Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 23 (1831).djvu/409

KENILWORTH. 397

NOTE TO CHAPTER XXIV.

Note, p. 395. —Death of the Earl or Leicester.

In a curious manuscript copy of the information given by Ben Jonson to Drummond of Hawthornden, as transcribed by Sir Robert Sibbald, Leicester's death is ascribed to poison administered as a cordial by his countess, to whom he had given it, representing it to be a restorative in any faintness, in the hope that she herself might be cut off by using it. We have already quoted Jonson's account of this merited stroke of retribution in a note of the Introduction to this volume. It may be here added that the following satirical epitaph on Leicester occurs in Drummond's Collection, but is evidently not of his composition:

EPITAPH ON THE ERLE OF LEISTER.

Here lies a valiant warriour, Who never drew a sword;Here lies a noble courtier, Who never kept his word;Here lies the Erle of Leister, Who governed the Estates,Whom the earth could never living love, And the just Heaven now hates.

END OF VOLUME TWENTY-THIRD.

EDINBURGH : PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY, PAUL’s WORK, CANONGATE.

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