Princess of Orange.—­Can it be possible that the daughter of Walsingham, and the wife of Sidney and Essex, should have sentiments so inferior to the minds from which she sprang, and to which she was matched?  Believe me, madam, there was no hour of the many years I lived after the death of the Prince of Orange, in which I would have exchanged the pride and joy I continually had in hearing his praise, and seeing the monuments of his glory in the free commonwealth his wisdom had founded, for any other delights the world could give.  The cares that I shared with him, while he remained upon earth, were a happiness to my mind, because they exalted its powers.  The remembrance of them was dear to me after I had lost him.  I thought his great soul, though removed to a higher sphere, would look down upon mine with some tenderness of affection, as its fellow-labourer in the heroic and divine work of delivering and freeing his country.  But to be divorced from that soul! to be no longer his wife! to be the comfort of an inferior, inglorious husband!  I had much rather have died a thousand deaths, than that my heart should one moment have conceived such a thought.

Countess of Clanricarde.—­Your Highness must not judge of all hearts by your own.  The ruling passion of that was apparently ambition.  My inclinations were not so noble as yours, but better suited, perhaps, to the nature of woman.  I loved Sir Philip Sidney, I loved the Earl of Essex, rather as amiable men than as heroes and statesmen.  They were so taken up with their wars and state-affairs, that my tenderness for them was too often neglected.  The Earl of Clanricarde was constantly and wholly mine.  He was brave, but had not that spirit of chivalry with which Sir Philip Sidney was absolutely possessed.  He had, in a high degree, the esteem of Elizabeth, but did not aspire to her love; nor did he wish to be the rival of Carr or of Villiers in the affection of James.  Such, madam, was the man on whom my last choice bestowed my hand, and whose kindness compensated for all my misfortunes.  Providence has assigned to different tempers different comforts.  To you it gave the education of a prince, the government of a state, the pride of being called the wife of a hero; to me a good-living husband, quiet, opulence, nobility, and a fair reputation, though not in a degree so exalted as yours.  If our whole sex were to choose between your consolations and mine, your Highness, I think, would find very few of your taste.  But I respect the sublimity of your ideas.  Now that we have no bodies they appear less unnatural than I should have thought them in the other world.

Princess of Orange.—­Adieu, madam.  Our souls are of a different order, and were not made to sympathise or converse with each other.

DIALOGUE XVII.

MARCUS BRUTUS—­POMPONIUS ATTICUS.

Brutus.—­Well, Atticus, I find that, notwithstanding your friendship for Cicero and for me, you survived us both many years, with the same cheerful spirit you had always possessed, and, by prudently wedding your daughter to Agrippa, secured the favour of Octavius Caesar, and even contracted a close alliance with him by your granddaughter’s marriage with Tiberius Nero.