G. P. R. James

With shouts, and jests, and laughter of no very courtly and dignified a sort, the royal party came up to the terrace; and James and his favourite, with a number of attendants, mounted the staircase, passed by the room in which Overbury had been writing, and swept on to the royal apartments.

In a minute or two after, Rochester, tall, handsome, and glowing with exercise and merriment, entered the chamber of his secretary, convulsed with laughter, and casting himself into a seat, exclaimed, "By the Lord! Overbury, here has been one of the best jests this morning I have ever seen. Did you remark, yesterday, how the King asked for Jowler, who was not with the pack?--his favourite hound, you know, whose voice, he swears, is a deal sweeter than that of the Italian music-master. Well--to-day, who should make his appearance but Jowler, with a paper tied round his neck."

"A love-letter, perhaps," said Overbury.

"Nothing half so sweet," replied Rochester; "for if cakes and gingerbread lie in a fair lady's eyes, and honey distils from her lips, as we tell the pretty creatures, sure her pen must be dipped in syrup and spice, but this was all gall and vinegar, though not without spirit too. The King, as soon as he saw the dog, must needs jump off his horse, to let the hound lick him. Maxwell and Boucher would have fain made away with the paper, misdoubting what it contained, I fancy; but the King would needs see it, and Chaloner, who loves a jest, bitter or sweet, untied the string from under the dog's ears, and humbly presented the paper on his knee to our royal master. At first the King turned red in the face, and his brow pricked up like the back of an old woman's wimple, but then he burst into a horse laugh, exclaiming, 'On my life, Master Jowler, thou art a witty dog, if this be thine own jest; but I doubt, like many another man's, it is but laid upon thy shoulders, poor fellow,' and thereupon he began kissing him again."

"But the paper, the paper," exclaimed Overbury, "what was written on it?"

"Why, faith, these words; for the King handed it about," answered Rochester,--"these words are something like them:--'Good Master Jowler, we pray you speak to the King, for he hears you every day, and he will not hear us, that it will please his Majesty to go back to London, or else the country will be undone. All our provision is spent already, and we are not able to maintain him any longer.'"

"On my life," said Overbury, holding up the petition which he had received from Arabella, "I have here got another song to the same tune."

"What is it, what is it?" asked Rochester.

"A petition from a farmer against the purveyors," replied Overbury, "which your Lordship must needs present to the King."

"Not I," answered the Viscount, bursting into a laugh, "I will present no more petitions, since that affair of the man Whitstable. You know what the King said."

"No," said Sir Thomas, "I never heard."

"Well, then, I will tell you," rejoined his companion. "He first read the petition, to please me, he said; then, when he saw it was about money, he swore five large oaths, to which I cannot do justice, for they were part Pagan philosophy, and part Christian blasphemy. Then he chuckled for a minute, and then he asked what the man had ge'en me. I told him, nothing; and then he called me a fule, and said that Whitstable was no better, and so he should not have his money, because he did not know how to show himself thankful to those who asked it for him. No, no, I will present no more petitions."

"But, in good sooth, you must do so in this case," said Sir Thomas Overbury, "for it is at the request of a lady."

"Ay, indeed," cried Carr, somewhat more interested in the question. "What lady, may I ask, Tom?"

"A very sweet and beautiful one," replied the knight, "and one that it were better worth your while to please, than all the gerfalcons in the King's mew, though that's one high road to his royal graces."

"Her name, man," cried Rochester; "you keep me with my wit galloping all through the Court."

"Draw the bridle, then," replied Overbury; "it is the Lady Arabella Stuart; and if you can contrive to fall from your horse at her feet, with as much success as you did at the King's, you may so mend your fortunes, as never to risk a fall again."

"Ay, she is very pretty," answered Rochester, in an indifferent tone, "but hardly tall enough, to my mind."

"I do not know," replied Overbury, "how that can be; she could not be well higher, without being Queen or Princess Royal of England."

"Yes, she is pretty," continued Rochester, in a musing tone; "but what is that to me? There are many as handsome women in the court, not quite so stiff and stately in their virtue. Why she and my Lady Rich do not even speak; and, to my taste, Lady Rich is the prettier woman of the two."

"Ay, for a mistress," exclaimed Overbury; "but which would you like best for a wife?"

"Oh! the Lady Arabella," replied Rochester, in a decided tone, "but that can be no question with either of them; for the Lady Rich is the wife of two men already, and the Lady Arabella will never be the wife of any one."

