time to learn the language, not having been above two months in Italy.
Then she spake to me in Dutch, which was not good; and would know what
kind of books I most delighted in, whether theology, history, or love
matters? I said I liked well of all the sorts. Here I took occasion to
press earnestly my dispatch: she said I was sooner weary of her company
than she was of mine. I told her majesty, that though I had no reason of
being weary, I knew my mistress her affairs called me home; yet I was
stayed two days longer, that I might see her dance, as I was afterward
informed. Which being over, she enquired of me whether she or my queen
danced best? I answered, the queen danced not so high or disposedly as
she did. Then again she wished that she might see the queen at some
convenient place of meeting. I offered to convey her secretly to
Scotland by post, cloathed like a page, that under this disguise she
might see the queen, as James V. had gone in disguise with his own
ambassador to see the duke of Vendome's sister, who should have been his
wife. Telling her that her chamber might be kept in her absence, as
though she were sick; that none need be privy thereto except lady
Strafford, and one of the grooms of her chamber. She appeared to like
that kind of language, only answered it with a sigh, saying, Alas, if I
might do it thus!"

Respecting Leicester, Melvil says, that he was conveyed by him in his
barge from Hampton Court to London, and that, by the way, he inquired of
him what the queen of Scots thought of him and of the marriage proposed
by Randolph. "Whereunto," says he, "I answered very coldly, as I had
been by my queen commanded." Then he began to purge himself of so proud
a pretence as to marry so great a queen, declaring that he did not
esteem himself worthy to wipe her shoes, and that the invention of that
proposition of marriage proceeded from Mr. Cecil, his secret enemy:
"For if I," said he, "should have appeared desirous of that marriage, I
should have offended both the queens, and lost their favor[54]."

[Note 54: Melvil's "Memoirs," _passim_.]

If we are to receive as sincere this declaration of his sentiments by
Leicester,--confessedly one of the deepest dissemblers of the age,--what
a curious view does it afford of the windings and intricacies of the
character of Elizabeth, of the tissue of ingenious snares which she
delighted to weave around the foot-steps even of the man whom she most
favored, loved,