great and general maxims which alone are able to form men to think consistently. He never had time to learn them of himself, because he was promoted from his youth, by the great affairs that fell unexpectedly to his share, and by the continual success he met with. This defect in him was the cause, that with the soul in the world the least inclined to evil, he has committed injuries; that, with the heart of an Alexander, he has, like him, had his failings; that with a wonderful understanding, he has acted imprudently; that, having all the qualities of the Duke Henry of Guise, he has not carried faction so far as he might. He could not come up to the height of his merit; which, though it be a defect, must yet be owned to be very uncommon, and only to be found in persons of the greatest abilities." -Memoirs, vol. i. p. 248.

He passed the remainder of his days, tormented with the gout, relieving the severity of his pains, and employing the leisure of his retreat in the conversation of men of genius of all kinds, with which France then abounded. He was worthy of their conversation, as he was not unacquainted with any of those arts and sciences in which they shone. He continued to be admired in his retreat; but, at last, that devouring fire which, in his youth, had made him a hero, impetuous, and full of passions, having consumed the strength of his body, which was naturally rather agile than robust, he declined before his time. The strength of his mind decaying with that of his body, there remained nothing of the great Condé during the last two years of his life. He died in 1686. - Voltaire.

FERGUSON.

O thou, any elder brother in misfortune,
Bv far my elder brother in the muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!-BURAS.

I returned to the vessel with a heavy heart; and it was nearly three months from this time, ere I again set foot in Edinburgh. Alas! for my unfortunate friend! He was now an inmate of the asylum, and on the verge of dissolution. The asylum in which my unfortunate friend was confined, at this time the only one in Edinburgh, was situated in an angle of the city wall. It was a dismal-looking mansion, shut in on every side, by the neighbouring houses, from the view of the surrounding country; and so effectually covered up from the nearer street, by a large building in front, that it seemed possible enough to pass a lifetime in Edinburgh without coming to the knowledge of its existence. I shuddered as I looked up to its blackened walls, thinly sprinkled with miserable looking windows, barred with iron, and thought of it as a sort of burial-place of dead minds. But it was a Golgotha, which, with more than the horrors of the grave, had neither its rest nor its silence. I was startled, as I entered the cell of the hapless poet, by a shout of laughter from a neighbouring room. which was answered from a dark recess behind me, by a fearfully-prolonged shriek, and the clanking of chains. The mother and sister of Ferguson were sitting beside his pallet, on a sort of stone settle, which stood out from the wall; and the poet himself, weak, and exhausted, and worn to a shadow, but apparently in his right mind, lay extended on the straw. He made an attempt to rise as I entered; but the effort was above his strength, and, again laying down, he extended his hand.

"This is kind, Mr. Lindsay," he said; "it is

ill for me to be alone in these days; and yet I have few visiters, save my poor old mother and Margaret. But who cares for the unhappy?"

I sat down on the settle beside him, still retaining his hand. "I have been at sea, and in foreign countries," I said, "since I last saw you, Mr. Ferguson, and it was only this morning I returned; but believe me there are many, many of your countrymen, who sympathise sincerely in your affliction, and take a warm interest in your recovery."

He sighed deeply: "Ah," he replied, "I know too well the nature of that sympathy. You never find it at the bedside of the suffererit evaporates in a few barren expressions of idle pity; and yet, after all, it is but a paying the poet in kind. He calls so often on the world to sympathise over fictitious misfortune, that the feeling wears out, and becomes a mere mood of the imagination; and, with this light, attenuated pity of his own weaving, it regards his own real sorrows. Dearest mother, the evening is damp and chill-do gather the bed-clothes round me, and sit on my feet; they are so very cold and so dead, that they cannot be colder a week hence." "O Robert, why do you speak so?" said the poor woman, as she gathered the clothes round him, and sat on his feet. "You know you are coming home to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" he said "if I see to-morrow, I shall have completed my twenty-fourth yeara small part, surely, of the three score and ten; but what matters it when 'tis past?"

"You were ever, my friend, of a melancholy temperament," I said, "and too little disposed to hope. Indulge in brighter views of the future, and all shall yet be well."

soon.

"I can now hope that it shall," he said. "Yes, all shall be well with me and that very But, oh! how this nature of ours shrinks from dissolution!-yes, and all the lower natures too. You remember, mother, the poor starling that was killed in the room beside us? Oh, how it struggled with its ruthless enemy, and filled the whole place with its shrieks of terror and agony. And yet, poor little thing! it had been true, all life long, to the laws of its nature, and had no sins to account for, and no judge to meet. There is a shrinking of heart as I look before me, and yet I can hope that all shall yet be well with me and that very soon. Would that I had been wise in time! Would that I had thought more and earlier of the things which pertain to my eternal peace! more of a living soul, and less of a dying name! But, oh! 'tis a glorious provision, through which a way of return is opened up even at the eleventh hour!"

We sat round him in silence; an indescribable feeling of awe pervaded my whole mind, and his sister was affected to tears.

