He knew how vain it was to persist when once the Queen had made up her mind. She had all a Tudor’s despotism. The statesman shrugged his shoulders disconsolately. The man Shakespeare had certainly behaved like a stark fool, and richly merited any fate that could overtake him, for my Lord Treasurer’s was that practical order of mind that hates a fool quite as much as it hates a rogue. The one was intelligible, but the other was an affront to the human race. Still, the man Shakespeare had many highly placed friends. And if Cecil himself had little use for the order of things the man represented, he recognized, with that large grasp of mind in which none of his age excelled him, that this play-actor stood for human amenity. And that in itself was a thing that even the most cynical of statesmen cannot afford to neglect. The Lord Treasurer was about to withdraw from the Queen’s presence, when one of her gentlemen came into the room. “Madam,” he said, “under your good pleasure, one Richard Burbage, a tragedian, would speak with you upon a matter of great urgency.” “A pox take him,” said the Queen, roughly. “A pox take all comedians and all tragedians, too. I would that I had never set eyes on any of the tribe. Send the rogue about his business with a flea in his ear. Or stay--send him to us and we will hear what he has to say. And God help the rogue, if he speaks amiss.” The gentleman withdrew. A minute afterwards, he ushered into the room with great ceremony one Richard Burbage, a tragedian. It happens continually, in the process of nature, that a man’s calling is declared in his personality. The soldier, the clergyman, the lawyer and the horse-dealer are cases in point. But no man could have borne clearer evidence of the unhappy estate to which it had pleased providence to call him than Richard Burbage, the tragedian. His gaunt face was haggard, his bloodshot eyes were wild, his somber dress was muddy and in sad disorder. “Well, my man, what is your pleasure?” said the Queen sourly enough, as soon as this odd figure appeared before her. The tragedian showed no undue haste to reply to the question. There was a slow force in him for which the Queen and Cecil were not prepared. And when he spoke, it was with the calm precision of one secure of soul. “Your grace,” said the tragedian, and for all his wild eyes he looked steadily at the Queen, “it is my desire to offer my life for the life of William Shakespeare.” The mood of the Queen was by no means agreeable. Nevertheless, these simple and considered words struck home to the heart of the woman. They had no savor of vainglory. They were the fruit of a rare spirit, and she who was accustomed to judge men was quick, almost in her own despite, to recognize the source from which they sprang. “Tell me why you offer it, Master Burbage,” said the Queen. “Tell me why life has so little savor for you, that you would yield it for that of a rival actor?”