red not oppose. They remained with their eyes fixed on the
ground, dismayed as well as mortified by the public and absolute triumph
of their opponents. Leicester's first use of the familiarity to
which the Queen had so publicly restored him was to ask her commands
concerning Varney's offence, "although," he said, "the fellow deserves
nothing from me but displeasure, yet, might I presume to intercede--"

"In truth, we had forgotten his matter," said the Queen; "and it was
ill done of us, who owe justice to our meanest as well as to our highest
subject. We are pleased, my lord, that you were the first to recall the
matter to our memory.--Where is Tressilian, the accuser?--let him come
before us."

Tressilian appeared, and made a low and beseeming reference. His
person, as we have elsewhere observed, had an air of grace and even of
nobleness, which did not escape Queen Elizabeth's critical observation.
She looked at him with, attention as he stood before her unabashed, but
with an air of the deepest dejection.

"I cannot but grieve for this gentleman," she said to Leicester. "I have
inquired concerning him, and his presence confirms what I heard, that he
is a scholar and a soldier, well accomplished both in arts and arms. We
women, my lord, are fanciful in our choice--I had said now, to judge by
the eye, there was no comparison to be held betwixt your follower and
this gentleman. But Varney is a well-spoken fellow, and, to say truth,
that goes far with us of the weaker sex.--look you, Master Tressilian, a
bolt lost is not a bow broken. Your true affection, as I will hold it to
be, hath been, it seems, but ill requited; but you have scholarship, and
you know there have been false Cressidas to be found, from the Trojan
war downwards. Forget, good sir, this Lady Light o' Love--teach your
affection to see with a wiser eye. This we say to you, more from the
writings of learned men than our own knowledge, being, as we are, far
removed by station and will from the enlargement of experience in such
idle toys of humorous passion. For this dame's father, we can make his
grief the less by advancing his son-in-law to such station as may
enable him to give an honourable support to his bride. Thou shalt not be
forgotten thyself, Tressilian--follow our court, and thou shalt see
that a true Troilus hath some claim on our grace. Think of what that
arch-knave Shakespeare says--a plague on him, his toys come into my head
when I should thin