" Margaret," he said, in a feeble voice-"Margaret, you will find my Bible in yonder little recess; 'tis all I have to leave you; but keep it, dearest sister, and use it, and, in times of sorrow and suffering, that come to all, you will know how to prize the legacy of your poor brother. Many, many books do well enough for life; but there is only one of any value when we come to die.

"You have been a voyager of late, Mr. Lindsay," he continued, "and I have been a voyager, too. I have been journeying in darkness and discomfort, amid strange unearthly shapes of dread and horror, with no reason to direct, and no will to govern. Oh, the unspeakable unhappiness of these wanderings!-these dreams of

suspicion, and fear, and hatred, in which shadow and substance, the true and the false, were so wrought up and mingled together, that they formed but one fantastic and miserable whole. And, oh! the unutterable horror of every momentary return to a recollection of what I have been once, and a sense of what I had become! Oh, when I awoke amid the terrors of the night -when I turned me on the rustling straw, and heard the wild wail and yet wilder laugh-when I heard and shuddered, and then felt the demon in all his might coming over me, till I laughed and wailed with the others-oh, the misery! the utter misery! But 'tis over, my friend-'tis all over; a few, few tedious days, a few, few weary nights, and all my sufferings shall be over."

I had covered my face with my hands, but the tears came bursting through my fingers; the mother and sister of the poet sobbed aloud.

"Why sorrow for me, sirs?" he said; "why grieve for me? I am well, quite well, and want nothing. But 'tis cold, oh, 'tis very cold, and the blood seems freezing at my heart. Ah! but there is neither pain nor cold where I am going, and I trust it shall be well with my soul. Dearest, dearest mother, I always told you it would come to this at last."

The keeper had entered to intimate to us that the hour for locking up the cells was already past, and we now rose to leave the place. I stretched out my hand to my unfortunate friend; he took it in silence, and his thin attenuated fingers felt cold within my grasp, like those of a corpse. His mother stooped down to embrace him.

"Oh, do not go yet, mother," he said-" do not go yet-do not leave me; but it must be so, and I only distress you. Pray for me, dearest mother, and, oh! forgive me; I have been a grief and a burden to you all life long; but I ever loved you, mother; and, oh! you have been kind, kind and forgiving-and now your task is over. May God bless and reward you! Margaret, dearest Margaret, farewell."

We parted, and, as it proved, for ever. Robert Ferguson expired during the night; and when the keeper entered the cell next morning, to prepare him for quitting the asylum, all that remained of this most hapless of the children of genius, was a pallid and wasted corpse, that lay stiffened on the straw. I am now a very old man, and the feelings wear out; but I find that my heart is even yet susceptible of emotion, and that the source of tears is not yet dried up.

MARY STUART.

But malice, envy, cruelty, and spleen,

To death doom'd Scotia's dear, devoted Queen.

The interest excited by the production of the new tragedy of Mary Queen of Scots has induced me to advert to the subject, which, although by no means new, may prove interesting to some of your numerous readers. I intend, therefore, to give a brief sketch of the principal incidents in the chequered life of the most unfortunate princess of the most unfortunate family that ever swayed a sceptre.

"Truth is strange-stranger than fiction," and the saying is fully verified in the eventful career of Mary of Scotland. Her whole life is a romance. What a theme has it afforded for minstrels, poets, and romance-writers, and in what a variety of ways has it been treated; each period from her departure from her beloved France to her execution at Fotheringay having afforded

FRANCES HOWARD,

COUNTESS OF SOMERSET.

There is something fearful and revolting in the history of this titled murderess. Man, from his sterner nature, and by a long communion with vice and crime, may at last become so callous to all better feelings, as to be induced to shed the blood of a fellow-creature. Women, also, among the low and uneducated, impelled by the pinching of poverty or the rankling of revenge, may be hurried forward to commit violence against nature, and to heap infamy on their sex. But that the young, the beautiful, and delicately nurtured Frances Howard, to whom the world had been all smiles, and success, and kindness, should have set herself deliberately and mercilessly to take away the life of another, is a fact so unparalleled and unnatural, that, were it not proved beyond all doubt, it could only be regarded as an improbable fiction.

Frances Howard was the eldest daughter of Thomas, Earl of Suffolk, a man of indiferent character and moderate talent. The earl was chancellor of the University of Cambridge: when the orator of the university, at his inauguration, addressed him, as was usual, in a Latin speech, he informed the senate that he did not understand what was said; however, he added, as he concluded they meant to welcome him, he begged to assure them in return, that he would advance their interests as much as lay in his power.

As his daughter, the Lady Frances, was only thirteen years of age at the time of her marriage with the Earl of Essex, in January, 1606, she must have been born about the year 1593. Sir Symonds d'Ewes was assured by one Captain Field, a "faithful votary of her father, the Earl of Suffolk, that he had known her from her childhood, and had ever observed her to be of the best nature and sweetest disposition of all her father's children, exceeding them all also in the delicacy and comeliness of her person." This individual attributed to the advice and influence of her uncle, Northampton, the wretched course of life into which she afterwards fell. There can be no doubt that she was eminently beautiful. Arthur Wilson, who speaks of her character with abhorrence, almost appears to relent when he tells us of her sweet and bewitching countenance.

