Virginis" (My life is in Spica
Virginis)--a star in the left hand of Virgo so called: here the allusion
was probably double; to the queen, and to the horoscope of the bearer.
The twelve houses of heaven with neither sign nor planet therein,
"Dispone" (Dispose). A white shield, "Fatum inscribat Eliza" (Eliza
writes my fate). An eye in a heart, "Vulnus alo" (I feed the wound). A
ship sinking and the rainbow appearing, "Quid tu si pereo" (To what
avail if I perish)? As the rainbow is an emblem seen in several
portraits of the queen, this device probably reproaches some tardy and
ineffectual token of her favor. The sun shining on a withered tree which
blooms again, "His radiis rediviva viresco" (These rays revive me). A
pair of scales, fire in one, smoke in the other, "Ponderare errare" (To
weigh is to err).

At one tilt were borne all the following devices, which Camden
particularly recommends to the notice and interpretation of the reader.
Many flies about a candle, "Sic splendidiora petuntur" ("Thus brighter
things are sought). Drops falling into a fire, "Tamen non extinguenda"
(Yet not to be extinguished). The sun, partly clouded over, casting its
rays upon a star, "Tantum quantum" (As much as is vouchsafed). A folded
letter, "Lege et relege"[47] (Read and reread).

[Note 47: See Camden's "Remains."]

It would have increased our interest in these very significant
impresses, if our author could have informed us who were the respective
bearers. Perhaps conjecture would not err in ascribing one of the most
expressive to sir William Pickering, a gentleman whose name has been
handed down to posterity as an avowed pretender to the royal marriage.
That a person illustrious neither by rank nor ancestry, and so little
known to fame that no other mention of him occurs in the history of the
age, should ever have been named amongst the suitors of his sovereign,
is a circumstance which must excite more curiosity than the scanty
biographical records of the time will be found capable of satisfying. A
single paragraph of Camden's Annals seems to contain nearly all that can
now be learned of a man once so remarkable.

"Nor were lovers wanting at home, who deluded themselves with vain hopes
of obtaining her in marriage. Namely sir William Pickering, a man of
good family though little wealth, and who had obtained reputation by the
cultivation of letters, by the elegance of his manners, and by his
embassies to France and Germany." &c.