you sent to guard me, for your Majesty's sweet letters indited by the spirit of spirits; if, for this I say, I could express fit thankfulness I would strain my wits to perform it. But till God in time make my poor endeavours and services my witnesses I must hope your Majesty will conceive, in your royal breast that which my weak words cannot signify. So shall you do justly as you ever used to do, and so shall you bless and make happy your Majesty's humble vassal, whose soul is poured out with most earnest, faithful and more than most affectionate wishes.

ESSEX.

XXXVII.

In spite of the failure of the expedition to Spain, and of many
other omissions, Essex retained his place at Court. In the summer
of 1598, in the course of a warm discussion on the proposed ap-
pointment of Sir William Knollys to the Governor-Generalship
of Ireland, the hot-headed Earl provoked the Queen by his
discourteous manner. She promptly boxed his ears before the

Lord Treasurer and other councillors. That Essex considered
he had received hard measure is clear from his first letter to
Elizabeth after his proscription from the Court circle.

The Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth.

[1598.]

Madam,--When I think how I have preferred your beauty above all things, and received no pleasure in life but by the increase of your favour towards me, I wonder at myself what cause there could be to make me absent myself one day from you. But when I remember that your Majesty hath, by the intolerable wrong you have done both me and yourself not only broken all laws of affection, but done against the honour of your sex, I think all places better than that where I am, and all dangers well undertaken, so I might retire myself from the memory of my false, inconstant and beguiling pleasures. I am sorry to write thus much for I cannot think your mind so dishonourable but that you punish yourself for it, how little soever you care for me. But I desire whatsoever falls out that your Majesty should be without excuse, you knowing yourself to be the cause, and all the world wondering at the effect. I was never proud till your Majesty sought to make me too base. And now since my destiny is no better, my despair shall be as my love was, without repentance. I will as a subject

and an humble servant owe my life, my fortune, and all that is in me; but this place is not fit for me, for she which governs this world is weary of me, and I of the world. I must commend my faith to be judged by Him who judgeth all hearts since on earth I find no right. Wishing your Majesty all comforts and joys in the world, and no greater punishment for your wrongs to me than to know the faith of him you have lost, and the baseness of those you shall keep

Your Majesty's most humble servant,

ESSEX.

XXXVIII.

After the Earl's unauthorised return from Ireland, on his failure to suppress the rebellion of 1598, Elizabeth kept him a prisoner in York House for several months. She had been heard to exclaim: By God's son, I am no Queen; that man is above me,' and she resolved to break his proud spirit. The Earl remained in the custody of the Lord Keeper for three months after writing the following appeal.

The Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth.

May 12, 1600.

Before all letters written in this hand be banished or he that sends this enjoin himself eternal silence, be pleased, I humbly beseech your Majesty, to read over these humble lines. At sundry times, and by sundry messengers, I received these words as your Majesty's own, that you meant to correct and not to ruin; since which time when I languished in four months' sickness, forfeited almost all that I was enabled to engage, felt the very pangs of death upon me, and saw that poor reputation, whatsoever it was that I enjoyed hitherto, not suffered to die with me, but buried and I alive, I yet kissed your Majesty's fair correcting hand, and was confident in your royal word; for I said to myself, between my ruin and my sovereign's favour there is no mean, and if she bestow favour again, she gives it with all things that in this world I either need or desire. But now the length of my troubles, and the continuance, or rather increase, of your Majesty's indignation, have made all men so afraid of me, as my own poor state is not only ruined, but my kind friends and faithful servants are like to die in prison because I cannot help myself with mine own.

