Nothing can be more beautiful than the concluding account of the last days, and expiatory retirement, of poor Henry de Essex.

The address with which the whole of this little story is told is most consummate; the charm of it seems to consist in a perpetual balance of antithesis not too violently opposed, and the consequent activity of mind in which the reader is kept:--"Betwixt traitor and coward"-- "baseness to do, boldness to deny"-- "partly thrust, partly going, into a convent"-- "betwixt shame and sanctity." The reader by this artifice is taken into a kind of partnership with the writer,--his judgment is exercised in settling the preponderance,--he feels as if he were consulted as to the issue.

But the modern historian flings at once the dead weight of his own judgment into the scale, and settles the matter.] _Sir Edward Harwood, Knt._--"I have read of a bird, which hath a face like, and yet will prey upon, a man: who coming to the water to drink, and finding there by reflection, that he had killed one like himself, pineth away by degrees, and never afterwards enjoyeth itself.[1] Such is in some sort the condition of Sir Edward.

This accident, that he had killed one in a private quarrel, put a period to his carnal mirth, and was a covering to his eyes all the days of his life.

No possible provocations could afterwards tempt him to a duel; and no wonder that one's conscience loathed that whereof he had surfeited.