GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



so long after she had " shuffled off this mortal coil," and when 

 flattery could no longer reach or move her, that tender, graceful 

 epithet could be applied to her by the servants and dependents 

 who knew her best. 



Its testimony does not stand alone. Numerous other memorials 

 to the great queen-regnant, erected after her death when the recol- 

 lection of her was still green and vivid, tell the same story, and 

 equally express the love, veneration, and admiration of her subjects 

 for the " good Queen Bess." 



Prime favourite at this time, of his sovereign, Leicester bends 

 smilingly towards her saddle-bow ; gay words are on his lips, 

 exultation in his heart, for never again will Robert Dudley be so 

 near his ambition's goal as at this moment. 



On her left rides the great Burleigh, but recently made Lord 

 Treasurer. To him she now and then addresses a few gracious 

 words, for Elizabeth, with the wit to choose her servants well, 

 knows also how best to bind them to her service. 



Behind Burleigh comes his brother-in-law, Sir Nicholas Bacon, 

 distinguished father of a much more famous son, and they are 

 followed by a bevy of fair ladies and many courtiers. A number 

 of lackeys, and a detachment of those yeomen of the guard who 

 were the institution of the Queen's grandfather, Henry VII., 

 bring up the rear of a procession which, in splendour and brilliancy 

 of apparel and accoutrements, far exceeds any pageant of modern 

 times. It passes from the arch to the courtyard, and scintillates 

 for some brief minutes in the sunshine. There is a trampling of 

 horses' feet and rapid dismounting, a clatter of arms, the ringing 

 of steel upon stone, and then its constituent parts break up into 

 many-tinted, moving fragments, resembling the bits of coloured 

 glass in a kaleidoscope, and, in true kaleidoscopic fashion, they 

 separate, and come together again. They form into knots and 

 groups before the door of the Great Hall : some of these follow 

 the Queen to the principal entrance, to which the Archbishop 

 hurries to receive her ; and others wander off into the gardens 

 behind the Water Tower, and that other tower that is the com- 

 paratively recent erection of the late Archbishop Cranmer. But, 

 even as one looks, the day-dream fades, and resolves itself into 

 nothing more romantic than a group of very tall, well-grown, Boy 

 Scouts, lads of sixteen or seventeen, whose picturesque costume, 



