authors; with whose works the lady Mildred is represented to have been intimately acquainted.

In 1548 he was appointed Secretary of State to King Edward VI.; and though, in the disgrace of the Duke of Somerset, his first patron, he lost his office, he was reinstated three years afterwards, admitted a member of the Privy Council, and knighted. On the accession of Queen Mary, Sir William Cecil, though known to be a zealous Protestant, escaped her resentment, and was permitted to retire from the ministry without partaking of the persecution with which the leaders of the Roman Catholic faction, during that unhappy reign, so grievously visited their opponents. During this period he represented the county of Lincoln in Parliament; and boldly resisted many severe measures which Mary caused to be proposed against the friends of the reformed church. On the accession of the Princess Elizabeth to the throne, in November 1558, these services were not forgotten. At the first Court which she held at Hatfield, Sir William Cecil was sworn of her Privy Council, and appointed to be her principal Secretary of State; and from that hour devoted the whole powers of his mind to the service of his new Sovereign, with a zeal and ability which underwent no abatement amidst all the intrigues of his rivals, and the occasional frowns of his impetuous mistress. The first thing he advised was the calling of a Parliament to settle the great affair of religion; and the important share which he thus took in the formation of our present church establishment, would alone entitle him to the perpetual gratitude of the nation.

Cecil had a formidable rival in Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the worthless favourite of Elizabeth. This man employed every artifice to undermine his authority, and to ruin him with the Queen. For this purpose he drew over to his interest several of the Lords of the Council, who charged Cecil as the author of a scandalous libel, then recently published. Sir William exculpated himself by the clearest evidence; but the cabal which was formed against him might

not have been easily suppressed, had not the Queen, on hearing of the affair, come suddenly to the Council Chamber; where she warmly supported the character of her Minister, and reproved his enemies in such severe terms, that even the favourite Leicester himself trembled in her presence. Among his most active enemies was the Duke of Norfolk; who became the tool, and finally the victim, of the Roman Catholic party. Although he had little to expect from the favour of Cecil, it is certain that the latter would have saved him from destruction, had not he abandoned himself to the rash councils of those evil advisers who made him the instrument of their own schemes. As a reward for Cecil's faithful conduct in that dangerous conspiracy, Elizabeth, in 1571, raised him to the peerage, by the title of Baron Burleigh; and the following year, on the death of the Marquis of Winchester, she conferred on him the dignified and lucrative office of Lord High Treasurer of England. Oppressed with this additional weight of business, it is astonishing with what readiness, energy, and exactness, he managed all the affairs of the state. Nor, though he was unceasingly beset by the machinations which were diligently employed against him by Philip II. of Spain, and all his popish adherents in England, as well as by the advocates of Mary, Queen of Scotland, who contemplated him as their principal enemy, did he ever falter in his judgment and decision, or suffer them to betray him into rash or timid measures. It does not appear to us that he was the adviser of any proceedings against Mary, which were not strictly warranted by a due regard for the safety of his own Sovereign and her dominions. Mary was in close correspondence with the enemies of her sister, as well foreign as domestic. Matters were driven to a crisis, by the intrigues of her friends, in the very Council Chamber of Elizabeth; and, when every thing was ripe for execution, when a popish conspiracy in her favour was about to plunge the whole kingdom in the horrors of a civil war, the dastardly spirit of Leicester betrayed those with

whom he had so long been secretly engaged, and his confession furnished the means of ultimately detecting the whole plot. The infatuation of Elizabeth towards this unprincipled man is truly unaccountable. She was always ready to accept his affected contrition; and he recovered her favour only to engage in fresh contrivances, which never failed to end in his own disgrace.

