petuous a spirit to
absolute madness and phrensy, was to take the responsibility, in a great
measure, for all the effects which might follow. At least so it has
generally been regarded. By almost all the readers of the story, Essex
is pitied and mourned--it is Elizabeth that is condemned. It is a
melancholy story; but scenes exactly parallel to this case are
continually occurring in private life all around us, where sorrows and
sufferings which are, so far as the heart is concerned, precisely the
same result from the combined action, or rather, perhaps, the
alternating and contending action, of fondness, passion, and obstinacy.
The results are always, in their own nature, the same, though not often
on so great a scale as to make the wrong which follows treason against a
realm, and the consequences a beheading in the Tower.

There must have been some vague consciousness of this her share in the
guilt of the transaction in Elizabeth's mind, even while the trial of
Essex was going on. We know that she was harassed by the most tormenting
suspense and perplexity while the question of the execution of his
sentence was pending. Of course, when the plot was discovered, Essex's
party and all his friends fell immediately from all influence and
consideration at court. Many of them were arrested and imprisoned, and
four were executed, as he had been. The party which had been opposed to
him acquired at once the entire ascendency, and they all, judges,
counselors, statesmen, and generals, combined their influence to press
upon the queen the necessity of his execution. She signed one warrant
and delivered it to the officer; but then, as soon as the deed was done,
she was so overwhelmed with distress and anguish that she sent to
recall it, and had it canceled. Finally she signed another, and the
sentence was executed.

Time will cure, in our earlier years, most of the sufferings, and calm
most of the agitations of the soul, however incurable and uncontrollable
they may at first appear to the sufferer. But in the later periods of
life, when severe shocks strike very heavily upon the soul, there is
found far less of buoyancy and recovering power to meet the blow. In
such cases the stunned and bewildered spirit moves on, after receiving
its wound, staggering, as it were, with faintness and pain, and leaving
it for a long time uncertain whether it will ultimately rise and
recover, or sink down and die.

Dreadfully wounded as Elizabeth w