On private virtue will disdainful tread;

And mighty love, who rules all nature else,

Must follow here in proud ambition's train.

Not. Pronounce it not! my soul abhors the sound

Like death——O, Cecil, will you kindly lend

Some pity to a wretch like me?

Bur. Command,

Madam; my power and will are yours.

Not. Will Cecil's friendly ear vouchsafe to bend

Its great attention to a woman's wrongs;

Whose pride and shame, resentment and despair,

Rise up in raging anarchy at once,

To tear, with ceaseless pangs, my tortured soul?

Words are unequal to the woes I feel;

And language lessens what my heart endures.

[Pg 13]

Bur. Madam, your wrongs, I must confess, are great;

Yet still, I fear, you know not half his falsehood.

Who, that had eyes to look on beauty;

Who, but the false, perfidious Essex, could

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