It may be doubted whether it was in the nature of Essex to insure the happiness of any woman. He was a cold and unbending republican, and, probably, like most of that cast, a tyrant in domestic life. He possessed neither elegance of mind nor manners, and his features were as rough as his disposition: a strange contrast to This unfortunate father. It is remarkable that both his wives transferred their affections to other men. His second lady, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Willian Pawlet, fixed her regards on a Mr. Udal or Uvedale, and Essex separated from her In consequence. Wilson was resident in the house at the period of the earl's marriage with Elizabeth Pawlet. "I must confess," he says, n his memoir of himself, "she appeared to the eve a beauty, full of harmless sweetness; and her conversation was affable and gentle." Wilon did not always find her so very affable; for he afterwards refused to quit her chamber unless me was dismissed from her husband's establishment. He thus alludes to her frailty, -" Within wo years this malicious piece of vanity, unworthy of so noble a husband, was separated rom him, to her eternal reproach and infamy." I-41.4

embittered her being near him with wearisome and continual chidings, to wean her from the sweets she doated upon, and with much adoe forced her into the country. But how harsh was the parting, being sent away from the place where she grew and flourished! Yet she left all her engines and imps behind her: the old doctor, and

The exertions of the young countess to procure a divorce from her husband were at least as unwearying as her expedients were ingenious. The account which Arthur Wilson gives of this part of her history is too singular to be altogether omitted, though a considerable portion is unfit for detail:-"The Countess of Essex," he says, "having her heart alienated from her husband, and set upon the viscount, had a double task to undertake for accomplishing her ends. One was to repulse her husband; the other to make the viscount sure. Her husband she looked upon as a private person; and to be carried by him into the country, out of her element (being ambitious of glory, and a beauty covetous of applause,) were to close, as she thought, with an insufferable torment; though he was a man that did not only every way merit her love, but he loved her with an extraordinary affection, having a gentle, mild, and courteous disposition, specially to women, such as might win upon the roughest natures.* But this fiery heat of his wife's, mounted upon the wings of lust, or love (call it what you will), carried her after so much mischief, that those that saw her face might challenge nature of too much hypocrisy, for harbouring so wicked a heart under so sweet and bewitching a countenance.

"To strengthen her designs, she finds out one of her own stamp, Mrs. Turner, a doctor of physic's widow, a woman whom prodigality and looseness had brought low; yet her pride would make her fly any pitch, rather than fall into the jaws of want. These two consult together how they might stop the current of the earl's affection towards his wife, and make a clear passage for the viscount in his place. To effect which, one Dr. Forman, a reputed conjuror (living at Lambeth), is found out: the women declare to him their grievances: he promises sudden help: and, to amuse them, frames many little pictures of brass and wax; some like the viscount and countess, whom he must unite and strengthen; others like the Earl of Essex, whom he must debilitate and weaken; and then with philtrous powders, and such drugs, he works upon their persons. And to practise what effects his art would produce, Mrs. Turner, that loved Sir Arthur Manwaring (a gentleman then attending the prince), and willing to keep him to her, gave him some of the powder, which wrought so violently with him, that through a storm of rain and thunder he rode fifteen miles one dark night to her house, scarce knowing where he was till he was there.

"The good earl, finding his wife nouseled in the court, and seeing no possibility to reduce her to reason till she were estranged from the relish and delights she sucked in there, made his condition again known to her father. The old man being troubled with his daughter's disobedience,

* This high praise must be attributed to the zeal of Wilson for the honour of his patron. He was the faithful follower and intimate acquaintance of the earl.

happiness; and a little time thus lost is her eternity. When she came thither, though in the pleasantest part of the summer, she shut herself up in her chamber, not suffering a beam of light to peep upon her dark thoughts. If she stirred out of her chamber, it was in the dead of the night, when sleep had taken possession of all others, but those about her. In this implacable, sad, and discontented humour she continued some months, always murmuring against but never giving the least civil respect to her husband, which the good man suffered patiently, being loth to be the divulger of his own misery; ye ; yet, having a manly courage, he would sometimes break into a little passion, to see himself slighted and neglected by himself; but having never found better from her, it was the easier to bear with her."

