CHAPTER XII

SCANDAL The affairs of England represented by those heaped documents which made ramparts about Sir Thomas Overbury's writing-table were suffering neglect. Sir Thomas in shirt and breeches sat writing verses. You will not find them in any edition of his Collected Works, for these were verses written, not in his own name, but in that of another. They were being conceived to serve the purpose of an amatory epistle. As he paused in his labours, he smiled. It was not merely that he took a poet's complacent satisfaction …