ch
nothing could have been more ill-timed. "I perceive by your message,"
said Leicester to Walsingham, "that your peace with Spain will go fast
on, but this is not the way." Unquestionably it was not the way, and the
whisper was, for the moment at least, suppressed. Meanwhile Leicester had
reached Harwich, but the post "bestowed on him," contained, as usual, but
cold comfort. He was resolved, however, to go manfully forward, and do
the work before him, until the enterprise should prove wholly
impracticable. It is by the light afforded by the secret never-published
correspondence of the period with which we are now occupied, that the
true characteristics of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, and other
prominent personages, must be scanned, and the study is most important,
for it was by those characteristics, in combination with other human
elements embodied in distant parts of Christendom, that the destiny of
the world was determined. In that age, more than in our own perhaps, the
influence of the individual was widely and intensely felt. Historical
chymistry is only rendered possible by a detection of the subtle
emanations, which it was supposed would for ever elude analysis, but
which survive in those secret, frequently ciphered intercommunications.
Philip II., William of Orange, Queen Elizabeth, Alexander Farnese, Robert
Dudley, never dreamed--when disclosing their inmost thoughts to their
trusted friends at momentous epochs--that the day would come on earth
when those secrets would be no longer hid from the patient enquirer after
truth. Well for those whose reputations before the judgment-seat of
history appear even comparatively pure, after impartial comparison of
their motives with their deeds.

"For mine own part, Mr. Secretary," wrote Leicester, "I am resolved to do
that which shall be fit for a poor man's honour, and honestly to obey her
Majesty's commandment. Let the rest fall out to others, it shall not
concern me. I mean to assemble myself to the camp, where my authority
must wholly lie, and will there do that which in good reason and duty I
shall be bound to do. I am sorry that her Majesty doth deal in this sort,
and if content to overthrow so willingly her own cause. If there can be
means to salve this sore, I will. If not,--I tell you what shall become
of me, as truly as God lives."

Yet it is remarkable, that, in spite of this dark intimation, the Earl,
after all, did not state what was to become of him i