Forman, the wizard or astrologer, who is here mentioned, though undoubtedly a rogue, was far superior in learning and ingenuity to the common mountebanks of his time. He was an excellent chemist, possessed considerable skill in astronomy and mathematics, and was indefatigable in his thirst after knowledge. He was born 30th of December, 1552, and at six years old is said to have been troubled with strange dreams and visions. When he arrived at fourteen, his father being dead, he bound himself apprentice to a grocer and apothecary at Salisbury, where he first obtained an insight into the nature of drugs. He endeavoured to improve his mind by reading; but his master, imagining, perhaps, that it interfered with his duties, deprived him of his books; however, Forman's bed-fellow was a boy who daily received instruction at a school in Salisbury, and from him he nightly elicited what the other had learnt during the day. At the age of eighteen he established a small school for himself; and having by this means realised a paltry sum of money, he set out for Oxford, where he entered himself a poor scholar of Magdalene College. After a residence of two years he again turned school-master, and began to study magic, astronomy, and physic. He now thought it necessary to travel, and having visited Portugal and the East, set up as a physician in Philpot lane, London; however, not having properly graduated, he was much annoyed by the legitimate practisers, and was four times imprisoned and once fined. On the 27th of June, 1603, having been some time resident in Jesus College, Cambridge, he obtained his degree of doctor of physic and astronomy from that university. From this period he settled himself at Lambeth, where he practised his profession unmolested; pretending, moreover, to the hidden art, and duping his fellowcreatures with all the paraphernalia of horoscopes, amulets, nativities, and the philosopher's stone. "He was a person," says Anthony Wood, "that in horary questions, especially theft, was very judicious and fortunate; so, also, in sickness, which was indeed his master-piece; and had good success in resolving questions about marriage, and in other questions very intricate. He professed to his wife that there would be much trouble

3

about Sir Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, and the Lady Frances, his wife, who frequently resorted to him, and from whose company he would sometimes lock himself in his study one whole day. He had compounded things upon the desire of Mrs. Anne Turner, to make the said Sir Robert Carr, calid quo ad hanc, and Robert, Earl of Essex, frigid quo ad hanc, that is, to his wife, the Lady Frances, who had a mind to get rid of him, and be wedded to the said Sir Robert. He had also certain pictures in wax, representing Sir Robert and the said lady, to cause a love between each other, with other such like things." It may be here remarked that these waxen images, as well as the countess's indelicate letters to Forman, were produced in open court at her trial. There was also exhibited a written parchment, drawn up by Forman, "signifying what ladies loved what lords at court;" but this the lord chief justice would not allow to be read. It appeared that his own wife was among the number.

The death of the astrologer is curious. Wood says, "I have been inforined by a certain author, that the Sunday night before Dr. Forman died, he, the said Forman, and his wife being at supper in their garden-house, she told him in a pleasant humour, that she had been informed that he could resolve whether man or wife should die first, and asked him, whether I shall bury you or no?''Oh!" said he, 'you shall bury me, but thou wilt much repent it.' Then said she: How long will that be?' to which he made answer, I shall die before next Thursday night be over.' The next day, being Monday, all was well; Tuesday came, and he was not sick; Wednesday came, and still he was well; and then his impertinent wife did twit him in the teeth what he had said Thursday came, and dinner being

on

Sunday.

ended, he was well, went down to the water side, and took a pair of oars to go to some buildings he was in hand with at Puddle Dock; and being in the middle of the Thames, he presently fell down, and only said, 'an impost, an impost,' and so died; whereupon a most sad storm of wind immediately followed." In the Life of Lilly, the astrologer, there is an interesting account of this memorable cheat. He is said to have been extremely kind to the poor. According to Lilly, the following entry was found in one of Forman's books:-"This I made the devil write with his own hands, in Lambeth Fields, 1596."

Anne Turner, another agent of the countess in her detestable practices, as has been already mentioned, was the widow of a physician, and had seen better times; but, considering crime preferable to poverty, was easily enlisted in the dark designs of her mistress. She was a woman of great beauty, and remarkable in the world of fashion as having introduced yellow starch in ruffs. When Coke, the lord chief justice, sentenced her to death for her share in the murder of Overbury, he added the strange order, that "as she was the person who had brought yellow starched ruffs into vogue, she should be hanged in that dress, that the same might end in shame and detestation." He told her also that she was a sorcerer, a witch, a papist, a felon, and a murderer. Sir Symonds D'Ewes informs us that she appeared at her trial in the fashion which she had introduced, which may account for the order issued by the judge. Even the hangman who executed this wretched woman was decorated with yellow ruff's on the occasion: no wonder, therefore, that the fashion shortly grew to be generally detested and disused, which Sir

Symonds informs us was the case. There is a "speak my certain knowledge concerning th wood cut of Mrs. Turner attached to her dying nullity of the marriage between the Earl of Essen speech and confession, preserved in the Library and his lady. About a year or two before the of the Antiquarian Society. She was executed marriage was questioned, I did hear from a gen at Tyburn, 15th November, 1615, and according tleman belonging to the Earl of Huntingdon, bu to Camden, in his Annals, died a "true penitent." very well known, and a great servant to the Ear Indeed, we have evidence that her demeanour on the scaffold excited the commiseration of the bystanders. A Mr. John Castle writes to Mr. James Milles, 28th November, 1615,-" Since I saw you, I saw Mrs. Turner die. If detesta

of Essex, that the Earl of Essex was fully re solved to question the marriage, and to prove a nullity; and I am confident that if the countes had not then at that instant done it, the Earl of Essex himself would have been the plaintifi

business."

