'The eagle, towering in his pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.'


This is the man who six months ago, perhaps, thought that he and
Cecil were to rule England together, while all else were the puppets
whose wires they pulled. 'The Lord hath taken him up and dashed him
down;' and by such means, too, and on such a charge! Betraying his
country to Spain! Absurd--incredible--he would laugh it to scorn:
but it is bitter earnest. There is no escape. True or false, he
sees that his enemies will have his head. It is maddening: a
horrible nightmare. He cannot bear it; he cannot face--so he writes
to that beloved wife--'the scorn, the taunts, the loss of honour, the
cruel words of lawyers.' He stabs himself. Read that letter of his,
written after the mad blow had been struck; it is sublime from
intensity of agony. The way in which the chastisement was taken
proves how utterly it was needed, ere that proud, success-swollen,
world-entangled heart could be brought right with God.

And it is brought right. The wound is not mortal. He comes slowly
to a better mind, and takes his doom like a man. That first farewell
to his wife was written out of hell. The second rather out of
heaven. Read it, too, and compare; and then see how the Lord has
been working upon this great soul: infinite sadness, infinite
tenderness and patience, and trust in God for himself and his poor
wife: 'God is my witness, it was for you and yours that I desired
life; but it is true that I disdain myself for begging it. For know,
dear wife, that your son is the son of a true man, and one who, in
his own respect, despiseth death and all his ugly and misshapen forms