This looks remarkably like one of Shakspeare's cases of compression; his stamp on another man's material.

I do not think 'Julius Cæsar' was written before 1608-9, after Antony and Cleopatra,' and my impression is that it was followed by Coriolanus' about 1611. One reason being that in the latter play Shakspeare replies to Davies' lines, which appear not to have been published before 1610 or 1611. Be this as it may, it is noticeable that in a later edition of his poem (1619) Drayton has returned to his description, and retouched it into a still nearer likeness to that of Shakspeare. The last two lines are altered thus:

'As that it seemed when Nature him began,

She meant to show all that might be in man.'

It certainly has every appearance of Drayton's lines having been first written, and of his returning to them, after Shakspeare had taken the thought to reclaim his own, improved by the added touch of the greater Poet, only there is at least one more fact in the case to be taken into account. In Hamlet' Shakspeare had first of all written of the Prince's dead father

'A combination and a form indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,

To give the world assurance of a Man.'

Thus the first appearance of the thought is, so far as the evidence goes, in Shakspeare's work, but the after-contention for it is curious.

APPENDIX C.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S FAVOURITES.

Two of the persons with whom my Theory is concerned having been spoken of in this work as Favourites Apparent to Queen Elizabeth, I should like to ask, for the sake of information, what we are to understand by the term Favourite?' What in the minds of our modern Elizabethans does it mean? What was that relationship to Elizabeth with the one name and so many persons, including Leicester, Hatton, Raleigh, Essex, Southampton, Herbert, Carey and others?

'I have learnt,' says De Quadra, the Spanish Ambassador, writing in 1559, according to Mr. Froude, ‘I have learnt also certain other things as to the terms on which the Queen and Lord Robert stand toward each other, which I could not have believed.' These terms are written in the next year to the Duchess of Parma thus: The Lord Robert hath made himself master of the business of the state and the person of the Queen;' and again he says, this woman is likely to go to sleep in the palace and wake with her Lover in the Tower.'

In allusion to the current talk on the subject of the Dudley amour De Quadra also reports that the Queen said she was afraid the Archduke Charles might take

advantage of the scandal which could not fail to reach his ears on his arrival in England, and should he not marry her (in consequence) her honour might suffer.' Should not innocence have remained proudly silent? Why should her Majesty have met scandal one half-way if she had not previously advanced the other half?

Then, there is the letter of expostulation and advice, addressed to Sir Christopher Hatton (Harln. MSS. 787. f.88) by Sir Edward Dyer, printed in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, by Nicholas Harris Nicolas (1826). In the year 1572 the dancing Chancellor had incurred the Queen's displeasure, and this letter of Dyer's reads as though it were a persuasion for Hatton not to follow a course privately spoken of, and he uses these extraordinary words: Though she do descend very much in her sex as a woman, yet we may not forget her place, and the nature of it;' and For though in the beginning when her Majesty sought you (after her good manner) she did bear with rugged dealing of yours, until she had what she fancied, yet now, after satiety and fulness, it (such mode of action as Hatton had contemplated) will rather hurt than help you.' If this letter be genuine my question regarding the meaning of the wordFavourite' is answered. But, is it a forgery? Sir Edward Dyer appears to have been looked up to by the Royal Favourites at times as a Mentor in certain private matters pertaining to the Court. He had himself hovered on the borderland, and once caught a glimpse of the Delectable Mountains of Favouritism. Curiously enough Essex writes to him when in a like fix and with a similar feeling to Hatton-if Hatton really wrote the letter which Dyer is presumed to answer. Essex writes to Dyer July 31st, 1587. Two months before, he was first in favour; Mr. Anthony Bagot writing to his father in May of the same year, says: When she (the Queen) is abroad, nobody near her but my Lord of Essex; and at night my Lord is at cards, or one game or another with her,

6

MYSTERIOUS ALLUSIONS.

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that he cometh not to his own lodging till birds sing in the morning.' But now he has had a quarrel with the Queen and is starting off for the siege of Sluys.

6

Essex tells Dyer that he has been this morning at Winchester House' to seek him, and he continues, I would have given a thousand pounds to have had one hour's speech with you; so much I would hearken to your counsel, and so greatly do I esteem your friendship.'2

The cause of quarrel is the Earl's rivalry with Raleigh in Elizabeth's favour. And Essex says, 'I did let her know whether I had cause to disdain his competition of love, or whether I could have comfort to give myself over to the service of a Mistress that was in awe of such a man!' What can Rowland White have aimed at in his letter of October 1st, 1595, when he writes

'My Lord of Essex kept his bed all yesterday. His favour continues quam diu se bene gesserit. Yet my Lord of Southampton is a careful waiter here, and sede vacante, doth receive favours at her Majesty's hands; all this without breach of amity between them?'

One would also like to know what was the precise meaning of Fulke Greville's proposition to make Southampton the Favourite in place of Essex, as related by Wotton?

And what are we to understand from certain hints of Rowland White, such as these:

It is muttered that young Sir Hen. Carey stands to be a Favourite; that his lady mother and my Lady Hunsdon do further it and grace it.'

Now that my Lord Herbert is gone he is very much blamed for his cold and weak manner of pursuing her Majesty's favour. Young Carey follows it with more care, and boldness. Some jealousy I had that you were sent away because you should not be here to advise and

1 Blithfield MSS.

2 Bodleian. Tanner MSS. 76, 46,

PP

counsel him (Herbert) in a matter of such greatness; for surely it would be to your good to see him a Favourite. Again, we read in the Life of Edward Herbert, Lord Cherbury, that when he first appeared at Court, he was kneeling with the rest in the presence chamber, as the Queen passed by to the Chapel at Whitehall, and, seeing him, her Majesty stopped to ask who he was. On being told that he was married, she, swearing her ordinary oath, said, 'It is a pity he was married so young,' and thereupon gave him her hand to kiss twice, both times clapping him on the cheek. Various such illustrations of character and conduct call to mind the coarse charge of Cardinal Allen, in his 'Admonition to the people of England,' which states that the Queen made her Court as a trap to entangle in sin, and overthrow the younger sort of the nobility and gentry of the land,' and make one wonder more and more what feeling it was that stirred the virgin breast so strongly toward the comely young courtiers, to the marriage of whom she had such insuperable objections.

It does not in the least help to fathom the secret of this Favouriteship, through which Hatton, Leicester, and Essex passed; for which Southampton was proposed, and to which honour Herbert might have aspired if he would, but was out-distanced by 'young Carey,' to point to the age of the Queen and the youth of the young nobles. Many aged persons have had extremely youthful tastes. It was a characteristic of the Tudor tooth. Besides the Queen prided herself on not looking or growing old as other women did. And according to unsuspected contemporary testimony, she must have borne her years very youthfully. Jacob Rathgeb, who wrote the story of Duke Frederick of Wirtemburgh, in 'England as seen by Foreigners,' saw her Majesty in her 59th year, and, thinking she was 67 at the time, he records that, although she had borne the heavy burthen of ruling a kingdom