Then the witnesses were produced, and first, Henry Payton, a servant of Sir Thomas Overbury's, who deposed, that he heard high words between the Earl of Somerset and his master, concerning the earl's visiting the countess in the gallery of Whitehall, as he had deposed in the trial of Weston. He deposed further, that he saw a letter from his master to the prisoner, the Lord Somerset, wherein were these words: "If I die, my blood be upon you ;" and in that or another, " My lord, you are now as good as your word, you have kept your vow to me." That when his master was in the Tower, Weston ordered the deponent, to tell the Lord Somerset, that the powder his Lordship had sent Sir Thomas, had given him sixty stools, besides vomits; and that when he delivered the message to Lord Somerset, he cried "Psha!" and turned away.

Two letters from Sir Thomas Overbury to the Earl of Somerset, also were read in evidence, in one of which he says, "Is this the fruit of my care and love to you? Are these the fruits of common secrets, commou dangers? You cannot suffer me to lie in this misery. All I entreat of you is, to free me from this place, and that we may part friends. Drive me not to extremities, lest I should say something that you and I both repent."

In the other letter he says, "You told my brother Lidcote, that my irreverent style made you neglect me. With what face could you do this, when you know you owe me all the fortune, wit, and understanding that you have? You sacrifice me to your woman, still holding friendship with them that brought me hither. You bad my brother Lidcote keep my desire of liberty secret; but this shall not serve your turn; you and I, ere long, will come to a trial of another nature. I am upon the rack and you are at ease, and yet I must say nothing! must say nothing! When I heard, notwithstanding my misery, you went to your woman, curled your hair preferred Gibbe to the bed-chamber; and, in the mean time, send me nineteen projects, how I should cast about for my liberty; give me a long account of the pains you have taken, and then go out of town, while I have neither friend, or servant, suffered to come at me. written the story betwixt you and me, but I have lost my friends, for your sake; what hazards I have run; what secrets have passed between us; how, when you had won that woman by my letters, you concealed all after proceedings from me, which occasioned those breaches between us; of the vow you made to be even with me, and sending for me twice that day I was caught in the trap; persuaded me it was a plot of my enemies, to send me beyond sea; and urged me not to accept it (the

Well, I have

embassy), assuring me you would free me from any long trouble. On Friday I sent this narrative to a friend, under eight seals; and, if you persist to use me thus, assure yourself, it shall be published. Whether I live or die, your shame shall never die, but remain to the world's end, to make you the most odious man living."

Simcock's examination was read, who deposed, that when Sir Thomas was in the Tower, Weston often told him, the Lord Somerset ordered him to look well to Overbury; for, if he came out, one of them must die.

Another examination of L. Davis also was read, who deposed, that several sealed packets, directed to the king, were given to Sir Thomas by the Lord Somerset; and that Sir Thomas opened them, took short notes out of them, and then sealed them up, and returned them to the Lord Somerset again.

The depositions of Franklin, and the rest of the witnesses, also were read, which were given in evidence at the former trials: and Mr. Overbury, father of Sir Thomas, deposed, that, hearing his son was very sick in the Tower, he petitioned the king, that some physicians might have access to him; and the king said, his own physician should go to him; whereupon he addressed himself to the Lord Somerset, who said, his son should be speedily delivered; but bad him prefer no more petitions. However, not finding any steps taken towards releasing him, he preferred another petition, and the king said, he should have an immediate answer and the Lord Somerset told him, he should suddenly be relieved: but advised, that neither the petitioner, or his wife, should press to see him, because it might protract his delivery; nor deliver any more petitions to the king, for that might stir up his enemies against him.

The following letter from the Lord Somerset to Mrs. Overbury also was read, viz., "Your stay in town can avail nothing towards your son's delivery. I would advise you to retire into the country; and doubt not, before your coming home, you will hear he is a free man."

Then a letter that the Lord Somerset wrote to Mr. Overbury after his son's death, was read, wherein he says,

"Your son's love to me got him the malice of many; and they cast those knots on his fortune, that cost him his life; so, in a kind, there is none guilty of his death but I; and you cannot have more cause to commiserate the death of a son, than I of a friend: but, though he be dead, you shall find me as ready as ever I was, to do all the courtesies that possibly I can, to you and your wife, or your children. In the mean

time, I desire pardon from you, and your wife, for your lost son, though I esteem the loss the greater; and for his brother, that is in France, I desire his return, that he may succeed his brother in my love."

Several examinations were read, showing, that Overbury was detained, and kept close prisoner, by Somerset's order, though he was committed only for contempt, and the great apprehensions he and his lady were under, lest Overbury should get out; but some of these examinations were not upon oath.

