advantage to his more ambitious young friend, and excusing himself
on the score of want of recollection, he added that he believed the
beautiful verses of which my Lord of Leicester had spoken were in the
remembrance of Master Walter Raleigh.

At the command of the Queen, that cavalier repeated, with accent and
manner which even added to their exquisite delicacy of tact and beauty
of description, the celebrated vision of Oberon:--

"That very time I saw (but thou couldst not),
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid, allarm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy free."

The voice of Raleigh, as he repeated the last lines, became a little
tremulous, as if diffident how the Sovereign to whom the homage was
addressed might receive it, exquisite as it was. If this diffidence was
affected, it was good policy; but if real, there was little occasion
for it. The verses were not probably new to the Queen, for when was ever
such elegant flattery long in reaching the royal ear to which it was
addressed? But they were not the less welcome when repeated by such a
speaker as Raleigh. Alike delighted with the matter, the manner, and
the graceful form and animated countenance of the gallant young reciter,
Elizabeth kept time to every cadence with look and with finger. When
the speaker had ceased, she murmured over the last lines as if scarce
conscious that she was overheard, and as she uttered the words,

"In maiden meditation, fancy free," she dropped into the Thames the
supplication of Orson Pinnit, keeper of the royal bears, to find more
favourable acceptance at Sheerness, or wherever the tide might waft it.

Leicester was spurred to emulation by the success of the young
courtier's exhibition, as the veteran racer is roused when a
high-mettled colt passes him on the way. He turned the discourse on
shows, banquets, pageants, and on the character of those by whom these
gay scenes were then frequented. He mixed acute observation with light
satire, in that just proportion which was free alike from malignant
slander and insipid praise. He mimicked with ready accent the manners of
the affected or th