A written answer to the objections against the divorce was drawn up by the king himself, who took a deep interest in the proceedings.

tion of painted pride, lust, malice, powdered so then, I hereby conclude that both parties
hair, yellow bands, and the rest of the wardrobe were agreed and were alike interested in the
of court vanities-if deep sighs, tears, confes-
sions, ejaculations of the soul, admonitions of all
sorts of people to make God and an unspotted
conscience always our friends if the protesta-
tion of faith, and hope to be washed by the same
Saviour, and the like mercies that Mary Magda-
lene was, be signs and deınonstrations of a blessed
penitent, then I will tell you that this poor broken
woman went a cruce ad gloriam, and now enjoys
the presence of her and our Redeemer. Her body
being taken down by her brother, one Norton,
servant to the prince, was, in a coach, conveyed
to St. Martin's of the Fields, where, in the eve-
ning of the same day, she had an honest and a
decent burial." In a poem of the period, entitled
Overbury's Vision, Mrs. Turner is eulogised in
some verses, of which the poetry is as beautiful
as the sentiment is misplaced :-

"The roses on her lovely cheeks were dead,
The earth's pale colour had all overspread
Her sometime lively look; and cruel Death,
Coming untimely with his wintry breath,
Blasted the fruit, which, cherry-like, in show,
Upon her dainty lips did whilom grow.
O how the cruel cord did misbecome
Her comely neck! and yet by law's just doom
Had been her death. Those locks, like golden thread,
That used in youth to enshrine her globe-like head,
Hung careless down; and that delightful limb,
Her snow-white nimble hand, that used to trim
Those tresses up, now spitefully did tear
And rend the same; nor did she now forbear
To beat that breast of more than lily white,
Which sometime was the bed of sweet delight.
From those two springs where joy did whilom dwell,
Grief's pearly drops upon her pale cheek fell."

A rather remarkable story is told respecting Sir Jervis Elways, who also died on the gallows for his share in Overbury's death. He had been a fellow-commoner of St. John's College, Cambridge, and had presented a silver bowl to that community. On the day, and, as it is said, on the very hour of his execution, the bowl fell down and broke asunder. Sir Symonds D'Ewes, who was afterwards a fellow-commoner of St. Johns, assures us that he was credibly informed of the fact. Elways had at one period of his life been a great gambler; but having lost a large sum of money at a sitting, he made a solemn vow to his Maker that he would never commit the vice again; adding a hope, that if he did so he might come to be hanged. He neglected his vow, and recalled the circumstance at the last. "Now, God," he said, "hath paid my imprecation home."

This trial is not a little remarkable, when we consider that a cause which was more fit to be discussed in a brothel, was argued before the digniaries of the church; that a king was the supporter of one side, and an archbishop of the other; and, moreover, that the verdict hung upon a particular objection, the validity of which, considering the personal charms of the plaintif, none but a very cold or a very ignorant man could possibly have acknowledged.

Essex, in order to pay the marriage portion of five thousand pounds, was forced to cut down timber at his seat at Adderston, and would even have been compelled to sell land, had not his grandmother, the Countess of Leicester, come forward and assisted him. He retired to his venerable castle of Chartley, in Staffordshire, where he endeavoured to forget the ridicule of the world in the sports of the field. His mode of living at Chartley is fully described by Arthur Wilson in his life of himself.

The marriage of the lady and her paramour was solemnised at Whitehall, on the 26th December, 1613, and was an exhibition of greater magnificence than had ever been witnessed in England at the espousals of a subject. The king, the queen, and the principal persons of the court, were present at the ceremony; but it did not tend to silence the whisperings of scandal, when it was seen that the bride had the effrontery to stand at the altar in the dress of a virgin. Previously to the ceremony, Somerset, who had been hitherto merely Viscount Rochester, was created an earl, in order that the countess might not lose rank in the transfer of her hand.

"Whitehall," says Coke, "was too narrow to contain the triumphs of this marriage, and they must be extended into the city. Accordingly, on the 4th of January, the bride and bridegroom, attended by the Duke of Lennox, the lord privy seal, the lord chamberlain, and a numerous train of the nobility, proceeded in great state to the city. A magnificent entertainment was prepared for them in Merchant Tailors' Hall. The music struck up as they entered. Speeches of congratulation were delivered, and the mayor and alderman came forward in their scarlet gowns to do honour to the favourite and his bride. At the sumptuous banquet which followed, they were waited on by the choicest citizens from the twelve companies. After supper, there were plays, masks, and dancing, and, late at night, the rejoicings were concluded with a second feast.

