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 ANNE OF DENMARK. 433 froward unwomanly apprehensions ; reproached her with a folly he advises her to cure, that he can never account well of an honest and wise servant b'ut she must straightway insist it is to compare and prefer him to herself ; and shrewdly bade her, in conclusion, think of nothing but thanking God for the peaceable possession they had got of England. It was indeed something to be thankful for. His progress to his new kingdom had been an unexpected triumph. States- men and sycophants (much the sa'me thing in those days), courtiers, lawyers, clergy, all classes and conditions of public men, had rushed racing against each other, as for life or death, for the first golden beams of the new-risen sun. As Ben Jonson said, in his masterly poet-phrase, they thirsted to drink the nectar of his sight. No matter that his sight turned out to be anything but nectar, rather indeed the sourest kind of small beer ; they drank it with not less avidity. He hanged a thief without trial at Newark ; he made public avowal of his contempt for women ; he "launched out into indiscreet ex- pressions against his own wife ;" he suffered high-born dames to approach him on their knees ; he shrank with ludicrous terror from drawn swords, and caused them instantly to be sheathed ; his dress, his walk, his talk, confounded the congre- gation of courtiers ; and Carte even takes upon himself to say that "by the time he reached London, the admiration of the intelligent world was turned into contempt." The contempt, nevertheless, was well disguised. Magnificent entertainments awaited him at Newcastle and York ; with splendor not less profuse, Sir Robert Cary received him at Widdrington, the Bishop of Durham at Durham, Sir Edward Stanhope at Grim- ston, Lord Shrewsbury of Worsop, Lord Cumberland at Bel- voir Castle, Sir John Harrington at Exton, and Lord Burghley at Burghley, Sir Oliver Cromwell at Hinchinbrooke, Sir Wal- ter Sadler at Standen, and Sir Henry Cocks at Broxbourne, at which latter place the greatest man then living in this uni- verse (save one) awaited to do him prostrate service. "Me- thinks," said Francis Bacon, after his interview, "his majesty rather askes counsel of the time past than the time to come ;" and closing up his prophetic vision against the great To Come, that wonderful genius took his first base wages in the service of the obsolete Past. Nearer and nearer London, meanwhile, the throng swelled more and more ; and on came the king, hunting, feasting, creating knights by the score, and receiving