t her feet, while the speaker enlarged upon
her "preventing grace and all-deserving goodness," She graciously gave
thanks to the commons for pointing out to her abuses which might
otherwise have escaped her notice; since the truth, as she observed, was
too often disguised from princes by the persons about them, through
motives of private interest: and thus, with the customary assurances of
her loving care over her loyal subjects, she skilfully accomplished her
retreat from a contest in which she judged perseverance to be dangerous
and final success at best uncertain. In her farewell speech, however,
at the close of the session, she could not refrain from observing, in
reference to this matter, that she perceived private respects to be
masked with them under public pretences. Such was the final parting
between Elizabeth and her last parliament!

The year 1602 was not fertile of domestic incident. One of the most
remarkable circumstances was a violent quarrel between the Jesuits
and the secular priests in England. The latter accused the former,
and not without reason, of having been the occasion, by their
assassination-plots and conspiracies against the queen and government,
of all the severe enactments under which the English catholics had
groaned since the fulmination of the papal bull against her majesty. In
the height of this dispute, intelligence was conveyed to the
privy-council of some fresh plots on the part of the Jesuits and their
adherents; on which a proclamation was immediately issued, banishing
this order the kingdom on pain of death; and the same penalty was
declared against all secular priests who should refuse to take the oath
of allegiance.

The queen continued to pursue from habit, and probably from policy also,
amusements for which all her relish was lost. She went a-maying to Air.
Buckley's at Lewisham, and paid several other visits in the course of
the year;--but her efforts were unavailing; the irrevocable past still
hung upon her spirits. About the beginning of June, in a conversation
with M. de Beaumont the French ambassador, she owned herself weary of
life; then sighing, whilst her eyes filled with tears, she adverted to
the death of Essex; and mentioned, that being apprehensive, from his
ambition and the impetuosity of his temper, of his throwing himself into
some rash design which would prove his ruin, she had repeatedly
counselled him, during the two last years, to content himself with
pleas