To return to the countess. Essex, wearied with the perpetual proofs of hatred and disgust which she exhibited towards him, and perhaps somewhat suspecting the anti-philtrous regimen At three o'clock in the morning, the bride and to which he had been long insensibly subjected, at length fell in with her views for the procurement of a divorce. Bishop Goodman throws some curious light on this particular passage in the annals of crime. "I may herein," he says,

Within a

bridegroom returned to Whitehall." Thus does the world worship the rising sun. little more than two years, these two envied and glittering beings were the inmates of a prison; deprived of fortune, flattery, and circumstance,

and narrowly escaping a death of infamy by the hands of the common executioner.

In perusing the history of the Countess of Somerset, it is necessary to bear in mind one important fact. At the period of her marriage with Somerset, and of the subsequent death of Overbury-comprising the most atrocious mur

Daniel Wood, a follower of Anne of Denmark, and an enemy of Overbury's, if, either by duel for assassination, he would put her detractor out of the way." Wood told her, that "he had no objection to bastinado him, but that he was unwilling to be sent to Tyburn for any lady's plea"While in prison, she is described as

sure.

very pensive and silent, and much grieved."

She was tried for the murder of Overbury, 24th May, 1616, in Westminster Hall. On entering the hall, the ceremony of carrying the axe before her was omitted. First came the chancellor, who acted as lord high steward, upon horseback. He was followed by his attendants and several peers. Then came six serjeants-atlaw, the clerk of the crown in chancery, the seal

bearers, and the white staff. Two barons (Russell and Norris), and two knights, terminated the procession. She stood pale and trembling at the bar, and during the reading of the indictment, covered her face with her fan. She pleaded guilty to the crime; but beseeched the peers to intercede for her with the king, with so many tears, and in such extreme anguish, that the bystanders were unable to refrain from commiseraion. The sentence was, that she should be conveyed to the Tower, and from thence to the place of execution, where she was to be hung of the neck &c.

The wretched existence which she eventually assed with her husband, has been already lluded to in the memoir of the earl. The strangement between them, though widened by nutual hatred, was rendered even necessary by injury which she had sustained in giving Erth to her only daughter. The disease of hich she died, was as horrible as her crime, at the details are too loathsome for insertion. Valpole informs us, in his Anecdotes of Paintg. that in 1762 her escutcheons still remained atire in the beautiful parish church of Walden. me died in 1632, at the age of thirty-nine.

HENRY HOWARD,

EARL OF NORTHAMPTON.

This unamiable personage was born at Shotham, in Norfolk, about the year 1539. He s the brother of that Duke of Norfolk who this head in the cause of the unfortunate ary Queen of Scots, and the second son of the mented Earl of Surrey, the darling of poetry, learning, and romance. He was educated at

Northampton related a curious story to his secretary, one George Penny. When a mere infant, it had been predicted to his father, by an Italian astrologer, that in middle life his son would be reduced to such a state of poverty as to be in want of a meal, but that in his old age his

wealth would be abundant. When the prediction was made, that a Howard should ever be poor appeared at least to be extremely improbable; but the fact, nevertheless, came to pass. By the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, and the forfeiture of his estate, his family became so impoverished, that the earl, to use the phrase of his biographer, was often fain to dine with Duke Humphrey; those hours, during which others were enjoying the luxury of the table, were frequently employed by the hungry earl in poring over the contents of the booksellers' stalls in St. Paul's Churchyard. The unmeasured favours which were afterwards heaped upon him by James, abundantly fulfilled the prophecy.

The earl was one of those mistaken dreamers, who are ever fancying that the world is their dupe, while in reality they deceive no one but themselves. The delusion lasted through a long life of contemptible cunning and clumsy intrigue. Flattery and dissimulation were his tools, but they must have been awkwardly handled; for his motives and his character were seen through by all. Lady Bacon, the mother of Sir Francis, anxiously forewarns her sons against keeping his society: "He is," she says, " a dangerous intelligencing man; no doubt a subtle papist, inwardly, and lieth in wait." Again, she adds: "Avoid his familiarity, as you love truth and yourself. Pretending courtesy, he worketh mischief perilously. I have long known him and observed him. His workings have been stark naught." Rowland White, also, thus writes to Sir Robert Sydney: "Lord Harry is held a ranter; and I pray you take heed of him, if you have not already gone too far." In the Five Years of King James, he is spoken of as "famous for secret insinuation and for cunning flatteries;" and Weldon tells us, that "though not a wise man, he was the greatest flatterer in the world." If ever he was surpassed in this despicable art, it was by one of his own adulators, when he said of him, " that he was the most learned amongst the noble, and the most noble amongst the learned." Unfortunately this fulsome compliment was paid to him by a bishop, who, for sixteen years was kept in the indifferent see of Llandaff, and who, without doubt, had an eye to translation.

A long career of folly and artifice was followed by an old age of infamy and crime. He had actually completed his seventieth year, when he

* During the reign of James, the neighbourhood of St. Paul's, and especially the body itself, were the resort of all the idlers and scandalmongers of the day. The latter place was styled Paul's Walk, and its frequenters Paul-walkers.

hope of further aggrandisement, and an innate love of intrigue, continued to be the main-spring and the curse of his existence. Of his subsequent share in Overbury's murder not the remotest doubt can exist. He is even said to have been the author of the infamous plot, by which Overbury was offered and induced to refuse the embassy to Russia, and thus fell under the king's displeasure. But the following letters, the originals of which are preserved in the Cotton Library, will be considered sufficient to establish his guilt.

