with some speech to the Queen, who returned with her Majestie's glove: and when he came himself he was met by an old hermit, a secretary of state, a brave soldier, and an esquire. The first presented him with a booke of meditations; the second with political discourses; the third with orations of brave fought battles; the fourth was but his own follower, to whom the other three imparted much of their purpose before the Earl's entry. In short, each of them endeavoured to win him over to their profession, and to persuade him to leave his vain following of love, and to betake him to heavenly meditation. But the esquire answered them all, and told them plainly that this knight would never forsake his Mistress's love, whose virtue made all his thoughts divine, whose wisdom taught him all true policy, whose beauty [the Queen then sixty-three] and worth were at all times able to make him fit to command armies.' He pointed out all the defects of their several pursuits, and therefore thought his own course of life to be best in serving his Mistress." *

In the Royal Progresses' are separate long speeches given to the hermit, the secretary of state, the soldier, and the esquire, said to be written by Mr. Bacon.†

* Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, abridged from the Sidney papers.

+ Nicholls's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth.

The Queen said, "that if she had thought there would have been so much said of her, she would not have been there that night." The part of the Esquire was played by Sir Toby Matthews, who lived to be an admired wit in the court of Charles I., and wrote an affected panegyric on that affected beauty the Countess of Carlisle.

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The shafts of envy are ever ready to strike at the favourites of fortune; and Essex, who was generally loved and esteemed, did not escape them, especially among the hangers-on of the court. of the court. So long, however, as he continued in the good graces of the Queen, he did not much regard them. He seldom asked favour for himself that was not speedily granted, but he complained that he could obtain little or nothing for his friends, though, to his honour, his solicitations were always in favour of men of parts and learning. Two brothers of this character were Francis and Antony Bacon, for whom he entertained a deep and sincere regard and friendship, Francis was considered among the first in the legal profession. After repeated solicitations for above a twelvemonth, the Earl thought himself authorized to ask the Queen to make him her attorney-general, in preference of Mr. Coke, who was then a candidate; but the Queen positively refused, expressing at the same time her dislike of Bacon for his speech in Parliament on a question * Walpole.

of subsidies. Bacon said to a friend, "The Earl declared himself to the Queen on his behalf more like a father than a friend to him;" and he consoled himself by saying to his brother, "Against me she is never peremptory, but to my Lord Essex."

When Essex found that all further solicitation was not likely to be of any avail, and in order to take off the sting of mortification and of apparent neglect, the Earl, with that kind-hearted generosity inherent in his nature, conferred on Bacon a small estate of the value of about two thousand pounds, as a mark of his esteem and friendship: this generous act was just previous to his leaving England, on a grand expedition that was preparing to strike a blow against the Spaniards, and to which the Queen had submitted his name to the Council, for a chief command. This was no less than the celebrated voyage to Cadiz.

The preparations for this voyage were on a grand scale. The Spaniards had begun to talk loudly of their designs upon England and Ireland at the same time, building their hopes much on the loss which the nation had sustained in the death of Drake and Hawkins, and the little molestation their ships had recently sustained in their voyages to and from the Indies. The Queen, fully aware of the threatened invasion, determined on attacking and destroying the enemy's shipping in their own ports. For this purpose a powerful fleet was fitted out, intended for

a conjoint expedition, of which the Earl of Essex and the Lord Admiral Howard of Effingham were appointed commanders-in-chief. The fleet was divided into four squadrons-the first under the immediate orders of the Lord High Admiral; the second under the Earl of Essex; the third under Lord Thomas Howard; and the fourth under Sir Walter Raleigh. And for the better order in the execution of their instructions, five counsellors from the two services were appointed.

The Admiral and Council finding the landing at St. Sebastian to be impracticable, the next step was at once to enter the harbour, to take possession of or destroy the shipping. The Earl of Essex is said to have been so enraptured at this resolution that he threw his hat into the sea, and, with his usual eagerness and impetuosity, insisted on leading in; but the Lord Admiral and the whole Council very properly opposed it, and decided that the lightest ships should lead in, under Lord Thomas Howard and Sir Walter Raleigh. The rest has been narrated in the memoir of the Lord High Admiral.

Complete as was the destruction of the shipping and all the stores in preparation, the Earl of Essex was not quite satisfied on two points: first, he proposed to keep possession of the city of Cadiz, and the peninsula on which it stands, as it might prove a thorn in the sides of the Spaniards; or, as he himself says, "a nail in the foot of this great mo

narchy." He offered to remain there himself with no more than four hundred men and three months' provisions; and in this he was supported by the Dutch Admiral and Sir Francis Vere. But the Lord Admiral and all the other officers decided at once against it. The second point was to repair to the Azores, there to lay in wait for the East India carracks; but all objected to this, except the Lord Thomas Howard and the Dutch Admiral. Sir Walter Raleigh alleged the scarcity of victuals and the infection of his men. "My Lord General of Essex," says Sir William Monson, "offered, in the greatness of his mind, and the desire he had to stay, to supply his want of men and victuals, and to exchange ships; but all proposals were in vain." In returning, part of the fleet looked into Faro, a town of Algarva, famous only for the library of Bishop Osorius, which was brought away, and the best portion of it sent by Essex to the newly-erected library of Oxford.

On the arrival in London of the two Lords General, they were addressed by the Lords of the Council in a very dry, not to say uncivil letter, chiefly about the expenses of the voyage and other money matters, about which no doubt Burghley was very inquisitive; but to make the two commanders some amends, they received a most gracious one from the Queen, and Essex was well received at court, though he discovered that attempts had been