"Except, perhaps, of Robert Carr, Viscount Rochester, Earl of Something, Duke of Something else," answered Sir Thomas Overbury; "and I do confess," he added, "that I envy the man who shall have the good fortune to put a ring upon that fair finger. Were it for nothing but herself, her beauty, her grace, her virtues, and her sweet humour, I would not barter her hand against the Indies. But when we think of her rank, and the station she will give her husband----"

"Why, Overbury, you are in love with her," cried Carr, laughing.

"I wish you were," answered Overbury; "my care for your fate would then be at an end."

"It would be of no use," rejoined Rochester; "but come, Overbury, speak out, what is it that you mean? You know my brains are not worth much, and what I have are sorely shaken with a long gallop. Speak, man, speak, I am ever ready to follow counsel; and you know Bacon says, that you are my loadstar, that ever guides me right."

"It often happens, my good Lord," replied Overbury, "that when you ask me for advice in the very difficult affairs which surround you, I have to consider long and carefully what is the best course for you to pursue, and even then I may be at times doubtful of the result. But in this case, I have not the slightest doubt. The way lies open before you; and though you must tread it with care and caution, lest you should meet with a rebuff, it will as certainly lead you to fortune, as you advance upon it perseveringly and prudently."

"Come, come, Overbury," exclaimed Lord Rochester, "do not be eloquent! A few plain facts, my good friend, and a word of explanation, are all that is required. I don't mean to say positively that I will follow your advice in this matter, though I partly see your aim; but I will be reasonable, as I always am; and, if I see good cause and good hope, I will go on."

"Well, then, my Lord," said Overbury, "I will just remind you of how you stand. Though it may be an unpleasant task to do so, yet I have never found you shrink from looking the matter in the face. The King's favour is your only stay; the King's life is your term of office and authority; for though, perhaps, some of your own countrymen would rally round to support you--which, by the way, I doubt----"

"Oh yes, they would," cried Rochester; "a Scotchman will always support a Scotchman, if his own interest don't come in the way."

"Yet depend upon it," continued Sir Thomas Overbury, "under a new King, the jealousy of the English would soon clear the Court of your countrymen, who, as you know, can scarce keep their footing in it already."

"That's very true," cried Rochester; "why there's a new satire out against us, Overbury, which made me laugh a good deal last night. It's all the folly of Murray and Sanquhar, as you will see, for the verses upon a Scotchman run--

'They beg our lands, our goods, our lives,
They switch our nobles, make love to their wives,
They pinch our gentry, and send for our Benchers,
They stab our sergeants, and pistol our fencers.'

Ha! ha! ha! it's not bad, on my life; but still the conduct of such men as Sanquhar, in murdering the fencing-master, and Murray, in stabbing the sergeant, can bring nothing but ruin upon themselves, and disgrace upon all their countrymen."

"Both acts were done under the influence of strong passion," replied Overbury; "and where is the man who shall say to what pitch strong passion may lead him?"

"Never to murder a man in cold blood," cried Rochester; "no passion would ever lead you or me to such deeds."

"I do not know," replied Overbury, thoughtfully; "no man can tell till he is tried;" and he fell into a fit of musing.

It was a strange conversation. There they stood, the murderer and the murdered--the one denying the possibility of acts, which, within a very few short months he himself committed; the other even doubting whether he might not be some time tempted to the deeds of which he was to be soon a victim. As if the question impressed them more strongly than any thing that had passed before, they both remained silent for several minutes, and then Overbury proceeded, returning at once to the former subject.

"Well, my good Lord," he said, "all this shows that, however firm you may be in the King's favour,--of which I believe you possess, as I have said, a lease for life,--a stumbling horse, a stag at bay, or a defluxion on the chest, might cast you from the height of power at any hour and day of the whole year, by his Majesty's death. He who fixes his fortune on the favour of another, renders himself doubly mortal. You must try to base yours, my good Lord, on something more stable."

"On what?" asked Rochester.

"On an alliance with the royal blood," replied Overbury.

His companion fell into thought, which the knight took care not to interrupt; and at length Lord Rochester raised his head, saying, "I understand you now, Overbury; but is it possible? I see two great obstacles."

"Name them, name them," exclaimed Sir Thomas, "and I will demolish them in a moment."

"The first lies with the King," answered Rochester. "'Tis but the other day, when he refused one of the Electoral Princes for the Lady Arabella, that he afterwards laughed with me in his closet, and said, that though he might like to put two doves in a cage, he would never put two eagles; meaning that he would never consent to her marriage with any one; and of that I am quite sure."

