On the contrary, when we gaze upon the progress of the vicious and the criminal, however successful and prosperous in their brief space of action, to contempt and indignation, to disgust and horror, are added the same consciousness of a hereafter, and the certainty of an awful retribution. Thus, in these instances, all our feelings are dark and sad; there is nothing to alleviate; there is nothing to give light.
Nevertheless we must turn for a short space to the more criminal personages of our tale, and trace them in that rapid down-hill road where vice treads upon the steps of vice, and iniquity upon iniquity, till they are hurried on into the yawning gulf of destruction and despair.
It was in a splendid room, at the princely mansion then called Northampton House, but which has since assumed the name of other possessors, of a purer fame than his who built it, that the Countess of Essex, who had left the Court at Greenwich the day before, sat alone with Lord Rochester--her relation, the Earl of Northampton, being then absent. Her face was all smiles and happiness. It seemed as if fortune and success lived in her eyes; and she was laughing gaily, with her weak and criminal lover, over the misfortunes of others more virtuous than herself.
"And so," she said, "he wanted thee to wed this moon-sick girl, and, I dare say, would have made thee a sonnetteer to match her."
"Faith, he must have written the sonnets himself, then," answered Rochester; "for, I thank my stars, I never could jingle two rhymes together in my life; and, to say truth, I hate the whole race of these beggarly poets and authors. I have never liked Francis Bacon since he wrote a book."
"I never liked him at all," replied the Countess, "and that would certainly not make me like him more. One never knows how soon one may be put into one of these volumes, which is what makes all great statesmen hold aloof from authors, and keep them down."
"They are not all wise enough to do so," answered Rochester; "but Salisbury himself is beginning to see the folly of giving him any encouragement, though he be such a friend of Sir John Harrington's. I was telling him, the other day, what a fool I thought Bacon for degrading himself by composing that book; and he replied, that it was well to be able to write it, but foolish to write it."
"But poems are even worse than that," said the Countess. "I dare say this friend of thine is a poet, if one knew the truth."
"No, I think not," replied Rochester; "with all his faults, he has not that vice."
"Well, and what did you say to him?" continued the Countess, bringing the conversation back to a subject on which her curiosity was excited--"What did you say when he pressed you so vehemently to this fine alliance?"