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Rh father of that Earl of Essex whom Elizabeth delighted to honour until she found a more attractive favourite.

I spent a couple of days at this nobleman's seat, and met several men of high distinction. One of these was a young peer whose speeches in the House of Lords I had read with great interest and admiration for their eloquence and vigour, thinking they were the topmore rounds of the ladder by which he was ascending to one of the highest places in the government of the nation. Among the ladies was one whose name is known and honoured to the furthest colony and corner of the British empire as the queen of benevolence, whose means are only exceeded by her disposition to do good.

Lichfield is the clasp-jewel of the gold-and-green embroidered zone of the Black Country. Its cathedral is an edifice of which a whole nation might be proud, if possessing no other monument of beautiful architecture. The century-plant, that puts forth its white blossom only at the end of a hundred years, has its special reputation and place in the floral kingdom. This Staffordshire cathedral is a millenium plant, which has unfolded the exquisite petals and leaves of its great and beautiful blossom of architecture at the end of ten centuries of steady growing. Tradition claims it to have been planted by King Oswy, twelve hundred years