"With no sovereign Prince, most assuredly," replied Overbury; "for you may easily conceive what a handle might be made of her claims to the throne, in the hands of a foreign power. To any of his own subjects he will have nearly as much objection; for fear of breeding strife and contention in the land. But you, my dear Lord, are somewhat different from a common subject--you are his friend, his favourite, one on whom he can fully rely.--Nay, nay, do not shake your head! You do not suppose that if the Duke of York were of age sufficient, he would hesitate to extinguish the claims of the Lady Arabella, by a union with his own son? Does he consider you as less than his son? Has he not often declared that he regards you as his own child? Does he not, in fact, love you infinitely more than any of his own children?--Nay, to speak boldly and openly to one who, I know, will not betray me, you are right well assured that there is no principle of justice, no maxim of state policy, that he would not violate to give you pleasure. Happy for the country that you are not one ever to abuse such influence. No, my noble Lord, you have nothing to do but to praise the Lady Arabella to the King, to admire her eyes, to speak of her exquisite grace, the loveliness of her form, the sweetness of her smile, to sigh often, and look pale,--we can find means to make the complexion somewhat change--to affect a melancholy, and be no longer cheerful, but as it were by effort. Then, when the King inquires into your gloom, let him wring from you by slow degrees that you love the lady, but yet have never ventured to pay her the slightest court, or show her the least attention, because you know his Majesty's views, and not for the dearest object of your wishes would you cross his slightest purpose. My life to a jerkin of Cordovan, the King proposes to you the marriage himself.--Now, my Lord, what is your next difficulty?"

"That lies with the lady," answered Lord Rochester; "she has never shown the slightest sign of distinguishing me from all the crowd of the Court."

"Odds life! my Lord," interrupted Overbury, "do you expect a lady to woo you? did she do so, she were not worth your having; and the Lady Arabella is none such. Nay, more, my Lord, you will have to woo her, and zealously too; but the more difficult the attainment, the more worthy is the prize. You will have to make her love you, before you can hope for her hand. But yet, as some sort of encouragement, I will tell you that she and I have been talking about you just now, and you already stand well with her. She spoke of you generously and kindly, cited the gift you had lately made to the revenue, and praised your deportment at the Court. Person, too, with all women is no light matter; and to be married to the handsomest man in England, may flatter a woman's vanity, which is the first way to win her love."

"But all flatterers do not succeed with women," said Rochester.

"Because their flattery is too gross, or those to whom they address it too clear-sighted," replied Overbury; "the moment it is known to be flattery, it ceases to flatter; and therefore it is that indirect praise is so much more gratifying than any other. Few have such a stomach as our royal master, who has been compared to many things, but I wonder never to an ostrich, for he can digest iron, if it be well spiced."

"But," asked Carr, in a tone of doubt, "can this lady love at all, Overbury? Has she the feelings and passions of other women? I could not content me with a cold and indifferent bride; and I have remarked that, whatever proposals have been made for her hand, she has seemed right glad and well pleased when they were rejected--I speak not alone of men whom she has never seen, but when there was a question of Northumberland's son; and the King took him to task for wooing her, she seemed quite relieved when he retired from the Court, and said, I understand, that of all the favours the King had conferred upon her, that deliverance was the greatest."

Overbury smiled; "You have a right humble opinion of yourself, my Lord of Rochester," he said, "to compare yourself to Northumberland's clumsy boy, who courted the lady with large eyes and an open mouth, like the whale that swallowed Jonas in the picture. No, no, a woman's heart is like a magazine of powder, well defended and difficult to be got at, but when once reached, ready to take fire in a minute. You must work by the sap and mine, my Lord, and I can assure you the ground is not so hard and rocky as you think. No woman was ever yet insusceptible of love, and there is but one passion that I know of, which can extinguish that magic fire. The blasts of adversity cannot blow it out. It will burn beneath the cold waters of ill-treatment and neglect. In the airless caverns of despair it shines by its own light; and down to the grave it goes, blazing up, even in death. Nothing, I say, nothing can extinguish it but another fierce flame in the same lamp--that of ambition. It was this that taught Elizabeth to quench the fire that was in her heart as strong as in any on the earth. This made her hold back from Leicester, this guarded her against Essex."

"Ay," said Lord Rochester, thoughtfully; "she is very beautiful!"

"Who?" exclaimed Sir Thomas Overbury, in surprise; "Queen Elizabeth?"

"No, no," answered Rochester, laughing; "she never was, that I know of; and heaven defend me from contemplating her beauty now--It was Lady Essex I meant."

