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“Help will come too late; and be assured that neither physician nor other, but whom I think good, shall come about me while I live, till I have his majesty’s favour, without which I desire not to live. And if you remember of old, I dare die, so I be not guilty of my own death, and oppress others with my ruin too, if there be no other way, as God forbid, to whom I commit you; and rest as assuredly as heretofore, if you be the same to me,

“Your lordship’s faithful friend, “A.S.”

That she had frequently meditated on suicide appears by another letter–“I could not be so unchristian as to be the cause of my own death. Consider what the world would conceive if I should be violently enforced to do it.”

One fragment we may save as an evidence of her utter wretchedness.

“In all humility, the most wretched and unfortunate creature that ever lived, prostrates itselfe at the feet of the most merciful king that ever was, desiring nothing but mercy and favour, not being more afflicted for anything than for the losse of that which hath binne this long time the onely comfort it had in the world, and which, if it weare to do again, I would not adventure the losse of for any other worldly comfort; mercy it is I desire, and that for God’s sake!”

Such is the history of the Lady Arabella, who, from some circumstances not sufficiently opened to us, was an important personage, designed by others, at least, to play a high character in the political drama. Thrice selected as a queen; but the consciousness of royalty was only felt in her veins while she lived in the poverty of dependence. Many gallant spirits aspired after her hand, but when her heart secretly selected one beloved, it was for ever deprived of domestic happiness! She is said not to have been beautiful, and to have been beautiful; and her very portrait, ambiguous as her life, is neither the one nor the other. She is said to have been a poetess, but not a single verse substantiates her claim to the laurel. She is said not to have been remarkable for her intellectual accomplishments, yet I have found a Latin letter of her composition in her manuscripts. The materials of her life are so scanty that it cannot be written, and yet we have sufficient reason to believe that it would be as pathetic as it would be extraordinary, could we narrate its involved incidents, and paint forth her delirious feelings. Acquainted rather with her conduct than with her character, for us the Lady ARABELLA has no palpable historical existence; and we perceive rather her shadow than herself! A writer of romance might render her one of those interesting personages whose griefs have been deepened by their royalty, and whose adventures, touched with the warm hues of love and distraction, closed at the bars of her prison gate: a sad example of a female victim to the state!

Through one dim lattice, fring’d with ivy round,
Successive suns a languid radiance threw,
To paint how fierce her angry guardian frown’d,
To mark how fast her waning beauty flew!

SEYMOUR, who was afterwards permitted to return, distinguished himself by his loyalty through three successive reigns, and retained his romantic passion for the lady of his first affections; for he called the daughter he had by his second lady by the ever-beloved name of ARABELLA STUART.

[Footnote 322:
Long after this article was composed, Miss Aikin published her “Court of James the First.” That agreeable writer has written her popular volumes without wasting the bloom of life in the dust of libraries; and our female historian has not occasioned me to alter a single sentence in these researches. ]

[Footnote 323:
Morant in the “Biographia Britannica.” This gross blunder has been detected by Mr. Lodge. The other I submit to the reader’s judgment. A contemporary letter-writer, alluding to the flight of Arabella and Seymour, which alarmed the Scottish so much more than the English party, tells us, among other reasons of the little danger of the political influence of the parties themselves over the people, that not only their pretensions were far removed, but he adds, “They were UNGRACEFUL both in their persons and their houses.” Morant takes the term UNGRACEFUL in its modern acceptation; but in the style of that day, I think UNGRACEFUL is opposed to GRACIOUS in the eyes of the people, meaning that their persons and their houses were not considerable to the multitude. Would it not be absurd to apply ungraceful in its modern sense to a family or house? And had any political danger been expected, assuredly it would not have been diminished by the want of personal grace in these lovers. I do not recollect any authority for the sense of ungraceful in opposition to gracious, but a critical and literary antiquary has sanctioned my opinion. ]