her service, for fhe was a proficient in the reading of men, as well as books; and as fundry expeditions, as that aforementioned, and 88, do better express his worth, and manifest the queen's truft, and the opinion she had of his fidelity and conduct.

Moreover, the Howards were of the queen's alliance, and confanguinity, by her mother, which fwayed her affections, and bent it towards this great house; and it was a part of her natural propenfion to grace and support antient nobility, where it did not intrench, neither invade her intereft; from such trefpaffes fhe was quick and tender, and would not fpare any whatsoever, as we may obferve in the cafe of the duke, and my lord of Hertford, whom fhe much favoured, and countenanced, till they attempted the forbidden fruit, the fault of the last being, in the feverest interpretation, but a trespass of incroachment; but in the first it was taken as a riot against the crown, and her own fovereign power, and as I have ever thought the cause of her averfion, against the rest of that house, and the duke's great father-in-law, Fitz-Allen, earl of Arundel, a perfon in the first rank of her affections, before these, and fome other jealoufies, made a feparation between them.

This noble lord, and lord Thomas Howard, fince earl of Suffolk, standing alone in her grace, and the reft in her umbrage.

PACKINGTON.

SIR John Packington was a gentleman of no mean family, and of form and feature no ways disabled, for he was a brave gentleman, and a very fine courtier, and for the time which he stayed there, which was not lafting, very high in her grace; but he came in, and went out, through difaffiduity, drew the curtain between himself and the light of her grace, and then death overwhelmed the remnant, and utterly deprived him of recovery; and they fay of him, that, had he brought lefs to her court than he did, he might have carried away more than he brought, for he had a time on it, but was an ill hufband of opportunity.

HUNSDOWN.

MY lord of Hunfdown was of the queen's nearest kindred, and, on the decease of Suffex, both he and his fon fucceffively took the place of Lord Chamberlain; he was a man fast to his prince, and firm to his friends and fervants; and though he might speak big, and therein would be borne out, yet was he the more dreadful, but lefs harmful, and far from the practice of the lord of Leicester's inftructions, for he was downright; and I have heard those that both knew him well, and had interest in him, fay merrily

of him, that his Latin and diffimulation were alike; and that his custom of swearing and obscenity, in fpeaking, made him seem a worse Christian than he was, and a better knight of her carpet than he could be. As he lived in a roughling time, so he loved fword and buckler-men, and fuch as our fathers were wont to call men of their hands; of which fort he had many brave gentlemen that followed him, yet not taken for a popular and dangerous perfon: and this is one that stood among the Togati, of an honeft, ftout heart, and fuch a one, that, upon occafion, would have fought for his prince and country, for he had the charge of the queen's perfon, both in the court and in the camp at Tilbury.

RAWLEIGH.

SIR Walter Rawleigh was one that, it seems, Fortune had picked out of purpose, of whom to make an example, and to use as her tennis-ball, thereby to fhew what he could do, for fhe toffed him up of nothing, and to and fro to greatness, and from thence down to little more than to that wherein fhe found him, a bare gentleman; and not that he was lefs, for he was well defcended, and of good alliance, but poor in his beginnings and for my lord Oxford's jefts of him for the jacks and upstarts, we all know it favoured more of emulation, and his honour, than of truth; and it is a certain note of the times, that the queen, in her choice, never took in

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her favour a mere viewed man, or a mechanick, as Comines obferves of Lewis XI. who did ferve himself with perfons of unknown parents, fuch as were Oliver the barber, whom he created earl of Dunoyes, and made him ex fecretis confiliis, and alone in his favour and familiarity.

His approaches to the University and inns of court were the grounds of his improvement, but they were rather extrusions than fieges, or fettings down, for he staid not long in a place; and, being the youngest brother, and the houfe diminished in his patrimony, he forefaw his destiny, that he was first to roll through want and difability, to fubfift otherwise, before he came to a repose, and as the stone doth by long lying gather mofs. He was the first that expofed himself in the land-service of Ireland, a militia which did not then yield him food and raiment, for it was ever very poor; nor dared he to stay long there, though shortly after he came thither again, under the command of the lord Grey, but with his own colours flying in the field, having, in the interim, cast a mere chance, both in the Low Countries, and in the voyage to fea; and, if ever man drew virtue out of neceffity, it was he, and therewith was he the great example of industry; and though he might then have taken that of the merchant to himself,

Per mare, per terras, currit mercator ad Indos,

He might also have faid, and truly, with the philofopher, Omnia mea mecum porto, for it was a long time before he could brag of more than he carried at his back; and when he got on the winning fide, it was his commendation, that he took pains for it, and underwent many various adventures for his after-perfection, and before he came into the publick note of the world; and thence may appear how he came up per ardua ;

Per varios cafus, per tot difcrimina rerum,

Not pulled up by chance, nor by any great admittance; I will only describe his natural parts, and thefe of his own acquiring.

He had, in the outward man, a good presence, in a handsome and well-compacted person; a strong natural wit, and a better judgement, with a bold and plaufible tongue, whereby he could set out his parts to the best advantage; and thefe he had by the adjuncts of fome general learning, which by diligence he enforced to a great augmentation and perfection, for he was an indefatigable reader, by sea and land, and one of the best obfervers, both of men, and of the times; and I am fomewhat confident, that, among the fecond caufes of his growth, there was variance between him and my lord general Grey, in his fecond descent into Ireland, which drew them both over to the council-table, there to plead their own caufes; where what advantage he

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