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.
I have made her Countess,he said to Varney;surely she might wait till it consisted with my pleasure that she should put on the coronet?The Countess Amy viewed the subject in directly an opposite light.
