Agreeable to what Tasso exclaimed on seeing Guarini's Pastor Fido; 'If
he had not seen my Aminta, he had not excelled it.'

Our author's great abilities being distinguished at court, he was
called to public affairs: In the 4th and 5th years of Queen Mary we
find him in parliament; in the 5th year of Elizabeth, when his
father was chosen for Sussex, he was returned one of the Knights of
Buckinghamshire to the parliament then held. He afterwards travelled
into foreign parts, and was detained for some time prisoner at Rome.
His return into England being procured, in order to take possession of
the vast inheritance his father left him, he was knighted by the duke
of Norfolk in her Majesty's presence[3] 1567, and at the same day
advanced to the degree and dignity of a baron of this realm, by the
title of lord Buckhurst: He was of so profuse a temper, that though he
then enjoyed a great estate, yet by his magnificent way of living he
spent more than the income of it, and[4] a story is told of him, 'That
calling on an alderman of London, who had got very considerably by the
loan of his money to him, he was obliged to wait his coming down
so long, as made such an impression on his generous humour, that
thereupon he turned a thrifty improver of his estate.' But others
make him the convert of Queen Elizabeth, (to whom he was allied, his
grandfather having married a lady related to Ann Bullen) who by her
frequent admonitions diverted the torrent of his profusion, and then
received him into her particular favour. Camden says, that in the 14th
of that Princess, he was sent ambassador to Charles IX King of France,
to congratulate his marriage with the Emperor Maximilian's daughter,
and on other important affairs where he was honourably received,
according to his Queen's merit and his own; and having in company
Guido Cavalcanti, a Gentleman of Florence, a person of great
experience, and the Queen-mother being a Florentine, a treaty of