way both his
courage and banner together, occasioning a great overthrow of
English. But he that had the baseness to do, had the boldness to deny
the doing of so foul a fact; until he was challenged in combat by
Robert de Momford, a knight, eye-witness thereof, and by him overcome
in a duel. Whereupon his large inheritance was confiscated to the
king, and he himself, _partly thrust, partly going into a convent,
hid his head in a cowl, under which, betwixt shame and sanctity, he
blushed out the remainder of his life_."[1]--_Worthies_, article
_Bedfordshire_.

[Footnote 1: The fine imagination of Fuller has done what might have
been pronounced impossible. It has given an interest, and a holy
character to coward infamy. Nothing can be more beautiful than the
concluding account of the last days, and expiatory retirement, of
poor Henry de Essex. The address with which the whole of this little
story is told is most consummate; the charm of it seems to consist in
a perpetual balance of antithesis not too violently opposed, and the
consequent activity of mind in which the reader is kept:--"Betwixt
traitor and coward"--"baseness to do, boldness to deny"--"partly
thrust, partly going, into a convent"--"betwixt shame and sanctity."
The reader by this artifice is taken into a kind of partnership with
the writer,--his judgment is exercised in settling the
preponderance,--he feels as if he were consulted as to the issue. But
the modern historian flings at once the dead weight of his own
judgment into the scale, and settles the matter.]

_Sir Edward Harwood, Knt._--"I have read of a bird, which hath a face
like, and yet will prey upon, a man: who coming to the water to
drink, and finding there by reflection, that he had killed one like
himself, pineth away by degrees, and never afterwards enjoyeth
itself.[1] Such is in some sort the condition of Sir Edward. This
accident, that he had killed one in a private quarrel, put a period
to his carnal mirth, and was a covering to his eyes all the days of
his life. No possible provocations could afterwards tempt him to a
duel; and no wonder that one's conscience loathed that whereof he had
surfeited. He refused all challenges with more honor than others
accepted them; it being well known that he would set his foot as far
in the face of his enemy as any man alive."--_Worthies_, article
_Lincolnshire_.

[Footnote 1: I do not know where Fuller read of this bird; but a more
awful and affecting