"Yes, so she is," said Overbury; "but to the subject, my Lord. What say you to my scheme? If you win the lady, you gain security; you build up a fortress round your fortunes which not all the malice of your enemies can ever batter down. Methinks this alone were sufficient to make you strive, like an eager horse at a race, to win the golden prize, even were the lady less lovely and less charming than she is."

"Why, I say at once," replied Lord Rochester, "that I am yours to do with as you like. The prize is certainly a great one; the only question is--can I win it? You say I can, and as I never found you wrong, I am willing to believe you right. I will therefore embark in the adventure; but you must be the pilot and steer the ship, and, if you bring it safely into port, the whole honour and one half the profit shall be yours.--But first tell me how I am to deal with the lady; for I am to say to the King, it seems, when I have acted the part of a despairing lover long enough, that I have never moved her to my wishes, for fear of giving him offence."

"Nor must you, nor must you;" cried Overbury, "it will be the safest course both with him and her. You must woo as if you wooed not; never affect in the King's presence to pay her much attention; but in those moments which must often happen, and which you may make more frequent if you will,--when, by the chances of the Court, you stand or sit beside her, then ply her with soft words--breathe not the name of love; but there are ways you know right well, to speak without a tongue. Worship her beauty, descant on grace and symmetry, leaving her to take the praises to herself. Tell her the colour of the eyes you love the best, and be sure that the same hues shine under her dark lashes. Have the same tastes; and, in opinions, only differ with her to yield your own with faint resistance, and give her wit the triumph. Let her perceive, without the slightest boast, that you are sought of other lovely dames, but you seek her alone.--A thousand opportunities must occur; but, as I have said, you may make many. When the King is at the council, and during all those times at which he needs not your presence, you can seek hers without seeming to do so. Often she walks alone in the gardens or the park.--How easy to cross her solitary ramble, and for a few minutes--but for a few--seize the occasion to win regard. Even now, what prevents you from going to her at once, with this petition in your hand, which she left with me for you! Tell her that you had resolved never to present another, but that if it be seriously her wish, your resolution must be broken. Then offer her service, and express some regret that circumstances have not allowed you hitherto to show her all the devotion which you feel. Follow this line of conduct till the King's consent is gained; and leave it to me, by hints and explanations, to give the true point to all you say."

"Well," said Rochester, rising, "I will go at once. Give me the paper," and taking it from the hand of Overbury, he quitted the room.

"Heaven send," exclaimed his friend, "that, in striving to light this flame in Arabella's breast, he may gain a spark of fire himself. Such cold indifference never won a love-suit yet--I cannot believe he will fail, with every advantage of person, youth, grace and beauty--the King's favour--her only chance of marriage?--No, no, no! he cannot fail, that is impossible;" and sitting down, he leant his head upon his hand, in thought.

Two minutes after, however, Lord Rochester returned. "I cannot find her," he said; "I saw her pretty Italian girl; and, by my life! the maid's as lovely as the mistress.--I should not dislike to have such a fair lute-player myself."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Overbury, impatiently, "can she place you on the steps of the throne? For heaven's sake, Rochester, take care," he added, almost prophetically, "that some sweet mischief, such as this, does not cast you down from where you already stand!"

"Oh, most grave and reverend youth," replied Rochester, laughing, "be not afraid of my virtue. I will be as demure as a maid; and, though I cannot promise thee to look at bright eyes without admiration, I'll strangle the naughty sighs between my teeth, so that they reach not fair Arabella's ears--I will now take the paper to the King, and leave him not till I have got a warrant for the money. Then think with what grace I will put it into her own soft hand, and say that I have brought it to her, because I know it is her delight to make her fellow-creatures happy.--I hope the hint is not too broad, companion, that I look to her to make me happy too?"

"Seriously, seriously, Rochester, I pray you," said Sir Thomas Overbury, "remember, this is no jesting matter, but one on which your future fate depends."

"Grave as a judge will I be," replied Rochester, "in all the active part of the drama; but the performers may laugh behind the scenes, good Overbury. But I will away to the King. There we shall laugh enough, I trow."

"Not with that in your hand," answered Overbury.

"Why, it may cause a storm at first," rejoined the favourite; "but if I find the dear pedagogue is very poor, I will lend his Majesty the money. Then he will call me a fule, and the farmer a gowk; and the business will end in laughter, however it may begin."

Thus saying, he left his friend in the cabinet, giving him a gay nod as he went out. But Overbury could not be cheerful: there was a heaviness in his heart which he could not account for, which some might think was a presentiment of coming evil; but it was only the load of manifold cares and ever-frowning anxieties, which try the muscles of ambition in its upward course.