ourtier, and appear gay,
assiduous, and free from all care but that of enhancing the pleasure
of the moment, while his bosom internally throbbed with the pangs of
unsatisfied ambition, jealousy, or resentment, his heart had now a
yet more dreadful guest, whose workings could not be overshadowed or
suppressed; and you might read in his vacant eye and troubled brow that
his thoughts were far absent from the scenes in which he was compelling
himself to play a part. He looked, moved, and spoke as if by a
succession of continued efforts; and it seemed as if his will had in
some degree lost the promptitude of command over the acute mind and
goodly form of which it was the regent. His actions and gestures,
instead of appearing the consequence of simple volition, seemed, like
those of an automaton, to wait the revolution of some internal machinery
ere they could be performed; and his words fell from him piecemeal,
interrupted, as if he had first to think what he was to say, then how
it was to be said, and as if, after all, it was only by an effort of
continued attention that he completed a sentence without forgetting both
the one and the other.

The singular effects which these distractions of mind produced upon the
behaviour and conversation of the most accomplished courtier of England,
as they were visible to the lowest and dullest menial who approached his
person, could not escape the notice of the most intelligent Princess of
the age. Nor is there the least doubt that the alternate negligence and
irregularity of his manner would have called down Elizabeth's severe
displeasure on the Earl of Leicester, had it not occurred to her to
account for it by supposing that the apprehension of that displeasure
which she had expressed towards him with such vivacity that very morning
was dwelling upon the spirits of her favourite, and, spite of his
efforts to the contrary, distracted the usual graceful tenor of his mien
and the charms of his conversation. When this idea, so flattering to
female vanity, had once obtained possession of her mind, it proved a
full and satisfactory apology for the numerous errors and mistakes of
the Earl of Leicester; and the watchful circle around observed with
astonishment, that, instead of resenting his repeated negligence, and
want of even ordinary attention (although these were points on which she
was usually extremely punctilious), the Queen sought, on the contrary,
to afford him time and means to reco