several afternoons; and when I came to that part that set forth my lord's own answer, which was my principal care, I do well bear in mind, that she was extraordinarily moved with it, in kindness and relenting towards my lord: and told me afterwards, speaking how well I had expressed my lord's part, that she perceived old love would not easily be forgotten: whereunto I answered suddenly, that I hoped she meant that by herself." Essex, on the 25th of February, 1601, was executed in the Tower: the Queen died more slowly. Happier would it have been for the Queen, and her ill-fated favourite, had they listened to Lord Bacon's warning voice. Essex paid the forfeiture of his unrestrained passions by the stroke of the axe, but Elizabeth suffered the lingering torture of a broken heart; the offended majesty of England triumphed, she "Queened it nobly," but the envenomed asp was in her bosom; she sunk under the consciousness of abused confidence, of ill-bestowed favours, of unrequited affection: the very springs of kindness were poisoned: suspicious of all around her, and openly deserted by those who hastened to pay court to her successor, her health visibly declined, and the last blow was given to her by some disclosure made on the deathbed of the Countess of Nottingham. Various rumours have arisen regarding this interview, and the cause of the Queen's grief; but the fatal result has never been doubted. From that day, refusing the aid of medicine, or food, or rest, she sat upon the floor of her darkened chamber, and gave herself up to the most unrestrained sorrow. The spirit that had kept a world in awe was utterly prostrate; and, after a splendid and prosperous reign of forty-five years, desolate, afflicted, and weary of existence, she lingered till the 24th of March, on which day she died. For my name and memory I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages. Lord Bacon's Will. THE CHARACTER AND DEATH OF LORD BACON. In his analysis of human nature, Bacon considers first the general properties of man, and then the peculiar properties of his body and of his mind. This mode may be adopted in reviewing his life. He was of a temperament of the most delicate sensibility: so excitable, as to be affected by the slightest alterations in the atmosphere. It is probable that the temperament of genius may much depend upon such pressibility, and that to this cause the excellencies and failures of Bacon may frequently be traced. His health was always delicate, and, to use his own expression, he was all his life puddering with physic. He was of a middle stature, and well proportioned; his features were handsome and expressive, and his countenance, until it was injured by politics and worldly warfare, singularly placid. There is a portrait of him when he was only eighteen now extant, on which the artist has |