a
quarrel either internal or external. If we cannot have what we would,
methinks it is a great bond to find a friend that will strain himself in
his friend's cause in whatsoever--as this world fareth.'

[Sidenote: _Cecil's Sentiments._]

Throughout Elizabeth's reign, and beyond it, Ralegh's language to Cecil
keeps the same tone of implicit faith. In words Cecil was not behind his
more fluent and continuous correspondent. At heart he would appear, from
his communications to others, to have come to regard Ralegh as a
dangerous rival before the Queen's death. Shrewd observers detected the
growth of the sentiment, in spite of the alliance against the common
foe, and even, for reasons which are not obvious, in consequence of it.
'Cecil,' wrote Harington, who had been a trusted comrade of Essex, in
his _Nugae_, 'doth bear no love to Ralegh in the matter of Essex.' An
important letter found among the Burleigh papers, without date or
signature, but for good cause attributed to Lord Henry Howard, and
probably written towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, shows how eagerly
Cecil and Ralegh were regarded by their respective partisans as hostile
competitors. Probably its genesis resembled that of Ralegh's argument
for the thorough overthrow of Essex. It seems to have been an elaborate
written embodiment of a policy which the Minister may have heard before
from its author's mouth. It differs from Ralegh's letter in being
absolutely in harmony with Howard's conduct at the time and after. In it
the writer, with the 'Asiatic endless' prolixity which James himself
ridiculed, propounded a plan for arranging that 'Cobham, the block all
mighty that gives oracles, and Ralegh, the cogging spirit that prompteth
it,' should be set in responsible positions in which they would be sure
to fail. There is no reason to suppose that Cecil accepted the
particular advice. He would be inclined to doubt the certainty of
Ralegh's failure, should an opportunity of distinction be afforded him.
But the document could not have been written unless its author had been
positive of Cecil's sympathy with its object, the reduction of Ralegh,
by whatever means, to a condition of confirmed obscurity and dependence.

[Sidenote: _Rival Camps._]

As the termination of the Queen's reign more manifestly approached, the
interests of Cecil and Ralegh seemed to grow more and more widely
separated. Researches into the secret history of the final year or two
reveal Ralegh