The character of Leicester is thus summed up by Camden in his Annals of Elizabeth:--“He was esteemed a most accomplished courtier, free and bountiful to soldiers and scholars; a cunning time-server and respecter of his own advantages; of a disposition ready and apt to please; crafty and subtle towards his adversaries; much given formerly to women, and in his latter days doating extremely upon marriage. But, whilst he preferred power and greatness, which are subject to be envied before solid virtue, his detracting emulators found large matter to speak reproachfully of him, and, even when he was in his most flourishing condition, spared not disgracefully to defame him by libels, not without a mixture of some untruths.” But, “to take him in the observation of his letters,” says Sir Robert Naunton, “I never saw a style or phrase more seeming religious and fuller of the strains of devotion, had they been sincere!”--Dugd. Bar.; Camden’s Annals; Secret Mem. of Robert Dudley. The following particulars of Sir Robert Dudley, who was so unjustly deprived of his rightful inheritance, may be new to some of our readers. His life is a striking instance of the vicissitudes to which every condition of society, and more particularly that of the patrician order, was exposed, during the period in question. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and is said to have been a profound mathematician, and master of other acquirements, which he had afterwards an opportunity of turning to good purpose abroad. His earliest service was in 1595, when he had the command of three small ships, with which he took and destroyed nine Spanish traders freighted with wine. The following year he served under the Earl of Essex in the expedition to Cadiz, where he displayed so much characteristic gallantry and prudence, that he received from her Majesty the honour of knighthood; and was justly esteemed among his companions in arms, as a soldier who possessed in no ordinary degree the virtues of wisdom and prowess.