contrary, blest the skilful physician who prolonged a life so valuable, and saw with the happiest hopes, that those romantic flights in his character his enemies had almost wrought up to his ruin, were at once extinguished; leaving it without any other distinction than a melancholy sweetness which rather turned his thoughts toward philosophy than war. The people, ever naturally disposed to side with the unfortunate, cried out, that he was the innocent victim of the Cecil party; who by some odious strokes of policy, added popularity to their depressed rival in diminishing their own.—Elizabeth herself could no longer support the idea that the man she still loved was obscurely breaking his heart while yet in the flower of youth, in an unmerited and disgraceful prison.—She yielded to the information of

the physician that his amending health required air, and sent him her permission to retire to any of his seats in the country; but forbad him to attempt appearing in her presence: a restriction perhaps, more agreeable to him, than herself, could she have seen the desolate situation of mind in which he departed.
From the country he addressed a letter of thanks to the Queen, which displayed at once his eloquence, gratitude, and languor: in truth, the latter gained ground daily in his character. Lord Essex was born capable of uniting in his preson every various and generous pursuit had fortune allowed it, but not even he was equal to living without one.—I frequently trembled at beholding his gloom and inanity. Wholly removed from the sphere in which he had hither moved, and the pleasures he had once enjoyed, the rude society of his neighbours, and the boisterous amusements the country afforded, rather offended than filled an enlightened and susceptible heart. He wandered

all day in the woods alone, and returned every evening spent and unrefreshed, only to recover animal strength enough to enable him to pass the morrow in the same melancholy manner.
In this situation I fancied a false hope could not add to his danger, and might perhaps rouse those active faculties every hour seemed more and more to absorb. I one day ventured to repeat to him an imaginary dream, tending to prove you still existed.—Not even the firmest mind can resist the subtle attacks of superstition when labouring under depression.—His soul so eagerly adopted the fiction of my brain, that I was a thousand times tempted to acknowledge it to be such, but dared not venture