He had a mistress who was at one time in the humour to be treated as a tender woman, at another as an outrageous flirt, at another as the haughtiest and most imperious of queens; her mood varied, no one could tell how, and it was most dangerous to mistake it.

It was part of her pleasure to find in her favourite a spirit as high, a humour as contradictory and determined, as her own; it was the charming contrast to the obsequiousness or the prudence of the rest; but no one could be sure at what unlooked-for moment, and how fiercely, she might resent in earnest a display of what she had herself encouraged.

Essex was ruined for all real greatness by having to suit himself to this bewildering and most unwholesome and degrading waywardness.

She taught him to think himself irresistible in opinion and in claims; she amused herself in teaching him how completely he was mistaken.

Alternately spoiled and crossed, he learned to be exacting, unreasonable, absurd in his pettish resentments or brooding sullenness.