"Leicester was at this moment the centre of a splendid groupe of lords and ladies, assembled together under an arcade, or portico, which closed the alley. The company had drawn together in that place, to attend the commands of her Majesty, when the hunting-party should go forward; and their astonishment may be imagined, when, instead of seeing Elizabeth advance towards them, with her usual measured dignity of motion, they beheld her walking so rapidly, that she was in the midst of them ere they were aware; and then observed, with fear and surprise, that her features were flushed betwixt anger and agitation, that her hair was loosened by her haste of motion, and that her eyes sparkled as they were wont, when the spirit of Henry VIII. mounted highest in his daughter. Nor were they less astonished at the appearance of the pale, extenuated, half-dead, yet still lovely female, whom the Queen upheld by main strength with one hand, while with the other she waved aside the ladies and nobles who pressed towards her, under the idea that she was taken suddenly ill. "Where is my Lord of Leicester ? " she said, in a tone that thrilled with astonishment all the courtiers who stood around-" Stand forth, my Lord of Leicester!"

If, in the midst of the most serene day of summer, when all is light and laughing around, a thunderbolt were to fall from the clear blue vault of heaven, and rend the earth at the very feet of some careless traveller, he could not gaze upon the smouldering chasm, which so unexpectedly yawned before him, with half the astonishment and fear which Leicester felt at the sight that so suddenly presented itself. He had that instant been receiving, with a political affectation of disavowing and misunderstanding their meaning, the half uttered, half intimated congratulations of the courtiers upon the favour of the Queen, carried apparently to its highest pitch during the interview of that morning; from which most of them seemed to augur, that he might soon arise from their equal in rank to become their master. And now, while the subdued yet proud smile, with which he disclaimed those inferences, was yet curling his cheek, the Queen shot into the circle, her passions excited to the uttermost; and, supporting with one hand, and apparently without an effort, the pale and sinking form of his almost expiring wife, and pointing with the finger of the other to her half-dead features, demanded in a voice, that sounded to the ears of the astounded statesman like the last dread trumpet-call, that is to summon body and spirit to the judgment-seat, "Knowest thou this woman?"

As, at the blast of that last trumpet, the guilty shall call upon the mountains to cover them, Leicester's inward thoughts invoked the stately arch, which he had built in his pride, to burst its strong conjunction, and overwhelm them in its ruins. But the cemented stones, architrave, and battlement, stood fast; and it was the proud master himself, who, as if some actual pressure had bent him to the earth, kneeled down before Elizabeth, and prostrated his brow to the marble flagstones, on which she stood.

"Leicester," said Elizabeth, in a voice, which trembled with passion, " could I think thou hast practised on me-on me thy Sovereign-on me thy confiding, thy too partial mistress, the base and ungrateful deception, which thy present confusion surmises-by all that is holy,

false lord, that head of thine were in as great peril as ever was thy father's!"

Leicester had not conscious innocence, but he had pride to support him. He raised slowly his brow and features, which were black and swoln with contending emotions, and only replied, " My head cannot fall but by the sentence of my peers-to them I will plead, and not to a princess, who thus requites my faithful service."

"What! my lords," said Elizabeth, looking around, "we are defied, I think defied in the Castle, we have ourselves bestowed on this proud man! My Lord Shrewsbury, you are Marshall of England, attach him of high treason."

"Whom does your Grace mean?" said Shrewsbury, much surprised, for he had that instant joined the astonished circle.

"Whom should I mean, but that traitor, Dudley, Earl of Leicester ! -Cousin of Hunsdon, order out your band of gentlemen pensioners, and take him into instant custody.-I say, villain, make haste!"

Hunsdon, a rough old noble, who, from his relationship to the Boleyns, was accustomed to use more freedom with the Queen than almost any others, replied bluntly, "And it is like your Grace might order me to the Tower to-morrow, for making too much haste. I do beseech you to be patient."

"Patient-God's life!" exclaimed the Queen,-" name not the word to me-thou know'st not of what he is guilty!"