The letters concerning the Lord Northampton's practices with Sir Jervis Elvis also were read, in one of which he tells Somerset, the lieutenant had undertaken, that either Overbury should do him good offices with the Lord Suffolk, or else he should never recover, which he thought the most sure and happy change: which letters the prisoner acknowledged he had received.

Then proof was made of Somerset's sending Overbury arsenic in a letter; and the sending the poisoned tarts and jellies, as in the other trials; and Franklin's deposition was read, wherein he says, he was sent for by the Lady Somerset, and made to take an oath of secrecy, in order to suppress the discovery.

And Sir Robert Cotton deposed, that a little before the last Michaelmas, Somerset gave him a draught of the largest pardon that had been granted, wherein, among other offences, both murder and treason were pardoned; by which he was ordered to draw one for the prisoner.

The Earl of Somerset, in his defence, said, that the powder he sent Overbury, was to make him sick, that he might have the better handle to speak to the king for him; and that it was at Overbury's desire he sent it. That though he had consented to his imprisonment, that was only to prevent his being an impediment to his marriage; and he had, however, given orders he should have the most airy lodgings, and might speak with whom he would. That, though breach of friendship had been urged as an aggravation against him, it was no wonder for friends to fall out; and he thought Overbury never had a friend to whom he had not given offence.

He confessed there had been a communication of secrets between them; and, knowing Overbury's abilities, he had employed him to take abstracts out of ambassadors' letters, and that by the king's order. That he was so far from dissuading Overbury not to undertake the embassy that he would gladly have had him gone, that he might have been out of the way at that time, as well on account of his marriage, as Over

bury's insolence, and therefore could not be supposed to have prevented his going. That as to the poisoned tarts, his wife had confessed the sending them; but those the prisoner sent ought to be presumed wholesome, till it was proved otherwise,

That the Lord Northampton's letters proved no more than that the lieutenant would endeavour to make Overbury a good instrument between him and Suffolk; and though Elvis, in his letter, says, "Death is the best way," the answer to those letters would justify him, if he had them to produce. He had endeavoured, indeed, to get a pardon, as he might have been guilty of some oversights in the beginning of his administration, when he was unacquainted with affairs of state; but the general words in it were put in by the lawyers, without his privity. And then, having recommended his case to the consideration of his peers, he, withdrew; but, it seems, they were unanimous in their opinion that the prisoner was Guilty, and he was adjudged to be hanged. Whereupon, he desired the intercession of the lord high steward, and the rest of the peers, to his Majesty, for mercy.

And thus ended this fearful tragedy: the unhappy earl and countess died, as above stated by Dr. Lingard, in poverty and obscurity. They left an only child, who, though the offspring of such parents, grew up a lady of eminent piety and virtue. Mr. Amos thus gracefully alludes to her.

"The Countess of Somerset has, however, a claim on general interest which may somewhat mitigate the feeling of horror that the mention of her name inspires. For her only child, born in the Tower during her imprisonment, and named Anne, after the name of the Queen, in the hopes thereby of propitiating her Majesty, was afterwards married to the Duke of Bedford, and was the mother of William Lord Russell; who, if his grandmother was undeservedly reprieved from the scaffold, preserved, by his example on that fatal stage, the national spirit which was thereby enabled in the end to triumph and do justice to his memory."

THE TRIAL OF THE REV. ROBERT HAWKINS, PROSECUTED WRONGFULLY FOR FELONY, IN 1669, THROUGH THE MEANS OF SIR JOHN CROKE, BART, THE LAST OF THE CROKES OF CHILTON.

THIS trial is remarkable, among other things, for having been very fully preserved in a report drawn up and published by the prisoner himself. The following is from the third edition, dated 1728, which is entitled "The Perjured Fanatic; or the Malicious Conspiracy of Sir John Croke, of Chilton, Baronet, Justice of Peace in Com' Bucks', Henry Larimore, Anabaptist preacher, and other fanatics, against the life of Robert Hawkins, A.M., late Minister of Chilton, occasioned by his suit for tithes; discovered in a trial at Aylesbury, before the Right Hon. Sir Matthew Hale. Published by his Lordship's command." Of the Rev. Robert Hawkins, we have only what he has himself told us. From the figure he made on this trial for felony, the only occasion on which he appears to have been drawn forward into the light,—at least the only chapter of his life which has been preserved, he would seem to have been a person of considerable acuteness and readiness-something both of a logician and a rhetorician-on the whole, much above the ordinary run of country clergymen of that age; and he was evidently also a zealous churchman and orthodox to the backbone; but he certainly obtained no further preferment in the church, dying minister of Chilton after an incumbency which must have extended to nearly half a century. Nor, beyond this one publication, is his name to be traced in the authorship of the day; indeed, he had dropped into such obscurity, that the Rev. Dr. Charlett, Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford, who had been a principal promoter of the first publication of the trial, declares in a