till I am quite tired; and so for once I will sink quietly into a slumber, and dream of you.

Let me snatch a moment of reason and recollection to forward my story. In pursuance of the good resolutions I had formed, I requested leave of lord Arlington to reside for the future wholly at St. Vincent's Abbey, to which he readily consented. If my offered retirement did not wholly obviate his suspicions, it left him at least no pretence for tormenting me with them. His character I ever found of a common stamp, credulous and mutable, yet selfwilled and passionate: vain of the rights of his rank, without merit to distinguish them, he always conceived himself injured when another was preferred; and the partiality of Elizabeth towards his rival, of fended him almost as much as that I had so obviously expressed.

The generous Essex respected my peace and virtue so far, that after another fruitless effort to persuade me to see him, he consented to pursue the path I had traced

out, and satisfied of my fidelity, swore sacredly to cherish the sentiments I had permitted him to retain. It was needless to ask partial intelligence of a man who employed the voice of the kingdom. I had fortunately distinguished one, fame had adopted. I therefore took a tender leave of lady Pembroke, and mingling my parting tears with a thousand unspoken blessings, by an effort of virtue I admired in myself, I boldly encountered my fate, determined to use effort to render it as supportable as might be.

St. Vincent's Abbey again received me. This mansion lord Arlington had purchased at the time of his marriage, less for any charms he perceived in it, than the advantages of the country round, which supplied him with every variety of rural diversion. Here I at last began to breathe, and forming my mind to that melancholy repose, a decided destiny, however deplorable, allows, I called to my aid the sustaining principles of religion and morality. I turned my feeble feet towards every dwell

ing misfortune had passed over, and rais ing both with gifts, and soothing the sad wretches she had depressed, reflected back into my own bosom the comforts I had bestowed. I gathered into the Abbey such of their children as were weakly and deformed, and while those blessed with florid health pursued the track of labour, the others were instructed in tapestry, point, reading, writing, and music, according to their sex and age. Surrounded by these affecting objects, who thus found in the liberality of art a counterbalance for the unkindness of nature, I sometimes touched my lute with sensations so sublime, that fancy dispersed every bodily imperfection in my little auditory, and lighting up their cheeks with the softest tinge of the morning, I seemed to see the human robes of wretchedness drop off, and the light pinions of immortality wave towards heaven. Striving by such, and indeed every means in my power, to shut out the fruitless wishes for lost happiness, which still beats fervently at my heart, I filled up with unceasing employments the long-long year.

Often did my feet wander towards the cell and the Recess. Often, in the well-known windings of that wood, where once we carolled together notes as careless and pleasant as those of the birds around us, have I paused, my sister, and watered with embittered tears the precious memorial of days that never could return.

Conscious that I could ill brook the least doubt or inquiry into my conduct, I made it an invariable rule never to pass the gate unaccompanied; yet lord Arlington conceived an antipathy to this solitary asylum every day increased. I did not compliment him with a total forbearance of the few amusements innocence and retirement allowed. Alas! I soon learnt from his conduct, that jealousy, the most restless and insatiate of all our passions, mingles in the habit, even when driven out of the heart. Had his love known the refinements common to that passion in a generous nature, he would have felt that an unhappy attachment is nourished by solitude and home; and that the person who once resolves to venture abroad, shews a noble

resolution to contend with it. A thousand times he haunted my footsteps he broke in upon my loneliness. You would have thought he had taken pleasure in beholding the tears and regret he first occasioned.

The dotage of the queen became every day more manifest; and even the blow, she in one of her wild transports gave Essex, more disgraced herself than him. His intrepid resentment, his uncourtly sincerity, his haughty retirement, every action of his life, confirmed that admiration I still thought myself entitled to cherish. The unbounded power he afterwards possessed when reconciled, shewed the extravagance of her attachment; and Elizabeth, cruel, inexorable to me in every other instance, crowned to her own disgrace in this, the only wish she had permitted me to retain.

After several ineffectual efforts to gain distinction at court, lord Arlington conceived himself injured, and by retiring wholly into the country, persecuted me the year round with his company. But not having a taste for the sciences, nor any of those resources a strong understanding in