concerned, you may always count upon my instant good offices-out of very absolute affection I assure you."

"Now, that be exceeding kind of you!" cried my lord, shaking his supposed friend by the hand very cordially." It doth my heart good to meet such friendship. I would do you such another turn at any time."

"I doubt it not, I doubt it not, my lord," replied Cecil, returning the other's shake of the hand with infinite earnestness.

"But about this secret," contiued his companion, dropping his voice a little, and assuming a greater mysteriousness than ever. "You must know there hath lately come on a visit to my wife, as sweet a young creature as eye ever beheld. To describe to you her charms of feature and person, could I never with any justice. In honest truth, her comeliness is of such a sort that none could gaze on without loving. By this light, I tried all I could not to be enamoured with her. I would scarce look at her. I avoided being left alone with her at any time. I gave her such a lack of civil speech as must have offended any other. Yet it was easy to see from the beginning she had taken a desperate liking to me. She possesseth the most moving eyes woman ever had; and these she would fix on me for such a length of time, and with such an extreme tenderness, I could not help knowing what her thoughts were about. Still was I mightily cir

cumspect in my behaviour. Finding this of no avail, she would, ever and anon, fetch such woful sighs as were quite pitiful to hear; and give me such sly glances as would have set any man in a flame. However, I kept thinking of my lady, and regarded her with as little attention as was possible. Afterwards she took to shewing me the lovingest passages out of Master Shakspeare's most sweet poem, the Rape of Lucrece, and asked me, with a look that shot a thousand arrows into my heart and liver, if I did not believe them to be monstrous delicately writ. I must confess, at this I began to be somewhat moved. By this hand, there can be no man living who could read of such things pointed out to him by a sweet young creature, and remain indifferent. I could not help acknowledging, with some emphasis, that they were writ with a very infinite delicacy. Thereupon she smiled on me after so loving a fashion, that my heart could not avoid dissolving of itself away like a lump of sugar in a cup of wine. The next time I handed her to dinner she squeezed my hand. O' my life, she did squeeze it so tenderly I was forced into doing of the same; I could no more help it than I could help any other thing that I must needs do; for, to say the truth, she hath the plumpest, delicatest hand I ever held; and no mortal man could have his fingers pressed by such a sweet young creature and feel it not.

"Still I tried not to love her. By this light, the

more I tried the less I succeeded! There was she, day after day, giving me the lovingest looks, the touchingest sighs, and the movingest squeezes of the hand, that ever were known. I did all that could have been expected of me. But to hold out with an indifference of such things was more than I could have done had I been as virtuous as a pickled herring. My humanity would endure it no longer. I straightway fell to loving her as famously as I might. My heart is now filled with her night and day. I know that she is enamoured of me to that extent she cannot eat, drink, or sleep with any comfort; and I, having knowledge of this, cannot but be in the like way affected. All that troubleth me is the fear that my Lady Howard should suspect me. I am in a constant alarm at the thought of it. It be beyond all manner of doubt that she is the very virtuosest of wives; yet, betwixt you and I, when she hath been put out at all, she hath a look with her of so terrible a sort, that oh Lord!" exclaimed he, breaking off on a sudden in his narration, and starting back in as complete a fright as ever was seen, for, to his utter confusion, there stood his wife before him; and, as if to shew he had in no way exaggerated the terribleness of her looks, she had fixed on him a gaze so threatening, gloomy, and indignant, as must have made her appear to him a very Medusa.

CHAPTER V.

Now, gentlemen, I go

To turn an actor and a humorist.

BEN JONSON.

Then to the well trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on;
Or sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.

MILTON.

Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy,
Therefore, they thought it good you hear a play,
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens life.
SHAKSPEARE.

"COME, Master Francis! Prythee let us tarry no longer! Master Shakspeare bade me tell you to be sure to be at the playhouse early, as there was a new play, which he wished you to see from the beginning."

"I shall be ready on the instant, Harry."

The two young friends were in a room fitted up as a library, that stood in a turret of Durham House, looking over upon the river, and Harry was leaning out of the casement taking note of what sort of persons were upon the water, on whom he would make all sorts of droll remarks, and occasionally

turning of himself round to hurry his companion, who was now fastening on his rapier. In a few minutes they were both speeding together in the direction of the playhouse in the Blackfriars. There was a marked difference between the two young men. Harry Daring was full of spirits, talking and laughing as he went as if he cared for nothing in the world; but Master Francis looked with as absolute a melancholy as ever was seen in him, and took heed of nothing that was said of the other, or of any one thing or person that he passed. In truth, what had been told him by Sir Robert Cecil had made a wonderful impression on his sensitive nature, and had created in him with increased force those humiliating feelings regarding his birth that had ofttimes before made him so miserable at heart. He fancied that it had been said by design, but this was merely the result of the state of suspiciousness and fear in which he felt wen any allusion was made to this distressing subject; and which made him conjure up all manner of evils when he thought it possible his fine acquaintances might find out that he was of such low origin. He had long since entertained a desire to see his reputed father, but

now he was determined on it. It appeared to him that if this Holdfast was a good man, and would not be ashamed to acknowledge him as a son, he should be enabled to care the less for the contumely of those to whom he had used to look as the con

VOL. III.

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