Now, I do not only feel the weight of your Majesty's indignation, and am subject to their malicious insinuations that first envied me for my happiness in your favour, and now hate me out of custom; but as if I were thrown into a corner like a dead carcase, I am gnawed on and torn by the vilest and basest creatures upon earth. The prating tavern haunter speaks of me what he lists; the frantic libeller writes of me what he lists; already they print me and make me speak to the world, and shortly they will play me in what forms they list upon the stage. The least of these is a thousand times worse than death. But this is not the worst of my destiny, for your Majesty that hath mercy for all the world but me, that hath protected from scorn and infamy all to whom you ever avowed favour but Essex, and never repented you of any gracious assurance you had given till now; your Majesty, I say, hath now, in this eighth month of my close imprisonment, as if you thought mine infirmities, beggary and infamy too little punishment, rejected my letters and refused to hear of me, which to traitors you never did. What therefore remaineth for me? only this, to beseech your Majesty, on the knees of my heart, to conclude my punishment, my misery and my life all together, that I may go to my Saviour, who hath paid himself a ransom for me, and whom, methinks, I shall hear calling me out of this unkind world in which I have lived too long, and ever thought myself too happy.

From your Majesty's humblest vassal,

ESSEX.

XXXIX.

The full extent of the Earl's degradation will be gathered by contrasting the last humble appeal with one of his earliest and extravagantly familiar letters written when he was under twenty-five years and the Queen over sixty years.

The Earl of Essex to Queen Elizabeth.

[1590]

Madam,―The delights of this place cannot make me unmindful of one in whose sweet company I have joyed as much as the happiest man doth in his highest contentment; and if my horse could run as fast as my thoughts do fly, I would as often make mine

eyes rich in beholding the treasure of my love, as my desires do myself in a strong imagination to conNoble and dear lady, tho' I be absent, second unto none; and when I am at

triumph when I seem to quer your resisting will.

let me in your favour be

home, if I have no right to dwell chief in so excellent a place, yet I will usurp upon all the world. And so making myself as humble to do you service, as in my love I am ambitious I wish your Majesty all your happy desires. Croydon, this Tuesday, going to be mad and make my horse tame. Of all the men the most devoted to your service,

ESSEX.

XL.

The

In the early part of 1638 Milton came over from Horton, and was presented by John Hales to the famous Provost of Eton, Sir Henry Wotton, then in the last year of his life. courtly old gentleman was delighted with the young poet's grace and wit, and most of all with his enthusiastic desire to visit Italy. On April 6 Milton had sent him a copy of 'Comus,' with a letter announcing his immediate departure for the Continent, to which the Provost replies after the lapse of a week. A few days later Milton started upon his memorable Italian journey, and before he returned Wotton had sunk into the debility of mind that preceded his death in December 1639. In reading the latter part of this letter, it is impossible not to recall the diplomatist's own witty definition of an ambassador, an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.'

Sir Henry Wotton to John Milton.

From the College: this 13 of April, 1638. Sir, It was a special favour, when you lately bestowed upon me here the first taste of your acquaintance, though no longer than to make me know that I wanted more time to value it, and to enjoy it rightly; and in truth, if I could then have imagined your further stay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr. H., I would have been bold, in our vulgar phrase, to mend my draught (for you left me with an extreme thirst) and to have begged your conversation again jointly with your said learned friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might have lauded together some good authors of the ancient time, among which I observed you to have been familiar.

Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kind letter from you dated the sixth of this month, and for a dainty piece of entertainment which came therewith, wherein I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your songs and odes, wherein I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language: ipsa mollities. But I must not omit to tell you, that I now only owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modestly soever) the true artificer. For the work itself I had viewed some good while before, with singular delight, having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late R.'s poems, printed at Oxford; whereunto it is added (as I now suppose) that the accessory may help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and leave the reader con la bocca dolce.

Now Sir, concerning your travels, wherein I may challenge a little more privilege of discourse with you ; I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way; therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B., whom you shall easily find attending the young Lord S. as his governor, and you may surely receive from him good directions for shaping of your farther journey into Italy, where he did reside by my choice some time for the King after mine own recess from Venice.

I should think that your best line will be through the whole length of France to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Genoa, whence the passage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge. I hasten, as you do, to Florence, or Siena, the rather to tell you a short story from the interest you have given me in your safety.

At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipione, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times, having been steward to the Duca de Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, save this only man, that escaped by foresight of the tempest. With him I had often much chat of those affairs, into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour, and at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience) I had won confidence enough to beg his advice how I might carry myself securely there, without offence of others, or of mine own conscience. Signor arrigo mio, says he, pensieri stretti, e il viso sciolto, will go safely over the whole world. Of