much his inferior in treachery and cunning, and was on the whole much more scrupulous. The hypocritic affirmations contained in this last sentence are worthy Sir Robert's aunt, Lady Ann Bacon, or his cousins, Francis or Anthony themselves. Perhaps it came from the same source-from the Cook family.

Essex.-"Ah! Mr. Secretary, I thank God for my humbling, that you, in the most of your bravery, came to make your oration against me here this day.”

This is dignified, but for Mr. Secretary Cecil's reply as much cannot be said.

Cecil." My lord, I humbly thank God that you did not take me for a fit companion for you and your humours; for if you had, you would have drawn me to betray my sovereign, as you have done. But I would have you name the counsellor you speak of; name him, name him, name him, if you dare, if you dare, I defy you; name him if you dare." Cecil is a scold. We see enough in Essex's present provocation of his enemy's wrath to perceive that the Earl's judgment was not reliable, and to incline us to suppose that his want of caution should have been sufficient to have deterred Bacon from his alliance. Robert Cecil was, in truth, a little man called by circumstances to great affairs.

Essex." Here stands an honourable person" (he indicates the Earl of Southampton) "that knows I speak no fables; he heard it as well as I."

Cecil.Then, my Lord of Southampton, I adjure you, by the duty you owe to God, loyalty and allegiance you owe to your sovereign, by all tokens of true Christianity,

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and by the ancient friendship and acquaintance once between us, that you name the counsellor."

The counsellor is named, is sent for at Cecil's earnest request, and declares, "I never did hear Mr. Secretary use any such words," or to that effect.

Whereupon Mr. Secretary thanked God that though the Earl stood there as a traitor, yet he was found an honest man and a faithful subject; withal saying, "I beseech God to forgive you for this open wrong done unto me, as I do openly pronounce I forgive from the bottom of my heart."

To this Essex replies sarcastically

Essex." And I, Mr. Secretary, do clearly and freely forgive you with all my soul, because I mean to die in charity."

In the (by a modern standard) informal mode of conducting the trial, a further recrimination takes place between Mr. Attorney Coke, Southampton, and Essex, in the course of which Southampton alleges that the first occasion "that made me adventure into these courses was the affinity betwixt the Lord of Essex and me, I being of his blood and marrying his kinswoman, so that for his sake I should have hazarded my life."

Essex then enters on his defence. The report given in the State Trials is not long; but, such as it is, it is not

In the Hamlet of 1604, 4to., there is this passage, Act 2, Scene 2: "But let me conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever preserved love, and by what, more dear, a better proposer could charge you withal," &c. Is this likeness accidental, or do Cecil's words live imperfectly in Shakspere's memory as he pens his immortal work? For it is curious the same passage is not in the 1603 4to.

greatly to the purpose, nor urged with that vehemence or force which we should suppose would be natural to a man on trial for his life. It contains two affirmations, however. "And here I protest before the ever-living God, as He may have mercy on me, that my conscience is clear from any disloyal thought or harm to her Majesty ; and my desire ever hath been to be free from bloodshed, as Mr. Dove can witness. But if in all my thoughts and purposes I did not ever desire the good estate of my sovereign and country, as of my own soul, I beseech the Lord then show some mark upon me and my soul, in this place, for a just vengeance of my untruths to all the world. And God, which knoweth the secrets of all hearts, knoweth that I never sought the crown of England, nor ever wished to be a higher degree than a subject." And then the young Earl concludes by declaring that his desire was only to secure access to the Queen in his rash undertaking to secure himself against his enemies, not to shed their blood, and that he repels any charge of his being a hypocrite, or an Atheist, or a Papist, or a favourer of any sectary, "as my Lord of Canterbury knoweth and can testify for my religion it is sound, and, as I live, I mean to die in it."

Then rises Bacon again. Well, my lord, may it please your grace, you may see how weakly he (the prisoner) hath shadowed his purpose, and how slenderly he hath answered the objections against him. But, my lord, doubting that too much variety of matter may minister occasion of forgetfulness, I will only trouble your lordship's remembrance with this only point, rightly comparing this rebellion of my Lord of Essex to the Duke of

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Guise's, that came upon the barricades at Paris in his doublet and hose, attended upon with eight men. But his confidence in the city was such (even as my lord's was), that when he had delivered himself so far, and that the shallowness of his own conceit could not accomplish what he expected, the king, for his defence, taking arms against him, he was glad to yield himself, thinking to colour his pretexts, turned his practices, and alleged the occasion thereof to be a private quarrel.

This speech of Bacon's, as well as the one preceding it, show that Bacon is a reasoner by analogy, and not by induction. It is poor in legal argument, hence perhaps his want of success as a lawyer. Illustrations are not argument. Analogic power is demanded, for it gives grasp, but the first need is clearly logic.

Essex speaks briefly in reply, not in explanation of his conduct, or in his further defence, but alleging that he surrendered himself on conditions, and pleading for his companions, a speech, brief as it is, disclosing his extreme disinterestedness and zeal for his friends.

Then the Sergeant-at-Arms, after a pause, and much whispering and commotion among the judges, and a great pushing and thrusting among the crowd, stands forth, and amid breathless silence proclaims: "Lieutenant of the Tower, remove your prisoners from the bar." Then the judges and the peers retire together into a space enclosed, at the end of the hall, and at the back of the canopy and chair of state. The two chief judges and the chief baron being sent for to deliver their opinions in law on the case, and there they remain in consultation for half an hour.

Half an hour! How wearily lags the time to the

unhappy prisoners at the bar, yet with very different impressions does the suspense come laden to each. Essex is a sanguine man by nature, but he has a premonition about his heart that his sands are well nigh run out. Twelve months' misery and exile from the court, sickness, and the power of his enemies, have told on his spirits, and he fears the worst. Southampton has still hope. He was only an abettor of Essex-an accessary. He knew no treason, believed in none. Essex had no such designs as his enemies impute to him, but Essex was vain, headstrong, rash, believed himself stronger than he was, and has been guilty of an act capable of bearing the worst construction, if he had not the worst intention. Men are as often punished for their folly as their crime. So far Essex should be punished, so far Southampton should participate, but he feels himself a minor criminal, and therefore not justly amenable to the full severity of

the law.

In that half hour's suspense who shall paint the rush of emotion about the prisoner's heart? My Lord of Essex is but human, suffers no more than the poor letter-carrier condemned amid the business and formal callousness of the Old Bailey to his term of penal servitude. He suffers, perchance, less, for he has not the agonizing consciousness of a poor mother tottering across the court, blinded by her tears and stumbling at every step, with letters and testimonies of character which she has scraped from all sources, which she has worried from neighbours, which she has with boldness and audacity wrung from men she never dared to face before, for her only son. But men have in all ages determined to recognize the