ight trust.

"Help will come too late; and be assured that _neither physician nor
other, but whom I think good, shall come about me while I live_, till I
have his majesty's favour, without which I desire not to live. And _if
you remember of old, I dare die_, so I be not guilty of my own death,
and oppress others with my ruin too, if _there be no other way_, as God
forbid, to whom I commit you; and rest as assuredly as heretofore, if
you be the same to me,

"Your lordship's faithful friend, "A.S."

That she had frequently meditated on suicide appears by another
letter--"I could not be so unchristian as to be the cause of my own
death. Consider what the world would conceive if I should be violently
enforced to do it."

One fragment we may save as an evidence of her utter wretchedness.

"In all humility, the most wretched and unfortunate creature that ever
lived, prostrates itselfe at the feet of the most merciful king that
ever was, desiring nothing but mercy and favour, not being more
afflicted for anything than for the losse of that which hath binne this
long time the onely comfort it had in the world, and which, if it weare
to do again, I would not adventure the losse of for any other worldly
comfort; mercy it is I desire, and that for God's sake!"

Such is the history of the Lady Arabella, who, from some circumstances
not sufficiently opened to us, was an important personage, designed by
others, at least, to play a high character in the political drama.
Thrice selected as a queen; but the consciousness of royalty was only
felt in her veins while she lived in the poverty of dependence. Many
gallant spirits aspired after her hand, but when her heart secretly
selected one beloved, it was for ever deprived of domestic happiness!
She is said not to have been beautiful, and to have been beautiful; and
her very portrait, ambiguous as her life, is neither the one nor the
other. She is said to have been a poetess, but not a single verse
substantiates her claim to the laurel. She is said not to have been
remarkable for her intellectual accomplishments, yet I have found a
Latin letter of her composition in her manuscripts. The materials of her
life are so scanty that it cannot be written, and yet we have sufficient
reason to believe that it would be as pathetic as it would be
extraordinary, could we narrate its involved incidents, and paint forth
her delirious feelings. Acquainted rather with her conduct than with her