The whole court considered the issue of this day's audience, expected with so much doubt and anxiety, as a decisive triumph on the part of Leicester, and felt assured that the orb of his rival satellite, if not altogether obscured by his lustre, must revolve hereafter in a dimmer and more distant sphere.

So thought the court and courtiers, from high to low; and they acted accordingly.
On the other hand, never did Leicester return the general greeting with such ready and condescending courtesy, or endeavour more successfully to gather (in the words of one who at that moment stood at no great distance from him) "golden opinions from all sorts of men." For all the favourite Earl had a bow a smile at least, and often a kind word.

Most of these were addressed to courtiers, whose names have long gone down the tide of oblivion; but some, to such as sound strangely in our ears, when connected with the ordinary matters of human life, above which the gratitude of posterity has long elevated them.

A few of Leicester's interlocutory sentences ran as follows:-- "Poynings, good morrow; and how does your wife and fair daughter?
Why come they not to court ?--Adams, your suit is naught; the Queen will grant no more monopolies.

But I may serve you in another matter .-- My good Alderman Aylford, the suit of the City, affecting Queenhithe, shall be forwarded as far as my poor interest can serve .-- Master Edmund Spenser, touching your Irish petition, I would willingly aid you, from my love to the Muses; but thou hast nettled the Lord Treasurer." "My lord," said the poet, "were I permitted to explain--" "Come to my lodging, Edmund," answered the Earl "not to-morrow, or next day, but soon .-- Ha, Will Shakespeare--wild Will!--thou hast given my nephew Philip Sidney, love-powder; he cannot sleep without thy Venus and Adonis under his pillow! We will have thee hanged for the veriest wizard in Europe.