Say that my beauty was but small,

Among court ladies all despised,

Why didst thou rend it from that hall

Where, scornful Earl, 'twas dearly prized?

No more thou com'st with wonted speed,

Thy once beloved bride to see;

But be she alive, or be she dead,

I fear, stern Earl, 's the same to thee.

CUMNOR HALL, by WILLIAM JULIUS MICKLE.

The ladies of fashion of the present, or of any other period, must have

allowed that the young and lovely Countess of Leicester had, besides her

youth and beauty, two qualities which entitled her to a place amongst

women of rank and distinction. She displayed, as we have seen in her

interview with the pedlar, a liberal promptitude to make unnecessary

purchases, solely for the pleasure of acquiring useless and showy

trifles which ceased to please as soon as they were possessed; and she

was, besides, apt to spend a considerable space of time every day in

adorning her person, although the varied splendour of her attire could

only attract the half satirical praise of the precise Janet, or an

approving glance from the bright eyes which witnessed their own beams of

triumph reflected from the mirror.

The Countess Amy had, indeed, to plead for indulgence in those frivolous

tastes, that the education of the times had done little or nothing for a

mind naturally gay and averse to study. If she had not loved to

collect finery and to wear it, she might have woven tapestry or sewed

embroidery, till her labours spread in gay profusion all over the walls

and seats at Lidcote Hall; or she might have varied Minerva's labours

with the task of preparing a mighty pudding against the time that Sir

Hugh Robsart returned from the greenwood. But Amy had no natural genius

either for the loom, the needle, or the receipt-book. Her mother had

died in infancy; her father contradicted her in nothing; and Tressilian,

the only one that approached her who was able or desirous to attend

to the cultivation of her mind, had much hurt his interest with her by

assuming too eagerly the task of a preceptor, so that he was regarded by

the lively, indulged, and idle girl with some fear and much respect, but

with little or nothing of that softer emotion which it had been his hope

and his ambition to inspire. And thus her heart lay readily open, and

her fancy became easily captivated by the noble exterior and graceful

deportment and complacent flattery of Leicester, even before he was

known to her as the dazzling minion of wealth and power.

The frequent visits of Leicester at Cumnor, during the earlier part of

their union, had reconciled the Countess to the solitude and privacy

to which she was condemned; but when these visits became rarer and more

rare, and when the void was filled up with letters of excuse, not always

very warmly expressed, and generally extremely brief, discontent and

suspicion began to haunt those splendid apartments which love had fitted

up for beauty. Her answers to Leicester conveyed these feelings too

bluntly, and pressed more naturally than prudently that she might

be relieved from this obscure and secluded residence, by the Earl's

acknowledgment of their marriage; and in arranging her arguments with

all the skill she was mistress of, she trusted chiefly to the warmth of

the entreaties with which she urged them. Sometimes she even ventured

to mingle reproaches, of which Leicester conceived he had good reason to

complain.




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