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.