through life an object of tender solicitude, had already passed away in March 1587. In his old age Cecil must at times have felt his loneliness. He had almost completed his seventy-sixth year when death came upon him at his house in the Strand on 4 Aug. 1598. His body was removed for burial to Stamford Baron, his obsequies being performed on the same day with much magnificence at Westminster Abbey.
Illustrious as a statesman, his private life displays a character peculiarly attractive. He was a man of strong affection—gentle and tender to children, of whom he was very fond—an indulgent father, even when his son Thomas tried him sorely by his early dissipation and went so far as to remind his father that he could not be cut off from the entailed estates, which were settled upon him. He watched the education of his children with constant interest, and made liberal provision for his daughters when they married. His loyal fidelity to his early friends and kindred showed itself whenever a legitimate opportunity occurred for assisting them [see especially under BROWNE, ROBERT], and his grateful love for his old college and for Cambridge he never tired of expressing in word and deed. The hospital for twelve old men at Stamford still remains in testimony of his kindly charity, and in his will he left many legacies to the poor and the unfortunate. In the midst of all his wonderful official labours he contrived to keep up an interest in literature; he was a lover of books and of learned men, and a student to the last. His health was frequently impaired by overwork and mental strain. In 1580 he suffered much from his teeth, which had begun to decay. He was always an early riser, and writing to a correspondent who wished to speak with him at the court, he warns him that his only chance of securing an interview was by being in attendance before nine in the morning. The sums he spent on his buildings and gardens at his various houses were enormous. In defending himself against the attacks of his slanderers in 1585 he thinks it necessary to excuse and explain this lavish outlay. Burleigh, the glorious palace which still remains as a noble monument of his magnificence, he says he had built upon the old foundations, but such as he left it—he left it while it was his mother's property, and he never presumed to treat it as his own during her lifetime. It was not till after her death that the queen was entertained within its walls. It was at Theobalds and Wimbledon and Cecil House that Elizabeth was received with such extraordinary splendour. Twelve times, it is said, the queen was his guest, and the cost of her visits entailed on each occasion an outlay which sounds to us almost incredible. His gardens were celebrated over Europe, and we hear of his experiments at acclimatising foreign trees, which he imported at a great cost. For mere pictorial art he seems to have cared but little, though his agents were instructed to procure specimens of sculpture for him from Venice and probably elsewhere. He had a great taste for music; there is no indication of his being fond of animals. His hospitality was unbounded, and he kept great state in his establishments. He had a high idea of what was expected from the prime minister of the queen of England. All this splendour and profuseness could not be kept up through life and any large accumulation of wealth be left behind him. In truth Cecil did not die as rich a man as might have been expected, and there is good reason for believing that if his father had not left him an ample patrimony he would have died as poor a man as many another of Elizabeth's ablest and most faithful servants. Cooper, in the ‘Athenæ Cantabrigienses,’ has given a list of sixty of his works. They are for the most part state papers, apologies, and ephemera, never printed and never intended to be published to the world. He had made large collections in heraldry and genealogy, with which studies he was much interested. He expressed himself with facility and precision in Latin, French, and Italian, and he returned the letters which his son Thomas wrote to him from Paris with corrections of the mistakes in French which the young man had made. The mass of manuscripts which he left behind him is prodigious. In the single year 1596, when he was in his seventy-fifth year and his constitution was breaking up, no less than 1,290 documents, now at Hatfield, and every one of which passed under his eye and were dealt with by his hand or the hand of his secretaries, remain to prove his amazing industry, his methodical habits, and his astonishing capacity for work. It must be borne in mind, too, that the Record Office and other archives probably contain at least as large a collection of his letters and other writings as his own muniments supply. A very valuable ‘Calendar of the Hatfield MSS.’ is now in process of being drawn up; only the first volume has as yet appeared; but a rough list of his papers has been printed in the 4th and 5th ‘Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission.’
Cecil was of middle height and spare figure. In youth he was upright, lithe, and active, with a brown beard which became very white in his old age, brilliant eyes, and a nose some-
