indefatigable reader, whether by sea or land, and none of the least observers, both of men and the times; and I am confident, that among the second causes of hist growth, that variance between him and my Lord Grey, in his descent into Ireland, * was a principal, for it drew them both over to the council-table, there to plead their cause, where, what advantage he had in the cause, I know not, but he had much the better in the telling of his tale; and so much, that the Queen and the Lords took no slight mark of the man and his parts; for from thence he came to be known, and to have access to the Queen and the Lords; and then we are not to doubt how such a man would comply and learn the way of progression; and whether or no my Lord of Leicester had then cast

* Lord Grey of Wilton resigned the office of deputy of Ireland in August 1582, at which time this hearing before the council seems to have taken place. The cause is believed to have been his preferring Zouch in place of Raleigh to the government of Munster.

in a good word for him to the Queen,* which would have done no harm, I do not determine But true it is, he had gotten the Queen's ear at a trice, and she began to be taken with his elocution, and loved to hear his reasons to her demands; and the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle, which nettled them all; yea, those that he relied on, began to take this his sudden favour for an alarm, and to be sensible of their own supplantation, and to project his, which made him shortly after sing,

Fortune, my foe," &c. So that finding his favour declining, and falling into a recess, he undertook a new peregrination, to leave that terra infirma of the court for that of the wars; and by declining him

* See a letter from Raleigh to Leicester, which seems to confirm this idea in Cayley's Life of Raleigh, Vol. I. p. 39.

This seems to allude to the jealousy of Essex, through whose means Raleigh was sent to Ireland in a kind of banishment in 1589; after which he sailed on an expedition against the Spaniards in 1592.

self, and by absence to expel his and the passion of his enemies, which in court was a strange device of recovery, but that he knew there was some ill office done him, that he durst not attempt to mind any other ways than by going aside, thereby to teach envy a new way of forgetfulness, and not so much as to think of him; howsoever, he had it always in mind never to forget himself, and his device took so well, that at his return he came in (as rams do by going backward) with the greater strength, and so continued to her last, great in her grace, and captain of the guard, where I must leave him; but with this observation, that though he gained much at the court, yet he took it not out of the exchequer, or merely out of the Queen's purse, but by his wit and the help of the prerogative; for the Queen was never profuse in the delivering out of her treasure, but paid many, and most of her servants, part in money, and the rest with grace, which as the case stood, was taken for

good payment, leaving the arrear of recompense due to their merit, to her great successor, who paid them all with advantage.

GREVILLE. *

Sir Foulk Greville, since Lord Brook, had no mean place in her favour, neither did he hold it for any short term; for if I be not deceived, he had the longest lease, and the smoothest time, without rub, of any of her favourites; he came to the court in his youth and prime, for that is the time or never; he was a brave gentleman, and

* Created by Charles I., Lord Brooke. He was descended from the ancient family of Greville, and born in 1554. He was early introduced at the court of Elizabeth, by his uncle Robert Greville. He was a professed votary of the muses, and extracts from his poems may be found in "Ellis's specimens." After a long life of uninterrupted prosperity, and enjoying the smiles of three successive sovereigns, he was murdered by one of his own retainers, whom he had neglected to reward, for a life spent in his service, and who, in despair, first stabbed his master, and afterwards himself, S0th September, 1628.