The period was now arrived when considerations of public security demanded the execution of the sentence so long delayed upon the guilty but unfortunate Queen Mary. Although, from the moment of her quitting Scotland to seek a shelter in her sister's dominions, her conduct had been a tissue of dissimulation and intrigue, the evidence of which led to the fatal sentence which brought her to the scaffold, still Elizabeth was aware that no justification of the measure would reconcile the people of England to the severity, which, as a sovereign, she was required to exercise towards the captive Queen. It is now clearly ascertained, that no feelings of sisterly affection withheld her from giving orders for the execution; for there are documents in existence which prove that she tampered with Sir Amias Paulet (to whose custody, in the castle of Fotheringay, Mary had been committed) to procure her to be privately despatched, in order to save the reproach of a public execution. When this attempt failed, she freely signed the death warrant; delivering it with her own hand to Davison, her confidential servant, to be immediately carried into effect. Yet, when the tidings of Mary's death were brought to her, she threw herself into a transport of rage and tears, and most unjustly disgraced her secretary, as a cloak to conceal the secret satisfaction which she felt at her sister's removal, as well as to preserve her credit with her subjects. Throughout the whole of this transaction, the conduct of Lord Burleigh appears to have been that of a firm and upright statesman.

In a private letter, still extant, which he had written in December 1575, to his friend the Earl of

Shrewsbury, he observed, "As for the Queen of Scots, truly I have no spot of evil meaning to her, neither do I mean to deal with any titles to the Crown. If she shall intend any evil to the Queen's Majesty, my Sovereign, for her sake I must, and will mean to impeach her." When, therefore, the progress of events convinced him that the object of the conspiracy had nothing less in view than the seizure of the throne, he openly justified the beheading of Queen Mary as a measure of state necessity. He at the same time discountenanced every hint for removing her by other means; and afterwards warmly advocated the cause of the unfortunate Davison, upon whom Elizabeth poured the whole of her politic injustice. In consequence of this manly and equitable conduct, Burleigh was for many days forbidden the royal presence; nor probably would he ever have been restored to favour, had not the Queen considered his services indispensable.

The destruction of the Spanish Armada in the following year, 1588, raised the glory of the British arms in the estimation of all Europe. This memorable achievement was mainly attributable to the sagacity of Burleigh. From the first hour of his entering the Queen's service, he had vigilantly observed the treacherous policy of Philip II.; who, amidst his most plausible pretences of amity, unceasingly indulged the project of becoming sole master of the British dominions, till thus driven to abandon these ambitious hopes.

In 1589, Burleigh had the grievous misfortune to lose his beloved and accomplished wife, and once more solicited permission to retire from public service; but the Queen would never listen to his request. In his occasional fits of melancholy and seclusion from state affairs, she would woo him back to her presence by kind and playful letters. She paid him every mark of esteem and respect. In the latter years of his life she always compelled him to sit down in her presence, saying, "My Lord, we make much of you, not for your bad legs, but for your

good head." Whenever he was confined to his house by sickness, she constantly visited him. On one of these occasions, being admonished by his attendants to stoop as she entered the door of his apartment, she replied, "For your master's sake I will, though not for the King of Spain." The increasing infirmities of age at length rendered it painful for him to attend to the multitude of affairs entrusted to his direction; and though the powers of his mind appeared inexhaustible, those of his body gave way under the constant pressure of official cares; and he finally breathed his last in 1598, in the 78th year of his age.

The public character of this extraordinary man may be estimated from the eminent services which he rendered to his country, in steering the vessel of the state with so much skill and steadiness, through all the dangers and difficulties of his long and arduous administration. The promptitude and vigour with which he dispatched all the affairs of Government; the sagacity with which he detected the designs of the Queen's enemies; the coolness of his temper, the gravity of his deportment, the perfect command of his countenance, which baffled every attempt to penetrate his thoughts,—were the admiration of all his contemporaries. He was steadily attached to his Sovereign, and never swerved from his fidelity to the Constitution, in Church and State, which he guarded with unceasing vigilance. His liberality, his probity, and piety, were eminently conspicuous. His immense revenues, as Lord High Treasurer, were expended in acts of princely magnificence and hospitality. He set apart a large portion of his income for the exclusive service of charity, and kept a constant table at each of his houses for a numerous train of dependants; among whom he had twenty Gentlemen Retainers, each receiving £100. per annum. Twelve times he entertained his Sovereign, with prodigious splendor. He erected noble mansions at London, at Burleigh, and at Theobalds; which last was his favourite residence. There he collected about