ings, containing the large banquetting room, in which preparations for supper were made upon a scale of profuse magnificence, corresponding to the occasion.

In the course of this passage, and especially in the court-yard, the new made knights were assailed by the heralds, pursuivants, minstrels, &c. with the usual cry of Largesse, largesse, chevaliers très hardis! an ancient invocation, intended to awaken the bounty of the acolytes of chivalry towards those whose business it was to register their armorial bearings, and celebrate the deeds by which they were illustrated. The call was of course liberally and courteously answered by those to whom it was addressed. Varney gave his largesse with an affectation of complaisance and humility. Raleigh bestowed his with the graceful ease peculiar to one who has attained his own place, and is familiar with its dignity. Honest Blount gave what his tailor had left him of his half-year's rent, dropping some pieces in his hurry, then stooping down to look for them, and then distributing them amongst the various claimants, with the anxious face and mien of the parish beadle dividing a dole among paupers.

These donations were accepted with the usual clamour and vivats of applause common on such occasions; but as the parties gratified were chiefly dependents of Lord Leicester, it was Varney whose name was repeated with the loudest acclamations. Lambourne, especially, distinguished himself by his vociferations of " Long life to Sir Richard Varney!— Health and honour to Sir Richard!-Never was a more worthy knight dubbed !”—then, suddenly sinking his voice, he added, "since the valiant Sir Pandarus of Troy,"- a winding up of his clamorous

applause, which set all men a laughing who were within hearing of it.

It is unnecessary to say any thing farther of the festivities of the evening, which were so brilliant in themselves, and received with such obvious and willing satisfaction by the queen, that Leicester retired to his own apartment, with all the giddy raptures of successful ambition. Varney, who had changed his splendid attire, and now waited on his patron in a very modest and plain undress, attended to do the honours of the Earl's coucher.

"How! Sir Richard," said Leicester, smiling, 66 your new rank scarce suits the humility of this attendance."

"I would disown that rank, my lord," said Varney, "could I think it was to remove me to a distance from your lordship's person."

“Thou art a grateful fellow," said Leicester; "but I must not allow you to do what would abate you in the opinion of others."

While thus speaking, he still accepted, without hesitation, the offices about his person, which the newmade knight seemed to render as eagerly as if he had really felt, in discharging the task, that pleasure which his words expressed.

man

"I am not afraid of men's misconstruction," he said, in answer to Leicester's remark, "since there is not (permit me to undo the collar) - a within the castle, who does not expect very soon to see persons of a rank far superior to that which, by your goodness, I now hold, rendering the duties of the bed-chamber to you, and accounting it an honour."

"It might, indeed, so have been," said the Earl, with an involuntary sigh; and then presently added,

"My gown, Varney—I will look out on the night. Is not the moon near to the full ?”

“I think so, my lord, according to the calendar,” answered Varney.

There was an abutting window, which opened on a small projecting balcony of stone, battlemented as is usual in Gothic castles. The earl undid the lattice, and stepped out into the open air. The station he had chosen commanded an extensive view of the lake, and woodlands beyond, where the clear moonlight rested on the clear blue waters, and the distant masses of oak and elm trees. The moon rode high in the heavens, attended by thousands and thousands of inferior luminaries. All seemed already to be hushed: in the nether world, excepting occasionally the voice of the watch (for the yeomen of the guard performed that duty wherever the queen was present in person) and the distant baying of the hounds, disturbed by the preparations amongst the grooms and prickers for a magnificent hunt, which was to be the amusement of the next day.

Leicester looked out on the blue arch of heaven, with gestures and a countenance expressive of anxious exultation; while Varney, who remained within the darkened apartment, could (himself unnoticed) with a secret satisfaction, see his patron stretch his hands with earnest gesticulation towards the heavenly bodies.

"Ye distant orbs of living fire," so ran the muttered invocation of the ambitious earl, "ye are silent while you wheel your mystic rounds, but Wisdom has given to you a voice. Tell me, then, to what end is my high course destined. Shall the greatness to which I have aspired be bright, pre-eminent, and stable as your own; or am I but doomed to draw a brief

and glittering train along the nightly darkness, and then to sink down to earth, like the base refuse of those artificial fires with which men emulate your rays ?"

He looked on the heavens in profound silence for a minute or two longer, and then again stepped into the apartment, where Varney seemed to have been engaged in putting the earl's jewels into a casket.

"What said Alasco of my horoscope?" demanded Leicester. "You already told me, but it has escaped me, for I think but lightly of that art."

66 Many learned and great men have thought otherwise," said Varney; "and, not to flatter your lordship, my own opinion leans that way."

66

Ay, Saul among the prophets ?" said Leicester. "I thought thou wert sceptical in all such matters as thou couldst neither see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, and that thy belief was limited by thy senses."

66 Perhaps, my lord," said Varney, "I may be at present misled by my wish to find the predictions of astrology true on the present occasion. Alasco says, that your favourite planet is culminating, and that the adverse influence- he would not use a plainer term though not overcome, was evidently combust, I think he said, or retrograde."

"It is even so," said Leicester, looking at an abstract of astrological calculations which he had in his hand; "the stronger influence will prevail, and, as I think, the evil hour pass away.-Lend me your hand, Sir Richard, to doff my gown-and remain an instant, if it is not too burthensome to your knighthood, while I compose myself to sleep. I believe the bustle of this day has fevered my blood, for it streams through my veins like a current of molten lead-remain an instant,

I pray you I would fain feel my eyes heavy ere I closed them."

Varney officiously assisted his lord to bed, and placed a massive silver night-lamp, with a short sword, on a marble table which stood close by the head of the couch. Either in order to avoid the light of the lamp, or to hide his countenance from Varney, Leicester drew the curtain, heavy with entwined silk and gold, so as completely to shade his face. Varney took a seat near the bed, but with his back towards his master, as if to intimate that he was not watching him, and quietly waited till Leicester himself led the way to the topic by which his mind was engrossed.

"And so, Varney," said the earl, after waiting in vain till his dependent should commence the conversation, " men talk of the queen's favour towards me." "Ay, my good lord," said Varney; "of what can they else, since it is so strongly manifested."

"She is indeed my good and gracious mistress," said Leicester, after another pause; "but it is written, Put not thy trust in princes." "

66

"A good sentence and a true," said Varney, unless you can unite their interest with yours so absolutely, that they must needs sit on your wrist like hooded hawks."

"I know what thou meanest," said Leicester impatiently, "though thou art to-night so prudentially careful of what thou sayest to me- -Thou wouldst intimate, I might marry the queen if I would."

"It is your speech, my lord, not mine," answered Varney; "but whose soever be the speech, it is the thought of ninety-nine out of an hundred men throughout broad England.".

66 Ay, but," said Leicester, turning himself in his bed, "the hundredth man knows better. Thou, for