They are addressed to Sir Jervis Elways, the lieutenant of the Tower:

"Worthy Mr. Lieutenart,

"My Lord of Rochester desiring to do the last honour to his deceased friend, requires me to de

sire you to deliver the body of Sir Thomas Overbury to any friend of his that desires it, to do him

honour at his funeral. Herein my lord declares the constancy of his affection for the dead, and the meaning that he had in my knowledge, to have given his strongest strain at this time of the king's being at Theobald's, for his delivery. I

fear no impediment to this honourable desire of

my lord's but the unsweetness of the body, be

cause it was reported that he had some issues,

and in that case the keeping of him must needs give more offence than it can do honour. My fear is also, that the body is already buried upon that cause whereof I write; which being so, it is

too late to set out solemnity.

"Thus, with my kindest commendations, I end, and rest, your affectionate and assured friend,

"H. NORTHAMPTON.

Postscript. -" You see my lord's earnest desire with my concurring care, that all respect be had to him that may be for the credit of his memory; but yet I wish withal that you do very discreetly inform yourself whether this grace hath been afforded formerly to close prisoners, or whether you may grant my request in this case, who speak out of the sense of my lord's affection, though I be a councillor, without offence, or prejudice. For I would be loth to draw either you or myself into censure, now I have well thought of the matter, though it be a work of charity."

This letter is endorsed by Sir Jervis Elways, as follows;

My

"So soon as Sir Thomas Overbury was departed, I writ unto my lord of Northampton; and because my experience could not direct me, I desired to know what I should do with the body, acquainting his lordship with his issues, as Weston had informed me, and other foulness of his body, which was then accounted the lord writ unto me, that I should first have his body viewed by a jury: and I well remember, his lordship advised me to send for Sir John Sidcote to see the body, and to suffer as many else of his friends to see it as would, and presently to bury it in the body of the quire, for the body would not keep. Notwithstanding Sir Thomas Overbury dying about five in the morning, I kept his body unburied until three or four of the clock in the afternoon. The next day Sir John Sidcote came thither; I could not get him to bestow a coffin, nor a winding-sheet upon him. The coffin I bestowed; but who did wind him, I

know not. For, indeed, the body was very noisome; so that, notwithstanding my lord's directions, we kept it over long, as we all felt.

"JER. HELWISE."

4

"Worthy Mr. Lieutenant,

"Let me entreat you to call Sidcote, and three or four of his friends, if so many come, to view the body; if they have not already done it; and so soon as it is viewed, without staying the coming of a messenger from the court; in any case, see it interred in the body of the chapel within the Tower instantly.

66

If they have viewed, then bury it by and by; for it is time, considering the humours of that damned crew, that only desire means to move pity and raise scandals. Let no man's instance move you to make stay in any case, and bring me these letters when I next see you. not a jot herein,

"Fail

as

friends: nor after Sidcote and his friends have viewed, stay one minute, but let the priest be ready; and if Sidcote be not there, send for him speedily, pretending that the body will not tarry.

"In poste haste at 12."

"Yours ever.*

How strange are the anomalies of human nature! The same wretched old man, the coldblooded murderer, and the corrupter of his own niece, was a munificent patron of public charities. At Greenwich he built two colleges, one for decayed gentlemen, and the other for twelve poor men and a governor. At Rise, in Norfolk, he erected an hospital for twelve poor women; and at Clun, in Shropshire, another charitable retreat for twelve poor men and a governor. He was also a writer on theological subjects.

Northampton was the author of several works, which are now either forgotten, or only casually recorded. He is included in Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, where there is a longer, but scarcely a more flattering, notice than he deserves. The same man who made little ado about crime, made a great deal about religion. He was bred a Roman Catholic, in which faith, after changing his religion four times, he died. At heart, however, there is little doubt of his having been a papist throughout; indeed, he confessed as much in his will. The appointment which he held as Warden of the Cinque Ports enabled him to give free ingress to the priests. Of this advantage he availed himself to such an extent, that the people began to murmur, and the king himself exhibited symptoms of strong displeasure. Flattering himself, however, that actual proofs were wanting, Northampton commenced a prosecution of several persons who had accused him of the connivance. An inquiry took place in the Star Chamber. The subtle earl appeared to be carrying all before him, when the Archbishop of Canterbury rose from his seat. After a short premise, he produced a letter in court written in Northampton's own hand

* Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. p. 481. See Ath. Oxon. and Cotton MSS.. and Titus, b. vii. fol. 465. In addition to these, there is extant a third letter, written by Northampton to Sir Jervis Elways previous to Overbury's death. As Lodge, I think, is the only writer who has remarked it, and as it tends to throw some question over the mysterious strictness with which Overbury was supposed to have been immured, it is but fair that the following important extract should be inserted: -" In compliance," says the earl, "with old Mr. Overbury's peti

tion, it is the king's pleasure that Dr. Craig, this

bearer, should presently be admitted Sir Thomas Overbury; that during the time of his infirmity he may take care of him, and as often as, in his judgment, to this end he shall find reason." Lodge,

Portraits of Illustrious Personages.

few months;

a

lingering

nish tumour grown on his thigh, yesternight, between eleven and twelve of the clock, departed out of this world; where, as he had proved much variety and vicissitude of fortune in the course of his life, so peradventure he hath prevented another change thereof by the opportunity of his end." A curious letter is extant, addressed by the earl to his friend Somerset, written in the last hours of life and in the full consciousness that he was dying. He seems to have regarded his approaching dissolution without fear, and to have interested himself entirely for those friends whom he would leave unprovided behind him. After preferring a few requests in their behalf," Assurance from your lordship," he says, "that you will effect those final requests, shall send my spirit out of this transitory tabernacle with as much comfort and content as the bird flies to the mountain;" and he concludes: "Farewell, noble lord; and the last farewell in the last letter that ever I look to write to any man. I presume confidently of your favour in these poor suits, and will be, both living and dying, your affectionate friend and servant,

"H. NORTHAMPTON."

The earl was buried at his own request, in the chapel belonging to Dover Castle.

He built Northampton, or, as it is now called, Northumberland House, in the Strand, and, according to Lloyd, gave the design of the famous structure of Audley End. He was never married: one writer says of him, that "he was more wedded to his book than his bed, for he died a bachelor." His hatred was as deadly as his conduct was treacherous. He said of the gallant Robert Mansel, "that he would be content to be perpetually damned in hell to be revenged of that proud Welshman." In his will, Northampton inserted the following bequest: "I most humbly beseech his excellent majesty to accept, as a poor remembrance from his faithful servant, an ewer of gold, of one hundred pounds value, with one hundred jacobine pieces of twenty-two shillings apiece therein, on which ewer my desire is there should be this inscription-Detur dignissimo."

MARY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. Although the character and pursuits of this illustrious lady, render a notice of her somewhat foreign to the character of this work, it may not be uninteresting to say a few words respecting the mother of Earl William and Earl Philip; moreover, it is refreshing to turn a moment from

the glare of folly and vice, to unpretending piet and intellectual refinement.

Mary, Countess of Pembroke, was the daugh ter of Sir Henry Sidney, a Knight of the Garter and one of the stately courtiers of Queen Eliza beth. She was the wife of Henry, second Ear of Pembroke, and the beloved sister of the memo rable Sir Philip Sidney. Their tastes and habit were congenial: there was the same high sense of honour, the same elegance of mind, the same charitable regard for human suffering. Sir Philip dedicated his Arcadia to his sister, the being whe best loved the author, and who was the mos competent to appreciate the work.

She spent a long life and a splendid fortune in doing good to her fellow creatures. She pa tronised men of learning, and embellished it herself; indeed, her wit and mental endowment appear only to have been exceeded by her piety. Dr. Donne said of her, that " she could converse well on all subjects, from predestination to sleave silk;" and Spenser eulogizes her as

The gentlest shepherdess that lived that day: And most resembling, both in shape and spirit, Her brother dear.

In her old age the cowardice and miscondue of her son Philip nearly broke her heart, and she is even said to have torn her hair with anguish when she heard the tale of his dishonour.

The countess was herself an authoress. She

translated from the French, Mornay's "Discourse of Life and Death," and the tragedy of "Antoine;" the former printed in 1590, and the latter in 1600. Wood informs us, in a notice of William Bradbridge, who was chaplain at Wilton, that with the assistance of that divine, she completed a translation of the Psalms. He contradicts himself, however, in another place, and mentions her brother, Sir Philip, as the translator; adding that the MSS. curiously bound in crimson velvet, was bequeathed by the countess to the library at Wilton. Some agreeable speci mens of her epistolary style will be found in Park's Noble Authors.

She died at an advanced age, in her house, in Aldersgate street, 25th of September, 1621. Her remains were interred in Salisbury Cathedral, in the vault of the Herberts. Ben Jonson's admi rable epitaph, though somewhat hackneyed, will, perhaps, bear repetition :

Underneath this marble hearse
Lies the subject of all verse-
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Wise, and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
Marble piles let no man raise
To her name; for after days
Some kind woman born as she,
Reading this, like Niobe,
Shall turn marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tomb.

WILLIAM HERBERT,

EARL OF PEMBROKE.

The life of Earl William is invariably a panegyric. Wit, gallantry, integrity, and refined taste, the highest breeding and the kindes nature, have rendered him one of the most delightful characters of his time. Though too high-minded and independent to make his fortune as a courtier, he was ever respected by his sovereign, was admired by all parties, and beloved by all ranks.