Amy, who had by this time in some degree recovered herself, and who saw her husband, as she conceived, in the utmost danger from the rage of an offended Sovereign, instantly (and, alas! how many women have done the same!) forgot her own wrongs, and her own danger, in her apprehensions for him, and throwing herself before the Queen, embraced her knees, while she exclaimed, "He is guiltless, madam--he is guiltless-no one can lay aught to the charge of the noble Leicester."

"Why, minion," answered the Queen, "didst not thou, thyself, say that the Earl of Leicester was privy to thy whole history?"

"Did I say so?" repeated the unhappy Amy, laying aside every consideration of consistency, and of self-interest; "O, if I did, I foully belied him. May God so judge me, as I believe he was never privy to a thought, that would harm me!"

"Woman!" said Elizabeth, "I will know, who has moved thee to this; or my wrath, and the wrath of kings is a flaming fire, shall wither and consume thee like a weed in the furnace."

As the Queen uttered this threat, Leicester's better angel called his pride to his aid, and reproached him with the utter extremity of meanness, which would overwhelm him for ever, if he stooped to take shelter under the generous interposition of his wife, and abandoned her, in return for her kindness, to the resentment of the Queen. He had already raised his head, with the dignity of a man of honour, to avow his marriage, and proclaim himself the protector of his Countess, when Varney, born, as it appeared, to be his master's evil genius, rushed into the presence, with every mark of disorder on his face and apparel. "What means this saucy intrusion?" said Elizabeth.

Varney, with the air of a man altogether overwhelmed with grief and confusion, prostrated himself before her feet, exclaiming, "Pardon, my Liege, pardon!—or, at least, let your justice avenge itself on me, where it is due; but spare my noble, my generous, my innocent patron and master!"

Amy, who was yet kneeling, started up as she saw the man, whom she deemed most odious, place himself so near her, and was about to fly towards Leicester, when, checked at once by the uncertainty and even timidity, which his looks had re-assumed as soon as the appearance of his confidant seemed to open a new scene, she hung back, and, uttering a faint scream, besought of her Majesty to cause her to be imprisoned in the lowest dungeon of the castle,-to deal with her as the worst of criminals;-"but spare," she exclaimed, “ my sight and hearing, what will destroy the little judgment I have left-the sight of that unutterable and most shameless villain!"

And why, sweetheart?" said the Queen, moved by a new impulse; "what hath he, this false knight, since such thou accountest him, done to thee?"

"Oh, worse than sorrow, madam, and worse than injury-he has sown dissention where most there should be peace. I shall go mad if I look longer on him."

"Beshrew me, but I think thou art distraught already," answered the Queen." My Lord Hunsdon, look to this poor distressed young woman, and let her be safely bestowed, and in honest keeping, till we require her to be forthcoming."

Two or three of the ladies in attendance, either moved by compassion for a creature so interesting, or by some other motive, offered their service to look after her; but the Queen briefly answered, "Ladies, under favour, no.-You have all (give God thanks) sharp ears and nimble tongues—our kinsman Hunsdon has ears of the dullest, and a tongue somewhat rough, but yet of the slowest. Hunsdon, look to

it that none have speech of her."

By our Lady!" said Hunsdon, taking in his strong sinewy arms the fading and almost swooning form of Amy," she is a lovely child; and though a rough nurse, your Grace hath given her a kind one. safe with me as one of my own lady-birds of daughters."

She is

So saying, he carried her off, unresisting and almost unconscious; his war-worn locks and long grey beard mingling with her lightbrown tresses, as her head reclined on his strong square shoulder. The Queen followed him with her eye-she had already, with that self-command, which forms so necessary a part of a Sovereign's accomplishments, suppressed every appearance of agitation, and seemed as if she desired to banish all traces of her burst of passion from the recollection of those, who had witnessed it. "My Lord of Hunsdon," she said, "is but a rough nurse for so tender a babe."

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My Lord of Hunsdon," said the Dean of St. Asaph, "I speak it not in defamation of his more noble qualities, hath a broad licence in speech, and garnishes his discourse somewhat too freely with the cruel and superstitious oaths, which savour both of profaneness and of old papestrie."

