ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX. To enter into all the particulars of this remarkable person's life, would be writing a history of the sixteen or eighteen last years of the reign of queen Elizabeth: yet I shall touch many passages of his story, and enter into a larger discussion of some circumstances relating to him, than may be agreeable to persons who are not curious about such minute facts as do not compose the history of illustrious men, though they in a great measure compose their character. It is essential to the plan of this work, to examine many particulars of this lord's story, because it was not choice or private amusement, but the cast of his public life, that converted him into an author. Having consulted a great variety of writers, who describe or mention him, I may perhaps be able to unfold some of the darker parts of his history: at least some anecdotes, though of a trifling sort, will appear in a stronger light than I think they have hitherto done. These sheets are calculated for the closets of the idle and inquisitive: they do not look up to the shelves of what Voltaire so happily calls, La Bibliotheque du Monde. |