"Comes Essexius Antonio Perezio.

"Res tractandæ sunt, sed verba desunt. Negocia habeo de quibus ad te scriberem, quæ autem concepi, non possum exprimere verbis. Sed tu nequaquam verbosus es. Ergo animi mei sententiam paucis comprehendes. Cupio scire, quænam illa sunt, quæ contra personam reginæ cogitabant, imò tractabant conjuratores illi Lusitani. Credebam hoc subjectum fuisse machinationum omnium eorum. Sed quid dixi subjectum? Legibus, supplicio, morti, cruci subjicientur, antequam persona illa regia subjiciatur, vel lædatur à talibus sceleratis hominibus. Mitte, quæso, per Smithum, quæ de istis rebus habes, nam ero in aurorâ in castello Londinensi, ut alios incarceratos convincam, vel saltem audiam, quid pro se dicere, et contra seipsos contiferi velint. Aliud peto, ut venias ad ædes uxoris meæ, ubi tecum et ante prandium, et post de istis rebus loqui possim. Vale, nam sine te salvo, ægrotabo animo, si non corpore, tibi fidissimo fidissimus amicus."

66

At the end of Pricket's Honors. Fame, &c. 1604, is a copy of verses upon the author and his subject," by Charles Best, esq. which closes with the following quaint and hyperbolic epitaph on this popular noble

man:

Here sleepes great Essex, dearling of mankinde;

Faire Honor's lampe, foule Envie's pray, Arte's fame, Nature's pride, Vertue's bulwarke, lure of minde, Wisdome's flower, Valour's tower, Fortune's shame: VOL. IIS

I

England's sunne, Belgia's light, France's star, Spaine's

thunder,

Lysbone's lightning, Ireland's clowde, the whole world's wonder..]

In Webb's Collection of Epitaphs, vol. i. p. 138, these lines are said to be placed at Nottingham.

115

EDWARD VERE,

EARL OF OXFORD,

WAS the seventeenth earl of that ancient family, and by no means the least illustrious. His youth was distinguished by his wit, by adroitness in his exercises, by valour and zeal for his country. Having travelled into Italy, he is recorded to have been the first that brought into England embroidered gloves and perfumes; and presenting the queen with a pair of the former, she was so pleased with them, as to be drawn with them in one of her portraits. The earl of Oxford shone in the tournaments of that reign, in two of which he was honoured with a prize. from her majesty's own hand, being led armed by two ladies into her presence-chamber 3.

In the year 1585, he was at the head of the nobility that embarked with the earl of Leicester

• Stowe.

3 Collins's Historical Collections, p. 264.

4

[Churchyard speaks of having lost one of his best pieces of versification, in which was "the whole service of my lord of Lester mencioned, that he and his traine did in Flaunders; and the gentlemen pencioners proved to be a great piece of honor to the court." Table of the author's works prefixed to Churchyard's Challenge, 1593.]

for the relief of the states of Holland; and in 1588, joined the fleet with ships hired at his own expense, to repel the Spanish armada.

He was knight of the garter, and sat on the celebrated trials of the queen of Scots, of the earls of Arundel, of Essex, and Southampton: but another remarkable trial in that reign, proved the (voluntary) ruin of this peer. He was an intimate friend of the duke of Norfolk that was condemned on account of the Scottish queen. Lord Oxford earnestly solicited his father-in-law, the treasurer Burleigh, to save the duke's life; but not succeeding, he was so incensed against the minister, that in most absurd and unjust revenge (though the cause was amiable), he swore he would do all he could to ruin his daughter; and accordingly not only forsook her bed, but sold and consumed great part of the vast inheritance descended to him from his ancestors 5.

• [Arthur Collins denies the accuracy of this story, as reported by sir William Dugdale, and observes, that "sir William cites Camden, who only says the earl was in a fair way to spend his estate; and it is certain the greatest part of it descended to his son and heir, and on his decease without issue, devolved on his kinsman Robert earl of Oxford." See Collins's Noble Families, p. 265; and Berkenhout's Biographia Literaria, p. 366.] ·

He lived to be a very aged man, and died in the second year of James I."

6

He was an admired poet, and reckoned the best writer of comedy in his time. The very names of all his plays are lost: a few of his. poems are extant in a miscellany called "The Paradise of dainty Devices," Lond. 1578, 4to. The chief part of the collection was written by Richard Edwards, another comic writer".

8

A Latin letter of this earl of Oxford is prefixed to Dr. Bartholomew Clerke's Latin translation of Balthazar Castilio de Curiali sive Aulico, first printed at London about 15719,

[Lord Oxford's profound assurances of personal attachment to his father-in-law in the year 1572, are set forth in the following extract from an original letter in Harl. MS. 69912. The earl married in 1571. "I would to God, youre lordship would lett me

[He died in 1604, and was buried at Hackney, not at Earl's Colne, as reported by Wood. See Lysons's Environs, vol. i.] 7 Wood's Athenæ, vol. i. p. 152, and Fasti, p. 99.

[Another, before the same work, is from the pen of Tho mas Sackville, earl of Dorset; the subject of the next article.] • [Two later editions are mentioned only by Herbert, in 1577 and 1585.]

9

Two other letters occur in MS. Harl. 6996.