"It is the fault of his blood, Mr. Dean," said the Queen, turning sharply round upon the reverend dignitary as she spoke; "and you may blame mine for the same distemperature. The Boleyns were ever a hot and plain-spoken race, more hasty to speak their mind, than careful to choose their expressions. And by my word-I hope there is no sin in that affirmation-I question if it were much cooled by mixing with that of Tudor."

"As she made this last observation, she smiled graciously, and stole her eyes almost insensibly round to seek those of the Earl of Leicester, to whom she now began to think she had spoken with hasty harshness, upon the unfounded suspicion of a moment."

In the vigorous delineation of character, this novel, if inferior to the earliest works of its author, is far richer than most of his later productions. Besides the historical portraits of the Queen and Leicester, which are executed with great skill, there are several persons, whom the reader has not recognised before, but who are now individualized in his mind for ever. We cannot forget Anthony Foster, the fire and faggot zealot, who mingles religion so strangely with his villainy or his innocent daughter, Janet, who makes puritanism amends for the discredit brought on it by her father-or Varney, whose terrible atrocities are rendered more fearful, by his horrid smoothness and courtierlike demeanour-or Michael Lambourne, the best, perhaps, of the whole, whose easy virtue and gay vulgarity are redeemed by the spirit of joyousness and lusty life, which breathes through all his speeches and actions. Kenilworth, thus rich in characteristic delineation, is chiefly wanting in that tinge of poetry, and those pure humanities, which have so softened and elevated the effect of the author's earlier romances. There is no being of great moral or intellectual nobleness; no image of angelical loveliness, like that of Rebecca-or of stern and lowly beauty, like that of Jenny Deans; nor even any high uprisings and momentary triumphs of goodness, in the bosoms of the darker of its persons. The verisimilitude, too, of the scenes, though often complete, is produced by a number of minute touches, rather than by those bold master-strokes, which have come so often from his pencil. On the whole, the work displays almost as wonderful a power of realizing to us distant times and persons, as any of its author's romances; but it wants the best and most permanent charm of his earlier writings-that spirit of good, which, in them, was felt to be ever present, shedding a more than magical lustre on all things.

LINES FOR THE BUST OF MILTON.

In the amphitheatre at Mount Edgcumbe, is erected a small Grecian temple, in which is placed a bust of Milton, with an inscription from "Paradise Lost," which one could almost imagine was written on this very spot, every part of the scene so well agreeing.

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-Over head up grew

Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

Cedar and fir, and pine and branching palm:
A sylvan scene! and as the ranks ascend.
Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view!

Nothing appeared wanting to complete the magical effect of the whole, but an Æolian harp; and "on this hint

the following lines:

And well, O Milton! is thine honour'd bust

were written

Placed the deep twilight of these woods among;
For, though far off repose the Poet's dust,

Here lingers still the spirit of his song:
And oft, at eve, these high arcades along,
To Fancy's dreaming eye his form will glide;
While ev'n the depth of stillness finds a tongue,
And sounds unearthly float upon the tide,
Or in faint murmurs die along the dark hill-side.

Yet why, O why, in such a scene, is mute
That lyre, which scorns the touch of mortal hand-
The lyre of Heaven---the wandering Ariel's lute,
Which fairy fingers all alone have spann'd,

And the pure Zephyr's waving breath hath fann'd?
"Twere sweet to catch its tones when, still and dim,
The beauty-breathing hues of eve expand;
When day's last roses fade on ocean's brim,

And Nature veils her brow, and chaunts her vesper hymn.

Sweet were that sound, at night, to many a band
That beats, with printless steps, the glimmering wave;
Sweetly 'twould linger o'er the moonlight sand,

To him, who loves to tread where waters lave,
And dream of that, which spurns the peaceful grave;

And sweetly would it fill the pauses deep,

When Autumn night-winds cease awhile to rave,
Or in low moanings hush themselves to sleep,

While listening woods and waves a holy concord keep.