reof, or else so much money
as they shall cost you; provided always that they be of the best choice,
wherein your judgement is inferior to none[72]."

[Note 72: "Burleigh Papers" by Haynes.]

The earl of Oxford enjoyed in his own times a high poetical reputation;
but his once celebrated comedies have perished, and two or three
fugitive pieces inserted in collections are the only legacy bequeathed
to posterity by his muse. Of these, "The complaint of a lover wearing
black and tawny" has ceased, in the change of manners and fashions, to
interest or affect the reader. "Fancy and Desire" may still lay claim to
the praise of ingenuity, though the idea is perhaps not original even
here, and has since been exhibited with very considerable improvements
both in French and English, especially in Ben Jonson's celebrated song,
"Tell me where was Fancy bred?" Two or three stanzas may bear quotation.

"Where wert thou born Desire?"
"In pomp and pride of May."
"By whom sweet boy wert thou begot?"
"By Fond Conceit men say."

"Tell me who was thy nurse?"
"Fresh Youth in sugred joy."
"What was thy meat and daily food?"
"Sad sighs with great annoy."

"What had'st thou then to drink?"
"Unsavoury lovers' tears."
"What cradle wert thou rocked in?"
"In hope devoid of fears." &c.

In the chivalrous exercises of the tilt and tournament the earl of
Oxford had few superiors: he was victor in the justs both of this year
and of the year 1580, and on the latter occasion he was led by two
ladies into the presence-chamber, all armed as he was, to receive a
prize from her majesty's own hand. Afterwards, by gross misconduct, he
incurred from his sovereign a disgrace equally marked and public, being
committed to the Tower for an attempt on one of her maids of honor. On
other occasions his lawless propensities broke out with a violence which
Elizabeth herself was scarcely able to restrain.

He had openly begun to muster his friends, retainers and servants, to
take vengeance on sir Thomas Knevet, by whom he had been wounded in a
duel; and the queen, who interfered to prevent the execution of this
savage design, was obliged for some time to appoint Knevet a guard in
order to secure his life. He also publicly insulted sir Philip Sidney in
the tennis-court of the palace; and her majesty could discover no other
means of preventing fatal consequences than compelling sir Philip
Sidney, as the inferior i