“Poynings, good morrow; and how does your wife and fair daughter?  Why come they not to court?—­Adams, your suit is naught; the Queen will grant no more monopolies.  But I may serve you in another matter.—­My good Alderman Aylford, the suit of the City, affecting Queenhithe, shall be forwarded as far as my poor interest can serve.—­Master Edmund Spenser, touching your Irish petition, I would willingly aid you, from my love to the Muses; but thou hast nettled the Lord Treasurer.”

“My lord,” said the poet, “were I permitted to explain—­”

“Come to my lodging, Edmund,” answered the Earl “not to-morrow, or next day, but soon.—­Ha, Will Shakespeare—­wild Will!—­thou hast given my nephew Philip Sidney, love-powder; he cannot sleep without thy Venus and Adonis under his pillow!  We will have thee hanged for the veriest wizard in Europe.  Hark thee, mad wag, I have not forgotten thy matter of the patent, and of the bears.”

The player bowed, and the Earl nodded and passed on—­so that age would have told the tale; in ours, perhaps, we might say the immortal had done homage to the mortal.  The next whom the favourite accosted was one of his own zealous dependants.

“How now, Sir Francis Denning,” he whispered, in answer to his exulting salutation, “that smile hath made thy face shorter by one-third than when I first saw it this morning.—­What, Master Bowyer, stand you back, and think you I bear malice?  You did but your duty this morning; and if I remember aught of the passage betwixt us, it shall be in thy favour.”

Then the Earl was approached, with several fantastic congees, by a person quaintly dressed in a doublet of black velvet, curiously slashed and pinked with crimson satin.  A long cock’s feather in the velvet bonnet, which he held in his hand, and an enormous ruff; stiffened to the extremity of the absurd taste of the times, joined with a sharp, lively, conceited expression of countenance, seemed to body forth a vain, harebrained coxcomb, and small wit; while the rod he held, and an assumption of formal authority, appeared to express some sense of official consequence, which qualified the natural pertness of his manner.  A perpetual blush, which occupied rather the sharp nose than the thin cheek of this personage, seemed to speak more of “good life,” as it was called, than of modesty; and the manner in which he approached to the Earl confirmed that suspicion.

“Good even to you, Master Robert Laneham,” said Leicester, and seemed desirous to pass forward, without further speech.

“I have a suit to your noble lordship,” said the figure, boldly following him.

“And what is it, good master keeper of the council-chamber door?”

“Clerk of the council-chamber door,” said Master Robert Laneham, with emphasis, by way of reply, and of correction.

“Well, qualify thine office as thou wilt, man,” replied the Earl; “what wouldst thou have with me?”