a large, strong, trading, and populous town of the United Provinces, in Overijssel, with an university. It is surrounded with strong walls, flanked with several towers, and with ditches full of water. It is situated on the river Ijssel, 55 miles east of Amsterdam, and 42 west of Bentheim. E. Long. 5. 8. N. Lat. 52. 18.

DEVREUX (Robert), earl of Essex, the son of Walter Devereux, viscount Hereford, was born at Netherwood in Herefordshire, in the year 1567. He succeeded to the title of earl of Essex at ten years of age; and about two years after, was sent, by his guardian lord Burleigh, to Trinity-college in Cambridge. He took the degree of master of arts in 1582, and soon after retired to his seat at Lamphey in South-Wales. He did not however continue long in this retreat; for we find him, in his seventeenth year, at the court of queen Elizabeth, who immediately honoured him with singular marks of her favour. Authors seem very unnecessarily perplexed to account for this young earl's gracious reception at the court of Elizabeth. The reasons are obvious: he was her relation, the son of one of her most faithful servants, the son-in-law of her favourite Leicester, and a very handsome and accomplished youth. Towards the end of (the following year) 1585, he attended the earl of Leicester to Holland; and gave signal proofs of his personal courage during the campaign of 1586, particularly at the battle of Zutphen, where the gallant Sidney was mortally wounded. On this occasion the earl of Leicester conferred on him the honour of knight banneret.

In the year 1587, Leicester being appointed lord steward of the household, Essex succeeded him in the honourable post of master of the horse; and the year following, when the queen assembled an army at Tilbury to oppose the Spanish invasion, Essex was made general of the horse, and knight of the garter. From this time he was considered as the happy favourite of the queen. And, if there was any mark yet wanting to fix the people's opinion in that respect, it was shewn by the queen's conferring on him the honour of the garter.

We need not wonder, that so quick an elevation, and to so great a height, should affect so young a man as the earl of Essex; who shewed from henceforward a very high spirit, and often behaved petulantly enough to the queen herself, who yet did not love to be controlled by her subjects. His eagerness about this time to dispute her favour with Sir Charles Blunt, afterwards lord...