a vacant gazer, there a fcurrilous obferver: your critics and your cynics, your fatyrical and your merry wits! Then for the allowed interpreters! Such and fuch who have the ear o' the great; being betimes their bofom comforters-you must believe their confeffors like! Fellows, look you, who would cap and knee to a new carpet knight or a city notable-yea, frown on a base plebeian, yet make pew fellows and cup-companions of lacqueys and fecretaries! Go to! These be they who can tell you who is who-this nobleman's colours and that lady's favours; counting and recounting others' honours or demerits on their dirty fingers and unfavoury breaths. An the postern be left open, you may not deny them entrance. They'd come through the keyhole else!

"There! there is my Lord! In a white cut velvet fuit, looped and tied French fashion, with cherry-coloured ribbons! Ah! Master Chamberlain hath hung the fatin cloak to a marvel! See the star and orders be betrayed nicely, yet without oftent; his fword hilt, too, glistening with diamonds. "Tis that the French King presented him. A gay estridge feather, fir, carrieth the lightness of the costume, as I may fay, up to the welkin! Rubies, fir, Rubies! only

Effex-Lady Leicester.

7

Rubies! "Tis a fecret, once told me by a Court, lady, you

should carry the colours thus.”

"Mafs! but the Earl hath the leer of an Earl!"

"Go to! what else?"

""Tis the air of a true gentleman; no more, fir: quiet, yet free."

"The late mistress of these Halls, fir, my lady the Countess of Leicester !-Cloth o' gold trimmed with fable!"

"How she weareth the time! none to a dark

eye

and

"By your pardon! no one should call to mind i' th' ladies' cafe."

"True, fir! I was but thinking how the pulpit wherein I laft faw Mafter Cartwright "

"Oh, fir, 't stood ï' th' corner, yonder, the players have their stage there now!"

"Good! • Totus mundus agit hiftrionem,' as they fay: and my Lord of Leicester himself would have made a fair actor!"

"Well, my friend, you fhall haply get as fine a fermon

from fome Players I wot on, as profitable matter from the

best o' your preachers."

"True, fir, but for the nonce I regard neither preacher

nor poet. Pray you is that the young Earl of Southampton?" "Nay, nay! my good Lord hath gone to France." "To France! fir?"

"Ay: 'tis on fome fecret mifconftruction of her Grace." My Lord and Mistress Vernon's contract of marriage, though openly vouched, being retiredly made, shall be naught fans her allowance.

"The poor lady!”

"Poor indeed, fir, and i' the Fleet! a double prisoner (for her tale told itself i' the measure of her girdle.) The fond Earl awaits her Highness's better motions from beyond fea. "Tis the Earl of Northumberland you admire, fir; my Lord's brother-in-law that is to be. A blue jerkin puffed and lined with a primrose tawney.”

"Tis new, fir, is't not, that peascod bellied vest ?"

"Well, fir, I think not: though 'tis rare. The blue

broidering on the foft taffeta, fir, how doth it like

you ?"

""Tis tasteful, methinks. The laced flops, too! Surely

my Lord is fancy fick ?

The Lady Dorothy's Servant.

9

"You should ask my Lady Dorothy, fir; methinks he is too fpruce for a difconfolate lover."

“Oh, fie! there be no signs o' love about him. Nimium

admiratur fe!"

"Where is my Lady Countess of Effex, an 't please you?"

""Tis fhe fitting befide the Percy. In her Lord's colours; the gown of filver tissue."

"Oh, she is wondrous beautiful! Her golden hair-how rich! What a bleffed face! fo tender, true-fo intelligent of affection, brightened with wit! And my little Lord! is that the Viscount Hereford i' the scarlet caffock?"

"Indeed, fir! and, if order be not taken, he shall raze the jewels from 's cap anon."

"Then shall you see him as free of his trinkets as my Lord his father!"

"And the young lady befide my Lord of Rutland ?" “Oh, 'tis Mistress Sidney! they say betrothed."

"Indeed! 'tis a fweet child; and hath, as one may fay,

good manners. Grant she be worthy!"

"Let's fee! let's fee-Is that Sir Philip Sidney's daughter?"

66 'Ay, fir! Is fhe not fair ?"

" And hopeful!"

"My Lord hath made up his quarrel with Sir Charles ?”

Ay! you may fee him (now my Lord Mountjoye) befide the Lady Penelope-she, with the Countess of Northumberland yonder, in my Lord's colours!"

"Him i' the black and gold stripes, eh ?”

"The fame with a cloud-like cloke. Stay, are they not

going to begin the play?"

"Anon, fir! anon!”

"Is that Master Shakspeare, fir?"

"Where? where?"

"I' the knot by the arras."

""Tis a black knot, fir; there is but one bright thread among them."

"None o' your colours, fir! they be all too dark for this noble presence."

"Go to!"

""Tis a wife knot that, fir, let me tell you, and scholarly clade; howfoever it may look unfeemly in your gaudy eye. Is not that Sir Thomas Bodley? and that Master Cuffe? and Mafter Clarencieux ? and Master Wooton? and that churlish, four-faced lad, with his head awry, is't not Master