The soote season that bud and blome forth brings,

With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale,

The nightingale with fethers new she sings,

The turtle to her mate hath told the tale,

Somer is come, for every spray now springs.

* * * * * * *

And thus I see among these pleasant things,

Eche care decay; and yet my sorrow springs.

SURREY

It may be readily imagined that Burrell remained in a state of extreme

perplexity after the receipt of Dalton's letter, and the departure of

Ben Israel. He saw there was now but one course that could preserve him

from destruction, and resolved to pursue it:--to cajole or compel Sir

Robert Cecil to procure the immediate fulfilment of the marriage

contract between himself and Constance. This was his only hope, the

sheet-anchor to which he alone trusted; he felt assured that, if the

Protector discovered his infamous seduction of the Jewess, Zillah, he

would step in, from a twofold motive, and prevent his union: in that he

esteemed both the Rabbi's wisdom and his wealth, and was most unlikely

to suffer one on whom his favour had been bestowed so freely, to be

injured and insulted with impunity; and next, inasmuch as he entertained

a more than ordinary regard for Constance Cecil, the child of an

ancient friend, and the god-daughter of the Lady Claypole. Of this

regard he had, within a few weeks, given a striking proof, in having

selected Cecil Place above more splendid mansions, and the companionship

of its youthful mistress, in preference to many more eager candidates

for such an honour, when, for certain weighty reasons, he deemed a

temporary absence from the court essential to the comfort and prosperity

of the Lady Frances.

The friendship that had subsisted between the family of the Protector

and that of Sir Robert Cecil was, as we have intimated, not of recent

growth; the Lady Cromwell and Lady Cecil had been friends long before

the husband of the former had been called to take upon him the high and

palmy state that links his name so gloriously, so honourably--but, alas!

in some respects, also, so unhappily--with the history of his country.

When an humble and obscure individual at Ipswich, the visits of the Lady

Cecil were considered as condescensions, upon her part, towards friends

of a respectable, yet of a much inferior, rank. Times had changed; but

he who was now a king in all but the name, and far beyond ordinary kings

in the power to have his commands obeyed as widely as the winds of

heaven could convey them--remembered the feelings that held sway in

lowlier, yet, perhaps, in happier days; and, although rarely a guest at

Cecil Place, he continued a stanch friend to the family, to whom he had,

upon several occasions, extended the simple hospitalities of Hampton

Court.




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